psychonova

I wholeheartedly agree tbh

lich king was decent but it felt like the start of the downward spiral

“oops sorry, just a touch of smallpox, don’t worry about it!”

not gonna lie, getting pretty tired of being looked at weird for this. at this point if someone makes me take it off I’m just gonna launch into a coughing fit in their face.

oof yeah :| Twilio has pretty much made half a business model out of promising that you can refuse VoIP numbers using their APIs soo it’s a real thing

honestly, this responses just pisses me off.

not everyone who needs to be careful with their privacy is fortunate to have a stockpile of money to spend on carriers that are WAY more expensive than they need to be. or reliable internet access.

i understand that you may not have an answer to the original question of “how do I <x>?”, and you have the opportunity to avoid the situation in the whole and not have to think about it – that’s pretty awesome! but it completely ignores the fact that everyone is in a different situation, with specific and unique needs and context. it reeks of being patronizing tbh.

we don’t know what this person’s situation is, so the thing to do here is to take them at their word and help them with the problem in front of us. suggestions towards alternative solutions are of course welcome, but things like “not sure why youd want to do that” only serves to show that you don’t understand the situation.

not everyone has the same choices available to them in their situations, everyone’s threat model is different.

and when you need a real, non-VoIP, number for something, wifi helps out how…?

there’s a couple places it’s the only feasible option, especially if you have other limitations such as needing an esim etc

in my opinion, it’s up to you. there shouldn’t really be a strict definition, since everyone’s needs and starting point is different. don’t worry so much about trying to live up to a particular standard and figure out what level and methods of disengaging from Google (or any other tech company) works best for you.

(edit: autocorrect fix)

why the fuck is everyone so obsessed with our shit jfc

it would help to know jurisdiction/market area because that really affects the options, especially because that’s a rapidly changing landscape right now. some places, prepaid SIMs + cash work well enough, other places it’s better to go with giftcards or prepaid debit cards etc. yet other places there’s definitely no good options to do it. it takes a lot of effort, and you have to remember that you need to consider that any app or service you log into on that phone may end up identifying you against the SIM card, so you need to be really careful in your usage! i hope you find an option that works! :)

never forget that even the tor project had a relationship with Team Cymru that everyone likes to pretend was just a normal thing for them to do… Team Cymru is kiinda creepy

partly it’s not about what it can do that a smartphone can’t, but exactly the opposite. there are lots, and lots, and lots of things smartphones can do that PDAs can’t. and i neither want to do any of them, nor have constant notifications and advertisements trying to get me to do them.

but the big thing for me is that they were designed local-first. my data lives on the device. i sync it to my other devices. i can’t accidentally lose access, get suspended, have my account closed due to a change in ToS, get my account locked out because i accidentally visited from a VPN or used a VoIP number – all of which, now, are at best massive inconveniences and at worst result in major data loss for no reason. it didn’t need connectivity to do it’s job.

when i can refuse to connect my smartphone to an IP network and still have it do everything i need it to do, i will back off :p

i have an android phone here that i’ve slowly been trying to make behave more and more that way, looking to tools like SyncThing and DECSync and anything that’s designed similar. it’s close, but it still causes enough annoyances that i’d rather just have a PDA.

washington, here come the transes >:)

(edit: accidental formatting)

i know this is a trope at this point, but i really miss the pre-Android/iPhone of handheld devices. Palm & Handspring did some cool shit, and they were fun to use and not yet obnoxious… Symbian and Maemo devices that walked a fine line. we need a DIY reboot of PDAs and handhelds that aren’t smartphones that doesn’t mistakenly try to focus on being a smartphone.

but…i like floor drugs??

IT’s TOO CUTE T_T

i actually just finished another re-read of For The Win, and yeah, that’s gotta be more relevant now than ever before ._.

it’s not exactly a new thing, but yes. they’ve been trying to bus people as far as they can get away with.

you can’t just give shiny new names like “reflection period” or “medical assessment by doctors” to old tricks like “real life experience” and “panel of judges and one doctor” and hope that people won’t notice. it doesn’t actually work.

things i never thought i’d agree with lmao