New E-Ink Phone/Devices

It’s November 3rd, and I still have an Apple Product, someone save me!! Oh, right, I can only save myself!! So I have been removing photos/videos very slowly but surely. I was able to take down all my notes, journal entries, and apple imessages. I found a cool program that allowed me to do that for iMessage. Now I just have text files of all my old conversations. That really helps in dissolving myself away from Apple. My plan is just to fully delete the iCloud account entirely. Move on. I can do it, it might be tough, yet I can do it. If ‘shit hits the fan’ and this computer here dies, I still have a USB to boot debian on a different device. I don’t need a MacBook Neo. I have only convinced myself that I do. I don’t need a web-browser on my “debianbook air” I can simply transfer files onto this device via usb. How would I gain such files? Yes, this is the tricky part. I would use my new e-ink device. It’s super slow, as it’s e ink, so no worries about watching videos. I decided to quit videos, entirely, electronic voice is still something I was use, I understand that there are setbacks when it comes to digital electronic voice, and mind manipulation through that means of exchange, I would just say it’s far better off than video. Video=NO BUENO

No More Videos!!!

Quitting the entire medium, would be considered impossible in todays world. With the measures I’ve taken against social media, I still have the FOMO piece. I still have my website, a phone, and connect with people in my life. I no longer have the enchanced vision of feeling like I have 2k friends, as everything is condensed into my own life. The real world if you will. I’m not going to agree with people on it, and I am not here to argue about social media. I am done with it. I battled with it. I understand that my message could be amplified on it. Yet, as I am against the vision medium, as it lacks depth and understand, I will not be using it. It’s a principle.

I understand some would argue against my stance, and that I am not doing enough to be a spiritual warrior. Yet, I am providing depth to those who wish to live a similar lifestyle to myself. I will meet other people in person, and I can share my website that way. I can make internet friends, my main thing is that we would commmunicate through our own writings, right?

Deviating from the video media. Let me talk about the problems of video. It provides no depth. It’s base. Advertising has been hjjacked by it. Let’s be honest, the whole internet is overtaken by AI and Advertising. Don’t trust AI!! People are just so easy. People will buy into things just as it is the popular thing to do. I understand that people could argue I am being a “counter-cultural” on purpose. I understand that arguement. It’s valid. Yet, I don’t trust LCD or OLED screens anymore.

There’s an evolving force with this stuff. When it comes to the visual medium, we have used the analog television in the past. We would watch television, through the tube. The cathode ray television. Then, LCD technology became popular, with computers, so slowly television LCD panels were invented. Plasma screens as well. Plasma is so cool, I have two back at my mothers. I won’t be watching anything on them though, as again, I am done with television, and video. No more video! So now, it’s like all of these things have merged into this one beast of control. LCD panels are so cheap, that everyone has a television. People who don’t have televisions, usually have a reason for not having one. I would imagine that parts of the population don’t use the television as much as others. For example, I still have a televsion, yet, I would consider any LCD or OLED device a “television”. Sure, this linux debian-book is limited in what it can do. It can still access the internet though! So I am considering just disabling web-browsing entirely. Saying goodbye to firefox or brave. The main concerns would be banking. How would I get my banking done? Autopay, probably will be the moves. Then, I can just use this for text based activity. Listen, I don’t mean to sound conspiracy theorist, I just think it’s wildly interesting how LifeLog and Facebook came-out on the same day. It’s like, woah, this thing the state developed for surveillance was developed at the same time Facebook came out. And listen. I understand that I am still being “tracked” or whatever that means. Facebook probably still has my data. It isn’t about that! It’s more-so for me, the video. No video! If this could be e-ink I would swing for it. Tying this back to web-browsing though comes down to the fact that it’s easy to find video with the way search is ranked. Removing a web-browser entirely from my computer, is a solution. I can work out the kinks. I still have my MacBook Neo. Right now, atleast. I bought one of the e-ink phones for 80 dollars, the Hisense A5. I would like to use this for the “web browsing tasks” yet, I have a problem with the security on a old android like that.

I’m worrying about the future, and sure, there are levels to this, and the banking layer is another excuse. The question “How can I pay rent? How will I pay gas/electric? How about internet?” that’ll pull me into buying another one of these e-ink devices for banking. I can use cash, for most of my day to day interactions. Also, there might be a way to lock down the browser more on here, to do specific things. Maybe, I could block EVERY website, expect the ones I want to access, once I know of the site. It might be a little jarring though, to do all of this work. I remember learning this though, there is a way to do this on linux. That’s probably better way out of this, rather than the idea of removing browser entirely. Like I wrote, I have Brave and FireFox. I have a few bank accounts and a few sites to access to pay my bills. This gets me into the idea of a relationship with the internet, and using it for specific things, so sure, actually writing all this down lead me to that conclusion. Maybe I could disable web-browsing on firefox, and then just use the hisense for web-browsing, yet that web-browsing to be for finding events, finding links to blogs, and I will develop my own routine around that. That’s solid work. I have my debianbook air for all my specific tasks, personal tasks.

