Useless Conversation

[Signe]

Off caffeine?  What does "off caffeine" mean?  What a terrifying concept.

[Ironwood]

I'm Scottish and I haven't had a drink since December.  That's terrifying.

[Paelos]

I'm Scottish and I haven't had a drink since December.  That's terrifying.

I gave it up 4.5 years ago. Didn't notice it past the first three months really.

[Ironwood]

Who did you kill ?

[Chimpy]

Off caffeine?  What does "off caffeine" mean?  What a terrifying concept.

Haven't had caffeine in 5 years, myself. I actually have felt a lot better overall since I gave it up.

[Paelos]

Who did you kill ?

My fun self for the first year. Then I found new things to do with my time.

[schild]

Off caffeine?  What does "off caffeine" mean?  What a terrifying concept.

Haven't had caffeine in 5 years, myself. I actually have felt a lot better overall since I gave it up.

Pardon me, but the universal anecdotal evidence of feeling better off caffeine consists of folks who don't remember how fucking awesome caffeine is.

[Strazos]

People in the foreign service are packrats though.  Some people travel from post to post with gigs and gigs worth of .pst files continaing every email (often with important docs they use attached) they've ever recieved across their decades long career.  Then have us link them all in with outlook on their local machine.  Then complain about how slowly their outlook loads/runs.   

Deleted 100% of my email when I left Benin. Too much shit to look through...hope I don't need any of it anytime soon.

[Merusk]

Off caffeine?  What does "off caffeine" mean?  What a terrifying concept.

Haven't had caffeine in 5 years, myself. I actually have felt a lot better overall since I gave it up.

Pardon me, but the universal anecdotal evidence of feeling better off caffeine consists of folks who don't remember how fucking awesome caffeine is.

Nope. I felt better when I was off it for the year that I was. Going to do it again here soon and I've done it 2 times before that.  Each time gets longer and the relapse has me consuming less than the prior one.   I'm to the point that a Cola at 5pm keeps me up until 1am, so I'm about off it for good.

[Velorath]

Off caffeine?  What does "off caffeine" mean?  What a terrifying concept.

Haven't had caffeine in 5 years, myself. I actually have felt a lot better overall since I gave it up.

Pardon me, but the universal anecdotal evidence of feeling better off caffeine consists of folks who don't remember how fucking awesome caffeine is.

Caffeine never did much for me aside from when I was in my 2 energy drinks a night at work phase. In that case it eventually made me feel something closer to anxiety rather than alertness which is what eventually got me to stop drinking it. Aside from a very occasional Sprite or Root Beer I don't drink Soda anymore (I never got into drinking coffee) because it's just horribly nasty stuff when it comes down to it.

[Lantyssa]

Here's a new one for me, I don' t know if any of you long-term administrators have heard it.

Today IT migrated a user over to Office360, and she called the Help Desk immediately afterwards, irate as can be.  "Where are all my files?!"

Heard it before.  Told them sorry, but that's why it's called 'deleted'.

[Selby]

Aside from a very occasional Sprite or Root Beer I don't drink Soda anymore (I never got into drinking coffee) because it's just horribly nasty stuff when it comes down to it.

Same here.  I don't drink coffee and never have, but I do occasionally have iced tea with dinner when out and about but haven't noticed that it contains enough caffeine to keep me awake at night.  My coworkers can't believe that I'm one of the 2 people in the office who don't drink any coffee (it also gets me out of coffee making duty, you DO NOT want the non-coffee drinker making your coffee...).

[Signe]

I love everything about coffee.  The taste, the smell, the buzz.  I love making it almost as much as drinking it, too.

[koro]

Every few days at work or at the store I think to myself, "Man, I should probably look into getting a smart phone one of these days." I currently use a shithouse Motorola dumb flip-phone that was outdated tech five years ago when I got it and use a pay-as-you-go carrier that averages out to about $12 a month.

I've been looking at plans and phones, and about the only thing that seems really decent to me is T-Mobile, which has good coverage in my area and nice prices. But then I get to thinking if I really need a smartphone, as I rarely ever make any kind of phone call, text even more rarely, and use its camera maybe once every couple of months. But after that, I get to thinking "Well, what if it's something I won't really know if I want or need until after I have it?" and then just kind of push the thing aside for later.

I've been going through this for months and I'm not sure what I want to do about it.  

[rattran]

Stay with your dumbphone.

[Merusk]

Skip it. I got one because of the new position at work and it's done little for me.  I have something to waste time at meetings or on the shifter at work now and not much else.  

The biggest improvements  have been having access to the one note so I don't have to jot noes on paper and access to texting since I never had a phone before this.  Other than that it's just been a toy the. Imp any pays for.  I don't even get work calls on it.

[Samwise]

The usefulness of having the entire goddamn Internet in your pocket at all times can not be overstated IMO.

[Sky]

The usefulness of having the entire goddamn Internet in your pocket at all times can not be overstated IMO.

Yet 99% of people are just playing goddamned candy crush.

<--- ancient LG flip tracfone, tyvm, I'm partial to paying $100 a year with great coverage and good call quality.

[Lianka]

I love everything about coffee.  The taste, the smell, the buzz.  I love making it almost as much as drinking it, too.

