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Can you talk with the IT team?
I was able to switch my MFA to a Yubikey.
They rolled out the MFA policy quite recently and I immediately sent an email like “Hello. I do not have a smartphone. What are my options?”
They also had the option for SMS verification, but I had been looking at getting a Yubikey for myself anyway so might as well get work to pay for it.

I have a Dell XPS 13 9315, which is roughly the same size as the 11" air (actually slightly smaller), and I absolutely adore it. I didn’t get the highest-end because I didn’t need it, but it’s available with some decent processors and up to 32Gb RAM. It just sucks that everything is soldered to the board and non-upgradeable, and it has only 2 USB C ports, but that’s the price you pay for the size. The battery life is actually astounding, too, I am constantly amazed how long it lasts. The new XPS13 has the weird square flat keys and no border around the touchpad, I’m really glad I got the model I did because the new ones look like a pain to actually use.

Like I can actually do a little bit of light Solidworks on it if I’m not near my desktop, which blew me away. It plays the indie games I like, too, so it basically just does everything I need.

My winter project is to install Linux on it and get it all working the way I want.

Many years ago Nokia made a couple prototypes of an official Star Trek communicator phone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3EN05faZVU

I would do some seriously regrettable things to have one of these that works with modern networks.

I’ve been weaning myself off video content altogether, which I feel is the most surefire way to avoid AI video.

I feel like I’m going to turn into such a paranoid tin-foil-hat nutcase and just trust nothing I don’t see with my own eyes… I mean I would be ok with that, it just sounds miserable.

I didn’t have depression, but I wanted to try the experience after hearing how much someone I knew enjoyed it. I had a terrible trip (in a safe space, with good intentions, an experienced user I trusted very deeply, etc. etc. etc.) and suddenly developed pretty gnarly depression and felt like an unnamed part of my brain was missing/out of reach for over 2 years… I’m only one data point and my experience seems uncommon, but I definitely won’t be touching shrooms ever again. It’s only in the last 6 or so months that I’ve felt more “myself” and have been making progress out of the hole I was dropped into.

All the browser settings are also stored there, too. I turned all the AI stuff off, then the next time I booted up my PC the AI was back. Turned it off again. Same thing the next time I logged back on…

I finally looked into it and it was because I had firefox set to clear the cache on shutdown.

I’ve actually taken note of my navigational skills over the last couple years… I grew up in one state, and then a few years after graduating college, moved to a different state. When I was growing up, phone navigation didn’t really exist as it does now, cars didn’t have built-in navigation, and standalone navigation devices were slow and not all that great (at least the ones I could afford).

I find that when I return home, even 10 years later, I am able to navigate all the places I used to go unaided with ease, back-roads, niche routes, able to travel for hours without getting “lost”.

When I moved, though, I had very recently gotten my first smartphone, and google maps was very convenient to “learn” the new area. I ended up just continuing to use navigation since it was convenient. I’ve found that beyond the major main routes, I don’t have the same kind of “built-in” navigational skill that I do for my original home-turf. I never really learned the area.

I am moving towards a smart-phone-less life, and I’ve been able to let go of a lot, but GPS navigation remains a sticking point. I need to start training myself to navigate unaided in my current area.

I would unironically love if there were enough people in my life that also wanted to live that way to make it viable… Also the lack of functioning payphones these days would be challenging.

The place (at least in the USA) where I’ve found the most functional-looking payphones was actually Hawaii… And even then, so many are decaying and non-functional. I’ve had a silly idea to go back and just roam around and photograph as many as I can.

That solidifies my suspicion that it’s a standard Android feature… I also don’t get many spam calls, and only distinctly remember performing that action on this most recent phone.

Based on OP’s comment “…I always assume that rejecting the call outright will also be detected as a deliberate action and therefore a person is on the other side…”, I figured maybe they didn’t know about that feature and/or have an iPhone and they somehow don’t behave that way.

I also miss the old days of Android… I got a smartphone specifically to play Pokemon go in 2016 lol, up until that point I was still rocking one of those Casio Gzone indestructible flip-phones. Walked into WalMart, bought the cheapest LG whatever phone I could find (Android 5 I think?), caught a bazillion Pokemon. I remember buying multiple batteries for longer sessions, because you could just pop the back off and replace it on the go.

I don’t know if it’s a universal thing, I’ve never bothered to research further. On my several-year-old Oneplus phone (Android), if I single-press the power button, it mutes the ringer and vibrate but the call doesn’t end or reject (I could still then go and answer or reject the call normally, it doesn’t affect the user interface, just the ringer/vibrate). That’s how I’ve been “rejecting” unknown calls for a long time. A simple, elegant solution that doesn’t give the caller any hints.