Correct, you are required to own one, but there is no law that requires you to keep it on you at all times. Although most Germans do not know this either.
Law or not, the question is: if an officer asks you for it and you don't have it, what, if any, are the consequences? The legality of the matter is often less important than how you are treated by law enforcement. In the U.S., there are laws about what a cop can and cannot demand from you in specific circumstances: but even when they don't have the right, they may still expect you to obey and give you a hard time if you don't. Depends upon where you are, in many cases: I know there are some towns that I simply avoid travelling through because the cops have a bad reputation, or because I've personally had a bad experience. Other places the police are better trained and more respectful, although from what a friend of mine who has lived in Germany for the past ten or fifteen years has told me, the German police tend to be more on the civil side. I'm planning on going there next year: that's one country I've always wanted to visit.
I'm using an Android phone with Rogers Pay as you go in Canada. There is a configuration setting to disable mobile data, it's very easy to turn off and use with Wifi only. They don't sell Android phones on pay as you go plans, but that doesn't mean you can't buy the phone outright, buy a pay as you go chip separately, and disable the mobile data option on the phone. I'd be quite surprised if the situation in the US were any worse than here.
Well, as an American I've heard stories about Rogers, as I'm sure you've heard stories about Verizon. More to the point, whatever you have heard about Verizon, well, it's true. They really do suck that badly. I'm fortunate that I can get T-Mobile: I wouldn't want Verizon, Sprint or AT&T at this point.
It is kinda ironic that one of the most consumer-friendly carriers in the U.S. is nothing more than the domestic extension of Germany's Deutsche Telekom, the obnoxious entrenched incumbent over there. Here they're the underdog, and that means they're willing to work more for their business. Well, they were: with this business about the G2 locking out third-party firmware I have to wonder (yeah, it's been cracked, but it shouldn't have to be.)
Ownership of subscriber level equipment was just the tip of the iceberg of Ma Bells' abuses. If that's all you have to go on, it's obvious you aren't old enough to remember how bad it was. SBC's abuses aren't a patch on Ma Bell's.
I guess you misunderstood me. The GP was saying that AT&T was broken up just because of their lock on subscriber equipment. Obviously there was more to it than that.
And the term "abuse" takes many forms. I do remember that AT&T's field service types were well-trained, and always did the job right. At least that was always our experience. Yet, ever since the breakup, the quality of field service has been dropping, to the point where I've had these guys just leave bare wires hanging from my ceiling. The last time I had service from SBC, the pricks charged me over $350 for "installation" when the house was already wired and the tech just plugged in his test set and got tone. They claimed the technician was in my house for five hours. I disagreed, and told them I wasn't going to pay, so they turned off my service. I went cellular for a while until I got Comcast Digital Voice (not that Comcast was much of an improvement.)
Never had a problem with anything like that when AT&T was running the show. So, there are tradeoffs. We broke up the monopoly and got more competition, but we failed to maintain a proper regulatory stance. AT&T's abuses were largely systemic, and yes that resulted in higher phone bills, but their service was pretty damn good. And they weren't allowed to cherrypick: you wanted a phone, you got it, whether you were in a city or on a farm.
Yeah, breaking up Ma Bell was a terrible idea. I just loved having to pay rent on every phone in my house every month, because you weren't allowed to own your own phone.
You know nothing.
You know less than you think. AT&T was a heavily-regulated government instituted monopoly, and it was a lot easier to regulate that single entity that it was to regulate what was left of AT&T after the breakup, and the thirteen so-called "Baby Bells" that provided local phone service. And now, they've all come back under the umbrella of SBC, only now without much of the regulation, and are if anything are more abusive to their customers, and more generally corrupt, than the old AT&T ever was. So tell me again how the breakup was inherently a "good thing (tm)?"
It wasn't necessary to break up AT&T just to break the lock on subscriber-level equipment: that would have been an easy change to the relevant regulations: "AT&T doesn't own your phones anymore." Done. AT&T was broken up because it was a monopoly, and some people in government don't like monopolies. AT&T never really understood what the furor was about, considering that it was the Federal Government that granted them their monopoly in the first place, in exchange for a specific regulatory burden, quality-of-service standards and (most importantly) universal coverage. When you hear complaints about Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and the like cherrypicking what locales they service, well, now you know why. Also remember that, up until that time, AT&T did offer just about the most reliable telephone service anywhere on the planet. No, it wasn't cheap, I agree.
The Feds tried to break up IBM, and failed, and (if I recall correctly) the head attorney on the government's side said, "Well, big isn't always bad." So there's not a whole lot of consistency when it comes to antitrust enforcement. If any company was deserving of a breakup at the time, it was probably IBM. But they got a free pass, and AT&T got shattered. And in the end, because the rise of packet-switched networking and the Internet changed everything anyway, we all got those cool services that Judge Greene wanted us to have, and it didn't take a breakup to do it. I'm not saying that it was the wrong thing to do (or the right thing, for that matter), I'm just saying that you're incorrect in assuming that such a heavy antitrust penalty was required in order to let you buy your own phones.
