It sincerely feel absolutely insane. Completely beyond any party line bullshit - I'm almost as concerned with what Obama would do with this as what Trump would do with this.

This sort of ruling has no place in a democratic society. It is beyond reprehensible, it is utterly absurd.

The fact that it has been basically accepted by the general public - no riots, no large-scale outcry - sends a dire fucking message.

"May you live in interesting times", indeed.

Yes! There's so many cool apps on there! I wish the play store was similarly browsable.

I use Typewise, with its default hexagonal layout that's supposedly based on the frequency of letters in English. I've gotten alright with it - ~60 WPM on Monkeytype, which is enough that it doesn't feel clunky to use it. And it's quite fun to practice, too!

While I'm pretty sure it's quite possible to write faster with more predictive keyboards, I really appreciate the precision this one allows. Especially since I'm bilingual, which leads to autocorrect and swype getting quite confused sometimes.

I'm still in the market for a better keyboard app. Another interesting one I've tried was MessagEase. It looks really cool and arcane to use, but I found it to be slower in spite of me putting more effort into mastering it.

You can use most modern phones as a spirit level with the right app! It's really useful when doing projects around the house, not having to run around to find a real one. Quite accurate, too!

Been doing this too! Embarrassingly I still need to refer to my washing machine manual occassionally.

It's a really useful habit!

In a similar vein, I've also got a receipt scanner app - to make sure I've got 'em saved if I need to return or service something.

I had initially mentioned the custom keyboard app I was using. I have since edited the post to remove that, since I'm genuinely interested in people's answers and don't want them to think this is an ad.

Believe it or not, not every corner of the internet has been taken over by astroturfing as of yet!

I'm genuinely just sharing a cool keyboard app that has made my use-case far more fun for me. Another such app I used for a while was MessagEase, but unfortunately they went subscription-based (and also it was slower, even after a huge amount of practice).

This is definitely a huge one in my experience as well. Speech isn't great at communicating visual detail. It's amazing how the moment you start drawing you can just see it click in the other person's mind.

I've never had a phone with a stylus before, but you make a good case for it!

The phone flashlight is absurdly useful to me. I think I end up using it almost every single day.

Another use that comes to mind is google lens. Really easy and quick translation, and it helps me figure out what various random items are called - thrifting finds or plants, for example.

Northernlion. He's still a cool person in my books, but the moment he started actively trying to maximize revenue is when he began to lose his appeal to me. Nick's - RockLeeSmile's - departure was the first warning bell, but I stuck with him for a long while after that.

I completely get it, though - he wants to ensure a good future for his family.

For the same reasons they always have.

The year has little to do with it. The only things we've really undeniably progressed in over the past century are scientific knowledge and the level of technology. Existential philosophy hasn't exactly made breakthroughs recently, to my knowledge.

Each person still needs to find their own answer to the fundamental questions of "why am I here" and "wtf is death and how do I deal with it".

Our mechanical, scientific understanding of reality provides fairly depressing answers to these questions. Religion? Sunshine and roses.

Also, on a more practical factor: childhood indoctrination and cultural inertia. Most people are raised in religion and they find it "good enough", so religion continues.

Ehhh. I get that exploitative techbros and cryptobros have confused the issue by latching onto the AI bubble.

But at the same time generalized artificial intelligence is very likely possible and will be an absolute game-changer if and when it happens. It's easily of similar value to fusion technology.

And it is already bringing truly impressive results into reality - protein folding and diagnostic medicine come to mind.