Slashdot had a post about an upcoming (about 1 year out) phone that can run pretty standard Linux distros. I took interest because I'm very annoyed about how UNconfigurable android is.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S2, very old by now, but hardware wise it still works fine. Software wise, it is shit. Android apps are massively bloated compared to when the phone was new, so the "system" partition of the phone is too small to install anything other than like 1-2 apps. From what I can tell, rooting might not help because there are still standard partitioning requirements? I dunno. Anyway, it is a big mess compared to a desktop, where I can partition things any way I want (which works great if you know what you are doing).

Anyway, I don't want to shill for Purism, the company that will be making the phone in the Slashdot article (for one thing, the phone is still a year or so away from final production), but they seem to be doing things right. They DO have some laptops on the market now, which apparently include a relevant feature mentioned in the write-up about their upcoming phone: hardware kill switches for the microphone, camera, and WiFi/Bluetooth.

If you read the ToS (hah! as if) for things like Facebook's app or the phones / OS themselves, you might see that you are "agreeing" to this kind of data collectionspying. If that sets the bar for "good" behavior, imagine what the bad guys (NSA, other agencies, state actors, unscrupulous advertisers, malware producers, etc.) can and will do. That's why any software solution is dubious. That's why electrical tape over your webcam is better than assuming that the record light is trustworthy. That's why a hardware kill switch is a good feature if you're concerned about this (like me).

Here's links to:
an article about the hardware kill switches in Purism's laptops, and
an article about their upcoming phone the Librem 5

I don't own any of their hardware. I don't like paid shills. That being said, I'm interested in what they are doing.

To be fair, prior to the Windows 10 upgrade spam "updates" in Windows 7, one could generally trust Windows updates to be in the best interest of the user to install.

Then those came around, and suddenly Micro$oft got caught doing blatantly shady things and passing them off as "critical updates". "Get Windows 10" nagware, telemetry, "genuine advantage", etc. that snuck in by being as vague as possible in KB entries, sending the updates multiple times, and/or unnecessarily combining elements that users might have legitimate reasons to NOT want along with updates that actually were actually important.

I was running Windows 7 and made an informed decision to avoid Windows 10 (because I didn't want telemetry, don't approve of the "cloud" / seeing the OS as a licensed rental paradigm vs owning it, trend towards walled garden, etc.). Then one day I got the "GWX" Windows 10 update nagware through an update. I discovered how to disable / remove that, and started to scrutinize the updates more closely, but a while later it snuck back in and made me aware of M$'s attempts to hide it and get it on to ALL Windows machines.

For a while I continued to run Windows 7, while attempting to be vigilant about picking and choosing updates to keep those things I found undesirable out. After Windows 10 came out, in some ways that got even harder because they started trying to backport the telemetry etc. into 7. Eventually, I gave up and turned off updates altogether.

By that point, I had gone from checking in with Linux as a hobby once in a while to using it as my daily driver for all mission-critical stuff, along with any computer usage that generates personally identifying data (web browsing / banking / etc.). I keep Windows around purely for games that don't run well or at all in Linux. So, I don't care much about any vulnerability to ransomware or whatever as a result of not updating. All data that needs to be protected is on an ext4 Linux partition on a different physical drive and/or machine that Windows has no access to, so worst case scenario I lose saved games and have to reformat and reinstall Windows for games.


I wouldn't want to be doing important, work-related stuff like rendering on an un-updated Windows machine like the guy in the video, but on the other hand a big chunk of that is Micro$oft's fault for abusing the whole update process to put in stuff that benefits THEM rather than USERS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region)
I admit I was wrong about the 8% figure, I got the columns crossed, recalculating, it was about 11% in 22, 17% in 31, and 32% in 47. That still sounds like a pretty huge influx by my standards, almost tripling the per capita population in 25 years (and more than tripling the actual population) compared to others in the region, mostly by imigration.

You said they stood along side the Nazis " upon the UN mandating a two state solution to the whole mess" (I think you've edited what you originally stated, that they then stood along side the Nazis, and clarified what you meant, that the leaders that turned down the 47 proposal had stood with the Nazis in the past, which I don't disagree with...too bad I erased the quotation for space). The U.N. mandated a two state solution in 74...in 47, they 'mandated' a 3 state solution that took massive territories from the Palestinians and handed it to Jewish immigrants, it turns out the Palestinians should have accepted because they've lost far more since then, but it sounded terrible at the time.

