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Could You Live Without a Smartphone For a Year? (techtimes.com)
shanen writes about Vitaminwater's latest "publicity stunt," where they will pay $100,000 to one select contestant who can live without their smartphone for a year: All you have to do is come up with the most amusing entry [about how you will spend 365 days without the device] and have sufficient willpower to give up your smartphone for a year. They obviously have to pick a power user to make it interesting, but that's not the reason I'm disqualified. I would just read more books, which is boring from their perspective. So maybe you want to share your idea here? If it's really good, you don't have to worry about someone stealing it. After all, you'd have the evidence that it was your idea first, but you might be able to refine your entry while amusing the mob. The company will reportedly give you a 1996 cellphone to use in times of emergencies. Also, they will reward you with $10,000 if you are able to get through 6 months. According to Tech Times, contestants can use computers or desktops, "but not smartphones or tablets, even those owned by other people, or anything which the candidate can scroll or swipe on." Always-listening smart speakers, like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, are permitted.
To make sure the candidate doesn't cheat, Vitaminwater will subject them to a lie-detector test at the end of the year.
To make sure the candidate doesn't cheat, Vitaminwater will subject them to a lie-detector test at the end of the year.
A human can only go 7 days without water, 30 days without food, and 90 days without a smart phone. This is common knowledge.
That's easy-peasy for me as I don't own a smart phone.
And I'm not a senior citizen to boot!
CAP === 'objector'
I don't have a smartphone now.... I've got a candy bar phone with no camera, and no internet. I text about once per week, and make about 5 calls per day, mostly related to coordinating with a friend I give rides home to. I get that people find those things useful, the only really compelling need for me is I wish I had google maps at times... but yes, you can live without it.
So nothing with a multi-line display? Bring on the knobs, switches, and lights! Batch processing FTW!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That one's easy. I'm a poweruser but giving up a smartphone for 12 months for 100 000$ sounds like a very good deal to me. No sweat. I'll check if I can apply as a non-USian.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I spend most my time on desktops anyway, always one at hand except when I am going out.
The string attached is the ban on using other people's smartphones. Friend shows you a funny cat video on his smartphone, you're fucked.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Full keyboard, wide display, email, probably enough to run ssh to my server and a VNC client......
Where do I get my money?
"I will spend 12 months practicing defeating lie detectors." Thank you.
I've been living without a smart phone/cell phone for over a year and it's been SO nice.
And yet they can go their whole lives without ever being subjected to an accurate lie detector test. In fact, nobody has ever done anything else.
That should be:
"To make sure they don't get paid, Vitaminwater will subject them to a phony lie-detector test at the end of the year."
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Call me crazy, but for $100,000, I'd drink tea for a year. As for the smartphone ban, a cellular laptop and a flip phone would work just as well overall. I would miss a couple of iPhone apps, but a chromebook can run android apps, so that might work.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
I keep myself busy with professional, family and social events, and everything goes into Google Calendar. Usually I add things from my Linux workstation, and those entries are all synced to my Google Pixel 2 phone. As something gets close, my phone will remind me, and Waze can also tell me it's time to start driving.
I had the Twitter and Facebook apps on my previous phone (a Nexus 5) and consciously didn't install them on the Pixel 2 -- I spend enough time on social media as it is, I don't need to be crouched over a phone when I'm out -- that's when I should be chatting with friends, family, and people in my network. I even use my smartphone as a .. phone. I'm self-employed, so my clients can call me with questions. I have a stand-up meeting with my main client every day or two. Sure, I could use a land-line for that, but if he calls me and I'm travelling .. pfft.
The smartphone's also my alarm clock and my camera. Giving up all (most) of the functionality of a smart phone isn't going to happen.
Theoretically we can.. of course we can!!! I've lived through decades without it. There was a time the Samsung sliding open phone capable of a color screen was the shit! Nowadays smartphones bring much more than just lifestyle. It brings basic necessity to the World such as news, text, emails, information, etc... Yeah sure we can live without it but why even bother asking the question? Does it bring any value?
Next question.
I can live without Vitaminwater for a year.
Call me crazy, but for $100,000, I'd drink tea for a year.
Hi, crazy. The question is would you drink only Vitaminwater for a year?
I think that would me much harder, and quite possibly less healthy too.
NetBSD will never be SystemD ready.
And we have detected a bullshit-campaign. Lie-Detectors do not exist. The only thing that exists is elaborate pseudo-science scams that scare people into thinking their lies could be detected.
