The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) (oeis.org)
3 points by tzury 36m ago 0 comments
The Unfashionable Art of Learning Things (medium.com)
3 points by FromTheArchives 43m ago 0 comments
My phone is an ereader now
278 wonger_ 100 8/31/2025, 2:58:32 AM davepagurek.com ↗
I don't have a great solution but I suspect I do know the cause of this on iPhones, which I'll mention for anyone else curious:
I'd bet that he has a contact saved called Something Hall, and the autocorrect isn't clever enough to realise that he isn't typing the name of that contact and just automatically capitalises the H. (It's not 100% of the time, but it is ridiculously often that it wrongly assumes you're using the name from a contact, in my experience.)
I wish there was a way to turn this off, but afaik there isn't - I've removed or edited a contact's surname for a few words that I type as non-name nouns often enough that it got annoying.
Of course I might be wrong, maybe there are other causes for incorrect capitals.
The trick about this phone is that because it is full fat Android, everything is possible. But because it is low refresh rate black and white screen with a physical keyboard, everything is also a pain in the ass. Rather than hear a chat message notification and immediately get the urge to pull out my phone and engage, I actually now get slightly annoyed because typing out a proper response with proper grammar is going to be a pain in the ass.
The company is pretty lousy and doesn't communicate well. They have missed every single deadline they've ever set for themselves. The software is glitchy but usable (I have all the same issues mentioned in the article with the autocorrect, refresh settings, fingerprint, etc). All those things are fixable and hopefully do.
The phone itself is very weak hardware and the screen protector and case still haven't shipped. I had my phone in my back pocket and it did not survive that, I got two cracks along the edge and a slight bend. Still works though, but I have switched it to my front pocket.
Android Auto works great in both my vehicles, so maps/navigation are not an issue. Bitwarden works. Duo auth works. Banking apps work. Roon works. Podcasts work. Things that I need, that other dumb phones can't provide.
But the critical thing is, I am trying to avoid using the phone because it is just a pain in the ass to do things on. For this, honestly, I'd pay 10x the list price because it has given me so much of my life back. I actually had a mini crisis when I realized I was bored, with nothing to do in the evenings after work, because I had so much time back. (Don't worry, channeling that time into productive hobbies now).
I would highly highly highly recommend this if you want to spend less time on your phone but need certain functions a smartphone provides.
I've tried a number of different things but nothing stuck. I've had this phone for a few months now and it has really done the trick.
It's a pretty messed up negative feedback loop. If you find yourself in this state, audiobooks are a good alternative.
A trillion dollar industry exists to profit off of gluing eyeballs to screens. Making the device other than what this industry designed it to be is not self-sabotage, it's self-interested!
Read "Supernormal Stimuli" by Barrett for some other examples of this phenomenon.
If I want to splurge with a chocolate or ice cream bar, I take a walk to my corner store and buy just one, and eat it right away. It's extremely cost inefficient compared to if I bought a gallon of ice cream from the store, but that's not what I'm optimizing for here.
Essentially I use my normal phone, but lock specific apps. To unlock those apps I must scan the nfc card I keep in my car. That means getting up and going outside.
That tiny bit of added friction has cut my screentime in half and made me more productive, and less stressed.
There are other devices like it now, for example Bloom.
wait a minute, from behavioral science perspectives, does it work as intended, or does it work against the aim?
My brain has too much agency for its own good. It would not let itself be constrained in its pursuit of scrolling bliss.
THIS...BUYER BEWARE!
Raise your hand if you're one of the first thousand Indiegogo campaign backers and still haven't received your order.
Admittedly, I do have things that are collecting dust ( pinephone being one of the bigger disappointments thus far ), but without HN crowd testing those alternatives, non-HN crowd wouldn't even know firefox existed and now we would likely all be living in IE salt mines.
The author makes great sacrifices to make the phone work in his life. He mentions: - The phone needs to be put in his pocket a certain way or it takes input - The phone loses keypresses when typing quickly - It can only render readable Google maps when set to the slowest setting - The phone forgets your fingerprint and requires pin, which suffers from dropped inputs
The author brings up the point that 2 developers work on the phone. The author doesn't mention, but I think should mention, that this phone WILL have vulnerabilities not found on flagship phones. Anyone security minded is going to be lost here.
Overall, I want a phone like this, but the sacrifices are way too numerous to justify it.
With these interventions I went from using my phone for hours a day to using it (most days) only when necessary, and some days not at all. Feels very liberating!
As far as reading goes, I switched back to physical books.
- my bank requires a smartphone
- whatsapp desktop requires a smartphone too
This smartphone could be an alternative: no videos, you can still use third party applications, perfect for reading.
Thank you for sharing!
Ultimately, technologists with cash to burn buying limited devices doesn’t actually address the big problem. What we really want is for mainstream devices to be less frenetic.
The Telegram desktop app does not require an active smartphone.
From the original article: "I feel like the vibration on the phone is a tad aggressive. Not every vibration is, though—Facebook Messenger notifications feel like the right level. ".
It looks like the article author makes the same mistake. Changed the device but kept the notifications on.
