Gil -

congrats on your upgraded palmtop, external keyboard, trackball and all!   When I saw the name (Note10) I thought maybe it was technically a Phablet (is that even a contemporary term?  how big does a phone (or small a tablet) have to be to be a phablet?) I'd probably go for a phablet if I had bigger pockets... maybe if I took up wearing nothing but bib overalls (as too many of my relatives do... not even a t-shirt in the summer) it would be "just right" (big chest-pocket).

Sorry you didn't find a physical-keyboard model to acquire... REC's links were surprising, I thought they were totally deprecated!

<self-indulgent tangential rant> I share your preference for used/refurbed even though I know that stream tends to be a *fraction* of the *new* stream size...   one upcycle/recycle loop in the stream is at least a nudge in the right direction.   It is a little like my philosophy on picking up hitchhikers.   Not only do I give someone in need a ride somewhere, I also lower the anxiety of the next 10-100 folks driving by who might "worry" either that they shoulda-but-didn't-pick-them-up or that-person-is-crazy-dangerous-and-I-hate-the-world.   I'm now on the back end of this process now, carefully seeking new (probably final) homes for old tech that I rescued a decade or two ago, got good use from, and am now ready to "share forward" one more time... like the three LCD monitors I unloaded on you recently!

But fusion energy will "fix all that", we can just dump our old tech into the tiny-suns at the hearts of each building/community (heck in the chest of your suit of flying armour, tony stark style!).  It wasn't that long ago that every commercial building (Industry or apartments) had their own incenerator in the basement where *everything* was flash-fried and the results belched into the (already murky?) air over the cityscape.   Good for human-remains disposal too?

I'm not doing it myself, but I did discover that along with better and better methods for turning PET/HDPE? plastic bottles into 3D printer filament, that in the Himalayan highlands, they are building rocket-mass heaters capable of consuming (most of) the toxic emissions when plastic waste is burned (too often burned open-pit there).  The very high combustion temperatures in the throat of the (very low-tech) rocket stove are enough to break down *most* of the noxious bits and then the rapid condensation when the "jet" hits the "bell" of the stove  means that most of the toxic by-products end up on the inner surfaces of the bell and the exhaust is mostly just above-ambient temperature CO2/H2O.  The hydrocarbon chains are also dense fuel compared to cellulose, so the desired high combustion temperatures are easier to obtain and maintain.   I do let the plastic-window-bits of my junk-mail go into mine but no juice bottles or cello wrapping for me...   I mostly stick to aluminum and glass which is either well worth the effort to recycle or mostly inert.  My rocket-mass stove is pretty happy eating typical yard-waste, I don't want to spoil it with high-test plastic!

On my trip to EU I upgraded the fairly lame solar-rechargeable 6500 mAh  battery packs to 30k versions suitable for multiple phone recharges and even driving a heated travel blanket.   I have been handing out $5 bills, chocolate bars, and hand-toe warmers to folks flying signs on the street and I *hope* one of them can make good use of on of these (now 10+ year old) power banks even though they A) barely top up a half-empty contemporary cell phone, and B) take several days of full sun to recharge without plugging into a USB source.   I do have an older Android whose, battery is only good for an hour or two I suppose I could pair with one of these...  I haven't been able to get the 2 hand-me-down iPads I have updated well enough to do *anything*...   first significant "planned obselescence" I've seen in Apple Products... or I'd pass those along as well.

I just reconnected with the SF MakerSpace (you should check them out if you don't know them) and I'm hoping they can absorb some of my duplicate/triplicate shop/hand tools that several dead/retiring men left to me over the last decade or two.   The coming population collapse (next pandemic, next assault-rifle-armed-MAGA temper tantrum, next rogue authoritarion with nuclear codes?) will leave us (or not) all with way more gak than we know what to do with... time to start being clever upcyclers!

</rant>

- Steve


On 12/20/22 12:12 PM, Gillian Densmore wrote:
First up is samsungs note 10. In a nutshell fun af, and complete, It's old phone that feals modern af. love the option to use a stylus for notes. It's a chonker of a phone. This one was refurbed*. It came from amazon and it's good as new. fantastic reception. and yeah just a cool phone. android

A external keyboard: (don't have a link atm): Omg what a difference for quick texts when going to googles messages from the web is overkill. The one I have Is more meant for inplace typing. and meant to be used with a case and I think on a desktop or something. Sigh RIPish phones with keyboards.

Elecom Deft: <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GQZVH78?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1>       (arg gmails weird way to format!!): at any rate: in short? love it. It's trackball. I had one  like it for a few years before it broke.  I got it on impulse because I got frustrated with the small mousing area of my desk. It pleasantly surprised me how fast I adjusted. This one is wireless which is fantastic when you have a small space. I have no clue about the mechanical side. Just after a week and change of use it's  my favorite mouse so far. I've tried one with a bajillion dpi and polling rates and blah blah. but this relatively simple guy is just...fun? to use. I haven't tried it with games yet. if it's like the other trackball I suspect i'll be good. Has function buttons, I think those are for macros. All in all just  great. uses 2.4 ghtz usb dongle to connect and a AA battery. *I've gotten to prefer used gizmos because of being very concerned about the environment.
Back to our regularly scheduled geek out about Ai.

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