Technology and frequency differences? You've got to be shitting me. They don't work because the cell operators are greedy assholes.
It would be interesting if the cell phone manufacturers offered a swappable, standardized radio module that would pop in and out like the battery. That way you could buy an expensive smartphone, and leverage that investment by just picking up a new radio module to move to a new network. Of course, the reality is that these pricks can't even agree on a particular power plug, so I wouldn't hold your breath and besides, they're perfectly happy if you are forced to buy a brand-new phone just to go to a different wireless provider.
They don't work in the U.S. because carriers (who, in the end, are no better than record companies) want to control everything about the devices, because a. they feel entitled and b. because they can use that control to extort extra money from the customers. I'll tell you this: they can take that sense of entitlement and stick it where the Sun don't shine. They are nothing more than not-particularly-fat wireless pipes, and it's past time they were made to understand that, and act accordingly. I'm thoroughly irritated that the government broke up old AT&T (as Judge Greene himself pointed out, that was partly in order to break AT&T's anticompetitive lock on end user equipment in order to encourage the development of more and better services) they failed to apply the same logic to the soon-to-be cellular marketplace. Allowing communications carriers to have total control over subscriber-level equipment just results in, well, all the things we complain about today with regards to our cellular providers.
So... the proposal is to turn Earth into something like Pandora, with all its night-glowy goodness? Is that it?
Sounds like it. And frankly, while Pandora looks like it might be an interesting place to visit (so long as you go heavily armed) I'm not sure I'd want to have my nighttime environment glowing like a Christmas tree on steroids. I think I'd get tired of it after a while.
Verizon has done this for years (others may have too but going from my own experience here).
Yeah, Sprint too. I had them for a couple of years, and it was a pain. I had a nice semi-smart phone. It was a decent phone for the time, but Sprint crippled the hell out of it. For example, Bluetooth could only be used for headsets: to get your own pictures off the thing, you had to have a data plan from Sprint and fucking email them to yourself. I found the manufacturer's spec sheet for the phone: it could do a hell of a lot more than Sprint would allow, because (as you say) they wanted to force you to buy a data plan and pay for value-added crap on top of that.
Plus which I had a plan with unlimited texting, and the bastards would spam me regularly and then charge me for the privilege. That's another story however. But I too am sick and tired of these bloodsucking corporations that have nothing better to do than nickel-and-dime us to death.
It should be the manufacturer's right to lock down whatever in the product they send out
Why, when it only disenfranchises the end user?
On the other hand, it should be perfectly within anyone's rights to modify and use their legitimately purchased items in whatever way they want (assuming it doesn't cause harm to others).
This conflicts with the manufacturer being allowed to ship things locked down. I can understand secured with option to disable, but stuff like what Motorola does (and HTC, if they start signing the bootloader) precludes your right to work with your property, and solely for the benefit of the manufacturer.
I agree. This makes me think of the DMCA and Fair Use... yes, we have that right (technically) but since content distributors were not required to make it possible for us to exercise that right (and in fact, the anti-circumvention and no-trafficking-in-tools clauses of the DMCA makes it largely impossible) we're still screwed. It's the same thing here: if we have a "right" that is removed via technology, then it's not really a right.
And it is, but it may void your warranty; which it should.
Why? Does it it void your warranty if you install Windows XP on a computer that used to have Windows 98 on it? The only reason there's any risk whatsoever of damaging a phone while installing a third-party operating system is because the phone manufacturers have made it that way. Now, I had a G1 (rooted, running Cyanogenmod) and with a decent recovery partition installed and Nandroid backups it was damn near impossible to brick it. Not impossible, just very difficult... and it wouldn't have been hard for HTC to made it impossible to brick. This "void your warranty" excuse is just that: an excuse, and frankly I'm sick of carriers making up reasons to turn powerful personal computers into pocket calculators. Pisses me off.
IMO if you want to use someone's service, you have to use it their way. Certain Apple Apps would require a certain firmware that may have not been jailbroken yet. However, it should still be someone's choice to do what they want with a physical device they purchase.
Sure, and I will cheerfully agree not to use my cellular provider's service to rob banks or trigger bombs like they do in movies. But we aren't talking about use of service, we're discussing what you yourself said: the right to use our own property as we see fit.
But that has nothing to do with jailbreaking. I can just as well use that much bandwidth streaming Pandora all day on a non-jailbroken iPhone or non-rooted G2 and the idea that jailbreaking somehow is going to add to bandwidth problems is rather silly at best.
Carriers say they need total control of the applications and operating system so that "rogue" applications can't run amok and dilute the "user experience." Or something. What it comes down to is that they want to sell locked-down black boxes that can't do a fraction of what they should be capable of doing, so long as the user can't remove the crapware they install in an effort to generate an alternate revenue stream by selling advertising. That fucking pisses me off: trying to monetize my phone. Frankly, if they're going to pull that shit they'd better give me half off my monthly bill.
> These are miniature computers that handle phone calls as a subset of their capabilities.
