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Matt's Newsletter
The Spring Issue
Issue #006 - April 2nd, 2025
Welcome to the Spring Issue of Matt's Newsletter, now hosted entirely on-prem! The birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, and the Newsletter is back with a bit of a new look!
Since the last issue, Matt's Newsletter crushed through the triple digit subscriber mark like a black belt crushing a toddler - One Hundred and Four (104) readers. We thank and appreciate you all, not equally, though. The longer you have been subscribed the more appreciative we are. If you have subscribed recently, stick around, tell your friends to subscribe, as more people will subscribe our relative appreciation for you will increase!
The featured article in this issue is a year-in-the-making, first-in-a-series piece about Matt's battle against the Machine, and what he's done over the past twelve months to take back control of his life from phones and other techonology. Meanwhile, contributor Christophe R. Crow has a bangin' new listicle for you, Dynamic Duos You Loved, But That Actually Hated Each Other. It'll leave you saying, "What?" Enjoy the Newsletter!
Table of Contents
Chinese Phone, We Hardly Knew Ye (It's So Over)
Technological Minimalism has been an increasingly pretty popular idea. Consciousness around screen time is at an all time high, while at the same time people are ditching social media in throngs. Many of us have ventured as far as to set application time limits, but just as many of us are familiar with hitting the ultra-accessible 'ignore limit' button and continuing on our scroll. Individuals are occasionally shamed when using their phone in a group setting without a justifiable reason. People are getting burners. Some have done away with social media apps, braver ones have changed their phone's colors to gray-scale. Maybe you go for your walks with an MP3 player, or maybe there's nothing in your pockets at all!
The Big Leap one could take to being more disconnected is getting a 'dumb phone,' something that talks and texts and that's it. The classic flip a grandparent would use, re-learn how to do the T9 predictive texting. Unfortunately, it's become near impossible to not have a smartphone in today's world. All tickets, transport and events, would have to be printed, are you getting a printer? Have you saved the number of local cab companies in case you need a ride? Did you call earlier to see if they're driving that late? Make sure to search on your laptop the cross street of that new bar you're going to before you leave your apartment, you were only told the bar's name. Are there photos to share after the fun night out? Good luck receiving those in the group chat, if you were able to join the group chat in the first place, ask your friends if they can email the pictures to you. All of that isn't even to mention entertainment. I do like listening to podcasts using my phone, I'll read the news, sometimes watch a chess video on the train - would I have to give that up along with the smartphone?
In March of 2024, I set out to re-evaluate my devices and what I use them for. The one constraint, above all else, was to not introduce any needless difficulty into how I live. This whole exercise is supposed to make my life better, and getting held up at the bouncer because I forgot to print my ticket and now my flip phone is taking several minutes to load the 50 kilobyte JPEG of my ticket's QR code is not an acceptable outcome. Additionally, I couldn't stray too far outside the realms of normal communication methods - getting my friends and family to use Telegram, Signal, or some other open sourced / encrypted messaging would simply not happen.
Do you even need a Phone?
Yes, you do. But you might not need a full-feature modern smartphone. A classic computing comparison is that between a modern smartphone and the guidance computers that brought the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. Depending on what spec you pick, the modern smartphone is between a hundred thousand and a million times faster/more powerful, we use almost none of it. They brag that they put these incredible processors in phones, always a double digit percentage faster than the previous generation, yet there aren't any common apps that people use that leverage such power, everything is done in the cloud. Every mobile application is a glorified webpage, created in an effort to optimize the mobile experience. Did you know you don't need the Uber app, you can order a ride at https://uber.com? Any application or service you use that you'd think might be using some onboard processing power is actually being done at a data center, sending back to you the results. The route on your Maps to get you to work? Calculated at the data center. The video you're streaming? Encoded at the datacenter. The one caveat is mobile gaming, some modern releases are computationally demanding as they are visually impressive. However, I consider that outside the scope of the Newsletter's readership.
I needed to figure out what I used my phone for, very specifically, to be able to give myself exactly that set of features and not an ability more. For two weeks, I wrote down what I did on my phone to build the list of requirements, hoping that I also might identify usage I want to stop. At that time I had been off social media for a few years, considered myself semi-conscious of the evils and realities of technology dependence and overuse, it still was surprising how integral the smartphone was to my life.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure you can actually get rid of your smartphone or big tech accounts, it might be too late for that. Our phones are extensions of our identities - it's more difficult to navigate the world today without a phone than it is to without your ID. Arguably, it's easier to prove your identity with your phone than it is with an ID, although security guards won't admit you if you show them that you're logged into your.name on Email, Instagram, LinkedIn, your Bank Account, and the photo of your ID/Passport you probably keep deep in your gallery. Costs aside, would you rather lose your phone or your wallet? It would take me months, at least, to change all my emails on all my accounts from my google account. How many services have you signed in through Google or Apple? Is it even worth it? The Samsung Galaxy Phone and the Google Account had to stay, at least for now. The smartphone could be kept in a drawer, only taken out when absolutely necessary, even kept at power off, but it couldn't be gotten rid of.
Maybe it wasn't even the smart choice to get a different phone. Maybe I keep the phone and uninstall every app other than the core essentials. You're able to turn a smartphone black-and-white too, and turn off the fun/satisfying animations, making the display less visually impressive is a sure-fire way to want to use it less (Check your Accessibility Settings for more info). Pair that with an e-Reader maybe, a Kindle or something, and that's a pretty good set-up. I could definitely read more. I had a Kindle for three months in college and read seven books, a record for me, and then I sat on and broke it. I think you can download music onto a Kindle, which means you should be able to get podcasts too. Hell, maybe I'll be one of those guys who carries around a PSP or Gameboy or DS Lite and play it on the subway. That could be cool.
Do you even need a Screen?
Yes, you do. But you might not need the super bright, high resolution, high refresh rate, ultra HD-if-not-4k screens that come standard on phones these days - the e-reader search began. As mentioned in the MicroCenter article, I can fall into manic states of research about technology quite easily, and this was such a situation. Quickly realizing the irony of buying an Amazon Kindle in my quest to decrease my reliance on technology, I went looking to see what other e-readers were on the market in 2025. The options weren't as impressive as I though they'd be - the Kindle and Nook were Coca Cola and Pepsi, the Sony e-reader having gone the way of RC Cola. Loads of niche options existed, that were very cool, but all were disqualified for one reason or another. Older, used options were more appealing but there wasn't really anything that knocked my socks off. Redditors recommended exceedingly rare and old devices that did many cool things such as high fidelity audio or FM radio reception, swearing on their mothers' graves that their e-reader was the best e-reader they had ever used in their lives. One must ask, how many e-readers have these people tried?
