Tech Cha-Cha

I looked down and my phone was at 38% charge.

This isn't much of an issue in and of itself but I had left it on the puck all night. I assumed I had an alignment issue in the dark and the induction unit just didn't kick on.

Walking into the radio room where I was going to be comping most of the day on 40m I tossed it on the back up charger. Nothing...

There's a kind of irony to sitting at a tiny low power radio, headphones on, pencil in hand to copy morse code and wondering what's wrong with the 21st century communicator. 40m was quiet. It's a weekday and mid day so band conditions weren't that great and numbers were down. I returned to the question of charging my phone.

Googling Samsung Galaxy Charging Issues....it turns out that it's not uncommon, it's not hardware, and it's almost got the whiff of planed obsolescence upon it.

One thing I love about my Amateur Radio gear is that typically until component failure, it just works. It's got common voltages, fairly easy to understand circuits and rather customizable as I've built a half dozen code keys and used half as many pairs of headphones. The finer bits of the radio are particularly nice when compared to transmitters I've constructed on my own but it always seems to work. Year after year after year, there's no OS upgrades and there's very little incentive outside the technical limitations to upgrade. Smartphones however, somehow have transcended the bounds of technology.

The enshitification of everything seems to revolve around money. Affluence, real of perceived has been something that has kept us chasing stuff since the marketing departments of yore first noticed it. When it was sneakers in my youth, it was simply fashion. There wasn't anything the technology Nike was offering that was going to make Joe Blow a better athlete. Much like the technology of my radio, it took a skilled operator to get the most out of it and you were otherwise showing off. Harley Davidson continues to inspire people, men mostly, to part with voluminous amounts of money for an anachronism to look "cool." And now we have Smartphones.

Thanks to Apple which is an unnovation company, not imbuing what was once a revolutionary piece of technology with more state of the art features, but dumb gimmicks everyone must do this. My J8 Sky Galaxy was a great smartphone, OS would not be upgraded past x... not apps would work... sentenced to digital proscription from the community. My A20 Galaxy it turns out like many 2019 models in the 5 year and older range despite being great tools with great sensors and having worked flawlessly for suddenly seems set for a similar fate. Why? Why do we have to endure this stupid rat race in tech? Why have we let the commercial sector once again dictate to us what we want in the name of fashion? I watch 5, 7, 10 minute reviews trying to find the next level of this nonsense that is supported and will allow me to continue what I have invested in. I don't want AI. I don't want bizarrely high screen resolutions on a post card. I don't want stereo speakers on said post card... I want next generation connectivity, dual band WiFi, Next Gen Bluetooth, 5G, battery life, storage and RAM.... who the hell cares what color it is you're going to put it in a case!

Apple is who I blame, they turned something creative into masturbation and for what... 25 years ago it was something else to have a smartphone. 30 years ago it was something else to have a cell phone. 31 years ago I got a license from the FCC and started building and operating my own technical gear. Three decades from it being something that took a little effort to selling out so a new market of imbeciles could be born. Imbeciles who know nothing about how any of it works only that as Spock said to Kirk in Star Trek the Motion Picture, "it only knows that it wants." And as unfulfilled as Vyger will you remain, brainlessly collecting the next bit of tech as you search for your answers.

inquiry

> The enshitification of everything seems to revolve around
> money.

Who created and continues to believe in money?

Money is inert. We - individually - endow it with more or less power.

Surely that's closer to root cause.

> Affluence, real of perceived has been something that has
> kept us chasing stuff since the marketing departments of
> yore first noticed it.

The likes of affluence and marketing have power only over those whose self considers them relevant.

Seems to me we can blame a lot of things (e.g. corporations, capitalism), but they're ultimately mostly - if not entirely - things we've created and persist in believing in to our own demise.

Silly (some of) us!