I was off coffee for years.. then I went back to school.  Had just finished an overnighter on a programming project, and knew I needed something more than tea to get me through the class (intro to CS).  I had my first Americano ever.  It made Stacks and Queues the most riveting topic on earth.. I will always be grateful to coffee for that reason..

[Abagadro]

Speaking of going off things, I am a week into no booze.  There is much sadness.

[Teleku]

The usefulness of having the entire goddamn Internet in your pocket at all times can not be overstated IMO.

Yeah, I use my smart phone so heavily I don't actually think I could function without it.  Has changed all of my routines and how I go about my day.

Get a god damn smart phone.

[Signe]

Speaking of going off things, I am a week into no booze.  There is much sadness.

Drink lots of coffee.  And good luck, too.

[Miasma]

Stick with the crappy flip phone, don't become another smart phone zombie puttering about at 0.5 miles an hour getting in everyone's way!  Actually now that I think of it there are many similarities between zombies and using smart phones.  You're really slow, you weave about, you don't notice anything, you only react to loud noises, as seen here you try to infect others, sometimes you die in amusing ways because you weren't paying attention.

I'll probably break down and buy one sometime this year.  If there were a non evil cell phone company around here I'd probably already have one.

[Samwise]

I went from never using my ancient cell phone to starting to use it more heavily to getting an iPhone in the span of about a month.  The map/GPS functionality alone makes it worthwhile.  I almost never bring my laptop with me traveling any more, since I can do the essentials from the phone.

Whether you stumble around playing Candy Crush in public is entirely up to you.

[Lantyssa]

Actually now that I think of it there are many similarities between zombies and using smart phones.  You're really slow, you weave about, you don't notice anything, you only react to loud noises, as seen here you try to infect others, sometimes you die in amusing ways because you weren't paying attention.

Hahaha.  (And you make people want to put a bullet in your head.)

Stick with the dumb phone.  While having the internet would be useful at times, it can wait until you get home, and someone around you has one if you really, really need to look something up.  My $10 a month spent on it is awesome.

[Paelos]

Speaking of going off things, I am a week into no booze.  There is much sadness.

Things that helped me when I was going through the first month.

1 - Coffee
2 - Eating something sweet, I had sugar cravings
3 - Working out
4 - Sleeping 8 hours minimum

[Nebu]

Get a god damn smart phone.

I'm resisting.  My current phone has signal deep into the mountains and lasts a week on a battery charge.  When a smart phone can do that, I'll get one.

[Paelos]

Smart phone battery life is the one thing I hate the most.

[Pennilenko]

Smart phone battery life is the one thing I hate the most.

Funny, I thought it was game developers showing their faces in their info videos...

[Rasix]

Charging a phone is not much of a hardship.  Plug it in. Done.

I guess if you spend days away from civilization and must still make calls.  Whatever. 

[Paelos]

No it's not hard to charge a phone, but the older tech did last days, and there is a reason people are running into each other on the roads looking at their phone. It's likely they are charging their phone in the car anyway because the thing will go dead in less than 10 hours.

It's the thing I hate most ABOUT PHONES. 

[Sky]

My phone lasts for about a week per charge...and I have a spare battery if I get caught out when it dies.

My main gripe, though, is how expensive the service is.

Maps and GPS aren't a huge help to me. If I'm going somewhere unfamiliar, I glance at a map before I go and I keep one in the car. I've never been lost.

[Nebu]

I guess if you spend days away from civilization and must still make calls.  Whatever.  

Yes, I spend days in the middle of nowhere.  Yes, I like to have a lifeline in case something bad happens.  Smartphones don't function well under these circumstances, so I prefer not to have one.  When you're already carrying a 40-60lb pack, you really don't want to lug around a battery charger as well.  Small and durable is best.

I enjoy doing things outdoors.  Sue me.

[Salamok]

I just like having 1 thing to carry around that handles my music, phone calls and occasional need for a camera (w/o having to remember to bring the camera).  The added benefit of internet and mail access is just gravy.  My only real bitch is that it can't perform the full functions of my wallet and keys.  It helps somewhat that the 2 phones I had prior to entering the smartphone world were total shit when it came to call quality.

[Rasix]

I guess if you spend days away from civilization and must still make calls.  Whatever.  

Yes, I spend days in the middle of nowhere.  Yes, I like to have a lifeline in case something bad happens.  Smartphones don't function well under these circumstances, so I prefer not to have one.  When you're already carrying a 40-60lb pack, you really don't want to lug around a battery charger as well.  Small and durable is best.

I enjoy doing things outdoors.  Sue me.

See, that makes sense.  I don't camp.  Can always turn it off, however.  I don't think smart phones have figured out how to eat battery while off.  Although I'm sure some company is working on that breakthrough.  

I can live without mine.  I didn't use mine at all during the 10 days I was in Israel.  No reception and I didn't bother with any simcard nonsense.   It's just nice to have all that shit available, especially for family trips (turn by turn GPS helps a lot, fuck maps). Plus, with it, I don't feel the need to invest in any more portable gaming.  It's also helped now that I've started running again.  Music + tracking software, yay.