Consuming every Wikipedia article on e-ink device product lines I could find and thorough searches through r/eInk still left me unsatisfied. I had found some cool stuff, like the Light Phone, which kind of sucked, and phone-sized e-ink android devices that were, unfortunately, not phones. I didn't even know what I was looking for, just facing the grim reality of how important and critical this samsung smartphone was to my life. The search went astray, I started looking at just e-ink technology in general, quite literally scrolling through Google Images at points just to see what was out there. Far throws from the Kindles of the early 2010s, the e-ink of today is actually kind of incredible. The refresh rate is downright usable for modern web browsing, email, and office applications. They're starting to make computer monitors with the technology, those products are extremely popular with the concussed. Some e-ink devices can even do basic colors. Companies sell large e-ink displays to businesses to replace their bright and costly digital displays, it's kind of cool. I envisioned a world where every digital sign blasting itself at me was e-ink, it'd be much nicer and use a lot less electricity. I scrolled and I scrolled, until I saw this:
What the hell is this? Is this a phone? Is the screen e-ink? It looks like a phone, the screen looks like a phone, I see a camera. Why is the ad in Russian? But wait, the stuff on the screen is in Chinese? There's a motivational quote in English, the quote is also in Chinese I guess. Wait, is that quote even motivational? What is that quote trying to say? The weather is definitely in Chinese. More Chinese than English, for sure. It says Hisense on the side, Hisense makes phones? I knew Hisense as a Chinese consumer appliance company, they sell OK-to-pretty good smart televisions in North America, as my friend Noah can attest. Is this a phone?
"Pocket e-Reader" is a phrase that had come up in my searches, ranking relatively high on the option list. Big e-reader companies make compact versions of their products, while lesser known companies such as Boox and BigMe make e-ink devices the size of a smartphone, running a slightly modified version of Android. They are, however, WiFi only devices, decidedly not phones, and they won't take a SIM card. They're still kind of cool, with the ability to get Maps, whatsapp and signal, emails for tickets, any other basic smartphone stuff that I couldn't do without, assuming I have WiFi, all on an e-ink screen. However, the inability to get calls and SMS texts meant I'd still need to carry the Samsung Galaxy. I would not carry around two 'phones,' especially with such overlapping feature sets (more on this later, much much later). I also won't buy the products of a company whose name I think is silly. Boox? BigMe? If these were the companies in the pocket e-reader space, no way I was getting one.
Clicking on the image, the device identified itself to me as the Hisense A9. Different from the other phone sized e-ink Android devices - the specification sheet revealed that it accepted a SIM card, and could be used as a phone. It was running Android, and in turn any necessary smartphone apps. Internal components and memory were equivalent to the 2022 flagship Samsung. HiFi audio chip, 3.5mm headphone jack, USB-C. E-Ink screen meant days of battery life. It had a cool name. This is what I was looking for.
Do you even need an Online Community to inform your Niche Technology Purchases?
Yes, or you should at least. A forum or subreddit is often the most complete collection of information and expertise around a given subject or product, other than a published book, and becomes more true the more niche the subject or product is. It quickly became apparent why I had not come across the Hisense A9 earlier in my research - there was little english-language content online. It seemed to have released sometime in 2022, and was considered by pocket-sized e-ink enthusiasts as one of the best devices on the market. Sold exclusively in China, acquiring one as a North American is not the most simple thing to do. A site called Good e-Reader dominated the search results for the device, with several reviews and additional specifications, even seemed to sell the device. Seemingly fake user reviews filled the listing, all five star. I knew I was treading an untrodden path, fake posts did not turn me off from my search. YouTube videos physically showed off the device on, it seemed otherworldly. Something out of Dune, an e-reader with full modern smartphone capabilities. No more than a couple ten thousand views as of that time, though. One single review from a large YouTube channel. I found a small subreddit dedicated to the device composed of a few thousand people. The top posts, with dozen of up-votes, were reviews that all considered the device absolutely outstanding. Premium feel, they'd say. The phone parts worked perfectly fine, and people's experiences of going to e-ink only sounded incredible. They reported easier times going to bed, improved energy when waking up. Less device usage overall, more conscious and deliberate device usage.
Videos like this were not available during my search.
All reviews of the phone shared a common warning for non-Chinese buyers - check your carrier. Many readers may be familiar with the concept of a 'locked' phone, locked to a specific telecom provider. When purchasing a phone from a third party, the phones are often only able to work on certain networks, hardwired as such during manufacturing. Verizon customers on the Hisense A9 subreddit reported no connection, while T-Mobile seemed a bit more reliable. Many Verizon users claimed to have switched providers, just to be able to use the phone, it was that good. On top of this, the Hisense A9 only works on certain 'bands' of cell phone towers. In North America, the standard cell tower broadcasts on Bands 71 and 25, or something like that, whereas the Chinese cell tower standard is Band 46. For simplicity, I will refer to cell towers broadcasting on band 46 as "Chinese Cell Towers," but please note that they do not necessarily have anything to do with China, the Chinese Communist Party, or any Chinese telecommunication companies. These towers are 4G only, which is currently in the process of being phased out across the country in favor of 5G connectivity.To summarize, increasingly rare and Chinese cell towers that were in the process of being decommissioned en mass were the only hope of me being able to use this phone.
People were finding answers on cellmapper.net, a complete list of all pingable cell towers around the world. I filtered by my carrier, and by the Chinese band frequencies - hundreds and hundreds of cell towers appeared! The carrier worries might have been overblown by the redditors, I thought, until seeing an additional field of "Last Pinged." Most of these cell towers hadn't been connected to in over a year. Changing the filter to show only towers pinged in the last six months showed only sixty towers across the contiguous US, forty five of which were within New York City limits. Zooming in, the towers made a less than sign (<), stretching down from Queens to Chinatown in Manhattan, banking back out to exactly where I live, Sunset Park. What luck, I lived in the one place in the country where this phone would reliably get connection. Completely sold on the product, the next challenge would be getting one.
Do you even need a Global Logistics and Distribution Network?
Yes, you do. Especially if you're trying to buy a product that is not for sale in North America. Most Newsletter subscribers are familiar with Aliexpress, the 'Chinese Amazon' that has been recently going after international markets. Historically, the distribution giant has been synonymous with low quality products and reliance on sheer luck for you to receive the item. How much of that association is because of the perception and previous reality of Chinese goods and services being worse than their Western made or provided counterparts is up for you to decide. The redditors swore by their Aliexpress vendor, the 'Chosen E-Reader Store.' Three hundred and fifty dollars before shipping, which would take six to eight weeks. They'd even hack it for me and install Google Services, making it like any other American made Android, if I wasn't ready to completely cut the cord.
