The parabolic microphone idea sounds interesting! I use the Merlin bird ID app to identify what I can hear, but it's not directional, obviously. I do have a pretty decent digital camera with 40x optical zoom, but you really need to know where to point it, because the slightest change in angle is a big change at a distance.

I can't use any magnifying lenses because I have blind spots that interfere with it. I can use a digital camera, I actually have a pretty good one with 40x optical zoom. But since you need to really know where you're pointing at for long distances, I mostly just use it for bee spotting!

Bird watching. I'm going blind in such a way that makes binoculars impossible to use, and am completely deaf in one ear, so I can't even tell which direction the calls are coming from 😅

smartphones basically don’t produce toxins during production or when disposed

Er, citation needed? Because pretty much every piece of a cell phone is toxic when recycled (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11270-023-06328-2), even just the plastics used in the casing (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019332556). There are not nearly enough recycling facilities to handle all the e-waste (https://microjournal.researchfloor.org/impact-of-e-waste-on-human-health-and-environment/) and most of it is shipped to developing worlds to be burned in open air pits.

My 13 year old has this infuriating habit; whenever an actor pauses or hesitates during the delivery of a line, she finishes it for them, reading from the subtitles.

I'm a self published author, I recently wrote a solarpunk western. It's free!
https://books2read.com/b/bOgDKW