OT WE 10 DEC 25 ~ Lost in device land
True love is a lack of desire to check one's smartphone in another's presence.
- Alain de Botton
The smartphones and the computer separates everybody, makes you think that you don't need nobody else.
- Bootsy Collins
Is it just me, or does anyone else see the ubiquitous use of 'smart' phones an obstacle to social development?
I do not own one, never will. I find the obvious distraction of using these devices to be concerning. I want to
shout HEY, look up and look around! Life is happening all around us in the present.
I had to throw down the gauntlet with the spouse - no texting during dinner. It is rude. I may not be the
worlds most brilliant conversationalist, but to choose a digital experience over real time awareness seems
a bit backwards. Have found an otherwise normal conversation (not during meals) to be punctuated by
silences on the other end. Thinking it may be a pause for reflection, notice it is more and more doing a
google search rather than thinking or formulating a rational reply. Ahh well. This may be a cause of
brain rot, IMO.
Nevertheless, it is open season on thread sharing. What ya' got?
Comments
Hi, good morning
.
Ran across this piece late last night, which I found interesting.
It is by Haig Hoveness over at Naked Cap. under the Coffee Break banner.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/12/coffee-break-armed-madhouse-the-...
Within the comments, someone posted a rebuttal by Berletic saying the NSS is filled with
contradictions and meaningless marketing.
About 1 hour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBny7B--uE0
Berletec goes on to say this NSS is just a repackaging of the Wolfowitz doctrine.
https://archive.is/CyLfQ
Can't say I disagree with his points.
Zionism is a social disease
Good morning...
I have a desktop and a laptop, but no phone other than our land line. I can see the convenience, but I'm not interested.
People do seem captured by their devices, and platforms like facebag and X. I think it becomes more than just a habit, but an addiction. Glad I avoided it.
Supposed to be sunny today, but still gray. Hopefully, later it will clear.
Thanks for the OT!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good mornig, Q
I have a smart phone but rarely use it for anything other than making phone calls.
There are two apps, the calculator and alarm clock/timer I do find convenient and use on occasion.
MAGA
Morons
Are
Governing
America
Good morning, Cap'n!
So, a young man came in for a consultation. He brought his 3 yr old daughter. She was carrying a device which resembled a tablet. She would punch a button, a tune would play, and she would watch the animation on the screen. Then, she would drop the device onto the floor. Again. And again. And a third time. The Dad took the device from her and set it on my desk. The child started screaming and crying hysterically, so he handed it back to her. She stopped screaming and crying immediately, resumed playing music and watching the animation.
This broke my heart. That is all this child will ever know.
As for my smart phone, I use it for protection or GPS when I travel, and to make contact with my office. I use it to make calls to avoid long distance call expense on my land line. I occasionally do some Google search. I have to call Dear One to harass him, as that is clearly stated in the wedding vows, page 31.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I own and operate
a smartphone. It is my go to source of world news that is completely lacking from the MSM.
I have 75 shortcut icons on my multiple home pages that take me around the world with perspectives from every direction. Yes, even Alex Jones has something to say, right or wrong.
I use it on trips in the motor home and even up at the farm (no TV or radio) to get news and weather. Sometimes we even watch Pluto movies out on he road at our night stops.
Storing info is also a convenient map way to keep offline directions, campground reservations, and long essays/articles to read when we are roaming.
I don't have a Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or any other social media account. I do consider this site something of a social media account, but I can post essays on the road or at the farm, and have done so multiple times. And I deleted all the games that were loaded on to it from the factory.
As with anything, it can be abused, but I have found it to be a valuable tool that frees me from the bulky laptop at home.
I learned the hazard of driving with its use and never do it.
Even the big screens on the dash of newer cars is proving to be a hazardous distraction and are being engineered out of future models.
One function many of you might appreciate is the camera that you can reach down to that low shelf at the market, where you cannot read the price, and snap a picture of it and then use your two fingers to expand the pic and read the price.
Is it worth the price? Dunno. I've had this same entry level, basic smartphone that I got nearly for free from Verizon 4 years ago, and it's still going strong. I take it everywhere I go.
To each his own I guess.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
I agree they are
a useful and often practical device. What I think is so awful about them is that they are addictive, especially to young people. I have lost count of parents losing custody of a kid because the kid had their phone taken from them, so they fight to go live with the parent that will give them a phone. One 14 yr old girl begged her Dad to get her away from her abusive mom. He rescued her, then later he took her phone, she told him if he didn't let her go back to Mom where she had a phone, she would kill herself. He packed up the girl and took her to her Mom. Basically, this girl gave up all connection with her Dad to get her hands on a phone. She hates him now, refuses to have anything to do with him. That 14 yr old erased her Dad forever for a damn phone.
This just happened a couple of weeks ago.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I was not aware that you can buy a plain vanilla cell phone
My ten plus year old cell phone quit connecting with email. I found out later that my 2009 vintage phone was no longer "compatible" with updates. So I swallowed the scam whole and got a Number 15 to replace my Number 6. I HATE it. It did not come with an instruction manual, and the Marvelous little gizmo does dozens of things that I never wanted and cannot figure out how to operate. And trial and error is the only way to make it do things like placing a telephone call. Did I mention how much I hate this thing?
Curmudgeon out.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Good morning QMS. It's busy out there - ran a couple of
errands and now its almost lunch time.
I have and use the hell out of a cellphone, but never while driving, walking, dining or any of that. It can be one helluva tool. I even have a level on mine, a suite of weather apps and a bunch of stuff relating to road trips, camping and travel, like what is off the next exit, where's the nearest gas and all that. I too use it for taking photos of awkwardly placed shit so I can study it while vertical and the magnifying flashlight for reading menus in "romantically lit" restaurants. My wife and use google maps on the road, the passenger manning the phone and it has saved us many, many, hours, including alerting us to upcoming traffic snarls and ways to avoid them. I also have some music streaming stuff and some players to play the many gigs of music I have stored on it. I also have the camera set up to send selected stuff to my desktop, from anywhere I happen to be.
Lastly, I take pics of my prescriptions so that I can then carry tiny bottles on the road instead of the big ones the stuff comes in, and be able to prove that I'm entitled to have and take those meds. Also lots of pics of cheat sheets for this and that, again while traveling. And, of course, my calendar.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --