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[–] Bags@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

I feel like you could do this with some kind of stereolithography process like in semiconductor processing... You could very easily create the green, hole, and putter at astronomically tiny scales as microscopic thin slabs of silicon, but the roundness of the ball, I don't know enough about the specific processes to know how you might go about that. I'm sure it'd be possible with enough smart people thinking about it, though.

Actually interacting with this game, though? Are you imagining like Atomic force microscopy, a tiny tiny little putter attached to a much larger macroscopic assembly able to be manually manipulated?

[–] Bags@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I've had a really really REALLY fun time using "shitty" old cameras.

Just grab a cheap early 2000's digital point-and-shoot. (Or in my case, over 100 of them)
My instagram is linked on my profile, I have almost 2500 photos posted from my entire collection.

[–] Bags@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I was at a community arts/crafts event this weekend and met someone who was also rocking a point-and-shoot digital camera (though his was about 20 years newer than mine lol), and we got to talking, and he seems really cool and we're going to try and meet up this week and do some photography. I've been sick or out of the state or had emergency family stuff come up for the last 3 weeks of planned social events I've had, so it was really nice to talk to someone and engage for a bit, I was starting to get really lonely.

The craft was making cyanotype with Apollo 15 lunar command module film strips, which was... frickin' awesome.
Here are some of the shots from said 28 year old camera (at their original size, just as they came off the 2Mb memory card)


[–] Bags@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I've been rocking my Lightphone 3 for a month as my full-time daily driver, with no companion device (Well, I have a Boox palma, but I only read on it, don't have any need for its other features/apps)

If I would have went straight from my previous normal of being super connected and addicted to my phone to where I'm at now, I wouldn't have been able to swing it. It's taken me almost 3 years of slow progress to be able to just fully ditch the smart stuff. Just start slow, keep on it, and you'll get there eventually is you really want to.

And all you have to do to move where your number points is to swap the SIM card. It takes only a coupe seconds. I still have my old smartphone that I pop the SIM into when I go to concerts so I don't break/lose my various dumb devices I've had over the years. The Lightphone 3 doesn't support eSim yet, though it's on the roadmap somewhere. It might be an idea to get a cheap smartphone that can use a regular SIM. Especially if it's a really low-tier device, you'll be able to use it, but the poor performance might push you to ditch the apps faster.

[–] Bags@piefed.social 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

I tried for a while to dumb down my existing smartphone, but I just didn't have the drive at first.

It was actually the Cat S22 flip that I found and instantly latched onto that really helped me wean off instagram, reddit, etc. It ran full Android, so you COULD do those things, but the experience on the tiny-ass screen and slow processor made the experience piss poor. I rocked that brick for almost 2 years. I eventually got to the point where I was no longer using the apps on it, just calling, texting, using the calendar, etc. I was tired of having such a thick device in my pocket, so tested going back to a dumbed-down smartphone, and had no problem (most of the time).

My other big hurdle at the moment is listening to music. I've been a spotify premium member for a long time, and my music library has continued to exist, but my music taste has changed and evolved over the last half a decade, so it's missing a lot of what I want to listen to. I've been meaning to get away from Spotify, but it was just so convenient! Not having it has forced my hand, and now I need to do something about it, so hopefully soon I can get my jam on.

Low-tech is the way to go. I've gotten really into digital cameras from the 90's, and carry at least one (of the many that I now have) around with me for taking photos. I've got a pile of old beige desktop computers to support the ones that need proprietary software, and also have a nice stash of old "offline" softwares like MS word, photoshop, CAD, etc. that I have access to if the internet ever implodes lol

[–] Bags@piefed.social 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (6 children)

I've had my Lightphone 3 for about a month now, and I have been really enjoying it. (I pre-ordered it wayyyy back when it was $399, I wouldn't have paid any more than that)

I've been on my "dumbphone" journey for almost 3 years now. It's been the best change I've made in my life in a LONG time.

I met someone this weekend who was carrying a pager... I immediately went to go investigate (well, immediately when I got home, because I can't search anything on my phone), spurred on by exciting visions of becoming even LESS connected... but was disappointed at how expensive it was (Like $10-20 per month, which isn't a TON, but I only pay $15/mo for my cell service).