Probably some people calculated how much getting this amount of attention would cost them conventionally and found that 100k plus, say, another 100k of work was actually very cheap.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I "went without a smartphone" for 35 years of my life, I think I could cope for a year for $100k.
-Styopa
yes I don't drink the stuff.
If I add a G4 Wireless to my laptop I will get 99% of my smartphone functionality
The other 1 percent being communication services that your may employer or clients require of you and which are deliberately exclusive to iOS and Android and unavailable on Windows, macOS, and GNU/Linux. Creation of a new account on the Telegram messaging service is one example. Restaurants' apps for ordering ahead are another.
thats what interests me about this.
would a what would have been called a featurephone be okay? those have internet too.
6310i has j2me, possibly the first phone to do so. so would it be okay?
or can I just haul my laptop around?
also the whole concept is fucking stupid exactly due to there being people who don't use one anyways. for me, I need to use them for development even if I participated. but then again it's just a publicity stunt.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
for only 100K (they are only going to pay 1 person, not *every* person that does it)
It's even worse. They are going to offer just one person a chance to win up to $100,000.
First, you have to "win" a competition to become that one by sending a tweet and instagram outlining how that year would be. They will pick the "best" from all the entries (but they still retain the right to refuse you, should you be less than ideal for marketing purposes).
The US is primarily 3G/4G. 1G/2G and AMPS networks have been mostly turned off. Would a 1996-era cell phone even work today? Flip phones, sure, but not from 1996!
Easy as cake.
Home of The Suki Series
My smart[hone sits unused on my desk most of the time
I use my desktop computer for all computing and my wired telephone for voice
I only use the smartphone when on road trips
I rarely take road trips
I have never owned any kind of mobile phone. My wife has a dumb phone, which we used while we were evacuated from southern California's Woolsey Fire.
Our land-line phone at home (copper line, POTS) is self-powered by AT&T. When Southern California Edison (SoCalEd) goes down -- which happens several times a year -- VoIP (voice over Internet phone) dies as do those cell-phone antennas whose backup power systems have not been recently serviced. AT&T, however, remains available for me to call SoCalEd to report their outage.
Our land-line phone gave us assurance that our house was still standing during the Woolsey Fire. We were able to call our house. The answering machine on the second floor answered, which meant that our house was okay and we even still had electricity. We know that Internet service (including VoIP) through Spectrum and some cell antennas were lost during the fire. In our community, however, the copper phone lines are all underground.
No, I am not a Luddite. My entire career was in computer software. I just like to get away from the phone when I leave my house.
I'd be a prime target for such a test since I make very heavy use of my smartphone.
But the thing is, a smartphone is simply a tiny, limited computer. It can be trivially substituted by any other computer in any circumstance where size is not a complete deal breaker.
For instance I have my lunch in a bar, where I watch videos on youtube. Doing the same with a laptop might be a bit quirky, but there's no reason why I couldn't do that.
Reading in the underground without a tablet would be inconvenient, as one needs to be seated to use a laptop. But it wouldn't be a particularly big deal. I could always print stuff, or perhaps use a Kindle if that's allowed.
I guess the main inconvenience would be music, as I use bluetooth headphones, and carrying a laptop everywhere to work as a source would be a pain. But I'm sure I could still get a dedicated player for that.
Overall, I could do this quite easily without really changing any of my usual patterns which currently heavily involve a smartphone.
I lived without a cellphone for at least 50 years, and I didn't have a palmtop, laptop, fliptop or any of that. I did have a "home phone" but it was a definitely a "dumb phone". I used a home phone as a data link, acoustically coupled @ 300 baud, but that didn't actually make it smart, even if capable of downloading porn at several minutes per still picture. 50 years, don't know how I managed. Sitting here in 2018 I wonder how I was able to find anything without GPS, but for 100K I bet I could remember.
{Really, wtf is wrong with kids these days?}
If your laptop has enough CPU and RAM to run an Android emulator usably, good luck fitting its screen under the 2D barcode scanner of a quick-service restaurant's till when it's time to scan in for payment and rewards. And good luck lawfully acquiring applications in the first place if they're exclusive to Google Play Store. A lot of these applications aren't on F-Droid or Amazon, which I'm told are the primary app stores for users of Android emulators.
Then Telegram's account creation policy must have changed between when you signed up and when I tried a week ago. I put my phone number into the web interface on a PC running Firefox, and I got this error message:
IP = Internet Protocol not Internet Phone.
But the handle is ringing a bell.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
.
I have a good sense of direction (which gets practiced by not relying on GPS).
