I make some photos with my iPhone and then pimp it with the magic wand. That’s as far as I’m willing to go. I don’t know, I don’t like skills where you have to micro-manage a ton of factors to get the right result. I’m more of a rough person 
It’s the photographer who takes the pictures, the camera is just a tool. 
I think a Sony Alpha is still a good camera!
So are many modern phones.
Btw the mustachian alternative to Adobe Photoshop is called Affinity Photo.
Super cheap at only about 40chf for a real license, not some subscription.
And there are many photographers on Youtube who do really good blogs. 
Mark Denney, Henry Turner, Simon Booth, or Thomas Heaton, for example.
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That’s true. Most of the things I learn from channels like PBS Space Time (with no practical knowledge) I’ll forget within a couple of days/weeks. But it keeps my mind sharp, which is not a bad thing. Other things really sticked to me because I watched so much content on it from different channels. Rocket designs, flight mission planning, deltav budgets, orbital mechanics, gravity assists and more.
I can’t use any of the that knowledge in my banking & finance job, but I think it’s still important to understand what’s going on in the world.
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I think it’s a great thing that you have a hobby like this one. It might have no practical application but it’s fascinating branch of knowledge and it does require some thinking and focus.
I’d like to highlight the perception: In the recent months I’ve observed how my pattern recognition improved a lot just because of watching videos. Roughly when the first lockdown started, I started to play some chess online (on lichess.org, I can recommend that btw…) but at some point took a roughly 3 month break. During the break I watched a lot of games with commentary but did not do any form of actual study. Now that I’ve come back to playing, my openings (basically encyclopedic knowledge / facts) are terrible, but idly watching those games improved my recognition for tactics massively and my rating improved overall.
So I’d like to propose the hypothesis that watching videos is kinda useful if you’re using it to train some form of perception. Other examples where this applies are coding patterns and where to use them, training language comprehension (e.g. щ vs. ш for Russian or comprehension in general), or maybe content about painting styles.
I’m not claiming that this is the optimal way to train perception skills, but I think this is the category where ‘just relaxing’ will be the most productive. I also understand that not everybody thinks that watching chess is relaxing, but my brain works like that 
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Would you say it might be worth spending CHF 60-70 for freedom over other similar products?
How hard is it to stick to the parameters you set up? Do you never need to override it? Want to override it on a bad day?
I’ve tried ColdTurkey and for desktop it was ok, but for phone useless. Freedom has better support on mobile though.
Yes, it was hard, but after some time I sticked to it. To unblock social media I’d have to wake up at 3:55 and I’d have 5 minutes to reconfigure it. For other blockers I sometimes change it when I have boring/unmotivated period at my work, but most of the time I stick to it.
So basically I have three sessions:
- work from 8 to 18 when I block most distracting websites
- night when I block everything after midnight except call functionality in the phone (for emergencies)
- social media which I block practically 24h/day
In general, I’d say Freedom won’t solve your addiction problem by itself (because you can still override parameters or format your computer if you setup insane time windows), but it’s great help if you commited yourself to limit screen time and pursue deep work. So I think what ultimately makes an effect is a commitment to values that fuel the discipline.
PS. Recently I unblocked this forum.
You’re totally right. I could give up the joys of bragging, but one problem is with instant messenging - all my family and friends use Messenger for communication. That’s a huge blocker.
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You can just use it for direct messaging and abandon groups (or silent the ones you do not want to / cannot leave for some reason)
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+1 on this. I canceled my Facebook account somewhere in time between 2013 and 2014 and not looking back !
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That’s what I do. I’ve disabled notifications on all apps except SMS and calling . My wife reaches me out on SMS, everybody else on silent Instant Messengers.
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Yes, you can deactivate your facebook account and still use the messenger app.
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The search is super easy to replace just use ddg.gg but for youtube that’s another story…
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I use FB for the FB marketplace and Instagram for my fitness account (I have 1100 posts right now). I’m rarely on FB, but Instagram is pretty addictive omg.
Well, then consider blocking or deleting it. You might miss out on something, but you’ll gain something much more precious - time and attention.
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I once forgot my FB pass and then they asked me for a copy of my ID or pass. Of course I said no. I wonder if it’s now unblocked (I’ve since found what I think it is my password).
@Cortana off topic. update about your hairline? (on the other post maybe)
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Instagram, Facebook, these social media platforms, they all have something in common with cigarettes: They satisfy a need that they’ve created themselves in the first place.
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But this forum ain’t no different. You get likes and responses and maybe someone posts something interesting (but not necessarily life-changing). It all triggers dopamine and addicts. It’s tough to work in IT, with computers, and not get addicted to social media, forums, memes, the Internet in general. It’s like an alcoholic working in a liquor store 
.
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Absolutely!
A Methuselah like me at >40 was lucky, in a way. Many of these things came “too late” for me. I don’t use Facebook or Instagram, never got hooked up on them.
How the world has changed: I was a kid in the 80s and if I wanted to go and play with the other kids after school I had to find a landline phone and call my Mom and ask for permission. No mobile phones, no SMS or Whatsapp. Mobile phones were something for rich people in their big luxury cars. Or for cool people like Michael Knight.
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It’s funny that I had a similar childhood in that regard as you, even though I am 15 years younger.
Modern technology kind of trickled into my life. Part of this is because it was the “age-appropriate time” to get those devices, part of it is that the technology only became readily available at certain times.
- Parents got the first PC when I was 7.
- Got my first Nokia Brick with 12.
- First Laptop with 16.
- First Smartphone with 20. (I was a late adopter.)
I sometimes wonder if that was good or bad.
Might have been good because “a lot of technology” + childhood = bad.
Might have been bad because I never really learned the proper/healthy use of those technologies as a kid.
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