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1. Embed this notice
   emily, emitter of spooky noise (emily@sparkly.uni.horse)'s status on Friday, 12-Apr-2024 11:11:52 JST emily, emitter of spooky noise

   it's time for my annual hardware review, in which I iterate through all the categories of devices I really want to give people money for, and see if anyone has made one yet that fulfills my fairly short requirements lists:
   - non-Android non-iOS smartphone that can be bought with the expectation of using it as a handheld communication device and not an OS beta testing device
   - non-cloud robot lawnmower that can handle a nontrivially-sized, US-typical lawn, and is not comically expensive
   - stretch goal (I don't actively want them for any particular reason but I want them to exist and would play with one given the chance): AR/VR devices that are just displays and input devices and not a whole Ecosystem

   you may notice I use "non" and "not" a lot in these descriptions. this is because my technology requirements really are largely gathered by looking at things and going "ugh, not that"

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   • Embed this notice
     emily, emitter of spooky noise (emily@sparkly.uni.horse)'s status on Friday, 12-Apr-2024 11:11:51 JST emily, emitter of spooky noise

     in reply to

     things robot lawnmower reviewers care about:
     - did the reviewer like the app
     - making stripes on your lawn
     - avoiding children

     things I care about:
     - please do not make me use an app
     - making the grass shorter
     - scaring children away

     happy to mod the last one in myself by drawing a scary face on it, if they give me an appropriately large surface to do so on

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   • Embed this notice
     emily, emitter of spooky noise (emily@sparkly.uni.horse)'s status on Friday, 12-Apr-2024 11:14:07 JST emily, emitter of spooky noise

     in reply to

     also found this invest-in-startups thing via Purism using them, which says I should consider investing in wine or art (https://www.startengine.com/blog/collectibles/)

     I don't know why I find this so funny

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   • Embed this notice
     emily, emitter of spooky noise (emily@sparkly.uni.horse)'s status on Friday, 12-Apr-2024 11:14:08 JST emily, emitter of spooky noise

     in reply to

     phones: currently not looking good.

     Ubuntu Touch does not support VoLTE, which makes it basically unusable in the US.

     PostmarketOS doesn't have a single phone in their compatibility page with fully working camera support.

     Purism looks promising from their website but probably moderately janky in practice. I noped away from it when I saw people talking on forums about how to make the phone wake up from sleep on incoming calls.

   • Embed this notice
     emily, emitter of spooky noise (emily@sparkly.uni.horse)'s status on Friday, 12-Apr-2024 11:14:54 JST emily, emitter of spooky noise

     in reply to

     (at least part of it is because of the mental image of a rich person waking up with a hangover and then panicing because they drank all their Investment Wine last night)

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