MentalEdge

National anthem plays

To an extent. Maximum calm would just be unconsciousness, I don’t think you’d be doing a lot of thinking at that point.

Well, I’d start with physical buttons. Forget stuff like face ID. A button that scans your fingerprint is a lot simpler to “get”. Same goes for volume keys.

Automatic screen brightness is pretty good, but if it weren’t a thing, buttons would work there. That’s how laptops do it.

I’d add a feature that makes certain settings reset to “default” after a configurable amount of time (or never). Airplane mode or mute could turn off over night, so grandma can never “disable” her phone and become unreachable, or unable to reach anyone. (Except by turning it off, a concept almost no-one has to be taught)

Give me the ability to disable quick settings in the notifications shade, grandma doesn’t need to toggle nfc, wifi, her data connection, or start screen recording (I literally tried to remove all the quick settings, but there’s a minimum!). Hell, get rid of the notification shade completely and make it a physical button that just opens your messages from whatsapp, sms and email, all in one list.

I don’t think we need to dumb down everything a phone can do. And I think we can assume an elderly person can get help with changing settings or setting it up to begin with. As such, what I wish fir, is for the simple stuff to be even simpler, and for the complicated stuff to be hidden away and essentially have configurable child locks, so they can’t be touched, except by someone who knows what the stuff does.

It should be possibly to put a device in a mode where it is “senile-proof”. But it isn’t. My grandmother can, and has, put her devices in a state where they do not work, simply by turning on airplane mode without realizing. And our current solution is to use Life 360, so we can check that her phone is still “online” and have someone visit her to fix it, if it isn’t.

I’ve done it over phone many times. I have a system.

I have them read whatever is on screen until I figure out what they’re looking at.

Then I use one of my own devices to follow along, so I have an idea of what they’re seeing, so I can give extremely specific instructions.

Sounds ok.

But limiting. My grandma is still able to learn and think.

She currently uses a tablet and a phone. Android, set up by me, and locked down as much as possible.

One home screen, with the apps she wants on one half of the screen, and a widget that shows notifications on the other half. (Limited only to notifications from apps like whatsapp, etc., she doesn’t need see that the phone updated the OS during the night etc.)

This way, all I had to do, was tell her how the home button works, and how the back button works. No explaining quick settings or the notification shade.

From there, she’s slowly learned each app, always safe in knowing she can hit home/back if confused, and take it from the beginning.

The notification widget has been especially good, as it is always there showing her her messages, and she can tap them to go straight to replying.

It’s infuriating to me that all modern devices require extra steps, just to see messages you’ve received. The way a message would be shown on the lock screen and then be “gone” upon unlocking the screen was infinitely confusing to her.

I’ve never lost patience with my grandma like that. She’s old, a sweet person (most of the time) and perfectly intelligent if you let her be.

In fact when guiding her with tech, I hate the way she calls herself stupid and slow when she makes mistakes.

We just don’t make tech for old people the way we should. There are “accessible” phones but the ones I’ve had experience with are atrocious hackjobs with deal-breaking quirks, when the whole point is to be simple.

Nextcloud was my thought as well.

Calendar, file storage, and social features. All fairly integrated once you get it set up.

The hurdle would be that setup, getting the right apps installed to get the calendar and social features you want enabled.

And I’ve not really seen anything that can do calendars better than Nextcloud.

I’d be happy to advise on that, OP.

Yeah… I’m not gonna be asking the stuff I already found answers to via an internet search.

These big companies don’t learn that fast.

The decisions to “invest” in these live service projects were made years ago, and execs are terminally allergic to pulling the plug on something once it’s a couple million deep.

They’re like cruise ships crashing into icebergs, except that once they set a course they aren’t set up to change it even if all the other ships start crashing and sinking.

There should be a library type called “Home videos and photos” for that.

Huh? Like just sitting there?

Or is it running a heavy background task like trickplay generation? You can disable trickplay (scrobbling previews) if your system isn’t beefy enough to keep up with them.

I run video game servers on my system, and while stream transcodes used to interfere with them, even that was fixed my assigning JF and the games to run on separate CPU cores.

Is that the meanest “go away” you can manage?

Really?

Just block me. Or stop responding, even.

I keep replying because that’s what I do when there’s even a fraction of a chance I get through.

I will repeat the same paraphrased ideas at you over and over, so that even if you only read every other sentence, the full idea might make it into your head.

I’m asking why you can’t be nice. Or failing that why you don’t want to be.

That you aren’t, is obvious. And not an answer to anything.

You’ve now admitted to being intentionally malicious.

That’s NOT an improvement.

Why do you do that?

The only possible interpretation I can make here, is that you just put together a sentence for the sole purpose of trying to upset me.

That is not a nice thing to do. No mature adult should ever need to go there.

Yet you have.

Why can’t you just… Not?

I’m confused. What does this have to do with the fact that you’re being difficult?

You changed your position. Good. I knew that. See how that last comment of mine was in past tense? But that does not absolve you for the comments you made and continue to make.

Nothing in how you’re acting makes me think you’ll be nicer about it the next time you get your mind changed. And that’s what I’m telling you to change.

Buddy. You’re on a tantrum. You ain’t taking us anywhere except the verbal equivalent of slinging shit at each other.

But I’m not here for conversation. I’m here to show you this ain’t productive, and that you need to stop.

You’ve been set straight on an assumption about people, that might have called into question your own self worth.

If you genuinely thought everyone shit-talks, it follows that it is something you do.

If that’s the case, the fact that there are people who don’t, might have made you feel like a worse person in contrast.

That’s ok. But you need to start thinking about what you’re gonna do about it. And doubling down on the stuff that makes you difficult to like, aint it.

Then stop replying.

Or derailing your own thread by being an ass, for that matter.

This is a non-response.

Read and reply to what is said, or don’t respond at all.

Anything else is an attempt to feel like you got the last word.

Yes. And then when someone said otherwise you just doubled down with absolutely no additional logic.

And when they suggested that your personal experiences might be coloring your views, you accused them of being in denial.

All in all the “I’m an asshole” energy is coming through loud and clear… Not to mention your very premise reveals that you think it’s normal to speak ill of people.

In what way? Stop being one of the people who explains to someone why they’re being down-voted instead of piling on with insults?

Why should I engage with your chosen subject? I’m not interested. The only reason I even opened the post was because of the downvotes, not the premise or title.

And when I did, I found you, actively, either accidentally, or intentionally, pissing people off. You’re being abrasive and adversarial. You’re either trolling, or inadvertently turning everyone away from the thing you actually wanted to discuss.

I don’t care whether it’s deliberate, the explanation for why you should stop is the same.

Yet, you feel the need to continue to go “nu-uh, everyone else is the problem” even as the number of people telling you otherwise, and just the general disapproval, increases.

“Ground yourself in the observable.” How people react when you say and do things, is part of the observable, my friend.

If I succeed, I’ll have made you nicer to talk to. I’m a lot more invested in that.

Even as you probably wont be nicer for me. You likely hate my guts about now, and wont admit it to me even if I do make you rethink things.