Your wife runs a restaurant?

In our house :)

I did once write to about 20 of them about another topic.

First of all, this is surprisingly hard, even for someone whose expectations were already pretty low; Similarly hard as it is to contact anyone from an actual company: you have to go through circular FAQs and robots and I ultimately had to write a small scrapper to get the postal and/or email address of the people of interest.

One month later I received one answer, from one of the ~20 people I mailed (which did not told me anything I didn't already knew, but reasserted that my concern won't move the needle - fair enough).

I've been thinking about something like that. So the message is not stored, but if I scan it then it's in your HTTP server logs, isn't it?

> cathartic when you're sitting at home in the dark because the power company continues to fail

Ironical remark about the power drawn by IA assisted creation left to the reader.

> > cathartic when you're sitting at home in the dark because the power company continues to fail

> Ironical remark about the power drawn by IA assisted creation left to the reader.

Thanks for pointing that out, was scratching my head on that

It is unclear to me what alternative you are proposing, apart from bending to Google and Apple?

There is no alternative. Unless you pay by cash and have verified that all of the utilities and services you consume are not laundering your data then you’re just wasting your time by putting up with a horrible phone OS experience.

I don't use GNU/Linux on my phone for "privacy". It's an added benefit, but not the point.

I use it because it's familiar, hackable and respectful to my attention. It works the way I want it to work and it's capable enough to fulfill all my needs. Switching to Android would be a downgrade on all these aspects. I'm aware that it would be an upgrade in some other aspects that I care about less.

You are right to remind that other service providers such as banks or any online shop do routinely collect and sell an amount of personal data that should also concern us, but a phone in your pocket that is used for virtually everything and that's controlled by a third party raises more concern than just privacy of consumer data.

Digital privacy is futile predicated on paying your electricity bill by credit card? Absolutist fatalism is not helpful.

The perfection fallacy?

> In the EU, it is a legal requirement to allow your customers the same method, with the same number of steps and complexity, for canceling as for subscribing.

Is it true? Is it a new thing? Could someone tell the telco industry, surely they are unaware of that, because as recently as last month, I had to threaten legal action again a european telco who refused to not automatically renew my "pre-paid, subscription free" plan... Any reference to that regulation would be appreciated.

After thinking about it non stop for 16 years?

This indeed sounds fishy.

Why fishy? I had the idea 16 years ago but lacked any type of expertise or finance to create an app. I've been pestering everyone I could think of ever since and the idea developed and I became more desperate and determined (but still lacking expertise and finance). And last year came across a way to make an app with no coding. I had already tested out the concept during lockdown with family & friends on a live anonymous Zoom with the polling so I knew it would work. Made the MVP on Bubble and here it is. So, what's the fishy part - I genuinely want to know so that I can maybe rewrite it so it doesn't look fishy!

Sorry, but in this age of post-truth anything that sounds unusual is immediately suspect.

« This actually caused some annoyance among law enforcement officials who believed they had suspects' phones stored in a readable state, only to find they were rebooting and becoming harder to access due to this feature. »

Wouldn't the phones run out of battery after a few days anyway? Or do they keep them plugged in?

They keep them plugged in

Same here, using several old androids as hotspots here and there. They stopped receiving updates long ago though, so I'm not worried.

Its not an OS update, its a Google Play Services update .. so if they still apply you would get it

I found it strange that things like 'prettier settings screens' and 'improved connection with cars and watches' would be included in Google Play Services. Surely those things are part of the OS not part of a thing which helps you access the Play store?

I've been using a LineageOS (prev. Cyanogenmod) phone for years and have never installed any google stuff so I don't get these updates anyway.

They've been moving more and more into Google Play Services because:

1. It's deployed to all devices and not subject to manufacturer approval for updates

2. It's easier to update without requiring user interaction or approval

3. It's closed source unlike Android so changes can't be incorporated by competitors

One possible option would be to install Netguard (open source Android firewall that doesn't require root) and block Play Services.

I have that on a spare unrooted Android phone. Seems to be working so far. But I'm sure Google could bypass it if they really wanted to. I don't know if they've ever made an effort to bypass Netguard (or similar) in the past.

Its an anti fragmentation measure

Except that on most phone you can already reboot the device if you long-press some button, can't you?

You can always turn it off and on, AFAIK.

Long Press power while pressing volume down works on all Android devices I've used to date.

And that's ignoring the fact that disconnecting power, waiting a few days and then reconnecting it will inevitably let you cold boot it, too (which this would be an equivalent to - as far as I understood it)

That key combo is screenshot on android 14...

The force power of happens after something like 30s, the screenshot should be pretty much instant

long power press = force reboot

power+volume = screenshot

Your are absolutely correct. I mixed it up from playing with various Android versions in 2010-2016. The long press alone got the reboot, and the volume down + power booted into the bootloader. Hence my memory with both, as I always pressed both until the bootloader was available - but you are right, long press power is enough for hard off