Bingo. Making a new account somewhere else likely won’t help. The only way it would is if all the content OP objects to comes from a single instance and they find another instances that’s defederated frrom that source instance.

I bought a 12 in December when they were on sale due to the looming 13 launch. The stock OS is pretty good and the hardware is well speced. I came from a Pixel 3a and have owned a number of pixel and Nexus phones over the years.

It’s a bit large physically, which can present some challenges with pockets and single handed operation. It’s roughly the same size as an iPhone pro max for a size reference.

The rounded screen can be love/hate for some. If your son is prone to dropping things, it might be worth looking at a phone with more traditional bezels. Even the more protective cases have lower sides on the two long edges of the screen to let your finger reach the edges of the display.

As for the brand, they are pretty popular globally, but their availability locally really depends on where you live. In the US, you used to be able to buy them in T-Mobile stores, but that stopped a while ago. I don’t know of any brick and mortar stores that you can walk into and pick one up, although Best Buy does have them in their local warehouses and can get you one somewhat quickly.

It looks like I might have a good place to do that, so yay. I’ll try to get something up in a day or three.

Haha, the one where I make a bunch of things and fail numerous times along the way or the one where I keep a running list of “this would be a neat thing to try at some point in the future”?

If you’re looking for an outlet, why not project shop with the aim of making something?

This gives you the opportunity geek out on the gadgets you’ll need to pull off whatever you want to make. More importantly, the journey will continue post purchase as chase the thing you want to make.

You can make both digital and physical stuff. With things like CAD, Arduino/Raspberry PI, and IoT you can also blend the two pretty easily.

A very low key example might be a small garden. I’ve put a bit of time/effort into my seed stating setup, including designing and printing parts for my lighting rig. It seems like the setup iterates a bit every year. In addition, every year I spend a decent amount of time thinking about what I want to grow this year and then diving seed catalogues to find some new-to-me verity of something I’ve grown before.

You can also design from-scratch speakers and go as far down that rabbit hole as you want to - buy vs build (kit) vs design the amplifier, ditto for the actual speaker, etc.

/a person who likes making things

I am very confused. How is it that seemingly far inland? Is that whole area tidal?

This probably isn’t a popular option, but a lot of the recent hate on Microsoft have been standard practice for Apple for a long time.

Windows 10 free update length? 10 years. Mac? 5-7 years.

Baked in cloud backup? Yeah, Apple has been doing that for a while and a lot of things go to the cloud by default. If you have an iPhone or iPad, things you download go to iCloud by default.

It seems like Microsoft is trying to follow Apple’s model.

I do get not wanting to support windows 10 anymore. The CPU limitations on Win 11 are very dumb, but it’s something Apple has been doing for decades. I will be installing mint on my old desktop.

I give them less grace with OneDrive. That rollout has been very naggy and shitty.

As a recent modern Mac user, this experience is so bizarre and is always a little different.

I grew up on macs (thanks mom) and built a PC as soon as I had my first real job in highschool. I recently bought a MacBook for the promise of battery life and cool running. If only it was easier to get my arm windows laptop to boot Linux…

Regardless of what you purchase, you can absolutely power/charge a barrel jack laptop via DC. Find a spare jack that fits, or sacrifice the stock unit, and wire it into a dcdc converter.

I am sorry you had to go through this.

My advice: Get a fireproof box for the important stuff. Social security cards, birth certificates, etc.

This is a good idea. I will have to pick one up. It doesn’t have to be that big.

And this may sound stupid, but write down the serial number of literally everything you own because the insurance company will absolutely try to fuck you and you will have to make an itemized list of pretty everything you ever owned.

A video walk-around showing everything in a good amount of detail also helps a lot.

If you don’t need anything powerful, consider grabbing an old toughbook or the like. They’re reasonably rugged and are fairly water resistant. They’ve also been around for a while, so you can grab an older used copy pretty cheap. I can’t speak to Linux compatibility, but they are x86 computers at their core.

Seems to depend where you’re located. US here:

Haha, TIL that SQL is 51 years old. IBM mainframes were still all the rage in the 70s. My assumption is that government would have not been an early adopter, but I could obviously be wrong.

That sounds surprising modern. That’s good! Or at least I would think it is good. So many things run on mainframes still.

Agree, but also half the story.

The zenphone 10 is 146.5 x 68.1 x 9.4 mm.