"good seller and honestly, but also expensive and dont nuy."
Myself, I completely held the belief regarding products Made in China, and I was going to avoid buying it from an eastern vendor if I could help it. 'China makes crappy stuff', are you going to tell me the sky is blue next? Never had I ordered something on Aliexpress, never had I ordered something from Asia. My international ordering overall is non-existent, save for a Japan-exclusive limited-edition Gameboy I had in highschool. There had to be a way to get one from an American reseller, some Chinese guy with family back home who has realized they could make a killing reselling Hisense A9 phones to people just like me. Let them take their cut, they're providing a service.
Instantly no luck on Amazon, all I was shown were the Booxes and the BigMes pocket e-readers that now seem like cheap knock-offs compared this beautiful Hisense device. E-Bay offered used options, with descriptions claiming 'like-new' phones and that the owners simply hadn't been able to connect to their cell providers. Those poor bastards. The used options, however, were just as expensive as the Aliexpress vendors. Who the hell do these people think they are, I thought, trying to sell a used product for the same price as a new one! Those are the big two - how many other online retailers do you know off the top of your head, especially ones where you might be able to find a strange and foreign piece of technology?
It lead me to doing a very literal google search, "Hisense A9 for sale." There's a weird feeling I get when writing out very literal queries such as these, it feels like searching for "Pizza Near Me," or "Watch Movies Online Free No Ads." It feels worse when the search query auto-complete top result is what you were going to type in, you weren't special or unique in what you wanted to find out. It's been searched before, and will be searched again. Results were about as you'd expect. Multiple Russian DHGate listings with free shipping to Europe, an Argentinian website called ubuy.ar was selling it for just south of four hundred. I found hisenseeink.com, which turned out to be a front, trying to sell them for over six hundred. Maybe I could try walking around in Chinatown, there has to be at least one for sale.
It was at this point, the thought of "where are you going to find a strange and foreign piece of technology" hit me in a way it hadn't before. The answer was, as it was all along, Aliexpress. Strange technology had undergone a sort of Renaissance in China since the early 2010s, the days of subpar eastern electronics was over. The listing had obviously been translated and looked slightly scammy, but reddit's convincing soothed my worries. I used my credit card even though I didn't want to give them my credit card details, in case a charge-back was warranted. I bought it that afternoon. At 9:03 PM I had received an email alerting me of a message in my inbox, regarding my order. The seller was letting me know a complimentary phone case would be included with my order, and asked me what color I would like. I asked for gray, and he did not reply.
I could not get this device out of my head for the next five weeks. Consuming every bit of media and reading every article about it. Review, demos, stress tests, configuration templates, I found a video of a guy just scratching the hell out of it with razor blade of different hardness, and when I ran out I started reading about the deficiencies of other pocket e-readers and why mine was so much better than the rest. What was mine able to do that they couldn't? E-reader apps are a whole sub-genre of their own, consider all of the color and style considerations necessary to make an app for an e-ink device? Everything in black and white, high contrast, big simple text. Library apps, music players, hacked Kindles and Nooks that were running Android, playing Doom, others played Gameboy games , connecting controllers to play Pokemon on the e-ink's 5", 640x280, 15hz refresh rate, gorgeous display.
What games you got?
The frenzy of research was only interrupted by a message in my Aliexpress inbox - my package had arrived in the Port of Los Angeles. No more than a week now, maybe as soon as in a few days will my package arrive. Patiently refreshing the tracker every six hours allowed me to see it leave California, fly across the country, and land down at a New York distribution center. Here, according to Aliexpress, it was handed off to a 'Last Mile Delivery' company known as SpeedX.
Do you even need a Last Mile Delivery Solution?
No, you really really don't, and be suspicious of anyone who uses one. No one would blame you for being unfamiliar with last mile delivery. A product of late stage capitalism, a last mile delivery company is, apparently, that much more efficient and cost effective at bringing the package from the warehouse to my front door, and therefore they're hired to do the job. But SpeedX, that seems like a strange one. We've all gotten a package from the United States Postal service, Amazon has their own trucks. UPS and FedEx are the household names when it comes to delivery service. Maybe you've even had a DHGate delivery driver hand you a box. But SpeedX? Who the hell were these guys? Are they that much cheaper, a true underdog, disruptor in the delivery industry? Visiting speedx.io, the company's tagline was 'Tech Enabled Last Mile Delivery.' Gut instinct here, you don't want a tech start up driving around your packages.
I continued looking into SpeedX, reviews increasingly got worse. People claimed such issues with the courier that I started to worry. Packages that were never delivered, packages that were 'delivered' but no where to be found, packages that were delivered and found but the contents inside empty. They're out here delivering empty boxes? A large problem for online companies is how to build up their reputation. How are you to know whether this niche website you're visiting is a scam or not? They can pinkie promise all they want, but there is no real definitive authority on internet trustworthiness. This need gave rise to websites such as TrustPilot, where users are able to go review and rate the scamminess of websites. It can be helpful in an initial vibe check, but these rating sites always struck me as a bit fake. Companies beg users in their promotional materials to review them on TrustPilot, bragging about their near Five Star Trustworthiness if they get that high. "Like, Subscribe, and Review us on TrustPilot" is a common call to action. I have never seen a TrustPilot review with less than four stars, I always figured that if a company was that bad they'd do something to get their reviews taken off the site. All of this being said, SpeedX's TrustPilot was by far the worst I have ever seen.
I'm now panicking. TrustPilot seems more trustworthy than I though, especially with that badge on the page saying that companies can't hide reviews. Do I trust that? Maybe TrustPilot needs it's own TrustPilot-esque site to rate it's own trustworthiness. I cannot deny the over two thousand one star reviews, each worse than the last. Poor, poor Nando, he'll never get his package. Hundreds and hundreds of people just in the last few years had claimed to have simply never received a delivery, as recently as the week of this publication! Claims of "unmarked cars" that delivered the package, if it was delivered at all. Claims of recipeints getting a photo of their package in front of some random house that was distinctly not theirs, marked as delivered.
This is just stealing, right? How are they getting away with this, have they just robbed thousands of people? All of these people were ordering from Shien, Temu, and other Chinese retailers, just like me. Immediately I thought back to the other, western-yet-more-expensive retailers, I should have never gone with China, maybe it was worth it to pay the extra cash just to have made sure the package would have gotten here in the first place. I can charge it back, sure, but now will I have to wait another month or two for this phone? Even the positive reviews rubbed me the wrong way, everything seemed very off.
I can't even tell if this is fake, 'teddy with a lace bow' with ASCII sparkles in their name is 'Shocked!'
