Opinionated Habits

• A case tempts neglect; a bare phone warrants respect
• Extra casing undermines the phone’s slim design
• Screens still crack with a screen protector and hard corners overpower cases
• Without a case, high-end phones like the Xperia 5V show their premium finishes and crisp edges
• Devices aren’t designed to be encased—imagine casing your favorite kitchenware
• I never dropped my phone, so the case was just fear; mindful handling spares extra gear

While the text below focuses on online content consumption, the principles they illustrate apply broadly to many areas of life—whether it’s relationships, career decisions, or personal growth

Some people mindlessly scroll for hours on end. Some people try to take a stand against that by being mindful about how they consume online content.
They often look to the internet for advise, wisdom, and guidance in their life. Although this can be super helpful,
information risks being sourced from low-value low-quality ecosystems such as reddit comments, influencers, and videos

Examples of Weak Mindedness

Sally Simpleton learns so much on reddit, such as how rich people avoid taxes. But Sally doesn’t understand the original poster has a lack of expertise and credentials to accurately describe the topic. Unfortunately, Sally is unaware because the comment section has people complaining about how corporations are destroying society and not fact-checking whether the tax-evasion tactics are actually being used. Unfortunately, the same credibility issue exists in the comments. It’s not instinctual to question the original poster’s source, because after all, Sally was just trying to relax and isn’t in the work-mode mood

Timmy Tinfoil is productive and hard-working. He enjoys browsing his news feed and gets the general impression that it is filled with helpful sources of successful people sharing their wisdom and tools of mastery. He is unable to see these influential people are posting content based on biased or hidden agendas designed to create profit for them and will ultimately not actually help the consumer accomplish their goals

Daisy Ditzerson prides herself as being philosophical, loving, and caring. As such, the content she consumes is filled with mental models and life advise. Daisy doesn’t realize that one-size-fits-all solutions are too generic and overly simplistic to be applicable in a real-world sense. She can’t see that quick fixes and hacks rarely work against real-life challenges which are complex and often requires personalized guidance

Johnny No-Clue takes a stand at the dumpsterfire that is facebook and instead consumes only the best data-feeds. Johnny finds reading scientific papers and statistical data to be too time-consuming to understand, so he instead hopes others will mince the information and present only the hardest hitting facts. This leaves Johnny in a situation where he only understands cherry-picked information and lacks the underlying grounding to think about it. Johnny doesn’t really have a clue about what he’s talking about

Bobby Blunder loves to travel and make new friends. He keeps track of everyone on social-media. Bobby sees constant information tailored to his existing beliefs. He is often presented with cherry-picked photos of his friends and family only in their best moments, with additional saturation and filters added to further highlight this content. Bobby doesn’t realize the continual exposure is creating unhealthy comparisons and a feeling of inadequacy. These unrealistic expectations are negatively impacting his self-esteem and well-being

Faithful Fiona listens to the doctrine and gospel of voices followed by many. She loves to talk about their ideas with other similar like-minded individuals like Doug Doctrine and Sermon Sam. Fiona doesn’t realize she might be a cult follower. Fiona is relinquishing control of her life, letting others shape her worldview instead of critically reflecting and crafting a path aligned with her experiences

— notice a pattern? Everyone is being deceived by illusions, false statements, and low-quality content despite being well-intended in their usage

Examples of Real Guidance and Learning

Eleanor Wisdomleaf gives advice that solves a problem for the reader/viewer. Very quickly you forget Eleanor Wisdomleaf ever existed, because his goal wasn’t to trap you in his sphere of influence

Felix Sharpwell wants to have a competitive edge at weightlifting. He pays a coach 5% of his take-home salary to hold him accountable and provide him with expert tailored-advise

Clara Insightson would like to understand a topic better. She expands her mind by first broadening her basis with an LLM, and then reads some book summaries on the topic. She finds common themes between the books and condenses them into her personal notes

Lydia Brightmind wants to be successful, so she read a few books that follow the patterns of success. Then, instead of making her life about being knowledgeable on success patterns, she stops reading and employs the methods described in the books. Now her time is spent doing and creating instead of being on the consumption end