I had a 3a until very recently. With its 5.7" screen it was 151.3 x 70.1 x 8.2 mm, so it does support the story.

The OG iPhone was 115 × 61 × 11.6 mm.

I’m still using an iPhone 8 for my work phone and it’s 138.4 x 67.3 mm x 7.3 mm.

It’s clear that the market is demanding larger phones, which means that today’s “small” phones are often larger than the phones of yesteryear.

In December I finally bought a phone to replace my 3a. I did it mostly for the battery life, although I did actually buy a replacement battery for the 3a and have all the necessary tools to install it. It wouldn’t be my first time replacing a cellphone battery.

I was window shopping and the Oneplus 12 became fairly discounted at the end of last year.

Honestly, the overall experience really isn’t that different than my old 3a. It’s not like newer versions of Android are adding revolutionary features these days and if you’re running a custom ROM, odds are you’re on a newer version of Android anyway.

Nice things:

• Two days worth of battery life with my usage patterns. Even with a fresh battery, my 3a wouldn’t last this long
• Something like 4x more RAM means that apps are usually in the state I left them in when I come back to them, whereas on the 3a they had usually been forced to free up resources and not all apps deal with that well
• The telephoto lens is nice to have, but none of the built in cameras are a substitute for my dedicated camera for things that are moving and/or things are far away
• The screen mounted fingerprint sensor is very convenient, but that’s a placement thing. Some people liked the 3a location, but I didn’t personally

Unless you are taxing your processor, an upgrade will be incremental. At least that was my experience.

I somewhat regret the larger phone in that it’s a bit harder to handle one handed, but most on screen keyboards have a one handed mode to deal with this. I had a pop/ring type holder on my 3a, so gripping one handed isn’t that big of a deal.

I think you’ve probably got the correct replies already (see an audiologist a few times), but I wanted to share two quick anecdote that might explain your Grandfather’s reaction.

I recently bought a pair of swim goggles with blue tint to wear when I go swimming with my kids. I leave them on for about 45 minutes before taking them off. When I take them off it’s almost overwhelming how vibrant some colors become. It’s almost like someone took the saturation slider and dialed it to 300. The white walls around the pool, the orange rash guard my youngest was wearing, etc. They all become almost extreme.

I have a pair of TWS earbuds that you can ‘calibrate’ to your ears based on what seems to be a crude test (detect a beep at a frequency over a background noise). The profile it generates is very bright. It’s very possible I’ve lost that much hearing, especially since we lose high frequency first, but it’s a bit jarring. I find myself not wanting to accept that reality. I’m approaching 40 and haven’t been around that many sustained loud things without hearing protection. I do kind of like the sparkle, but it seems a bit over the top so I tend to turn it off. Perhaps your Grandpa is experiencing something similar?

You’re not going to find any of those in stores in the US either. Of all the brands i rattled off, the only one you can reliably find here is Birkenstock. However, you’re not going to find their shoes or boots. I had to order those from the web.

Xero shoes are a US brand, but I’ve never seen them in a store here. Groundies are German. Barebaics and Belanka are both from Slovakia.

The internet is a beautiful thing. Yeah, shipping from all over can be a bit slow but with standard measurements it’s not hard to order shoes that will fit correctly out of the gate.

And there is now so little choice!

There has been a consolidation of the major brands, but there’s a pretty solid niche market around foot shaped shoes.

Vibrams are the extreme. Birkenstock sneakers are pretty well shaped, but their soles are a bit rigid. I don’t mean that in a comfort way, I mean that in a bendable way.

More recent, to me at least, entrants are groundies, xero shoes, Barebarics, belenka, and a ton more.

Cut to the shape of an actual foot and flexible/minimalistic sole. I live in the Midwest, so I’ll compromise some ok sole thickness in the winter. Standing in snow with my kid at the bus stop in minimalistic soles and even thicker socks makes for quick feet.

Shape of your foot? I don’t understand why you would want your toes/foot contorted. I do not understand shoes that have a point in the middle of them. Either you’re smashing your toes together or your making something stick out in front of your foot that will mess up your gate.

Minimalistic sole? This will get you landing more softly on your heel and help you use the balls of your feet more. It’s amazing to me how thick/soft the soles of some shoes are. I suspect they’re necessary to compensate for the way a lot of us walk.

My feet feel fantastic and my motion feels very natural.