I was originally wanting something like the minimal, able to do some smart-stuff... But the more I lived without the smart-stuff, the more I realized I didn't really need it. The only thing that's really inconvenient is the lack of the commuter rail app to buy train tickets (they introduced a $3 fee on top of a $12 ticket for not using the app, the bastards), and the lack of a ticket wallet for concerts that don't have printable tickets... But considering one of the only times I take the train is to go to concerts in the city, and also I wouldn't want to take my fancy Lightphone to a concert anyway (I'm a mosher), I will just hold onto my beat-up old smartphone (scuffed and dented from being flung from pockets in many-a-pit) and swap the SIM whenever I'm headed to throw down.

Do you find yourself tempted to go back to doomscrolling? Even years into my journey, I'd find myself re-enabling chrome to go scroll Reddit or something if I was in a bad mood... Not having that option has been really nice, forcing myself to deal with the moment in (probably healthier) different ways.

[–] Bags@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago

*Silence 6:00am alarm
either roll over and drift back to sleep (very likely) or lay and scroll for a bit.

*Silence 6:15 alarm
Either roll over and drift back to sleep, or lay and scroll for a bit (very likely).

*6:28 alarm goes off
Climb out of bed, use the restroom, get dressed, brush teeth, take multivitamin, and stroll out the door by 6:35

*Arrive at work between 6:50 and 7:05.

I shower at night, so I'm not unclean or anything.

[–] Bags@piefed.social 1 points 2 weeks ago

Ooh, thank you! I will definitely be doing this.

[–] Bags@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I'll cross my fingers for you! I have never had any kind of medical scare so I can't even pretend to understand what it must be like. Wishing you only good news!

I used to live with a cat who would eat foam or certain types of plastic. We knew about the plastic thing and would clean up shopping bags or that cellophane wrap certain products come wrapped in, but the foam was a surprise. My dad let me have some boxes from his job one time I was moving. They were large, VERY thick durable cardboard, originally used to transport delicate scientific instruments. They originally had some formed foam glued inside, almost similar to a foam mattress topper in consistency. My dad had ripped the foam out, but some small chunks of it were left on the box. One of the boxes sat out in the living room empty for a while, and one day we were like "Have you seen the cat?" after not seeing her for a while... Found her sitting in the box chewing on the foam. A small pile of soggy foam bits were right at her feet, she'd been there chewing for a while. Thankfully nothing bad happened but there were definitely little bits of foam in her poo for the next couple days hahaha

[–] Bags@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago

I already reached out to FRYD, and I will give a droning_in_my_ears a chance to get back to me, but if either of them don't, I'll let you know!

[–] Bags@piefed.social 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I'm currently working my way through Distress by Greg Egan, a bit more than halfway through.

This is my last Egan novel, I've read everything else he's written, and have thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

It's been interesting to connect completely separate unrelated universes by the language he uses. Several of his books have various trans-human or post-gender characters that use Ve/Ver pronouns, which I didn't know were an actual thing because I'd never heard that before.

Also, he used the word "Tarpaulin" in 2 different novels (Orthogonal trilogy, and I just came across it in Distress yesterday). Another word that's apparently just a fancier name for "tarp", but again, I had never seen it used before. It was used extensively in the Orthogonal trilogy as an item characters interacted with often, but it seems to just be one random instance slipped in to Distress to describe a shanty truck with a tarp on the back the main character has to ride to some location. It was just kind of a funny "Aha!" moment reading it in Distress, as the word kind of stuck with me as one of the few new words I added to my vocabulary from reading the Orthogonal trilogy.

Also, many of his novels are based in or have plot points centered in Australia, because he's Australian... Nothing really odd about that, but reading so many different books back-to-back all set in various iterations of future Australia has been different. I can't think of any other author I've read recently that bases anything in Australia.

[–] Bags@piefed.social 1 points 2 weeks ago

That sounds exciting! Though, for me, the replying and being able to converse back and forth is really the important part. I'll mull it over and let you know. I wouldn't want to just be a one-sided drain on you sending me anything without getting something in return!

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