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A device that bricks your phone

This is long because it’s the one thing I bought off an IG ad that has actually been life changing. For years I wanted a dumb phone to fight my phone slash online shopping addiction, but I didn’t wanna lose maps and a good camera and the iMessage “echo” effect. This does that. My Brick lives on my fridge, and once I tap my phone to it, any app I haven’t whitelisted is blocked. And you can block anything. Even the calculator! Which it deserves…after I blocked the obvious ones like IG and shopping, I realized how addicted I was to *information itself* Occasionally, I’d need to Google something of import, but  mostly, I used it to scratch my gnawing, itchy brain. I’d habitually fact-check conversations as I had them, to look up interior photos of the restaurant I’d soon be going to, to search, for the hundredth time, whether fish can feel pain. So anyway I blocked Chrome and Safari and it was nuts. I can’t really get stuck in my bed in a phone hole because the phone fun dries up real fast. I have to just.. get up? Read a book? Incredible. When I do unbrick, usually because I need to do promo for my book, I feel feral and off leash, I turn into a zombie ipad kid, and it’s sobering but makes me glad I have something to stop it. It’s nice being able to purchase a personal quality that you lack.  

@arbys_rising

Sep 30, 2024

2

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Dumb phone life

I’ve converted to a flip phone and it’s honestly so fun lol. I think the way we have access to everything, and everyone, in milliseconds is rotting our brains and making us such an entitled society; entitled to other people’s time and energy on demand, their lives, business, etc. but I also think the way we get sucked in with links from app to app, ads, videos, and doomscrolling, everything is designed to be addictive and it leads (at least for me) to less productivity and more procrastination. I think having to work just a little harder, even to do something as simple as research something, can be good for us. So what I’ve done is essentially converted my iPhone to a wifi connected iPod touch like from the old days. I’ve left on certain apps like FaceTime, banking apps, Spotify, kindle app, I kept this one to use occasionally and all my saved recipes on my phone of course, etc. but I leave it in my room and just use it in the morning or before bed for reading or checking emails, music for working out, stuff like that, and leave it at home for everything else. Screen time of course is way down which is nice, it’s also really nice to not feel like I constantly need to be checking something, opening a message on an app, etc. I also have found so far and think it will continue to help me not spend so much money impulsively on things I don’t actually need. Aside from all of the benefits, I think in general I just find it funny and all of my friends think it’s hilarious lol. I’ll have to figure out what I’ll do for airports, maybe bring the old iPhone with me, connect to airport wifi, scan boarding passes with it. I’ll figure that out when I get there.

@saylor

Feb 26, 2025

2

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Sonim XP3800 flip phone

I've been rocking the flip phone since March - went through a few different models till I landed on this utilitarian workhorse; the Sonim XP3800. This thing feels like it can stop a bullet. The battery lasts for 3 days. Service is 5 bucks a month. remixed my brain: -got lost a few times (feels amazing + found my way back) -bought an iPod mini (eBay, refurb 256gb)  -forgot about 1 million people that I didn't need to remember -missed brat summer entirely (found out in late September, loved the album) -learned how to wait and do nothing -minimized unnecessary / instantaneous communication -started taking photos with real cameras again -started reading again -stopped impulsively buying instagram shirts -phone can be turned off during the charging cycle (not possible with iPhone) -regained control over the flow of information into my brain -restored my relationship with the computer as an appliance bound to one physical location Am I a better person for this? Probably not. Is this all of this a bit loaded and pretentious and boomer esque? Definitely. But it feels good to know that I have the freedom to say no to smart phone tech that has been foisted on us as an essential to living for the sake of convenience - convenience which has a cost. I could go on and on and on about this but I would highly recommend that everyone gives this a shot for while even if it's just an experiment. You will be surprised by how you feel after a few weeks.  

@propanecowboy

Dec 11, 2024

3

Top Recs from @steelyfan1998

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reading through all your old recs

sometimes you just need to read some real shit straight from the realest person you know .

@steelyfan1998

Feb 24, 2025

3

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becoming a gymcel; COWARDICE

