Dear Professor Von Pterosaur,
Greetings! Here's a 32kb photo I took of the Great Total Eclipse of 2017, near Laramie Peak in Wyoming, on a flip phone! Of all the pictures I took during the hour or two of near-to-total eclipse, this one was the one I felt captured the moment the best. Less than a month before the eclipse, I acted on a long-wished-for desire and switched back to a flip phone last used in 2013. I went to a no-data plan, and still had the smartphone for use with WiFi--basically as a miniature computer.
In fact, here's an article I wrote about it--perhaps poorly written, but who else was going to write about it but me?
https://www.durangotelegraph.com/second-section/features/hold-the-phone/
Good times, the heady days of 2017.
I write about this because I switched back to the good ol' smartphone today. I'd recently had the smartphone do a factory reset due to some "butt-dialing" (not actually on my butt, but rather on my keys in the same pocket), and I was unable to get the backup text messages anymore. Myself 8 years ago would have said, "Whatever.", but things have changed. I recently talked to the Verizon store and they said I'd be unable to get the messages on the smartphone unless I switched back to smartphone as my actual phone and got a data plan. I mulled this over until today, when I decided to do the smartphone for the rest of the month then switch back to the flip. I discovered then that my data plan had been grandfathered in, so if I did switch it would be forever done. And I decided to just go for it, because prices have gone down quite a bit--and the big thing is that 5G will be coming into play by the end of the year. Part of 5G is that everything will be data-based. If you want a detailed explanation of what that means, please find someone else to explain it to you.
It all feels so easy, this 5G and "Cloud". Out of sight, out of mind. The Cloud is actually a place. Data centers in Virginia or wherever, using up mass amounts of energy there instead of here. I don't know how it works, and I'm not going to outrage against it, but I think it's all silly.
And what does my opinion mean anyways? My first impressions of the internet back in the mid '90s was that of a bunch of narcissists who knew how to make web pages, combined with genuinely interesting stuff readily available, plus forums about things I liked, plus the "E" mail.
Sincerely,
Zest McGoodybag
PS.
I continue to look at my flip phone out of habit. I haven't turned it off, and want to check for messages. It is far more convenient for checking the time. I feel sad for the irrevocable sense that I can never go back to this medium. I feel like I had to dip into the past to resurrect it 2 years ago, but now that I switched back I feel rather okay with letting things go. I shall turn off the flip phone.