What points? Are these universal points? Can I redeem them for trips to the store by the universe...it owes me some milk.

In 48, when the illegal immigrants became land thieving invaders, the U.N.partition plan was to split the territory 3 ways, and for the U.N. to control Jerusalem. It would be like the U.N. agreeing today with illegal Mexicans in Texas and California that the southern 1/2 of all border states was now a new country because they are now a majority in many areas, with the U.N. taking control of the LA basin....we might say "no thanks" like the Palestinians did...at least I hope so.

The 37 British plan for Partition came before 47.
WIKI-The first proposal for the creation of Jewish and Arab states in the British Mandate of Palestine was made in the Peel Commission report of 1937, with the Mandate continuing to cover only a small area containing Jerusalem. The recommended partition proposal was rejected by the Arab community of Palestine,[8][9] and was accepted by most of the Jewish leadership.

You said they stood with the Nazis when the two state solution was proposed...which was actually 74, but I'll give you leeway and say you meant 47, which is still ridiculous, the Nazis were long gone in 47.

They didn't seize it as payback for the holocaust, but many allies went along, seemingly out of guilt for not stopping it sooner (a valid complaint about the US, but no reason to help take Palestinian territory and hand it away).

Yes, there was Jewish hatred in Europe before the Nazis, that's one reason why they were able to grab so much power, they had a ready made scape goat. Your point?

No, not every Jew in Palestine was a Zionist, but enough of the 11% were that they tripled their presence in 25 years....and far more importantly, today it's near 100%, and they are violent, expansionist, ruthlessly inhuman, and zealous.

I refuse to call it a civil war when one side was made nearly completely of immigrants....that's called an invasion.

I do agree, the inability to assimilate is not 100% the immigrants fault, but it is 100% their responsibility. Refugees, that are not expected to stay, so not expected to assimilate, are kept in camps. These people did not go to camps, so they were, at best, illegal immigrants, and many were coming with the goal of stealing inhabited territory for their own, which makes them invaders. The VAST majority of them came after the war ended, so could not be war refugees. During the war, Jews had an incredibly hard time traveling in Europe.

The few actual refugees there that the axis created were absorbable by the Palestinians. It's their multitudinous militant expansionist friends that continue to immigrate there to this day that are the problem, IMO. I'll continue to call them violent invaders, you've said nothing to convince me otherwise.

@newtboy,

Why do you insist on trying to contort things?

The stats I found showed 8% in mid 1930's....Before the war.
Provide a source then, I did and it's over 16% as of 1931.

You said the Palestinians stood alongside the Nazis....in 47?....so.....what Nazis?
I observed that the Arab revolt between 1936 and 1939 was led by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Who later found himself in Germany talking with Hitler and advocating a 'solution' for Palestine ala Italy and Germany. I didn't present an opinion for you to disagree with. I presented a statement of fact which stands regardless of whether you refuse to believe in it or not.

As for partition, stop trying to win points or something, it's inescapable that the partition agreement that the Jewish Palestinians accepted when they declared independence in 1948 was the 1947 UN Partition Plan, on account of the other partition agreements having not yet come into existence yet and all.

I didn't say the tensions didn't begin when Nazis existed, I said they were gone when the events you describe happened.
I think that was addressed earlier what with Arab uprising in the 30s, and the conflict between Arab and Jewish Palestinians continuing on from then all the way till it hit an all out civil war.

Nothing I'm saying here has to justify, forgive or declare Israel a saint and Arabs the sinners. I AM however pointing out some very basic facts that refute the argument that Jewish invaders just came in from Europe and seized Palestine from the Arabs as payback for the holocaust. That simply was not what happened.

Jews were unwelcome and persecuted in Europe long before WW2. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1925, and he wasn't exactly putting pen to brand new ideas nobody had been circulating in Europe already. The Zionists for their part were also busy and in action long before WW2, in no small part for reasons above. The Zionists were absolutely looking to take back 'their' homeland and by invasion if need be. That doesn't mean every Jew in Palestine was a Zionist anymore than the above makes every European and Arab nazi sympathizers. The reality was a lot more muddled and complex.