Pragmatic Patrick knows what he wants before he starts searching for it. This way, he doesn’t get mislead by low-quality content that ranks highly for the wrongs reasons online. Now he has more time to ride his motorcycle

Take a Stand

In each of the examples of real guidance and learning you might notice a flow. The behaviour changes as stages progress. The learning process is gritty and involves real work. From intention to execution, only the creme-of-the-crop is used

And this is a great model for life. Let’s raise the bar, and do things that matter with our time. Reposting is for suckers. Reading what others repost is for even bigger suckers

As an added bonus, behaving more like Felix and Clara you will be much better protected against propaganda and bots or AI-generated content. You won’t be as easily persuaded

• Making It About Themselves: Sharing your feelings turns into consoling them. Suddenly, you’re the villain with lines like, “I guess I’m just a terrible parent”

• Help With Strings Attached: They offer help, but later use it to guilt-trip or manipulate you. Now, you avoid their help altogether

• Constant Negativity: Everything you say or do gets criticized, so you keep secrets or lie to avoid the drama

• Being Too Judgy: They openly trash your interests, so you stop sharing to protect your ideas and yourself

• Turning It Into a Lecture: Instead of empathy, bad experiences become life lessons. It just makes you shut down and pull away

• No Respect for Privacy: They barge into your room without knocking and leave the door open

• Overblowing Interests: Mention liking something, and it’s your whole personality now. Cue awkward gifts and career ideas you didn’t ask for

• Phone Assumptions: They assume you’re always on your phone and get mad if you don’t respond fast enough. They repeat texted information during calls

• Punishing Honesty: Tell the truth, and they flip out instead of helping. You quickly learn to keep quiet to avoid the fallout

I have been working professionally with a MacBook since 2020, and with the announcement of a USB-C iPhone, I was considering purchasing one for quite some time. A few days ago, my nearly 7-years old Galaxy S8 simcard tray broke for the 2nd time, and thus it was finally time to update to something newer than Android 9.0

I thought it would be fun to use an iPhone for a few years since I never had one before, but after doing my due-diligence it became clear this was the wrong decision. Instead, I opted for the Sony Xperia 5 V. Here is my analysis of why this decision became an absolute no-brainer

Benefits of choosing iPhone 15 Pro Max / Negatives of choosing the Xperia contender

• Although I’ve never used iOS, I suspect the UX is better than Android
• The iPhone can be serviced for repair at many certified locations
• Synchronization between the MacBook would probably be better, especially for password sharing in Safari
• Telephoto lens does not exist on the Xperia 5 V
• Guaranteed OS updates are probably about 3 years longer
• Screen has a higher max brightness by about 1000 nits, and a 7% higher screen-to-body ratio
• SoC benchmarks about 20%-40% higher
• Can record high-speed video in 240 fps @ 1080p

Benefits of choosing Sony Xperia 5 V / Cons of choosing the iPhone 15 Pro Max

• iPhone is more fragile, with the rear glass panel cracking even just from bending the phone
• iPhone 15 Pro Max base model costs 500 EUR more, and the 1 TB model costs another 400 EUR more than the Xperia + 1TB sd-card. This price difference is absolutely insane to me. Pretty much double if you account for storage space, or 50% more expensive if not
• The micro-sd card slot can currently expand the storage by 1.5 TB, and this may increase substantially over the lifetime of the phone
• Xperia cameras are more oriented towards actual photographers, while although Apple uses Sony’s cameras in the iPhone, they add a bunch of filtering and automated garbage to make simple photos more ready for mainstream instagram usage due to increased saturation and added colors. This is probably a plus for the average consumer, but I want to take real photos, not clickbait stuff for social media as I do not use social media. Xperia includes really nice software for use with their cameras, and from comparison videos on YT it appears to be the case that a well-taken photo will look better than a point-and-shoot with the iPhone
• More easily rooted, and when connected to a computer mounts itself as a filesystem which is more in-line with what I believe the device should be doing
• Includes a 3.5 mm audio jack
• Battery is 550 mAh larger and probably lasts longer in real-world
• Video recording in 4K 120 fps
• Easier to hold in hand, and 12% smaller overall. At 154.0 x 68.0 x 8.6 mm, Xperia has a volume of 90059 mm³, vs. 159.9 x 76.7 x 8.25 mm (101180 mm³) of the iPhone 15 Pro Max. It also weighs 39 grams less, or about 20% less
• Supports reverse wireless charging, while iPhone can only do this with a USB-C cable
• Stereo speakers face the viewer, not the sides
• Communications are supported a bit better. WLAN Tri-band vs dual-band WiFi, Wi-Fi direct, and DLNA. Bluetooth also includes aptX

