It's so damn easy to hit "pause" on the kid by turning on the TV or handing over a phone, but the result is so apparent: demands for more phone or more TV.
Same, I designed & built my own 108-key keyboard (no numpad, just a shitload of keys) and it's lovely. I'm very slowly binding functions to all the extras. https://jfloren.net/b/2024/10/23/0
I'd rather look old than be one of those lunatics who goes for a summer walk in a longsleeve shirt, gloves, and a hat with built-in veil (a pretty common sight in the Bay Area)
Iran has figured out it can make the US president look like an idiot over and over at relatively low cost to themselves, since they're already so thoroughly excluded from the rest of the world.
They now charge to list your car, even as a private party. I'm not sure it was the right choice because it drove so much traffic to Facebook Marketplace, which is an absolute disaster.
Yeah as I was making my shitpost I realized that a coastline entirely meets the actual definition of "liminal" (as opposed to the common usage, "teens pretending to be scared by an empty office break room")
I was struck by something similar when I visited the county fair in rural Grant County, Washington in 2023. We were walking around, checking out the 4-H/FFA barns and the exhibit halls, and there were teenagers everywhere, and almost none of them had their phones out. They were in little groups, talking and seeing the sights. Nobody was, I dunno, harassing goats for TikTok videos. Even the kids on "barn duty" (maintaining a presence in the barn with your animals in case somebody has questions or there's a problem) were reading books and playing cards, not scrolling.
I don't know if it was the local culture (I grew up around there, I don't think there's anything so special about the local culture) or just that the kids aren't as fucked up as we think, but it was nice!
Are we talking about 8 year olds, or 15 year olds?
I think it's fine to give your 8th grader a flip phone. A third grader isn't "grabbing dinner after band practice".
For sports practice, I'd just take the sports bus home; the 30-60 minutes between the end of practice and the time the bus left was perfect for a little quiet reading or homework.
For band practice, I'd call my parents from the office phone, or plan to get a ride home from an older student who lived nearby, or just accept that I might miss out on something when mom picked me up at 6:30 and that's ok.
My favorited submissions are things I've actually found interesting.