In the end, the big events driving the Arab-Jewish civil war in Palestine was as you say, an inability of the immigrants to live together with the natives. So on that front we are well agreed. You seem content to place 100% of the blame on the immigrants(which I must insist we refer to as refugees given they are largely European Jews between 1940-1947). I disagree. I believe I've given adequate evidence to demonstrate that the inability to live together was as much to blame on the Arab Palestinians as it was on the Jewish. If we want to blame anyone in the whole mess, the strongest blame still lies with the Axis powers for creating the refugees in the first place.

You are factually wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region)

What to you count as "before" the war? Jewish population in Palestine at set times looks as below:

1890 had 43,000 making your 8%
1922 had 94,000 making 13.6%
1931, still before WW2 broke out in 39 had 175,000 making almost 17%

As for the nazi's being long gone by 1948, most obviously Hitler was still alive 3 years earlier which is hardly most people's idea of a long time. I'm afraid that even that is but the gentlest error in your statement. Palestinian tensions and revolts were ongoing in the 1930s already. Those tensions broke out into a full blown civil war in 1947.

Th 1970s two state UN mandate is obviously NOT the mandate accepted by Jewish palestinians in 1948. I can not fathom how you honestly make such a mistake? Plainly the UN Partition Plan for Palestine from 29 November 1947 as a proposed resolution to the civil war there is the mandate I meant. Given that it was a proposed resolution to a conflict that was simmering on and off throughout WW2 it hardly seems a conflict in which the Nazi's were "long gone".

Read up on Haj Amin al-Husseini, he led the Arab revolt in 1930's Palestine. He later bounced his way to Nazi germany and in 1941 declared
Germany and Italy recognize the right of the Arab countries to solve the question of the Jewish elements, which exist in Palestine and in the other Arab countries, as required by the national and ethnic (völkisch) interests of the Arabs, and as the Jewish question was solved in Germany and Italy.

So no, I don't believe you can really honestly say that the Arab-Jewish tensions that led civil war in Palestine occurred in an environment were the Nazi's were a distant memory.

Oh come on. Fairly informative and correct for the most part except for the title and main argument. Still, it is about Doom and binary partitions, so thats all OK.

Anything on a flat monitor is "just faking" 3D.

Yes, Doom levels could still be designed in plan view, but the in-game display of the floors, walls and ceilings is a very rudimentary, but definitely 3D, experience. Displayed objects have an obvious X, Y and Z coordinate. The Z coordinate was not used for aim (people had not got used to using a mouse for aim at that point) but it was used for display and movement.

Also forgot to complain about flat sprite monsters.

No Doom was not "computed like any other 2D game", or rather it partly was, but then on top of that it was displayed in 3D, which was a big deal back then. Yes, fake 3D, on a monitor, but definitely 3D.

Quake ran in plain VGA so the argument about 3D accelerators falls rather flat :-)

I'm not so sure about kitty heaven, the one on the far left at about 1:20 is clearly praying to his kitty gods to deliver him from this partitioned hell.

Good question. Here are the rules:
"
6a. Legal Pinfall
Pins to be credited to a player following a legal delivery shall include:

Pins knocked down or off the lane surface by the ball or another pin.
Pins knocked down or off the lane surface by a pin rebounding from a side partition or rear cushion.
Pins knocked down or off the lane surface by a pin rebounding from the sweep bar when it is at rest on the pin deck before sweeping dead wood from the pin deck.
Pins that lean and touch the kickback or side partition. All such pins are termed dead wood and must be removed before the next delivery.
No pins may be conceded, and only pins actually knocked down or moved entirely off the playing area of the lane surface as a result of a legal delivery may be counted."

So....I am not sure if it is considered down since it was moved off the lane surface and then ended back on the lane surface.

No crap. First they move there from Europe and kick out the natives, and then they get all pissy that someone else would move in.

The bigger irony is that the descendents of the people of Judea [who the Israelis claim to be, who are the supposed rightful people of Israel] are actually the Palestinians [today practicing Islam].
The current-day Israeli's themselves are a 50/50 mix of Europeans and Jews from other Arab states that moved there after the partition of Palestine post WW2 [committed by the U.K.].

The true home of many Israeli's is Europe, in the countries that turned on them in WW2. But at the time, it was easier to ship out than to go home and say hi to the neighbors that quite happily sold one out to the nazis (they weren't exactly popular, not just in Germany. As disliked as the Nazis were, their attitude towards Jews was not unique). It's surreal how the cycle of violence repeats itself.

I want to roll my eyes every time someone says "thousand year conflict"... when it's more like 65 years.