But at the end of the day, a question I have to ask myself is more about the philosophy of the companies. After my trip to Japan, I learned that Japan is very service-oriented and pro-consumer. It took EU legislation to force Apple to use USB-C in place of their inferior profit-grabbing lightning cable. Meanwhile, while the Xperia includes options to expand the storage via micro sd-card just because you may want to do that. I find this simple fact a telling detail which truly encompasses the company values. Apple will constantly be trying to suck you into its ecosystem, and has been known to make questionable decisions under the hood which create an artificial premium on its products. There are many small details like this, for example, the iPhone 15 non-Pro model interfaces over USB 2.0, a standard created 24 years ago. USB 3.x is 15 years old today and the richest company in the world can’t provide it on their “luxurious” phone?

Of course, I’m sure anyone who uses either of these phones will have a splendid experience and be truly amazed by the labour and engineering which went into it. For me personally, the pros of the iPhone are not significant enough to entice me

• Powder detergent is superior to liquid detergent

  • Powder allows you to include both acidic and basic materials in the same substance. When mixed together to form a gel, they will interact and cancel each other
  • Liquid detergent contains a bunch of water which increases shipping costs and waste. Less efficient overall. Probably costs more too
  • Liquid detergent, when spilled outside the dishwasher, forms a mess. Powder is easier to manage. Powder is easier to store and can be transferred, combined, or recuperated

• Liquid detergent is superior to pods

  • Pods have only one singular quantity, so you have no control over a large load vs. a small one. Your water hardness can’t be considered either
  • Pods can not be used in the initial rinse phase of a wash load, which is really important for the final cleanliness. If you don’t do this, you will need to rinse your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, and they will still not come out as clean
  • Pods have colors on top of them which don’t actually provide any additional cleaning performance. Just marketing and waste
    • Some pods are even wrapped in plastic packaging which produces more waste
  • Pods are more expensive if you consider the per/wash cost vs. powder

Microwaves

Microwaves are a joke! Most people never even use the buttons and settings, nor understand how they work, and on the odd day you do it’s probably going to give a worse outcome than just brute forcing your well-known “Power level 10, try a few minutes” routine. Here’s how I think they should work:

• The microwave should behave in a declarative manner. You should not need to set things like time and power levels, but instead simply set what temperature you would like the final outcome to be, and then the microwave will figure out how to get there
• The only reason you put something in a microwave for is to raise its temperature, so the interface should literally just be a single knob to set the desired temperature, and an on/off switch. That’s it!
• It would work by using an infrared sensor to determine the current temperature, heat distribution, and necessary power level. For example, if you put frozen food in there, the infrared sensor would be able to know a lower power level is needed in order for it to work on the ice. No more hotspots

Oven/Stoves

Another ridiculous one. Ovens are a serious thing, like, too much heat and expensive food can be ruined. Incorrect setting of the auto-timer and you might, I don’t know, burn the house down or something. Here’s all the reasons why I think most ovens/stoves are a joke!

• The knobs fur the burners often don’t make sense. It’s so easy to accidentally turn on the wrong burner. Would it be so hard to put the knobs in the same spatial orientation? Maybe use symbols, sizes, or color coding? This issue gets even worse when there are more than 4 burners
• The digital control panel is like a wheel that was reinvented for every stove every time. Why? Often times there are horrible user-experience issues, like in order to reset the timer you might need to set a new timer of 0 minutes, or maybe the timer setting only has up and down arrows, but after the number 16 it speeds up way too fast so, you end up needed to go back and hit the down arrow to get to where you wanted
• The timer settings are sketchy as hell. Like, I get that the functionality is great, but it’s just so not convincing that while I’m away everything will work as intended. If you check the user manual for your stove, you might be surprised to find out it also has this functionality! And of course you won’t use it
• The burner knobs on electric stoves appear to me offering a “heat” setting, but instead they are actually offering an “intensity” setting. As in, it doesn’t matter what the temperature of the burner is, instead it will keep doing the same thing. For a gas stove this would make sense, but an electric stove could, you know, use a temperature sensor? Like why is there no temperature sensor? They cost like 50 cents or something maybe even less