Worried would be an understatement. The thirty six hours leading up to the quoted delivery time were full of stress, me sitting near the window as much as I could scanning the streets for questionable cars, vans, and people who might have my Hisense A9. I felt like a nineteenth century woman whose husband has just gone to war, unsure if or when he'd ever return but watching for it regardless. If these bastards were going to actually put the package down, take a picture, and then steal it, I'd have to move fast. I estimated that I could get across my apartment to the door and downstairs in as little as twenty seconds, I wouldn't take the time to put on shoes, it'd be too costly. They shouldn't have time to heist me as long as I notice them approaching, I'd catch them red handed.
Despite my attentiveness, I didn't see them come. A look through window the window provided a view to the stoop below, sitting on the third step dead center was a small box. Bolting out of the chair, I knock over the water bottle that I keep on the floor rather than my desk so in case it gets knocked over it won't ruin my keyboard or mouse. In one fluid motion, without changing direction or velocity, I kicked a t-shirt onto the quickly spreading pool of water, that was fine for now. I did that thing where you put both hands on the hand rails of staircase and slid half way down the staircase before kind of burning my hands, and walked the rest of the way, flung open the door, and there sat on the third step dead center was sitting the box, as it was twenty two seconds before.
Do you even need a Device with US Localization?
No, you don't. But some things about the device will be and remain strange. Sometimes confusing, but more often funny. I personally took it for granted the incredible amount of work is done to the software of a device to make sure it will work in various markets. Developers must ensure that not only are the translations correct, but that they fit thematically and physically within the user interface that has been created. As operating systems have gotten more 'friendly' with the user (Welcome Back, Matt!), more places have been introduced where mistranslations can appear. Since the Hisense A9 was never intended to be used in the United States, it does not have any US Localization. It can be switched to English Language, in fact it came like that thanks to the vendor. But this switch is a simple translate, readable but hilariously broken.
Unboxing the device was just like any other smartphone, high quality recyclable packaging with a few pamphlets, in Chinese of course, and a charging cable. Visually striking, the screen is completely white, except for the phrase "POWERED OFF" in bold at the bottom when it's powered off. I plugged it in, it opened one eye and let me know that it already had sixty percent battery. I turned it on, the screen moved but it did not light up, it's e-ink it's not that type of screen. Etch-a-sketching the Hisense logo, it's really indescribable how futuristic it looked. Booting into a slightly modified version of Android, the user interface is exactly what I have been using for the past ten years yet it felt completely foreign on this display. Using the included SIM card tray ejector tool, I ejected the SIM trays on both the Hisense and my Samsung and made the swap. Nothing, no bars, for the better part of a minute. It's over, I thought, I now have a really really fancy e-reader. Then there was a bar, then the letter 'E' appeared above it, I'm roaming now. Another bar, full bars, then full 3G connectivity. A notification appeared from the Google Services that were installed on the phone, asking me to sign in, I was not on Wi-Fi, this was mobile data, it was connected.
Card for scale
I did sign into Google - I wasn't ready to for the nuclear option of absolutely no big tech yet. Contacts synced first, then I was prompted to install apps that were present on my other device, I say none, going to try and keep this thing clean. It came with the expected amount of Chinese Bloatware, The phone has 4G connectivity at this point. I call my dad, who had received earfuls about this phone in the preceding eight weeks. It's actually crazy, I tell him, I'm making a phone call from a kindle. It connects just well to my Bluetooth headset, I spend the next hour or so customizing my home screen and have a blast doing it uninstalling as much of the Chinese spyware as I could. It looked great. I had to get going though, I was due to hang out with some friends that evening and they had been texting in the groupchat. Messages weren't quite working yet, but further configuration could wait, I gathered my things and put on my shoes. The phone, wallet, keys check put a smile on my face, and I headed out the door.
The phone shined bright in the sun, completely readable. I opened google maps to check if a train was coming soon, whether or not I should hustle. The first found hurdle was the trains - the phone is in black and white, remember. While not game-breaking, not seeing the different color lines did make using the map a bit harder. I can learn to figure that out, thought. The phone lost connection after taking five steps down into the subway. I'll need to remember to download podcasts and music before leaving my apartment. The phone blinked to tell me that it had found a public Wi-Fi, Subway Station Wi-Fi! There's Wi-Fi in most every station in the city in fact. China does not have the cell tower density that is found in North America, and people are much more reliant on Wi-Fi for connection. You see this in the popularity of data-based messaging apps such as WhatsApp and WeChat. This phone was designed for such an environment, seeking out public networks and providing me the option to connect.
It worked just great as I exited the subway in Manhattan, immediately reconnecting to a nearby cell tower. The camera takes a just fine photo, that classic grain and blur with the timestamp at the bottom right that the newsletter is known for. It was fun to show my friends the few funny things I had discovered about it, and just show it off in general. It's really truly bizarre, and only gets more so the more you look at it. I played a video on the device, with intense ghosting due to the overclocked 15 frames per second this screen was working with. There is a special physical button on the side of the device that refreshes the screen, should you ever get any serious ghosting issues. Considerate engineering choice. On the ride home I still couldn't shut up about it, testing my friend's patiences when a man in our train car interrupted me and asked "Excuse me, is that an e-ink phone?" Sir, I am very glad you asked.
One thing immediately I noted is that no search functions work on the device, at all. I can't search for apps, otherwise the home screen will crash. The installed internet browser crashes if I try to search too, I installed Firefox. I can't search settings without the settings app crashing. Easy workaround, some manual exploration. I checked out all of the stock apps, the calendar, notes, clock and whatnot, all were built custom for an e-ink display and as a result looked pretty damn clean on the device. Nearly everything translated successfully to English and I was confronted with relatively few Chinese characters, especially given the circumstances. The one thing I found that was completely and unchangeably Chinese was the weather app. In no settings menu could I find anything to change it to English.
Within a day or two, I had this thing up and running as I would have any other phone. Contacts, photos, and calendars synced, emails, text messages include group chats working. I was reading books, news articles with such joy. I was worried about how Chess would play on this device, but as my friend Sydney reminded me chess is famously black and white game, very suitable for my new phone's display. It worked great. I was feeling immediate effects, too! The first morning I woke up, and as many of us do I checked my phone. My eyes adjusted so naturally, it was like I was picking up and looking at the daily paper. The Samsung was still used to sign into work, a feeling of uneasiness came over me as I looked at the screen for the first time that day, a little under an hour after waking up. With the 2FA code in hand, the Samsung was put away and I returned to the Chinese Phone to play some music. It was wonderful.