-scheherazade

Well maybe I need a few drinks to really respond to your argument properly, but I'll do my best while sober

I think it's a bug and a coincidence. I was really talking about phones and other embedded devices rather than laptops, but you have a point that it's kinda similar here.

Here's the thing though: Win8 is so different to win7 and vista that Microsoft would be taking a huge risk if they tried to make people switch to it before they got used to the change. Given that people will have to re-learn a whole lot of stuff (or install classic shell) anyway, what's to stop them looking around and buying a macbook air, or installing Ubuntu on their old laptop?

Look, I readily concede that your way is possible, but it just doesn't seem terribly likely to sober me (drunk me could have a different opinion, but I wouldn't listen to him if I were you).
In reply to this comment by zaust:
Hang on a sec - what your saying is old unsupported devices - such as a 4 year old Windows Vista 7 laptop have a best version. So why, JUST NOW, right when win8 is around the corner are the automatic updates which are enabled on every new PC restricting my dad's functionality?

This isn't a case of his installed the latest win8 beta (he has not surprisingly as he was in IT for 30 years - but it's in a separate boot partition and runs all of his usb functions perfectly). This is an update to vista 32 bit drivers which has lessoned his functionally roughly a month before win8 comes out.

Could be a bug, could be a coincidence. Could be microsoft are shaking the tree just enough to make people question if they need the new OS.

Lets take a couple more points of view - you've probably seen the start trek TNG vs special edition videos where the original footage looked WAY worse than what was aired originally. If not maybe your a gamer? Notice how blizzard are preparing "Titan" for launch (new mmo) whilst at the same time releasing a kung-fu panda expansion for wow whilst addressing none of the failings Guild Wars 2 has highlighted.

It pays for companies to make their old products look obsolete whilst retaining their brand loyalty

Sorry for rant - had a few to drink.

Hang on a sec - what your saying is old unsupported devices - such as a 4 year old Windows Vista 7 laptop have a best version. So why, JUST NOW, right when win8 is around the corner are the automatic updates which are enabled on every new PC restricting my dad's functionality?

This isn't a case of his installed the latest win8 beta (he has not surprisingly as he was in IT for 30 years - but it's in a separate boot partition and runs all of his usb functions perfectly). This is an update to vista 32 bit drivers which has lessoned his functionally roughly a month before win8 comes out.

Could be a bug, could be a coincidence. Could be microsoft are shaking the tree just enough to make people question if they need the new OS.

Lets take a couple more points of view - you've probably seen the start trek TNG vs special edition videos where the original footage looked WAY worse than what was aired originally. If not maybe your a gamer? Notice how blizzard are preparing "Titan" for launch (new mmo) whilst at the same time releasing a kung-fu panda expansion for wow whilst addressing none of the failings Guild Wars 2 has highlighted.

It pays for companies to make their old products look obsolete whilst retaining their brand loyalty

Sorry for rant - had a few to drink.

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
Since the update introduced an unwelcome new feature and you had to roll back, you're kinda supporting my point actually : Every old unsupported device has one "best" version, and it's not always the newest one.

Microsoft say Oct 26 for Win 8, but you'd have to look at the machine specs to see if an upgrade is possible. The interface changes haven't been welcomed by all, either.

Quite a few people hold back on new windows releases until the teething issues have been ironed out... so win 7 is looking good at this point.
In reply to this comment by zaust:
You say that but I was round at my dads today and he'd had to roll back his Vista laptop to an earlier backup because the latest "updates" meant it no longer had the USB resources to run both his printer and scanner. When's Win 8 out again?

@spoco2

Right, because no one ever uses the phrase "Thank God" just to express relief and gratitude without meaning it literally and subscribing to exactly the ethos/worldview you just described. Oh, by the way she did indeed thank the guy who saved her girl. So much for your theory.

You did get the "it's difficult to look after an autistic child" thing right. According to both the NY Post article and the one I linked to above, the mom took the girl's brother to the bathroom and during that time the girl managed peel off the partition that covered the narrow gap between the air conditioner and the window frame and squeeze herself through.

Is it me or is the video not showing up?

