On Thu, 29 Apr 2021 20:42:17 +0100 Brian <a...@cityscape.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thu 29 Apr 2021 at 14:21:22 +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: > > [...] > > > BTW I'm not really a luddite [1]. I'd consider a smart phone if I > > had a comparable control over its guts as I have of my laptop, take > > or give. Those options are, alas, a tad to pricey for my current > > income. > > I inagine you might feel the same way about tvs and washing machines. > Why would he? I'm pretty sure there's no camera in the drum of my new washing machine, so all it can report is how often the various wash cycles are run. I have no problem with that, nor do I wish to reprogram it. And while it cost as much as a reasonably good smartphone, it is orders of magnitude more useful. I do have a smartphone, donated by a family member who gets through them fairly quickly. But it's not mine, it's owned by Google, so there's nothing personal stored on it apart from a few phone numbers. I have a netbook for the times when I need a computer outside my house, smartphones are just toys. I do also have a small (second-hand) tablet which I was hoping to use as a portable computer, but it cannot manage to run apache2 and mariadb at the same time. It can, perhaps surprisingly, do either of them individually. TVs are another matter. Mine will tell nobody about my choice of viewing material because it's about ten years old. But when we inevitably replace it and have no choice about accepting a 'smart' TV, it still will know nothing about me, because only my wife watches it. Again, it's of much more use to her than her smartphone. We are aware that smartphones and the hypothetical 'smart' TV will listen to conversations occurring in their vicinities, so we go somewhere else for any private conversation. -- Joe