Another thing is email. I hateeee using all these email providers. When you start to disentangle yourself from AI and the Internet, it’s like “NOOOO I can’t remove my 10 year old gmail account from existence! I NEED to keep it (just in case)” So I find myself struggling with that right now. The two main reasons I am not getting rid of my MacBook Neo come down to work and accessing all those email accounts and scattered ashes of dead accounts I will never access again. Part of my work, is removing myself from all those platforms, I have been largely successful, I do have some content that still exists, that I would take down over time, yet for the most part, I can let go of that thinking too. I will get to it. My email systems aren’t perfect due to advertisers. It’s sick actually! I wasn’t even an adult yet, and advertisers already got me. It’s way over-normalized, that speaking about this, I AM THE WEIRD ONE?! Advertising IS NOT. NORMAL. It’s inherently evil, especially when it comes to the video format. Man, I love writing these blogposts. One day, I will have archives and archives of my thoughts. I just had a thought, probably AI will scrape all of this, and people will just read from the AI. Let me make this clear. I am 100% against AI. I can’t see myself using it. I will not trust it. Even if I were to build my own AI, I wouldn’t trust it. A “summary” of someones thoughts IS the problem. Wikipedia IS the problem. Shallow information. That’s what I am discussing here. E-Ink is great, yet, I still must remain guarded in what I do online. Internet as a tool. In reality, the further I go along, the more I will realize how much I don’t need it.

Alright, I ended up keeping firefox, yet removing brave. I am still not loving this setup. A strong part of me wants to delete firefox entirely. Really, come on man, it’s going to be sooooooo tempting. I understand that I set-up in a better way where search wouldn’t work. I also made it so certain sites can' even be accessed by the root of the device. Then I would just use w3m. I’ll keep coming up with excuses to use search engines, I am sure of it. For banking, that is a lame excuse. How often do I realistically need to check my bank accounts? It should only be to pay my accounts, and my rent. Then I’ll go on to do my bank accounts, yet end up doing a number of other things instead. It’s a sad performance. Not to mention, the fact that not even all the bank accounts work on this device. I would still rather use ebay on here than my macbook neo. I would attempt to use ebay on the new eink device I am buying. I am just not vibing with it! I could stop selling on ebay, perhaps, hm. It’s a tough call. I wouldn’t want to recall firefox, and then require to use it again. Welp. I would like to stop using ebay entirely. I understand the financial aspects of using it, to sell devices, yet I realized that the company is thriving off the buy it and then sell it later motto. Not a real fan. I would rather buy and sell in cash. I understand that I will miss out on things. I am okay with that, as everyone else in the society will be talking about it. I will see the devices out and about. I understand the cost saving I would do with using amazon or ebay on bulk items. I understand the conveience of it all. You know what isn’t conveient? Losing my time to scrolling through useless websites that shift and change all the time. w3m will allow me to access the important sites. I can build out email on this device. I am prepared to lack firefox capabilities on this device at least. Then truly, I will only have my MacBook Neo. Part of me doesn’t even want to have to keep it. Oh well. Like I said, I could probably navigate a way out of this over time. The solution is to not use the internet for banking as much. Once I sell the remaining ebay items, I can just logout and never use it again. I just went ahead and removed firefox, to rely completely on w3m. I understand that downloading firefox is just a click away, this is still for my own safety, and standard. This laptop won’t have that sort of access. I would call this computer, an ‘analog computer’. I can still access the internet, yet I am only accessing it through the terminal. Much safer, and will protect me from watching or doomscrolling videos. When I choose to get rid of my MacBook Neo, I can find alternatives. I would probably just delete my accounts when I finally leave for good. I still require it for my current work, so as I use it for that, I will just keep chipping away at my internet accounts, deleting them, letting go. I don’t know. Like I said, worst case, I can use someone else’s phone. Seriously, it’s not the end of the world. I will probably end up deleting my credit cards, just keeping a local bank. Paypal, venmo and cashapp, I will probably end up keeping. Like I said, I don’t know. It’s all very tough to navigate. I would simply want to get into autopay for all of those things, rent and bills, and then my bank account would do the rest, while I take out cash for my spendings.

At the end of the day, it seems really complicated, and it is! I was raised on the machine, so changing the way I interact with the machine is tough. Certain things are just standard. I’d bet there are so many people who think dating apps is the standard way to smash or find love still. Yeah, you probably could smash, odds are though, it would be a terrible dynamic. I am very phobic to the idea of meeting people online now, that just meeting them through a dating app, has the issue on the level of anti-tech stuff, most people on dating apps, have iphones, and are just plugged in. I know, as I was like this for so many years! Deluded in the systems cycle. Communicating through apps and social media isn’t real. You are socializing with a person and then AI in between.

Back onto the topic of this blogpost. I am working through not using the browser. I am working on getting rid of my MacBook Neo. I would like to get to a place where the only screen I look at is the one that I am typing on currently, with out web browsing capabilities. Like I said, I am still using my MacBook Neo, so while I use that, I can start to put new boundaries between things, and really depart from that way of living. No more Amazon, eBay. No more banking apps, and that’ll be something to work through. I mean I still have my graphene OS, again, I just don’t want another excuse or another LCD screen. I am mainly arguing with myself on this, as most people wouldn’t have the specific issue I have, I mean once my money gets flowing more, I wouldn’t have to check my accounts all the damn time. I will have the money come in, for it to be transferred, for my credit cards to be paid automatically. Taking a period of not spending on my credit cards would help too. I mean, maybe once I get this new e-ink phone, I can take steps to use my Graphene OS Pixel for specific webtasks, like banking. IDK, I am just nervous about being sucked back in! I would rather keep my graphene OS phone than my MacBook Neo, to be real, so you know what, I am actually feeling pretty good about getting rid of the neo now, moreso than before, as I know there is a way to do my work on a graphene OS phone, it might just be more of a pain in the arse. Actually, I am going to test that out today. It’s an exciting time! You know what, I feel dumb now as I can totally get off the MacBook Neo. The excuses aren’t real once you find a sub-in. I’ll sub out the MacBook Neo, and have the Graphene-OS fill it’s spot. Then, I would have two LCD/OLED devices I use. (primarily this one) and the Graphene-OS for work and banking. Yes, I can see it now, it makes more sense!

Best, Aidan