For me, I kept my last phone for 3 years and upgraded because I didn’t have enough storage. New phone is a little nicer, has a few new features, but I may well keep it for a few years again.
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
Anyone who appreciates this one and hasn’t read the entirety of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (compiled into book form) really should. Many gems of stoic wisdom therein.
"Why did I follow him…? I don’t know. Why do things happen as they do in dreams? All I know is that, when he beckoned… I had to follow him. From that moment, we traveled together, East. Always… into the East."
Black holes and the uncertainty of what lies behind the event horizon. The possibility that inside a black hole, a whole new universe could exist without us ever knowing. When tripping through life taught me one thing, it is that many things can be seen as part of a huge fractal, and that view fits right into the interpretation that black holes are nothing else than universes in universes. After all, our big bang might just be another ordinary black hole, reaching critical mass.
Of course I can not prove it, but I love thinking about it.
I can’t remember if it was a youtube video or a paper or an article or what, but I saw something explaining that, based on one interpretation of Einsteins equations, past the point of singularity, space and time invert. This would mean that the longer the black hole exists around in “our” universe (in absolute terms), the larger it becomes on the inside, and the larger it gets on the outside, the longer the inside universe would persist. I feel like you would have liked it, if only I could remember what it was. :(
The thing I saw postulated both that the universe would reuse the matter the black hole absorbed, and that there would be infinite branching universes since each would develop their own black holes, but then you have an issue with regards to running out of matter at some point. Though I guess that could be solved if you assume every black hole must converge at the end of their containing universe’s lifespan, and all matter would be reused in whatever blackhole absorbs the blackhole containing that parent universe? Oh hey, we’re back to fractals again!
Personally I’m a fan of the idea of black holes as topological stars that fall in line with string theory, but there have been so many hypothetical frameworks coming out in recent years that are just fascinating to think about.
I think the only reason those specifically are most well known, is because they capture popular imagination.
Basically, because it’s impossible to see inside black holes to know what’s going on, there’s very few ways to validate ideas. Therefore, outside of a select number of external observational techniques (like radio signals and gravitational waves) to place some limitations, ideas about what happens beyons the event horizon are in the realm of pure math, which people don’t care about unless it either A. Verifiable, or B. Just sounds really cool.
Black Hole hypotheses therefore tend to go one of a few ways:
Scenario 1
Scientist A: Hey if you use this math, black holes can do this thing
Scientist B: That requires this other thing which isn’t true, to be true, and/or breaks this fundamental law
Scientist A: This hypothesis is my precious brain baby and if you talk shit about it I will shatter your knees
Scenario 2
Scientist A: Hey if you use this math, black holes can do this thing
Scientist B: That requires an assumption we can’t, or have yet to, verify is true (almost always somehow related to string theory)
Scientist A: This hypothesis is my precious brain baby and if you talk shit about it I will shatter your knees
Scenario 3:
Scientist A: Hey if you use this math, black holes can do this thing
Scientist B: Okay the math checks out as one of X number of possibilities with that same math, but there’s know way to tell which, if any of these would be true (equations with multiple valid solutions, almost always related to spacetime topology)
Scientist A: Heehee numbers do funni
ETA: The specific subcategories of hypotheses you mentioned also have an inherent advantage of not having to deal with singularities. Why that’s good: Einstein’s theories say infinite density impossible. With singularity, can’t connect quantum theory to relativity theory. No quantum gravity make math bb’s big sad. Solution? Instead of squoosh matter really tiny, just send it somewhere else! They aren’t the only frameworks that avoid singularities, but definitely the coolest sounding and least complicated
They hate to admit it, and it’s definitely less in-your-face most of the time because of the expected formality of the scientific community, but physicists, and specifically those trying to make advancements like we see around black holes, are SUPER arrogant. For the first 2 scenarios listed, they usually only make a formal paper out of the discovery to later defend the drawback as something they can “work around”. Either by “oh we’ll definitely eventually figure out how to emperically verify this haha. Look how well it works, you’d be crazy not to believe in this”, or the more extreme “This obviously constitutes a whole rewrite of our understanding of physics because my solution is so elegant except for the parts where it literally doesn’t work”
That last one is less prone to arrogance because topology is working with an insane amount of unverifiable possibilities already, so they don’t really tend to get too attached to any given solution.
This is a weird application of that quote, but I remember when Avengers: Infinity War came out and there were people saying that Thanos was right, and his decision to kill half of all beings would, in fact, lead to less starvation and poverty. And I got in an argument where I said, “You may be right that Thanos’s was a valid solution. But there is not fucking way in hell that it was even close to the best, or even a good solution! Just because you think of something that works first doesn’t mean you should always go with that!”