The coming days and weeks would simply be great. I had my Chinese phone, it was great and fun to use, even the bad or annoying parts were like little problems I got to solve. I soon realized that when receiving a phone call, it would do that "Call from, {Contact}" thing before playing the ringtone. This was said in Chinese, so it would be like "Zhi di an, Mom." Changing this to English, it sounded like some woman who had never spoken English a day in her life trying her best to sound out syllables, in what could very well be mistaken for a racist accent. I turned off that feature. This problem persisted into the Map applications as well, something I used on occasion, where it would give you voice directions. This was less of a problem, it was learnable as the only directions are turn left, right, or continue straight. Across the phone, pretty much ever block of text would include many spelling mistakes or other mistranslation. It nearly never prevented me from understanding what the application was trying to tell me, though.
Many, including myself, joked that instead of all my data being collected by Samsung and Google, now it was getting collected by the Chinese government. I wondered what sort of propagandistic software was going to be included, or maybe the phone would block me from searching for information that is censored in China! That'd be more funny than bad. But no, there was no glaring Chinese Communist anything anywhere on the phone. I was a bit disappointed.
The one thing that has seemed a bit more communist compared to bog-standard American propaganda that we're all used too is the motivation quotes on the lock screen. I love this feature, new quote every day at 12:00 midnight. A surprising number of western quotes, a double digit percentage of them being American founding fathers. They love Napoleon quotes, these people who curate these quotes, they like quotes from Europeans in general. Most of the quotes are unattributed, but never any quote from someone with an Asian name, strangely. The quote curator takes the quote, which starts in Chinese, and translates into english with software. The quote curator does not speak english, otherwise they would fix the mistranslations that come out, the quotes are often mistranslated. Every few weeks, there will be a quote that I'm not sure if it's a mistranslation or communist messaging. The first one I noticed was "It is the weakest link that breaks the chain." Really not sure what that's trying to say, don't be last? Don't be the worst of your peers? Previously in this article, a photo of the phone was included and the quote said "Anything that one man can imagine, other men can make real." Is that supposed to be motivational? Don't move beyond the ideation stage? I guess a 'you can't do it alone' tone? I kept that feature on.
Do you even need Cell Service?
Yes, you do, at least if you want use your device as a phone. And for the rest of the summer and into the fall, I used the Hisense A9 as my phone almost all the time. The few times I left the city forced me to switch back to my Samsung, Chinese cell towers in the rest of the country were simply too sparse. I quickly learned on which streets I would lose cellular connections, to avoid them should I be talking on the phone. It did everything a normal smartphone could do, I had less screen time that ever before and felt as if usage overall was much more conscious. The limitations of the screen prevented anything 'active' on the phone, the slower animations with no color or light made it feel as if I had stopped drinking coffee for the first time in a decade. Nothing specifically funny happened, though it was a classic party trick to pull it out and say "wanna see my Chinese phone." I showed it to my friends and family back home in September, their interest ranged from feigned to passing. It was just my phone and it worked great. Looking back, the Chinese phone and the tinkering involved may have been part of the inspiration of the Newsletter - the domain would be purchased and the site would get created in the following weeks, but more on that later.
A handful of times over those months the phone had, for some period of time, failed to connect to the Chinese cell towers. Only randomly happening one time, the other times it was always when I had taken the SIM card out of the Chinese phone and put it in my Samsung, which I would do when I would travel. It'd usually be down for a couple hours, one time it lasted a couple days, but it always came back. One day, I woke up to find the Chinese phone without connection. More accurately, it was roaming, so no data or calls. Text messages somehow squeak through, and I could theoretically call 911. Strange, I thought, maybe a tower is rebooting, but figured it would just come back sooner or later. I continued on throughout my day, having gotten used to navigating with no cell data in general. There's a shocking amount of public Wi-Fi in NYC, but it's never where you need it.
The Chinese phone lost connection on or about November 7th, 2024. It was just starting to get properly cold outside, the American presidential election had just concluded with the winner confirmed, and I was still eating my Halloween candy. I continued to believe the phone would come back for nearly two weeks, living my day to day in the meanwhile without cell service. The connection did not return. I could not kid myself any longer when I needed to call an Uber without a nearby LinkNYC tower, walking over an hour to a bar just to get there super late just when everyone was about to head home, then to walk another hour home. I chose to walk, but I think it was subconsciously a self-punishment for having technologically and socially failed that night. Without options, back against the wall, I made this reddit post that night.
New York was the last remnant of this civilization, Utah had fallen much earlier. The barbarians had been taking the villages in the country side, we knew about it because of cellmapper.net and were thankful we lived within the walls of the capital. I had outlasted OpalFanatic for all of seven months, a period of time that he says he is envious of. Envy! I don't hear that one used genuinely much, a very strong emotion, a very strong word choice that stuck with me. Was he another person just as enamored with this phone and the lifestyle it allows as I was? Was he just as terrified to go back to the world of the Samsungs and the iPhones? Was he just Mormon?
This was the real game over for the Chinese phone, I did not expect it to happen so soon. It's still a fine e-reader, and I can still use it at home. But this was the end of the Chinese Phone. In a funny final twist, the last comment on the reddit thread is from choosen-ereader - this was the name of the Aliexpress vendor who sold me the phone. Big telecommunication companies sweeping over the country, turning our devices into e-waste unless we upgrade to the newest 5G connectivity. What was wrong with 4G anyway? Don't answer that, I don't care, what of all the Chinese users in Chinatown and Queens and in Sunset Park? What about their phones, did they lose connection? It was time to give it up. I switched back to the Samsung.
I still used the Chinese phone after it stopped being a phone, but not as much. I'd have to use the Samsung to text and call, and then if I needed to look something up or do something I'd default to the Samsung. It just was more convenient, convenience being both the enemy and the key to doing any of this digital minimalism or digital consciousness or whatever you want to call it. I wasn't going to carry around two phones. Why the Chinese Cell towers turned off that week, why that week was my turn remains a mystery that has reasonable guesses available. I was back on the Samsung, eyes bleeding every morning from the auto-adjusted brightness that keeps turning on despite my best efforts. The holidays approached, I traveled home, lived in New York, used my phone. Screen time increased, I was watching more YouTube, and re-accepted the Modern Smart Phone's integral-ness to today's world. It was nice to get away, if just for a little while.
Goodbye for now, Chinese Phone.
Dynamic Duos You Loved, But That Actually Hated Each Other
By Christophe R. Crow
1. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman in "Mythbusters"
Savage and Hyneman were the lead presenters on the American science entertainment program "Mythbusters", in which dubious concepts from pop culture were subject to scientific testing to determine whether the depicted idea was a myth, plausible, or true.
The pair, serving as the nexus of the show, have an undeniable chemistry on-screen. The two "cool nerds" as I call them, delight us with equal servings of cold, hard, factually accurate science and whimsical riffing. The pair are respectively established in the world of film special effects, and so who better to dispel myths that come from such media; especially when they bounce off of each other so well?