Washing Machines

Washing machines are a joke!!! The same principles apply here too. Like, just let me decide what it’s going to do instead of trying to be “smart”. There is an exception to this; old washing machines are OK. You have one setting for load level (water usage), one setting for time, and one setting for temperature. That’s great, because you can decide what’s right for you. But newer washing machines can be a disaster when it comes to this. Here are all the reasons why washing machines are a joke!

• The settings have uninformative names like “fast mix” or “jeans/blouses”. What in the actual *$!# is that even? Just let me decide what will happen
• Whatever you set the machine to do, it absolutely does not care how clean or dirty the clothes actually are. Like, if water is on the way out, would it be so hard to get a ppm readout or water quality check on it to determine if the clothes need more cleaning? Maybe I’m too demanding…
• Absolutely abysmal innovation. So much technology, yet we’re still reduced to sloshing clothing back and forth in order to clean it. What about ultrasonic cleaning? What about UV disinfection? What about washer/dryer combos that aren’t terrible? Again… I probably demand too much but come on
• Energy usage of these devices is through the roof. Most of the parts of the clothing material that are being washed do not actually need to be washed. In addition to poor efficiency, they also take up an enormous amount of room. In my head I imagine a machine the size of one of those tray you put your items in at the airport in order to get past security. In that device, it washes maybe 4 articles of clothing simultaneously, in maybe 10 minutes, and then in the same tray it also dries them by pulling a vacuum, and you can immediately just fold them and put them back in the drawer before bed. Rich people get a big one.

Printers

Printers are the biggest offender of everything on this list. They aren’t just a joke, many of them are literally a scam. The amount of human effort which has gone into making them a scam hurts my brain. Here’s why printers are a joke!

• The page size needs to be manually configured, even though there are page holders which could give the printer the exact width of the paper being loaded in
• The cartridges have a dedicated PCB simply designed to make it difficult to change the ink
• The cartridges barely have any ink in them in the first place
• The cartridges can be empty because of no more ink, or when the software says so
• Some printer software actually won’t let you print even if there is ink because you don’t have a subscription ahem HP
• The cartridges can have a lot of ink left in their “spongy” interior, but because the entire cartridge is thrown away, you can’t use that ink
• Throwing away the cartridges incurs unnecessary environmental waste
• The printer has no self-correcting mechanism. Like a camera to automatically keep all the print heads aligned would make sense, but nope
• The print heads can be clogged, which is normal, but in order to clean them it does so by simply dumping the ink through the feed. What the heck? Why not have an internal reservoir with acetone in it which is only used for head-cleaning? Or a scraper or literally just let me open it up and wipe it with an alcohol pad. Why is the ink just dumped into an internal reservoir and not return into the cartridge?

Okay, with all that said, I have to admit this is only for some low-end printers. Overall a lot of new innovations such as Wi-Fi printing and affordable eco-tank printers make for a reasonable alternative

Products are made for a profit, including and especially food

Many things we use in everyday life are not designed with your well-being or health in mind. For example, many cosmetic products are completely unnecessary. Your body will naturally take care of itself and look beautiful without the need for you to spend money on most things outside of soap, shampoo, and styling. There are billions spent on making sure people believe otherwise. It gets worse with ingestible products. Bottled water sits in warehouses and is sometimes even pounded by UV light transferring plastic contents into it. Vaporizers, candy, and most “convenience” food items are literally bad for you! A grocery store might stock 20% of its products with meats, fruits, vegetables, legumes, etc. And use the rest of the space for a pile of stuff that is really just a way to convert you into a profit. You think you want the cookies, the coffee, the canned spaghetti, the hand moisturizer, blah blah, but in fact what is happening is you are tricked, or worse, addicted to these things and they are holding you back energetically