I actually think my sense of direction has been honed and even improved by training against my smartphone. I've become better at retaining orientation in stairwell reversals and in "feeling" what maps actually mean on the ground without relying on distinctive landmarks as much as I used to.
These days I've become increasingly able to study the map in advance and negotiate complicated routes without needing the smartphone--but it's also reassuring to have it available if I need it.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I work a professional job in a major city. I have a spouse and two kids, and fully participate in our household and parenting. I travel for work, and commute by mass transit, bike, or foot. We have a "home" phone. Up until December 2017, I didn't own a cell phone at all. It ain't hard folks. You just get used to planning a bit more ahead of time.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
That people actually think it is a severe hardship to go without the smartphone. Some people, the ad dept of this company, really think that everyone requires their smartphone, 24/7/365.
I'd do it for 1% of that 'prize'.
I've managed to live quite well without a mobile phone, let alone a 'smart' one. When I see the ridiculous expense, and all the absurdly insecure apps, and all of the problems people have with them ... including tensions and dependency ... I don't see how the word 'smart' applies.
It's a fucking telephone. It's also a computer with no keyboard and a 'monitor' like a game-boy. REtarded.
It's like high-sugar cereal. And then people bitch when their teeth fall out.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Giving it up for daily texting / talking would be easy ( am an introvert and don't talk to anyone anyway ), not so much on the utility side of things though.
For example:
I use mine mostly as a music player. ( Both my active and inactive Smartphones have headphone jacks still :D )
I can't log into many websites without a " code " they feel they need to send to my phone as pseudo-2fa.
Some games ( think Steam and Blizzard ) both utilize 2fa via a Smartphone app. ( assuming anyone games anymore )
My phone receives text message and email alerts anytime my Credit Card is used so I know instantly if the card has been compromised.
My alarm system sends alerts via text messaging / email and the phone is first point of contact should it trigger.
Via VPN, my smartphone can connect to my home network and access any of the security cameras and / or the NAS if need be.
Prescription alerts and reminders come across as text messages.
I don't even bother wearing a watch these days.
So, it COULD be done, but I would be giving up a lot of convenience in doing so.
Hey APK, it's been a long time since you stalked me. It's like you just don't care anymore. That hurts, man.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I've already been living without one for a little over 53 years. Didn't get my first mobile phone until a couple years ago, and it's a cheap $15 flip Tracfone. Mainly bought it in case something comes up when away from the house. Rarely use it. Since the minutes roll over, I have over 1200 minutes accumulated so far.
"A Bird In The Hand Will Poop On Your Wrist"-Benny Hill,1982
I haven't had a smartphone in a decade.
Where's my million dollars?
#DeleteFacebook
what he said "most linux distros now default DNS as default resolver"
What I said was not what you claim I said. Go back and check it.
There's a big difference between many and most.
The rationale is that Linux installations are often used in corporate contexts, where there may both be dynamic host name resolution, split horizons, wildcard processing and internal security blocking or monitoring access. Administrators often do not want the individual hosts to override what's in the corporate name server, but do want to be able to add entries for what the name server returns no results for.
My post was attempting to be helpful, pointing out that if the host uses dns before files, a change is needed for your host list to have any effect. Note the if. This isn't saying that hosts entries doesn't work - it just points out a configuration change that may have to be made in some circumstances. Testing for that at installation time and throwing up a warning should be easy, and won't do any harm.
Feelin' the love, man, thanks!
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Who's right here,
That is a stupid question. "What is right" is a good one, and people can judge for themselves, without you telling them.
NOTICED YOU & swillden LIKE DOWNMOD HIDING YOUR FAILS vs. ME TOO
No, that is your paranoia talking. Really, I have only one slashdot account, and cannot downmod or upmod anyone where I post. And no interest in doing so.
Others upmod and downmod depending on what they read, and if what they read is crazy talk, chances are probably higher it will be modded down.
Really, no one is out to get you. You're not that important.
Some seem to like to jerk your chain and see you go off on a tangent, for amusement. But no one really cares enough about YOU to go after you.
And when you say people are hiding or running, what really happens is that people roll their eyes and move on, not wasting more time. Again, you're not that important.
What's written is written, and people can judge for themselves. People don't lose anything by simply moving on.
Which I am doing right now. Call it running away or you smashing me or whatever you like - I don't really care, and I have better things to do than worry about you.
My job requires me to have a smart phone. I make significantly more than $100K per year. I'll keep my job and let somebody else have the prize, thank you!
Yes I'm live without mobile for one year. Name-Pavan kumar Mobile No. +919616288996 From-(UP) INDIA