I took its embed URL and it worked: http://current.com/e/92405892/en_US goes to http://i2.current.com/swf/current/veep-cv1315440596.swf#visibility=VISIBLE&partition=none&selections=0&parentGroupSlug=shows%2Fthe-rotten-tomatoes-sho
w&url=%2Fshows%2Fthe-rotten-tomatoes-show%2F92405892_reservoir-dogs-homage-or-stealing.htm&restableType=PageAssetVO&comment=0&locale=en-US&dateAdded=F
ri%2C+30+Apr+2010+03%3A43%3A04+%2B0000&id=92405892&dateLastActive=Mon%2C+12+Sep+2011+15%3A31%3A35+%2B0000&breakingNews=0&contentSource=pod&html=0&asse
tUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fv.crtcdn1.net%2Fvideo%2Ffeeds%2Fbroadcast%2FPods%2FPD33%2F701%2FPD33701.flv&height=316&assetId=90440317&assetType=V&videoRightsExpir
ed=0&width=560&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fvideosift.com%2Fvideo%2FRotten-Tomatoes-Did-Tarantino-Steal-Reservoir-Dogs&rev=1315440596&w=400&h=300&vw=560&vh=31
6&hostname=http%3A%2F%2Fcurrent.com&swfSource=http%3A%2F%2Fcurrent.com%2Fe%2F92405892%2Fen_US&serviceUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fcurrent.com%2Fproxy%2Findex.php%
2Fcccp%2Fbroxy.htm&unqiueUserId=13158423631764707496&externalContext=embed&context=embed&trackingBucket=curtvembeds&trackingProfile=UA-6771039-7&track
ingAppPath=%2Ftracking.htm&continuousPlay=true ...

Thank you for your good will here, I genuinely appreciate it. It's one of the few acts of sincerity I've received on this board. Because of that, you've inspired me to present my defense. I will attempt to show that evolution is every bit as metaphysical as a belief in God. I will also attempt to answer the question you posed about compartmentalization. I should get to it later today. Thank you again.

>> ^shuac:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I had a little rant here..ive erased it for civilities sake..if you want to address me in civilized manner instead of attacking my intellect, which I will assure you is doing just fine, let me know..
You mistake me, sir, for a common internet thug. My comment takes no such attitude. There exist very learned scientists who are among the most pious Christians ever. People like William Jennings Bryan, Freeman Dyson, and the head of the genome sequencing project, Francis Collins.
The younger Behe's answer about compartmentalization would probably, in my estimation, apply to all of them. That's not an attack on their intellect, sir. At least, I don't see it as one and I certainly don't mean it as one. In fact, a very decent argument could be made that such a sophisticated partitioning would require a degree of sophistication beyond that of normal needs.
For instance, I have very achievable compartmentalization requirements when I carry two opposing thoughts in my head. Typically, they are thoughts like "I hate 80s hair metal but I love that one song by Warrant" or the like. That kind of partitioning doesn't require a lot of mental horsepower but then, my needs are modest. You see what I mean?
As far as the second quote by Behe the Younger goes...well, I believe that sums up the entire ID stance and is similarly in no way an attack on your (or anyone else's) intellect. Hey, I get it: creationists feels strongly about this stuff and I'm not surprised they're trying to get around the rules.
Just understand that we also feel strongly.

>> ^shinyblurry:

I had a little rant here..ive erased it for civilities sake..if you want to address me in civilized manner instead of attacking my intellect, which I will assure you is doing just fine, let me know..

You mistake me, sir, for a common internet thug. My comment takes no such attitude. There exist very learned scientists who are among the most pious Christians ever. People like William Jennings Bryan, Freeman Dyson, and the head of the genome sequencing project, Francis Collins.

The younger Behe's answer about compartmentalization would probably, in my estimation, apply to all of them. That's not an attack on their intellect, sir. At least, I don't see it as one and I certainly don't mean it as one. In fact, a very decent argument could be made that such a sophisticated partitioning would require a degree of sophistication beyond that of normal needs.

For instance, I have very achievable compartmentalization requirements when I carry two opposing thoughts in my head. Typically, they are thoughts like "I hate 80s hair metal but I love that one song by Warrant" or the like. That kind of partitioning doesn't require a lot of mental horsepower but then, my needs are modest. You see what I mean?

As far as the second quote by Behe the Younger goes...well, I believe that sums up the entire ID stance and is similarly in no way an attack on your (or anyone else's) intellect. Hey, I get it: creationists feel strongly about this stuff and I'm not surprised they're trying to get around the rules.

Just understand that we also feel strongly.