The gap between 2025 and 2009 is massive for smartphones but I'd say it gets drastically smaller around the midpoint.
If it wasn't for it no longer being supported by iOS I'd still be using a 2016 SE and the only things I'd seriously miss are an OLED screen (so good for using the phone in dark spaces) and wireless charging (basically for peace of mind if the charging port ever breaks)
I think there could be a market for a small reliable Android phone. The main issue is that it'd take years to build up a model's reputation and it'd have to be reasonably low price.
As it stands the kind of people who want a smaller phone almost by definition need to be a bit savvier than the market in general to know such a thing still exists and along with that will have greater skepticism towards Android phones having any kind of post market support.
It'd basically have to come from Samsung to hit the all the price/quality/trust requirements. Feel like they've already got a lot of the pieces there with their corporate targeted XCover range just shrink them down a bit.
Did you investigate using a MiniDisc player at any point? I could see a minidisc player with some kind of shell and a DIY inline remote working with relatively little. Never actually used one enough to know how much they'd withstand a kid though!
I find Bluesky better but I've had to be pretty aggressive about blocking centre-left types. I don't even disagree with most of what they're complaining about, after being away from twitter for years that whole style of discourse is just extremely unpalatable.
Def get the impression they're driving people away who were enjoying bluesky previously, there's just so much of them on the feeds atm.
Do you ever have any trouble at airports? The one time I ever had grief at an airport was a few years ago travelling with an X230 with the larger battery pack. Security seemed extremely suspicious of such an old laptop and I got stopped again later by a plain clothes security guy.
I've never had any problems! I'm surprised airport security would be so concerned about an old laptop. I'm sure they see way strange things on a daily basis.
Identical setup here, and yes, checkpoint security at an airport in Germany pulled me to the side and made me turn it on to show it was a functioning laptop
Bought an X220 years back and it unintentionally became my main laptop for a few years. Sold it on in much worse condition (I kept the keyboard) at a profit and got an i7 X230T instead, which has also somehow gone up in price since.
the X230 didn't last as long, the efficiencies of the M1 macbooks were too good to ignore. Gave it to my mother since because she wanted "an old laptop that just works"
My company's IT department is using the Windows 11 migration to move everyone to new laptops, and I am going to miss that amazingly firm-but-sqiushy keyboard so hard.
I can't stand Windows, but writing long-form reports on that machine is a joy.
I've often wondered why there aren't devices that have all network operations bundled into a removable module; that way you could get both people who want some level of disconnect and those who want a more thorough level of disconnect.
Not sure why they fail in the marketplace. Maybe look at other similar market failures like power tools with different interchangable heads? I suspect the sticker price of the individual modules scares consumers.
Don't know how school funding operates in the US so this is a guess:
Parents cover the fees and give the kids an allowance for the rest; either the kids budget poorly or the allowance fails to really account for just how expensive the first few weeks are with all the books you're expected to buy?
The average parent in the US can't afford an extra $12000 per year in expenses. College students take out loans to pay for their education. I'm not sure what the average debt load is currently, but people I personally know who got away with a "small" student loan debt owed around $30000, and I've known people with >$100k student loan debt just from an undergraduate education.
Parents covering school mostly went away in the 90's outside of the particularly wealthy segments of society. Mostly student loans since then, which people hope to have paid off by the time they retire to avoid having their social security payments garnished. Joking of course; nobody assumes social security will still be there.
Pearson make great money charging obscene amounts for books. In many subjects they'll have some online component so if you thought you could get away with using a second hand copy of last year's edition they'll make you have to pay for the online access section separately regardless.
> At least for me, it's not that reading bores me - there just isn't enough time and benefit to it, especially for novels and literature. Literary books aren't going in my CV, nor providing any insight into how to write better code. When 1200 people compete for 1 open internship position, can I really afford to waste my time like this?
This reads as though the goal of reading is to bolster your career opportunities as a developer?
If it's not connected to your career then it shouldn't be viewed that way, it should be viewed as a kind of leisure and the challenges/rewards involved should be compared to the alternatives there (i.e. is the investment in time of being able to understand more complex novels returning a level of personal fulfilment that makes it potentially a more rewarding focus than some more immediately gratifying leisure activity)
It may still be of very low value but viewing the prospect specifically as being damaging to your career opportunities seems like an incorrect perspective to be starting from.
Seeing everything in an utilitarian pov frightens me. I'm a university student, I love reading, I love acting, I love spending my afternoons riding my bike to the seaside or to the tuscanian hills. Nothing of this is going to make me a better developer. But I can't imagine a world in which I don't read, in which I don't get to know people acting or working at the venue meeting other performers, or feeling connected to the Earth with flowers blooming and birds chirping
I would love to do that. In fact my first year was way more relaxed and closer to your experience. I would spend hours wandering the countryside on foot and traveling the country.
Now that graduation is inching closer with no financial backing, it's just not feasible to spend time on anything other than maximizing employability
It makes me so sad how correct this is. I don’t know what the proper term for it is, but it’s the dynamic where everyone works 9 - 5, and then someone wants to get ahead so works an hour later, and then in 2 months everyone is working 9 - 6…until someone else wants to get ahead and starts working until 7. The competition is so stark and the perceived penalties for not meeting a base level of success are so unpleasant, we all need to descend to the most boring and lifeless versions of ourselves to match those who are naturally boring and lifeless.
Sounds like a version of the tragedy of the commons. Or maybe even the prisoner's dilemma, as in every individual chasing their narrow self-interest and making the matter worse for everyone instead of collaborating and making it better for everybody.
Just don’t do that? I’ve never had a problem leaving at 5. Been doing this for 2 decades now.
Live below your means, save enough money so that a year of unemployment won’t kill you, try to work on interesting problems, try to stay in the top quartile for output (You can definitely do this without staying past 5. At most companies you can do this working something closer to 9-1 if you really focus during that time), don’t be a dick, and don’t worry about the rest.
I think POVs in forums are often much more about framing a thing to justify your beliefs than actually hitting at your own personal implicit values (it's plausible the poster believes leisure is a waste of time and lives by that belief but I doubt it) so I wanted to stick with the original POV approach to highlight the ways it seemed incorrect.
What I wanted to say, it is that it might happen in the future to not have time or will to do those things. Due to stress or long job hours (...) but the guy says that as a uni student he doesn't have the time because he prefers to focus on being a better developer. I read for pleasure especially at evening or at night. in those moments, especially when in the bed, I definitely wouldn't be coding
If it wasn't for it no longer being supported by iOS I'd still be using a 2016 SE and the only things I'd seriously miss are an OLED screen (so good for using the phone in dark spaces) and wireless charging (basically for peace of mind if the charging port ever breaks)