The Mythbusters being commissioned by President Obama to bust a myth on Capitol Hill.
The two did not get on too well once the cameras cut. It's been mutually affirmed that the two just... don't like each other. They don't really share interests, or views, or get along much beyond a fondness for special effects and science. They both acknowledge, however, that despite this personal dislike of each other, their professional relationship is superb and valuable.
2. Josh Peck and Drake Bell (Campaña) in "Drake and Josh"
This one is shocking. Disheartening, to tell the truth.
It is probable that you remember fondly the antics of these two unlikely stepbrothers in SoCal. Whether it be in their cavernous bedroom or the ever-happening Premier Theater, the pair always seemed to be cooking up trouble. Overtures from uptight school faculty, grief from their goofy parents, nor threats from their diabolical sister Megan could rattle our favorite stooges so much so that they could not soon rouse their hapless enthusiasm and entertain us yet again. Josh, a loving, neurotic, booksmart boy and his new stepbrother Drake, the womanizing, musically-inclined prettyboy, delighted us for years with their harebrained schemes and farcical situations in which they seemed to always appear. In any case, it was sure that while Drake and Josh were quite different people, and, by all accounts, forced into their fraternity; they always to looked out for and loved each other at the end of the day, for they were made family.
Campaña dando un concierto en la escuela secundaria de Hueneme.
The pair have not such a rosy relationship behind-the-scenes. Josh apparently did not invite Drake to his wedding (some theorize this is because Drake had moved to Mexico and established himself as the musician Drake Campaña ("Bell" in Spanish) pending child endangerment charges in Ohio); in any case, that must have stung for all involved. Following some public handwringing, Drake was apparently invited, but did apparently give guff to the bride of Peck, the latter then demanding an apology from Campaña in a rather... demanding way. Peck was quoted identifying the moment as something along the lines of the Most-Godfather-Thing he'd ever done. Good for you, Mr. Peck. I encourage all readers to go out and do things that make them feel like a mobster. For example, I have recently started selling cigarettes out of my trunk at construction sites.
Peck and his new, cooler friends.
In researching this bit, I found that the on-screen stepbros recently reconciliated on Peck's "Good Guys" podcast. They talked briefly about their public rift in 2022, and seemed to be in not the worst of spirits about it. In any case, their reconciliation seems to confirm, at least publicly, that their discord is water under the bridge. In other words, the hatchet is buried. To put it even more plainly, the slate was wiped clean.
3. Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep in "Kramer vs. Kramer"
We all remember "Kramer vs. Kramer" for the titular cute couple. The primary drama of the film comes from this adorable pair fighting - "Why can't you guys just make up?" I cried at my television set. "End this anger and reconcile! Make out!" I pleaded. However, the movie droned on with its drama.
Streep streeping it up with Obama, who himself is reported to be a big streeper.
But DID YOU KNOW... that they were just actors playing characters? No, really though; apparently, during the dramatic final courtroom scene, wherein Streep's character was due to cry, Hoffman, desiring only the most emotional perfomance from his costar, whispered in her ear between takes: "John Cazale."
John Cazale was an actor who passed young from lung cancer. Before this, he and Streep had married, and they were very much in love. She spent the last years of his life tirelessly caring for him, never once losing hope that he would recover. Not too long after his passing was when Hoffman did this.
No, not THAT Kramer.
I caught wind of this tale from a reddit post in a snarky gossip sub that I frequently lurk. It was perhaps wise thread replier "Palindrome_01289" that put it best:
"Such a dick move"
Despite this story being nearly 50 years old and being already confirmed by Mr. Hoffman, Mattsnewsletter.com is still waiting on comment from Mr. Hoffman.
4. Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey in "Wayne's World"
Wayne's World would not have been complete if not for Garth. You remember Garth, don't ya? He was Wayne's wacky sidekick. He had all these crazy gadgets that he would use. A bookish man, Garth rarely spoke his mind. Despite his quietness, I presume few can imaging Wayne's World without this wise monk.
It was all business... or was it?
Wayne's World would not have been complete if not for Garth. You remember Garth, don't ya? He was Wayne's wacky sidekick. He had all these crazy gadgets that he would use. A bookish man, Garth rarely spoke his mind. Despite his quietness, I presume few can imaging Wayne's World without this wise monk.
Dana Carvey was never supposed to be in the film. Apparently, Meyers did everything in his power to diminish Carvey's role, even to the point where Carvey threatened to leave. Apparently, this is because Carvey was more popular than Meyers on SNL at the time, and the latter was worried the star would overshadow him. These old SNL beefs are great, because at this point, everyone who was on the show at that time is the same guy. And I am sure that in 30 years, people will be saying that everyone currently on SNL is the same guy.
5. Donald Trump and Joe Biden in Those TikToks Where They Play Minecraft Together
At a time when A.I. voice generation was finally maturing into sounding believable, one or some out there had the brilliant idea of replicating the voices of Donald Trump and Joe Biden and putting said voices to a script resembling what it sounds like when you and your friends would banter while gaming. I remember at some point prior to the summer of '24, these really blew up. Lots of the Instagram Reels I was seeing were Trump, Biden, and often even Obama shooting the shit with each other, with Minecraft footage, usually parkour, playing in the background. It was a very charming vibe, and a refuge from the otherwise vicious bipartisan discourse.
The boys chopping it up.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden actually ran against each other for the office of President of the United States in 2020, and nearly again second time in 2024. That's right, these two gamer buddies are actually political opponents. From what I've heard these guys say about each other, I announce with regret that it is unlikely these two ever played Minecraft together.
6. Adam Sandler and Cole Sprouse in "Big Daddy"
We all love the Sandman, right? "Big Daddy" is an underrated picture within the Sandlerverse; it portrays the A Man in a more vulnerable role than you'd expect from his films. It's quite a stark departure from other Sandler films: it's about a childish man who must find his maturity to win the girl of his dreams.
Sandler in 2009, being arrested for attempted arson outside of an elementary school.
The son character of the titular "Big Daddy", played jointly by Cole and Dylan Sprouse, who had Suite lives, was beloved only in plot. Apparently, one day while filming, the young twins were carrying a large tray of coffees onto set when one tripped, sending the tray of coffees flying across the room. Aside from the burns suffered by those who bore the full brunt of the splash, Sandler was incensed by the brown staining on the left variant of his new white New Balances.
Cole - or Dylan, I'm not really sure - Sprouse.
