I often hear, “You should never cheap out on a good office chair, shoes, underpants, backpack etc…” but what are some items that you would feel OK to cheap out on?

This can by anything from items such as: expensive clothing brands to general groceries.

  • FauxPseudo
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    1610 months ago

    I’m on my phone 8 hours a day. Quality counts. Slow is bad. Lacking features is bad. Crappy cameras are bad. Get a good phone. Use it until one of the following happens:

    • It no longer gets security updates
    • There is a new built-in hardware feature that will actually improve the quality of your life because you’ve been wanting it forever
    • You break it or the battery performance starts to suck too much.
    • @[email protected]
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      810 months ago

      I’m on my phone 8 hours a day.

      That is generally not good and shouldn’t be common. I’d argue folks should consider whether a nice phone will lead to overuse, and if so, buying a cheaper phone.

      • FauxPseudo
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        310 months ago

        Before I had a phone I was on a computer for all that time. And before that I was reading in bed for all that time. And before that I was watching TV for all of that time. This is so much healthier than anything else I’ve done in 5 decades.

        • @[email protected]
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          210 months ago

          Just to be clear, I wasn’t trying to be critical of you. I know some people can’t actually reduce their screen time due to their job or way of life. I’m curious though, could you elaborate on what you mean by this being healthier for you?

          • FauxPseudo
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            310 months ago

            I used to sit, or lay, for all those hours. Now I’m up moving around. Talking to my geese, trimming trees, painting rooms, figuring out what some idiot electrician did 60 years ago that’s causing me a problem today (stupid loopbacks and hot neutrals, aluminum wiring optional), going someplace to hike and get the physical therapy I need after breaking my back falling off a ladder, etc. Living life while managing my ADHD and still consuming massive info dumps while also having one of the 200 podcasts I listen to play in my ear at 2.5x speed.

    • @[email protected]
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      310 months ago

      Just for my personal understanding. How often have you heard about security issues from missing updates in older phones? In real life, I mean, not in some blog or video? I’m having a hard time finding any information about real cases. There are hundreds of articles from tech-sites and security companies.

      To me it feels like selling pick-proof locks, a market without actual use-cases. You can pick them all anyway, but nobody actually does it.

      • FauxPseudo
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        810 months ago

        I used to do phone security for a living. I’ve seen a handful of cases in person. The bigger issue is that most of the time you don’t know it was the phone that caused your problems. One day your bank is drained and you don’t know why.

        There have been several zero days that gave anyone that wanted to the ability to own your phone with a text that you never even saw because the phone doesn’t show you command texts.

        https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/apple-zero-click-imessage-exploit-used-to-infect-iphones-with-spyware/

      • @[email protected]
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        710 months ago

        Unlike the good ol’ malwares that let you know that you’re infected by deleting your files or messing up your system, modern malware authors are profit-oriented and will do everything they can to make you unaware that your devices are infected. Then they’ll exfiltrate your data and sell them on various underground marketplace such as this one.

        • FauxPseudo
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          410 months ago

          Definitely. If you know your device is infected then someone drastically messed up. The new stuff isn’t like the old stuff.