I also appreciate the fact that I could use a simpler phone that really fits the original need: staying in contact, instead of doom-scrolling.
Whoever needs you now can call on voice.
Also, there are phone-shaped e-readers if that’s your bent; check out the Boox Palma.
For productivity apps, nothing compared with the Bold 9900. So snappy and minimalistic. The memos, calendar, messaging and the like were great.
As far as BB10 devices go, the Passport had the screen real estate, but the Q10 was way more pocketable. So I found the Passport awkward to deal with when on the move. I still have all of them. Who knows what to do with functional old tech?
The Passport keyboard had an ortholinear shape. Together with the overall form factor, I can see how people may have found it a bit form over function. But I loved it.
What I really want is a super reliable way to block social media from my iPhone, only allowing a short window per day.
I use "Freedom", but it doesn't reliably block things, and I end up cheating.
This isn't a real solution because you still have to take deliverate action and you're still just trusting your own behaviors. But, it's a great middle ground.
For social media - you don't actually need the apps. Like, at all. They work just fine in a browser and they can't send you notifications that way. So just delete them altogether.
Quite tempted by the phone, but predominately a physical book reader.
If it's a real device then that's awesome! If it wasn't for Zinwa I'd probably be getting one.
At the moment I have my iphone set to black-and-white but still find myself idly browsing
I think I’ll buy this phone
It featured a netvertible design that had a regular screen on one side and an e-ink on the other. I thought that was a pretty good idea, though this laptop had some questionable decisions, like only usb-c as IO.
https://www.crowdsupply.com/modos-tech/modos-paper-monitor
It's just a dev kit run, but I've got high hopes for the whole Modos project.
EDIT: Here's an older demo of theirs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XduK7wn9SE4
I have a private Instagram account with ~100 followers of people I actually know.
And I still agree with this although I'm trying hard not to. I'm just trying not to be cynical.
But I hate this feeling of my life experiences seeming like they require external validation.
Am I doing things just so that others know I did them? Is it just a curated feed I can look back on by myself? Social media feels like it steals our lives away from us.
They can be flashed with Lineage OS and have a standard smartphone form factor but with an e-ink screen.
Pay attention that they also exists with color eink screen and that those versions are more expensive.
*not priced like a Kindle :)
Can I recompile all (or at least most, modulo firmware blobs) of the software running on it?
Obviously I'm not expecting Pixel/GrapheneOS levels of openness. But I'm hoping it's not Samsung-level icky.
Most of my life I've been using phones with keys - the Treo/Centro series with PalmOS, then (due to working there) the Nokia N900, N9 and Jolla devices. The best ever on screen keyboard I've encountered was on the N9, followed by Jolla (unfortunately, we never implemented swype there). A had a regular Android phone for a while after that, but pretty much all Android on screen keyboards are just horrible - so I went from actively doing stuff on my phone to just reading stuff, and using it as notifier for getting my computer.
Things changed when some companies did end up doing new phones with keyboards: I had the Planet computers Gemini, followed by the Cosmo. Both had great keyboards, but a lot of other issues. Next were Unihertz Titan and Titan slim (which I'm still using) - both also nice devices, but starting to age, not really getting updates anymore, and putting something else on there is problematic due to Unihertz not releasing kernel sources.
The way I'm using my phones also changed again - I fully stopped using banking apps on the phone. The modern way is to combine an authenticator into the banking app, and treat the banking app as having built in two factor auth, which is just stupid. I can use a separate token with all of my banks - but using the smartphone app would forcefully sign me up to using them as authenticator, so I can't use them anymore.
A lot of other applications also are pretty much useless nowadays - most are just wrapped web pages anyway, and even for the ones which are not: Nothing has long living auth tokens anymore (which used to be one of the main selling points ) - and if I have to log in to not regularly used applications every time I use them it's easier and more convenient to just use the corresponding website on the computer anyway.
So we're back to just wanting a phone I can read on, and that sends me notifications - and the keyboard should allow me to even respond without taking out my computer. The main issue with the device is that I don't need Android for doing that - and with the ongoing enshitification of Android I'm not really sure anymore if it's worth the trouble of getting another device, or if I should just go towards "when I'm not on my computer I'm offline" again.
The technology is needed to avoid short video / social media addiction but a working map app is a must.
Sanity is returning to our world.
There is hope. WAGMI.
And then I get back to - ok, just get a normal e-reader and normal mobile phone.
Someone school me on why I'm wrong, thanks.
I'm considering this phone because I'd like to box my media consumption to when I'm at home (at my desk). I however still need a device with Whatsapp + Authenticator to go about my day to day life.
Honestly if I could get one of those not taking paperwhites with a sim, Whatsapp and my authenticator app I would just run that.
2. I doubt that keyboard will last forever, it will probably get quite dirty or tired.
3. I don't think an ink screen saves that much power.
4. I just have a cheap smartphone without 4G internet, 2 euros/months, 50MB in case I need to read some email. That way I will not stay on my phone for long.
5. I watch movies and shows on my phone, actually.
6. Physical books feel better, honestly.
Although I can find it useful to write code with it, but again, apps are not tailored to write code, the toolchains are not made for it.
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