I've been Hitlering myself, Stalining myself, Musollining myself, Maoing myself for the past 7 months. I do this because I am a coward, and totalitarian regimes are conducted by and inflicted upon cowards. Something interesting about me is that I am 5'10.225" in the morning. As the day goes on, my spine compresses and I am shorter by about a quarter inch to a half inch come evening. I generally refuse to acknowledge to myself that at midnight I'm 5'9" because, as stated above, I am a coward, and a vain one. This past September I weighed in at 210 lbs, putting me undoubtedly in the "overweight" segment of the population and just on the border of mildly obese. That's funny to me, that last summer I could have been 5'9" and obese or 5'10" and just bog standard overweight-american depending on the time of day, really. But you have to understand that if I were not a coward, this would not matter. The non-cowards among us, the brave and the beautiful, they pay no mind to these things, they can drink milk without spoiling it.  I am no longer as overweight or obese as I once was. The last time I weighed myself, I was at 187.8 lbs., meaning that I've lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-30 lbs of fat when you factor in muscle gains. I still have a long way to go, of course. But I have been lifting weights and counting calories and yes, this has unsurprisingly made my life less unbearable. But I'm still a coward. You can't lift away cowardice, cowardice is not something to be shaved off by a caloric deficit. I operate under the delusion that if I can reach a certain set of numbers it will be mathematically impossible for me to be a coward. Lately, I’ve been coming around to the conclusion that my cowardice is parabolic— diminishing itself quietly into infinity but fundamentally unable to arrive at y=(0).  Yeah I lift brah. You must understand that I do not lift to feel strong, but to make external my constant, gnawing, smothering internal weakness. I used to hope that I could draw it out and smash it away beneath the barbell. I'm beginning to understand that my condition is chronic-- it's cellular, in my cytoplasm. When the muscle fibers tear, it is the cowardice that rips itself apart, and when the muscle fibers rebuild themselves it is the cowardice that comes back all the more potent; I foam roll at my cowardice in hopes that my lower back will be less tight, my hips more mobile, the fear made flesh less aching and sore. But really it just looks like I’m having awkward missionary sex with an imaginary partner alone in my living room. What is it that I’m so afraid of? Why am I saying all this? I don't know. There's a girl who I want to talk to and every time she texts me I feel sick. I apologize for how mundane the answer is, really I do. But every time I try to communicate with her I feel like I've said the exact wrong combination of words. She texted me happy birthday today and I somehow found a way to say the wrong thing. She thinks I’m funny, she likes to talk to me, and every time I make her laugh and I hear her laugh I'm reminded of the insect I truly am. Only a coward feels this way when he's around a beautiful woman. No other explanation. Every single woman I’ve ever loved has terrified me. 

@steelyfan1998

Apr 8, 2025

29

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anti-rec: smoking weed

This is a confession post, not a recommendation, not even much of an anti-recommendation. Tbh it reads like a humilation ritual. Honestly just keep scrolling; it's not worth reading. I'm just posting it because I think I had a point when I first started writing this, one which I lost pretty wuickly. But I spent a good couple of minutes typing this all out, so I'll post it anyway. Thank God I'm anon. If you do read it, please forgive me. My friend Tyler brought a joint to the super bowl party last night. He handed it to me & told me about how it had weed diamonds in it while I smoked, he told me that it was some good shit and that I wouldn't have to smoke so much of it since I've got such a low tolerance & all, but I could also smoke as much as I liked, seeing as he had a bunch more & that it was the super bowl & we had a bunch of wings on the way anyway, so might as well smoke some more weed so you know what? yeah, i smoked some more weed since what's the harm anyway it's just weed after all. I've been a mess all day. I've been slow & stupid & disgustingly horny since I woke up this morning; but really honestly since I smoked the weed. If you're one of those types that "actually becomes more functional when you're smoking weed" & that I should "just let people enjoy things" I don't know what to say to you. I'm going to be weird for 4 weeks now and it's all my fault. This happens every time. Even when it doesn't turn me into a non-verbal paranoiac nutcase, even when it's enjoyable to me in that moment-- I become something lower than a beast. I stand over the platter of chicken wings & gorge until I am sick and then I gorge even more. My stomach becomes distended & my face and fingers are covered in thai curry buffalo chicken fat goo. I waddle around & fart & I find this very funny. I confuse the sound of my own voice with that of my younger sisters & this is incredibly disqueting to me. Do I really sound like that? I become a big confused overgrown fat baby. I'm going to be be weird for four weeks now. Slow. I was supposed to meet up with my friends to watch Luka's debut for the Lakers. I'm stitting at my desk typing this up; procrastinating going to the gym (which I can NOT neglect [especially after my evening of spiritual obesity]) & the game starts in 5 minutes. Stupid. Typing out this confession right now is painfully difficult. Every word that I type has the appearance of a whitehead that can't be popped to me. This textbox full of blemishes so infuriatingly, stubbornly, immutably DISGUSTING. I feel sick just reading back what I'm writing here. Once again, if you've made it this far, forgive me. This is a confession, not a recommendation. Disgustingly horny. This one I won't elaborate on. Forgive me. It's not because I smoked weed. The smoking of the weed was just the first movement in a sequence that had already begun before I'd even accepted the joint from Tyler. My own spiritual weakness is the mantle upon which all of these failings hang. I'm not this way because I smoked weed, I'm this way because I'm the type of guy that smokes weed even though I know what it will do to me. There are 999,999,999 other weeds in my life that I am all too willing to permit myself. I haven't eaten anything but bread & butter all day. The lakers game is starting soon. Off to the gym I go.

@steelyfan1998

Feb 11, 2025

21