Yaky

I thought SAP was shit until I worked with Microsoft Dynamics NAV, an ERP from alternate 1990s hell dimension. It has a built-in IDE that uses its own language called C/AL (syntactically similar to Pascal). The only source control is developers' ability to lock files they are working on. And the code editor is worse than notepad. Seriously, it does not allow to select or paste multiple lines, and in general, acts as if each line is it's own textbox. Forget about syntax highlighting or anything else other than black text on white background.

And, AFAIK, if your company needs to customize it, you are required to hire a "Microsoft-certified" NAV developer.

I think many chat clients at that time were XMPP based. We used Lotus Sametime at work, and now I am pretty certain it was XMPP (remembering some UX details and specifics), and it worked incredibly well.

IIRC Google Hangouts was XMPP, too.

Why not both? There are bridges that automatically convert and serve Gemtext to simple HTML for "regular" browsers.

In a similar manner, I wrote a set of scripts that takes gemtext source and creates both Gemini pages (by adding headers and footers) and static HTML pages (same but with some web-specific niceties - CSS, even JS snippets)

(And yes, I really enjoy gemtext markup for its simplicity)

LCDs from older devices (DVD players, cheap picture frames, even off-brand tablets, as long as LCD has a ribbon connector) can be salvaged and used with any other device using a ~$15-20 LCD driver.

Some old digital cameras can be used as a webcam via USB.

Very old keyboards might have DIP chips that could be reused (if the rest of the keyboard is damaged and you're into building your own keyboards that is)

Upgraded pick will save you time and energy, so absolutely.

You can get desert totems from the trader (in the desert), but I don't remember what she wants for it. Not as much material as building one yourself.

What's your usage pattern for those devices? Almost full discharge + fast charge?

Asking because I only noticed a very small degradation (judging by reported charge %) in a flagship device after 3 years. A midrange phone from 2020 with heavy usage (charged twice a day sometimes, often using a fast charger) for 2-3 years did not have noticeable battery degradation. A low-end device from 2016 had no noticeable degradation after 4-5 years. Another 5+ years old second-hand phone had some, but nothing catastrophic. The only case of bad battery degradation (shutdown at 20%, unreliable gauge, etc) I have only seen in 10+ year old devices.

I am curious if there have been studies on how much the slowness/delayed response of the device improves the attention span. (Since the distraction urge cannot be instantly satisfied)

Anecdotally, I find it very easy to get distracted when clicking on app takes fewer than a few seconds to start. When I test-drove the PinePhone, I felt I was much less distracted because bringing up the browser takes good 5-10 seconds, so I would only do that with a specific goal in mind.

Any details on the technology? "Beaming phone signals" doesn't tell anyone much. Would this require a proprietary antenna (thus new, flagship-only models after a few years, like iPhone 15 with its emergency satellite calls) for whatever protocol Starlink uses (unless there is some unified ground-to-satellite protocol by now)?

Satellite phones aren't new, but are expensive for obvious reasons.

Second-hand experience from many years ago when Starlink first rolled out: my friend has a cabin in the Appalachians, outside any cell service, so Starlink sounds great for that. However, Starlink site says there is "no coverage" for that area. Yes, somehow, no coverage for a satellite service. The nearest area with coverage was a town with already-decent 4G. And most large US cities had coverage too. So our inside "conspiracy theory" was that Starlink resells 5G/4G modems for hipsters.

Have no idea if the situation changed since then.

I love the Revelation Space world. Just the right mix of plausible-yet-not-handwaved for me. Some factions but no grand Empire or militaries. No FTL travel, so you are never coming back to the same world you left. Technological nano-catastrophe (and horrors related to that). Semi-intelligent algae that rewires the brain (Turquoise Days is a great short story about it). Galactic-scale projects and space anomalies.

Thank you for telling me about Revenger, I haven't read those yet.

The most memorable reads from this year were:

The Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemisin. While at first, the setting appears to be a fairly standard fantasy, there is a sci-fi depth to the world, its climate, cataclysms, history, and orogeny ("magic power" of the world).

And, if you are a fan of heavy-handed dystopian satire, Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman. It takes place in a not-too-distant future where a somewhat-apathetic researcher and a corporate scammer are trying to find the last living Venomous Lumpsucker, a highly intelligent fish species. There is climate change, corporate greed, half-baked international agreements, hackers, horrible AI, and, of course, delusional megalomaniac billionaires.