It’s not even a good solution. Take, for example, Earth. Half the people are gone. We’re at about 8 billion people now. Know when we were at half that? 1973. This solution puts the clock back by 50 years, causes a lot of pain and strife, and Thanos (and most people on earth) would likely have lived long enough to see the correction he made undone. When a solution that drastic doesn’t solve the problem for even a lifetime, it doesn’t even approach being a good one.
In 2004, I was working on the bridge of a ship that was going to be inspected in a few days. There was a small hole in a wall about the size of an electrical outlet with exposed wiring that I wanted to hide from the inspectors. I printed out a picture of a kitten and taped it over the hole. I visited the ship again in 2018, and the kitten was still there.
Been rocking a oneplus 8 for the last two and half years, replaced the back glass a couple times and the battery once. I definitely don’t baby my phone, it’s a tool meant to be used, but overall am pretty good at not dropping things so I can reckon I’ll keep going with it until it gets too slow or something breaks.
When choosing a new phone, I usually go for something new that’s one level below the latest flagship, and check to see if LineageOS is being developed for it, as then I know it’s likely to receive software updates for long after I’ve moved on to the next.
Thing is, I like, many people here, am a techie, and I’m not afraid to install custom ROMs and open up my phone for repair. The majority of people don’t want that, so I’m really looking forward to the upcoming EU regulation on user replaceable batteries! Then it’s possible for everyone to keep their phone for longer.
I refuse to upgrade past a pixel 4a, because as far as I’m concerned it has everything I need. When my last one broke I just brought another pixel 4a, why? Because they cost like 150 quid second hand on Amazon.
When I have shown the phone to friends and such, I get the same reaction to the price since it looks like a really good phone. And cost significantly less.
Depends, if you just get a second hand one it’s way cheaper, but battery life can suck ass, bit of a gamble. If you get refurbished one, the battery is excellent but that costs a little more at 170 quid So it really boils down to if you wanna take the risk
Survived a suicide attempt from a fentanyl and ketamine overdose. Life had gone to shit and for whatever reason that day (I can’t even remember exactly), enough was enough. I had bought the stuff in advance for this moment although I was using dissociatives pretty regularly. I was on a video chat with a friend (someone who was also suicidal and we’ve talked previously about how we wouldn’t interfere with each other’s attempts if it came to that. we were really bad for each other, but it was just nice to see another light in the darkness and knowing you weren’t alone. we ultimately made each other much worse off). But anyways, she feel asleep, it was during that moment when I guess I went for it. Took all the fentanyl and ketamine I had, and was pretty much blacked out before realizing it.
Guess I walked back to the couch where she was still sleeping on the video call and I lost conscious there. Next thing I know I feel my body violently being shaken and then suddenly I’m in the ER. I couldn’t talk at all and couldn’t move anything from the neck down. that lasted several days and I slowly got motor control back. Took my legs the longest and had to do a bunch of testing.
Once they found out it was a suicide attempt I was sectioned and unable to do anything if my own accord for like the next month. I was sent to some facility specifically for people who have made suicide attempts and also had drug abuse issues. Was there for a few weeks before I was able to transfer into an outpatient program for the same thing.
I guess what had happened initially was that when I passed out I was in view of the camera, so when my friend woke up she was trying to talk l with me, realized something was wrong and then what had happened, and then she was able to get an ambulance. They got there and revived me and then that’s just a little before I woke up in the hospital. It at all just so confusing, and I think I’ll always be bitter towards that friend that called the ambulance.
Things were bad leading up to that point, but they’d get generally so much worse afterwards. None of those feelings went away and I’ve just learned to mask it for now because I’m just exhausted with everyone I know feeling like they need to be so involved with my life. My friend who saved me from attempt ended up taking her own life the next year. In a way I’m pretty envious I think
thanks dude. I’ve got my dog that is more important to me than anything else in the world, and I absolutely refuse to leave him by himself no matter how bad things might be for me. I appreciate the words though
Check out the Fairphone; you can replace parts like battery and the production line tends to be (more) sustainable. They also provide security updates for 5+ years.
They don’t have really high-end phones though, but personally I think most moderate phones nowadays are fine for practically all usecases. For me it works out fine, as I already used mid-range phones for a couple of years.
I hope they will do something like a subscription for even longer updates (if enough people are interested). Don’t need a new phone if this keeps working / being repairable.
I love the idea of Fairphone but it’s too pricy for me unfortunately. my current phone (Redmi Note 10 Pro) only cost £150 ($195) and it’s pretty much the perfect phone for my minimal needs.
That’s of course fair (yes… intended). They are indeed expensive compared to many other phones, especially mid-rangers. It took me a while to decide to switch.
For anyone who can easily afford it though, it might be something to keep in the back of your head perhaps in the future :) I hope this small trend of replacable parts and longtime security support in phones continues.
asklemmy
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