"Those little fucks. Coffee on my shoes. Right there, I wanted to grab them both by the hair and smash their heads together like coconuts. Or like that old Gallagher show, I wanted to tie them up and put their heads on blocks and smash them with a wood sledge, and just watch their brains go all over everyone else on the set.", Adam Sandler, the actor, was quoted as saying.
"It was really fun to be on a movie set as a kid," replied the Sprouses, in unison: "all the adults are working really hard and you get to work with them even though you're a kid."
7. Adam Sandler and Dylan Sprouse in "Big Daddy"
See #6.
8. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin in World War II
Pals 4 Life? Not quite - while the two would bond over a mutual interest in conquering Poland, tensions mounted as they ran out of Poland to take. In a strategy that has perplexed both contemporaries and the most learned military strategists to ponder it since, Hitler betrayed and attacked Stalin, inviting the full force of the Soviet Union to come knocking in Berlin. Reader, take a lesson from Ol' Hitler, and be true to your friends.
The two dictators pictured in 1937.
9. Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) and Kenny Baker (R2-D2) in "Star Wars"
Beep boop! Beep boop bop! You wouldn't recognize these actors if you saw them - because they portrayed robots!
C-3PO.
Daniels, a tall, slender man, perfectly embodied the physique of the bookish android C-3PO. In kind, Baker resembled the stature of R2-D2, standing at 3 feet and 8 inches.
R2-D2.
Baker recounts attempting to befriend Daniels while filming, to which Daniels would reject him and bully him for his size. "Go away from me, little man!" Baker recalls hearing from his on-screen buddy. C-3PO would never be a dick to R2. It's clear what it was - tall privilege. Don't be mean to little people just for being little - you should only make fun of them if they have a funny accent or weird hair or something.
10. Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz in "American Pickers"
Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz are the American Pickers - at least, the ones that I know. Who else could lead us around the junkyards of America with such awe-inspiring relentlessness towards accumulating junk. "One man's trash is another man's treasure", we're told, specifically later in this issue, and it is true, as the gleeful expressions from our cohosts infect us with wonder, even if their expression is in reaction to an old copper milk jug or a dirty Coca-Cola sign from the 1940's.
Their love for each other surpassed even their love for picking.
Around Covid-times, Fritz abruptly went missing from the program, replaced by Wolfe's brother. Fritz would later lament that his back surgery and alcoholism had been taking a toll on his life, and a public feud ensued between the pair when accusations of Wolfe lacking care for Fritz's struggles came out. Even Danielle chimed in with a plea for peace. The two would reconcile in 2023 after Fritz's stroke. They even expressed interest in a professional reunion. Unfortunately, Fritz died some time after this. Wolfe remembers him fondly. Wolfe was lucky enough to reunite with his friend before his friend was gone. Reader, never let your friends get too distant; they might die soon.
Honorable Mentions
Your Parents
You and Your First Romantic Partner
Woody Allen and Mia Farrow
Spy and Spy
Apartment Input Output
My apartment is kind of getting full. It's partially related to the shortsighted fashion in which I use my storage spaces, random pieces of luggage with rips that are begging to become holes, pieces of a desk that I got rid of last June, 25 feet of rope, a computer monitor, about a thousand rubber bands, generally unsorted stacks (piles) of things I've throw in and/or up there have consumed a volume of space they do not need nor deserve. The main factor, or at least the factor that I can no longer ignore, is that I simply have to much crap in my apartment. Not that this situation I've found myself in was unexpected - every place I've lived in for more than a year, this has happened. Our senior year house move-out was operating at a snails pace, with me taking a moment to think about every object and consider if it could be given to a friend, next tenant, or whomever, until my friend Xander started taking things out of my hands and saying "Matt, this is trash." We would toast to that quote at the end of the day.
There is, however, so much good crap in New York City - and most of it isn't trash! Way better than Maryland crap and Massachusetts crap, on average. Well, maybe not strictly better - the crap of both of those states definitely has it's own charm to it. But the variety and quality of crap you find in NYC is unmatched, a dangerous reality for me to live in. Between hidden gems in the trash catching my eye to the point of stoppage most of the times I walk down the street, auction websites constantly offering once-in-a-lifetime buys for pennies on the dollar, and a Facebook Marketplace and Craiglist that I'm refreshing over and over again looking for computer parts like an old man in Nevada playing slots at a gas station. I never stood a chance.
I'm getting a lot of great stuff, and having fun as well. The theoretical bedrock of "One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure" is truly alive and well. Nothing is one hundred percent, however - for some of the objects I bring home, the object may be treasure, I am not the other man. Or, even worse, it was never treasure, always trash. For the former, I hesitate to get rid of the objects - who in their right mind would throw away perfectly good treasure, even if it's doing nothing but collecting dust? By not throwing this crap away, my apartment has been filling to it's limits, by both mass and volume. This mindset has to change, otherwise my apartment will become even more of a toe-stubbing nightmare than it already is. Consider your apartment a semi-closed system, what comes into your apartment and what leaves? Are you net-plus or net-negative on crap? Is your apartment gaining mass?
Input
There was an original set of objects that I brought with me into this apartment, such as bed, desk, couch. Essentials, mostly. All of my clothes I brought with me filled the closet, plates and silverware filled the kitchen. Originally, all in all pretty barren. I've gotten other stuff from Maryland, such as cool swivel chairs for my dining room, or some of the larger wall hangings. Fourteen classical music vinyl record box sets take up 1.86 cubic feet of space. My computer case is the Cooler Master HAF XB EVO.
Closet space is a commodity.
For a notable number of things in my apartment, if you were to ask me where I got it, I'd say side of the road. After previously living in a building with a trash chute, trash day was a new weekly reality. The roads would fill up the evening before with stuff people no longer wanted, bags of trash and broken things, cardboard and cans in those clear bags, right there on the sidewalk, things that are rightly destined for the landfill, incinerator, or recycling center, loads of it! But every few houses, you'd see an object whose fate was assigned arguably wrongly. I walked to get a sandwich one night, a night that just so happened to be the night before trash day, and kept finding perfectly good things right there in the street. Not believing my eyes, there were boxes of cords and other simple electronics along with a new set of plates and silverware found on the first night, all-time best find being a 9 foot mirror. Don't discount the trash around you, it might be good stuff!
Purchases from estate sale auctions and marketplace websites make up the largest share of objects in my apartment, and most of them are absolute gems. Grandfather clock, chess table, and my rugs are things I'd like to never part with. I'm getting away from furniture at this point, if by result of lack of space. Things that can be hung on the walls and ceilings are still fair play. In terms of technology, my inability to say no to a good deal has lead me to have too many of certain things, primarily computer parts and peripherals. I'll always buy a fancy monitor if it's less than $50, but now I think twice knowing I already have four at my apartment, two unused.
it's like a little family.
