Thanks!

Nah, the point would be to use it as a dumb phone, but as you point out it’s still Android, a “Smart” OS compacted into a “Dumb” shell, not a purpose built dumb phone OS. My concern would be the (lack of) optimization or bloat of said OS causing poor performance that results in a bad experience navigating even the dumb functions. The tablet I mentioned for example(RCA), you could make a sandwich between basic app launches…

Either way, enjoy the experience!

What make and model of cheap “dumb” phone did you choose? And how’s it running so far?

I might one day try something similar, but my experience with cheap hasn’t been good, and if it can barely turn on like a certain cheap tablet I once had, the experiment would end quickly.

If you’ve got a VPS at your disposal, many of the homepage softwares I’ve tried over the years have some amount of caching to make them quite fast or even operate offline(“Homer” for one required me to deeply purge my cache as it would still appear when my site was offline…despite having replaced it long ago! 😂). Or, if you wanted to roll your own static HTML page, you can absolutely add a Service Worker for your own offline caching.

That’s where I’m at now. I use a custom ServiceWorker static HTML for my homepage and tab page on all my devices. This page is a bouncer, checks if I’m at home or not(or if my local dashboard is offline) and either redirects me to the local homepage which has all my HomeLab services on it, or if it fails just tells me I might be abroad or offline and lists a few public websites.

And yes, this works offline or over a shitty connection. Essentially the service worker quickly provides the cached page from the browser storage, then tries to take the time to check the live version. If it gets one, it updates the cache, if not, enjoy the offline version.

Might be a bit over the top, but I set up a custom homepage startpage, and then grabbed the New Tab Override extension so that it opens on new tabs as well as being my homepage.

So if you can think of any websites that might do what you want like cardd or link tree, or are interested in making your own little webpage and hosting it somewhere free, that might work and as a bonus will be the same across all your browsers and devices. Could even load it up on someone else’s computer if you remember the link.

Looking at it, seems not. Google store page says it doesn’t follow best practices and may soon no longer be supported. AFAIK it’s a single dev hobby project so this might be the end of it. Ah well. I’ll just no longer have as many free skins for games.

I only break out Chrome(or Edge) for two reasons:

One is access to serial ports to flash ESP devices, or update the firmware on my XR glasses. Firefox can’t do that.

The other is to automate Twitch drop collection. The addon I found to reload broken streams and collect drops while I’m at work only has a Chrome version.

Regarding 2, it feels to me as time wears on there are fewer and fewer online spaces in general. I fear it won’t be long before the internet is just a handful of “competing” social media companies and that one outlier group running the “Fediverse” that the propaganda says is the “Dark Web”.

Everything ends someday. It might be something we thought we’d move past with the digital age but, even digital requires resource input to keep going and that means it can and will end.

This does not surprise me at all. What were they supposed to do? Flash is dead, which broke most of the games on a site like this anyway. And kids, even young ones, go straight to Fortnite level video gaming these days, not flash sites.

It’s sad for those of us who grew up on this kind of thing, but like many other relics of the past the world moves on to something new. The Internet Archive and Flashpoint Archive will museum whatever functions without a server connection and the rest is lost to history, revered in our memories.

It’s just the nature of things. Like how a mere handful of social media websites today replace an internet once flooded with personal websites and small communities. I’m sure the next Cartoon Network sponsored game will just be a Fortnite event or Metaverse room.

Not entirely a nothing burger, I think. If there’s any truth to the anti-cheat outrage, there’s a large population of average joes handing out ring 0 access to a growing number of third or fourth party companies for the purpose of kernel level anti-cheat in video games.

Still a supply chain attack or a vulnerability in one of the A/C programs, but not as impossible as we would like it to be.

Same, though in my case my sole use is the IR. Replaced so many random little remotes from random little light up things.

Yeah, I can see more of this happening as demand for quality products increases.

Things that don’t need replaced don’t bring in more money year over year, which means they have to keep coming up with other excuses for you to buy a new one just to stay above water.

Any time purchases reach critical mass and mostly everyone has bought the “last gizmo you’ll ever need”, they’ll have to release the last-last gizmo you’ll ever need.

One-time purchase forever mouse would just mean once sales drop they need to release the forever-ever mouse, now with an extra button, then when that one peaks, the forever-and-ever mouse, with one more button than that.

Or they’ll hit a ceiling and go the way of Instant Pot.

It feels like a choice between rental(this) or rental with extra e-waste(any time you replace a cheaply made or planned obsolescence product) and it sucks.

I once thought the point of conservatism was to put the brakes on wild new ideas and rapid changes, play advocate for the old ways and make sure we’re slow and thoughtful about new ideas. Then I realized that apparently the job is to drag everything absolutely backwards.

As it was before, so it shall be again. This is the will of the GOP it seems.

Wire coat hangers are going to be inexplicably more popular than plastic again too. No relation I’m sure.

Many don’t think he can pull it off, which is the scary part that might let him do it.

“Oh, that’s all talk. He can say what he wants but can’t do shit without the House and Congress, and if he wanted to change things to get more terms? With states majority agreement that’s required? Not in his lifetime. You worry for nothing, PassingThrough, it’s all showmanship, as it always has been. And no, the Army wouldn’t help such an obvious fool overthrow the government either.”

You jest, but sometimes I wonder if there would be a huge market for smoke and engine noise simulators. Given those are the two biggest things emanating from the parking lot car show, followed by sound systems, I do wonder…

Birds of a feather. Joe isn’t great about Palestine, trying too hard to be politically delicate about it I think, but Donald is absolutely going to support Israel without hesitation.

After all, only thing that matters to the Don is whether you can pay for his support…

That’s…

On the one hand, you get to be the guy that let everyone in and ensured victory. Couldn’t have done it without ya.

On the other, you crawled through shit to do it. You’re now forever the battalion’s shit crawler, and probably smell like it even when you don’t.

You’d be both celebrated and ridiculed til the end of your days.

Which is true in context. It’s a traditional name but it is not the highest authority, if you can make your case the appeals court can overrule them, making them the highest authority.

Maybe not by name, but by job it does. That’s why it “kinda” makes sense. The court might be Supreme in name but not in duty, whoever got to write up the org chart realized that the appeals court got the final say and was the real top dog.

willing to ignore

Ignore? I have it on unfortunately good authority that at least a decent chunk of his base agree with what he is spouting and are loving how he “speaks the truth” or “says what they’re all thinking”. Sadly he’s enabling more and more of them to feel comfortable saying the quiet part out loud and acting on their impulses.

I mean, it kinda makes sense. Especially in this day and age an appeal is the final say, not the court ruling(feels like everything gets appealed). So, this way the place that happens is the highest court in the state. The final ruling is whether the highest non-appeals court did it right, not the original issue.

Or, put another way, if you tell me the highest court in the land has made a decision, I would expect that to be the end of it. But it’s not. From the moment the verdict is read lawyers are preparing an appeal. Therefore, whatever court takes the appeal makes the true final decision. Why not then make that the highest court in the land and better reflect the role?