Gemini Turned Me Into a Phone Douche
Paradoxically, I am now a Phone Douche because of Gemini.
No Social Media for me
I never fell for Social Media. I never wanted to 'friend' people who bullied me in high school, nor show anyone what a fabulous life I lead. I joined Facebook because for a while it was the only way to untag pictures of me. I tried to tell my (real) friends that providing information to the enemy is not good, but no one listens. After a while I gave up. I lost my password almost 10 years ago, and am pretty happy about that.
As for the rest of it, other than occasionally killing a few hours on Hacker News or Reddit, I never cared much for the idiocy.
No Phone Bullshit for me
I grudgingly gave up my flip-phone for an Android device a while back. I did not want a phone that can crash or spy on me, but it became much cheaper to have an Android phone than a flip phone... I miss my old $5.00 phone. I had a box of them from EBay, and tossed them as they broke (once a year or so). My preferred model had two different charging ports for redundancy, and a battery that lasted about a week.
Once I got my smartphone, I rooted it and spent much time trying to lock it down and turn off Google spyware. I was somewhat happy with my setup, but a pushed update killed all my work. I gave up after that and pretty much never used the phone for anything other than a phone, occasionally using maps.
Gemini Changes Things
I loaded Ariane browser a while back, just to see what it is like. It was pretty buggy, but Oppen responded immediately to my bug reports, and most bugs are now gone.
One night I couldn't sleep, and started reading Gemlogs with Ariane. The experience was surprisingly good, even with bugs and all. Now I find myself looking at Gemini when I can't sleep.
Even during the day I catch myself reading Gemini entries when I have a few minutes here and there. This is disconcerting - I am now a phone douche, unable to be alone with my own thoughts for a minute. I was so proud not to be one...
/gemlog/