I buy clothes, sometimes in person and sometimes online. A person is practically limited by their closet and/or dresser space, unless they want to have piles of clothes on the floor. Such constraints I haven't ran into, despite my year of upping my fashion. Shoes are a big culprit here, they take up so much space and are so difficult to keep organized.
Twice a week I bring into my apartment one to two bags of groceries and other consumables. Sometimes one big bag. Once a month, that haul includes a bag of cat food and a bag of litter. I buy things online, and they enter the apartment. I guess technically there is heat and electricity coming into my apartment, which famously have a mass. Gas comes in through the stove, and water comes out of the sinks and shower.
Output
Most of the water that enters my apartment is going to directly into the drain, in the form of showering and washing dishes. The water I drink ends up in the toilet, out of my apartment. The water the cat drinks ends up in the litter box, or occasionally on the floor which is cleaned with a paper towel and thrown in the trash. Water that is splashed on the floor, and captured by my towel after I shower, is evaporated and equalized with the outside after I open a window. Opening the window also removes any gas that entered via the stove. For any mass generated by the electricity and heat, yeah maybe but I don't really care. All of these result in a net-neutral mass increase.
The foodstuffs I buy are mainly comprised of packaging and food. Sometimes there are parts of the food that are not to be consumed. Those parts and the packaging get thrown away, while the food gets eaten. The parts of the food my body doesn't want goes into the toilet, while the rest of it becomes a part of my body. Dead skin sells are then falling off all the time which becomes much of the dust you see. That dust gets vacuumed, the vacuum gets emptied in the trash. For the cat, she eats food and it results in hair in the carpets and poop in the litter box. The hair is vacuumed and thrown in the trash, the litter and poop is thrown in the trash. Sometimes I'll buy a large piece of foodstuff that isn't used for a long time, such as flour. I'm making the assumption of arbitrarily long time scales - you'll use all that flour eventually. Total net-neutral.
Other non-consumables, such as clothes and incidental online purchases, really only stay. I never throw out shoes, even if they clearly should be thrown out. Not really sure why, they seem like one of the more valuable articles of clothing. This week that changed, I threw out a pair of rubber berkenstocks whose sole is down to a 1/16th of an inch forcing me to feel every pebble I step on, and a pair of shoes I've had since 2020 and were falling apart - neither of which I had worn in over a year. I am criminal at never throwing away clothes, graphic tees from sophomore year of college continue to claim a portion of my closet. Massive net-plus here.
There are some objects I very much hesitate to do anything with these, at least relative to the side-of-road finds. A pair of night stands that I've hated since the beautiful May day on which I bought them took me two months to throw away after I got a new, better pair. No excuse. I've had a trouser-press for six months that I have been too scared to turn on, because there is a heating element inside and I have no idea if it's going to start a fire. But no, I haven't gotten rid of it. Many of the unnecessary, unused, or duplicative items in my apartment share this background. Horribly net-plus here.
The side of the road finds are easier to part with, given that they began as trash. Several chairs have come and gone, monitors and computer parts that simply did not work (was that why they were in the trash to begin with?). Know that I am not pulling just anything out of the trash, I do have standards. Of all the objects I've brought in from the side of the road, I have returned one quarter of it to the streets. Net-plus here.
Let V = Volume, m = Mass
The current paradigm of things entering and leaving my apartment, if left unchecked, is a runaway snowball-turned-avalanche about to bury the small ski town below. That metaphor is more apt than you may have realized - the amount of unoccupied volume is decreasing constantly and quickly. The immediate issues manifest themselves as more stubbed toes, a sort of dance must be done to navigate around all the objects in your apartment and, of course, there less room for other stuff. In time this problem becomes serious. The dance won't be enough at a certain point, and there would be so much stuff that I would be physically unable to move around it. To keep this somewhat realistic, craw spaces would be available in the crap mounds to allow me to get around my apartment and to leave, I wouldn't be completely trapped. Free volume is approaching zero at this point, the craw spaces are filling. I can't move. It's now at the point where I'm wondering how much air is left in the apartment, no more than a dozen liters. I can feel it, its getting harder to breathe. More objects enter, displacing what's last of the air. I quite literally suffocate. The plants can't breathe either, they die after a day or two if they're not crushed before that. The cat escapes the apartment and survives.
The volume limit would be reached before mass was of any concern, assuming the densities of the objects in my apartment are within a reasonable range. I mean, it's not like I'm filling my apartment with tungsten rods - but what if my apartment was filled with tungsten rods? These things are heavy, really heavy, I'll ignore how they would have gotten there in the first place. The rods are added one at a time, sooner than later a straw on a camel's back situation presents itself. Let's call them tungsten rectangular prisms, you can pack in more squares than circles. Any cracks in the floor of my apartment would strain, slight imperfections in the load bearing structures of the apartment are amplified until an inspector would have good reason to condemn the entire building. I'm buried in the rods, getting crushed myself as more and more keep getting added to my apartment. At the tipping point, the sheer weight of my apartment would cause it to collapse in on itself (I live on the second floor), killing me and any tenants below me in less than a second.
"Do you hear that?"
My apartment, completely filled from floorboard to ceiling with tungsten, 6000 cubic feet of tungsten, is now in free fall heading towards the ground. Average density of 19.3 grams per cubic centimeter, we're talking about seven million one hundred and fifty thousand two hundred and twenty nine pounds of tungsten. This mass, falling just twenty five feet down into the basement, causes an explosion on impact equivalent to about fifty two pounds of TNT. I was hoping it would be a bigger explosion when I started doing this math, but this is fine. Don't check any of this math, either. My building would collapse from the weight, and the buildings flanking would probably collapse from the explosion. Apartments further down the block might receive some structural damage. A car unluckily driving by would get sent.
Is there anything more dense than a tungsten prism? There is osmium, the most dense element on earth of 22.6 grams per cubic centimeter, but that's not much more than tungsten. What if my apartment was filled with some freak-osmium that was ten times as dense? Now we're in business, thirty seven billion nine hundred and seventy eight million seven hundred and fifty three thousand and eighty pounds of freak-osmium. This impact is now impressive - well over a trillion joules of energy is released on impact, equivalent to five hundred pounds of TNT.
Approximate blast radius.
This is like a relatively minor meteor strike, or a relatively big terrorist attack. My entire neighborhood is immediately engulfed in flames, if not flattened. Some ten percent of Greenwood Cemetery is annihilated. The Metropolitan Detention Center jail on 29th Street receives major damage, and in the chaos inmates Sam Bankman-Fried, Diddy, and Luigi Mangione are able to get out and get away. A small crater is left, the survivors wondering what the hell could have happened. They'll never figure it out. The cat escapes.