• 0 Posts
  • 2 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

help-circle
  • I’m still rocking a Galaxy Watch 4: one of the first Samsung watches with WearOS. It has a true always-on screen, and most should. The always-on was essential to me. I generally notice within 60 minutes if an update or some “feature” tries to turn it off. Unfortunately, that’s the only thing off about your comment.

    It’s a pretty rough experience. The battery is hit or miss. At good times, I could get 3 days. Keeping it locked, (like after charging) used to kill it within 60 minute (thankfully, fixed after a year). Bad updates can kill the battery life, even when new: from 3 days life to 10 hours, then to 3 days again. Now, after almost 3 years, it’s probably about 30 hours, rather than 3 days.

    In general, the battery life with always-on display should last more than 24 hours. That’d be pretty acceptable for a smartwatch, but is it a smartwatch?

    It can’t play music on its own without overheating. It can’t hold a phone call on its own without overheating. App support is limited, but the processor seems to struggle most of the time. Actually smart features seem rare, especially for something that needs consistent charging.

    Most would be better off with a Pebble or less “smart” watch: better water resistance, better battery, longer support, 90% of the usable features, and other features to help make up for any differences.


  • Vote. Seriously. (If practical: get involved, too). The U.S. is currently in the middle of a large shift of generational power.

    Many of these changes are fairly recent:

    • 2020 was the first federal election where the Baby Boomers didn’t make up the largest voting generation.
    • It was only in 2016 that the number Gen X and younger voting numbers grew larger than the boomer and older numbers.
    • Those numbers had been possible since 2010. Despite having more eligible voters (135M vs 93M), the “GenXers and younger” only had ~36M actual voters, compared to ~57M older ones.

    Looking forward, the numbers only get better for younger voters. There hasn’t been a demographic shift like this in the U.S. in a long time (ever?). The current power structures can not be maintained for much longer. It is still possible for that shift to be peaceful. Please encourage the peaceful transfer: vote. Vote in the primaries. Maybe even vote for better voting systems. This time is unique, but change takes time. Don’t let them fool you otherwise: that’s just them trying to hold on to their power.