mattie [they/them]

When I was using my Sony Xperia, the headphone jack was pretty darn nice. I got some truthear hex IEMS and honestly the isolation was better than any NC headphones I’ve used, but I may just be lucky w the fit. <be> Bluetooth is cool, but so much e waste will become of true wireless, and even just most battery powered headphones because of the difficulty replacing battery. I know fairphone headphones have a replaceable battery which is neat. <be> IEMs are pretty cool. You can get cable replacements, Bluetooth adapters, and straight to USB cables too. Can recommend

Star Trek Elite Force. Weird combo for Star Trek to make a game in the Quake engine, but I love it

Probably a torment nexus. There is push on more wearables like Smart Glasses, basically making the Apple Vision style stuff cheaper and more wearable, but damn is there so much personal data they can grab with having something strapped to your face all the time. Maybe some stuff with Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) but god I hope not.

This is something I’ve been experimenting with myself, frankly I feel since moving away from mainstream social media I feel no where near as obligated to my phone, but there’s still definitely some aaaaa I have shackled to it. Here are some of my things that I feel have helped?

For desktop browsers (I use firefox):

• SocialFocus https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/socialfocus/ is great. Basically blocks/hides all the dark patterns on websites as you choose I used to use instagram/facebook a lot and this disables so many of the distracting features. It works with a lot of sites now incl. reddit, really recommend
• UblockOrigin https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/ gets rid of so many distracting things. Make sure you’ve turned on the filter list in the settings
• Disable search suggestions, maybe clear your history regularly too with something like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/history-cleaner/

For mobile stuff (I use android, will somewhat only apply for that):

• All the previously mentioned extensions are available on Firefox for Android
• If you can, perhaps transition to a smaller phone. The smaller the screen, the less incentive there is to use it. I picked up a Pixel 2 for dirt cheap recently, popped LineageOS on it and it feels a lot less… loud?
• Disable as many notifications as possible, except crucial ones. The less incentive/need to look at your phone and get distracted, the better
• Something like a minimal launcher may help? https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.ottop.yamlauncher/
• Find devices other than your phone to use for things. Get a cheapo watch with a timer, a cheapo MP3 player, a gameboy if you have it lying around or something, physical books from your local library? Again, the less you have to actually open your phone, the better.

I’ve recently been playing renegade Platinum and put it on my custom-firmware DSi XL. Super fun n quite hard