Are tablets/phablets worth the expense?

[seahermit]

Thanks Richard, I appreciate your comments. Today, Currys tried to sell me a Fibre Broadband contract with TalkTalk for £23 pcm. Tempting price but I wouldn't actually touch TalkTalk and of course after two years the price reverts to £38. I am aware that there are better prices being offered by other providers, even so I'll have to think whether upgrading to Fibre is worth it for my usage of the internet. I use it quite a lot but probably less than yourself.

I hate this continuous cat-and-mouse game being waged with customers - penalising the loyalty of those who don't make the effort to switch providers every so often. Currently there are some moves apparently to regulate the market, so that prices DON'T leap up after your initial contract ends. It may happen one day ..

Meanwhile, I'm still looking at back-up solutions. For me, tablets are not a substitute for the comfort of working on a big keyboard and large monitor. But for emergency/short-term internet access, phablets do the job nicely.

The Samsung A7 is a lovely-looking phone and also works quite well as far as I can tell! Big 6-inch screen - makes texting easier and shows off your photos well.

It's been helpful to know what others do. But was life always this complicated ..?

[Derek Jempson]

No, seahermit, life wasn't always this complicated. If you wanted to communicate with someone, you wrote a letter, and a few days later you would receive a reply. If the communication was urgent, you would walk down the road to the nearest telephone box and politely contact a near neighbour of your recipient who had a phone, and ask them to pass the message on. If you wanted to know what was happening in the world, you bought a newspaper. If you wanted to expand your knowledge, you read a book (probably in the local library). If you wanted to buy something from a distant supplier, you wrote an order and posted it with a cheque or postal order. Complication is the price we pay for the instantaneous. Is it worth it? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

[seahermit]

Ah, yes, I keep getting bouts of nostalgia for what seemed a much simpler, more sraightforward way of living!

One could probably write a quite philosophical treatise on how we have got ourselves into this mess. Apart from the sheer obsession (of energy companies, phone networks, insurance firms et alia) with making as much money as possible out of consumers, I think part of the problem is the huge dependence now placed on technology.

Yes, in theory it makes everything instantaneous, more efficient and cheaper - in practice technology has become so complicated that it is highly liable to go wrong, it can easily be disrupted by errors or by terrorists, from cars down to toasters it is all impossible to mend by a home mechanic and so you just chuck it and buy another one .. Hence, stress for everybody.

I think we are travelling down a dangerous road where people are losing their hands-on skills, service skills are an oldfashioned and dying art and the speed of life gets faster and faster. Definitely not producing greater happiness ..

Merry Christmas, everyone!!

[Derek Jempson]

And it will get even worse with the emergence of AI and the Internet of Things. Everything and everyone Internet connected and vulnerable to cyber attack, or logically perfect, but morally wrong AI decisions. Who would believe it - do I sound like Cassandra?

[Richard]

Misinformation - Social Media
I think we are travelling down a dangerous road now, where world leaders are actively manipulating the Media - Facebook, twitter, Youtube.
Putin exerts strong controls over news media and brain-washes his country-folk, issuing denials about world events, such as poisoning people abroad, to fool the ill-informed and smirks openly about it.

The use of social media in politics has dramatically changed the way campaigns are run and how Americans interact with their elected officials.
Putin manipulated social media to affect U.S. politics, perhaps even influencing the election of Trump.
Trump says one thing and then turns around and says the opposite, or so it seems, using 'soundbites' on 'facebook'. His former accolytes, by contrast, are leaving in droves every single day.
U.S. politics has changed forever thanks (or not) to Facebook.

[seahermit]

This is interesting. What seems at first sight to be a departure from the original topic is actually very relevant and indicative of how the whole market has been transformed.

Once upon a time, there used to be a simple phone line. For communication purposes. Everyone paid largely the same cheap price to the GPO and knew where they were. And then there was the internet, again invented mainly for the exchange of information.

Now, it's a highly complicated info/entertainment system involving phone/computer/wi-fi hub/TV - you can even add in your mobile or tablet! All very vulnerable to hackers, scammers and terrorists and also a goldmine for all the network providers, who offer a bewildering variety of deals and try every trick to fleece consumers as much as possible. I am merely trying to ensure I get a reliable connection for the PC - instead I find myself walking into a minefield.

Not only that but, as has been said, the internet has become a weapon for manipulation, control, automated "intelligence", the spread of propaganda and fake news, political cold warfare - it all started as a simple telephone!! Marconi (right guy?) would be spinning wildly and regretting he ever invented the technology.

[Richard]

Beside the more political and criminal rings are the advertising giants, plus the minnows, which together generate revenue close to $100 billion/annum.
Advertising uses technology (termed Ad Tech) to collect and process information about the user activity on a particular platform.
It is a Wild West out there, much of what goes on is rather murky and not uncommonly, illegal!
So much money to be had, little wonder everyone is at it!

[seahermit]

It's a metaphor really for the way the whole world has gone - very materialistic, money-obsessed, even the safety and security of children comes bottom of the list of priorities.

I had quite a simple Christmas by many people's standards - no vast expense on goodies, the pub was very peaceful and quiet (the way they used to be), so drinking with friends and swapping some books was hugely enjoyable. Mind you, better watch out at the New Year - that's a time when I go MAD ..!!

I think I'm going to have to stick with Sky broadband .. for now. Bit high at £30 pcm but I can't face a confrontation with them just now and I do get unlimited download. So I can watch classic films on a couple of websites I have found and, using the wi-fi hub, watch Funny Cats on the smartphone in bed!

But I need a decent back-up for when the connection drops, so I am probably going to splash out on a bigger phone. There are several lovely 6-inch Samsungs around but one of the best phones is the Galaxy S8 Plus. I saw some cracking reductions and the poor old retailers are getting desperate just now ..

[Richard]

I really don't understand the addiction/need to own a tablet/phablet/iPhone/smartphone, etcetera.
What does anyone get out of watching tiny video screens or playing games in miniature?
I have a desktop and a basic voice and text phone, that is quite enough.
Unless you need a specialist phone for your job, I fail to see the reason or need to poke about on miniscule buttons.
I am happy to be a 'Luddite' in that regard.

It seems like a kind of degenerate madness, dragging screens about and it borders on the anal to my mind, reporting things like one's car approaching its 200,000 miles on the clock and calculating how much petrol and how many hours you have spent sitting in the thing.
Sending-video cams to friends.
Have people nothing better to do?
Intelligent people too, no doubt, get a buzz from sending information on all kinds of trivia but it leaves me feeling sad for them.

I, I always wanted to be -
A lumberjack!
Leaping from tree to tree
As they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia
The giant redwood
The larch
The fir
The mighty Scots pine...

[seahermit]

I wasn't too serious about Funny Cats ..

The smartphone serves a very valuable purpose at times - when I want to quickly answer emails or check information without booting up the PC, when the broadband connection drops, sometimes when I am travelling too. I don't see the point of turning up one's nose at modern technology just because some idiots only use it for taking selfies and posting rubbish on FB.

Not addicted I think. Sometimes it doesn't get switched on for days. It ain't the technology, the fault lies in how it's used ..