I wish I could use it but I can’t. The folks developing UT are awesome but they are a very small group of unpaid volunteers and this stuff is painfully difficult to do.

One of the biggest problems is the lack of VoLTE support for making actual phone calls on most phones. Last I looked (which was admittedly more than a month ago) only a few models supported it, and it is the only supported mobile voice protocol in several countries. You can work around this with a SIP (Voice over IP) account and some geekery but it’s not ideal.

Another issue is very limited software. There just aren’t that many developers creating software for the platform.

I ended up on /e/.

I won’t be able to take this seriously until it proves it can successfully make a phone call over VoLTE.

I’ve done online education both as a student and as an instructor of adults. The truth is that it doesn’t come close to matching an in-person classroom experience.

As an instructor it is really hard for me to create engaging lessons even in person. I get a lot of blank stares and zoning out. That may be partly on me but I think it’s because a lot of students are just there because they’re required to be there. They aren’t interested in what I am teaching even if I’m excited about it. At least in the classroom I can give them gentle nudges to engage and there is some live interaction to encourage them.

If I have to teach the course online it is likely to be very hands-off. The general format is read some content, watch some videos, do some homework and maybe a quiz, and engage in some forced online interaction. At the place where I was learning, that interaction was one response to a prompt, posted on a student forum, and two responses to other students’ posts. Those posts had a mandatory minimum word count requirement to meet the grading requirement. There is sometimes interaction with the instructor on the forum if they are very motivated and aren’t too busy, but most instructors are adjuncts and probably have other work they are doing. Some are, like students, not motivated and are just there to do the minimum to get paid. Also, group projects are difficult to manage. There are no in-class labs, and in some situations an online simulation does not come even close to a hands-on learning experience.

We have done live online classes where I teach but we have very small class sizes and it tends to work better since we can encourage interaction with each student. This isn’t possible with larger classes and again, there is no social incentive if students are all sitting alone staring at their phones/tablets/laptops.

So from my experience online education tends to be isolating for students and not at all motivating. It is also a surprising amount of work for the instructors and does not tend to add value to the course.

If you really want the retro experience, you can get a modern USB version of the original IBM Model M keyboard from Unicomp (https://pckeyboard.com). I believe these are made on the same equipment that made the Model M back in the day. Buckling spring keys, metal frame, huge, heavy, and loud. Lots of configuration options and the only lights on them are the (admittedly annoyingly bright blue) lock status LEDs. I’ve used an original Model M and own one of these. They’re amazing.

I think it’s important to understand that if the whole Internet just shut off in an instant, life as we know it would cease to exist. I’m not talking about a cultural change. I mean millions of people starving and freezing to death because literally everything you take for granted today is ordered, scheduled, and delivered using the Internet. That means no food deliveries, no fuel deliveries, no imports or exports, no trains, trucks, or planes moving, no payments or money transfers. Nothing. Oh, and all the emergency services that you’re going to need will be unable to respond because no phones and no communication from dispatch centers. We don’t know how to do business without the Internet anymore, so if it goes away, there goes your way of life. Building that back to the “old way” will take way longer than you or your neighbors are likely survive competing for essentially nonexistent resources.

But for those who manage to survive, I would say party like it’s 1899!

The Air Force has a program to support just this kind of innovation. If they allowed a media outlet to come in and do a story you can bet this had been approved all the way up the chain. This dude probably just earned some official reward bucks, too

Oof! Guess I should have looked at that.

Not sure if this meets your needs but you might check out DoorBird. They claim to work with several NAS solutions and have an API, as well as the usual phone- and tablet-notification and communication through their own service.

You are indeed, but it points to a fallacy in the original question. It’s not universal basic income if it is stipulated that you have to do something to receive it.