Actually, it's even deeper than that. With every Android phone I'm aware of, the actual low-level "phone" functions are handled by a separate CPU (or core that's partitioned off as a de-facto second CPU), runs its own firmware, and basically looks a lot like a metaphorical voice modem to the rest of the OS (not entirely a coincidence... the first PalmOS PDA phones were basically cobbled-together agglomerations of a voicemodem chipset with a PDA and a cell phone, tied together by a serial bus. The metaphor stuck, even if the underlying hardware has been massively consolidated into 2 or 3 chips).
Yes. My old G1 has two ARM cores in it, one runs the operating system and the other runs the radio firmware.
Tethering is part of the OS and is sitting there in the network menu where you'd expect it. There are also applications you can download from the market that accomplish the same thing.
That's a very recent addition to the Android featureset. For a long time you either had to use a third-party tethering app (as you say) or run an alternate operating system ROM like Cyanogenmod, which has had that feature for some time now. Rooting was never really a requirement for tethering, even on early versions of Android, since apps like PDANet were available and didn't require root access.
What does rooting the Android accomplish? Beyond the ability to change your prompt... what is the result of this?
I don't have an Android so if somebody could enlighten me (and I'm sure others as well).
Much appreciated.
AC
Well, I will tell you what. Among a number of interesting things, rooting allows you to run any of a number of third-party operating system ROMs. One guy even got Debian Linux running on a G1 (not too practical, but it shows the power of an open device.) My personal favorite, and by far the most popular, is the Cyanogenmod ROM. Keep in mind that the relatively open nature of the open-source Android operating system has made this a legitimate affair: this is not remotely comparable to what iPhone users suffer under Apple's heavy-handed rule. Frankly, having used Cyanogen's product (generally faster, more stable, and more featureful than the stock firmware) for over a year now, if a particular phone won't let me install it... well, that's one handset I won't be buying. More interestingly, Cyanogen (aka Steve Kondik) has a close relationship with the lead Android developers at Google, and much of his team's work has been used to improve the mainstream OS, so even those who are running the stock firmware have benefited. Are you listening, T-Mobile? Yeah, and that applies to the rest of you bloodsuckers as well: open is good for your customers, and good for your business.
Here's the deal folks. It was one thing when we were all using not-particularly-smart phones that had a few built-in applications, a camera, and maybe some extra flash to store a few MP3s. That's not what we're talking about here: these are not cellphones, they're personal computers that happen to fit in your pocket. I cannot accept that cell phone carriers (who are, after all, just fat pipes, not gods) have an intrinsic right to determine what operating system and/or applications we can use on our rather powerful pocket computers. I wouldn't accept that treatment from a PC vendor, and I see no reason for society to accept that from corporations who have spent years trying to convince us that they absolutely must limit the potential of these devices in order to "manage their networks", to provide us with a "better user experience." Of course, we all know what it means when a carrier is in control of the user experience. I will decide upon the kind of experience I want, and so far as network management goes, well that's not my problem. I expect to be provided with the service that I pay for, and that includes a hands-off approach to the phone and it's software. It's my pocket computer, not yours. Just deal with that, and stop trying to use it as an alternate revenue source.
We are human beings, and not machines. As such, we are handicapped (or helped, depending on who you ask) by our inherent nature as emotional creatures.
That's as may be. However, if your true intention is to communicate, to make your own ideas understood and perhaps accepted... well, let's just say that Copponex's approach was lacking. My point is that Copponex was not trying to communicate with me, he was trying to fulfill his own need to tear someone else down, to destroy their position without regard to validity or relevance. And he's more than welcome to do that: this is a public forum. On the other hand, his approach immediately lost any respect or credibility I might have given his position if he'd taken a more reasonable tone. I'm usually willing to listen: part of why I frequent this site is to expose my own thinking to that of others, because sometimes I learn something.
Now, I understand what you're saying, I do. However, let me say this: civility is important, it's the foundation of civilization. Furthermore, since you're the one opening the door to "our inherent nature as emotional creatures", let me point out that this works both ways. You are saying that I, as the individual on the receiving end of abusive language, should be more understanding and listen to his ideas in spite of his offensive (and, actually, rather grotesque) rhetoric. Now, maybe I should: but you have to ask yourself one question: why should I bother? We all filter our inputs, and to honest, I filed Copponex's opening line in my mental SPAM folder.
So, my friend, this works both ways. As I was trying to point out, if you are trying to convince other people of the validity of your ideas, want to convince them to re-evaluate their own position, you should accept that they too are "emotional creatures", and are very likely to discount every word you say thereafter if your first words are belittling or, as in Copponex's case, outright insulting.
That also is human nature. Defend him if you wish, but from a practical perspective he has a lot to learn.
Yeah, but the truth is, you did read his whole comment and chose not to address it. You know it, he knows it, I know it, and all of Slashdot knows it. No one actually stops reading a comment because the first sentence pisses him off, and no amount of verbal tapdancing can hide that universal truth from all us Joe Binaries who have spent decades sitting at a terminal.
Actually, you're wrong about that. I didn't get past the Limbaugh reference, not because it pissed me off (nothing on Slashdot "pisses me off", simply because I ultimately do not care what a mass of basement-dwelling Troglodytes thinks of me.) I post on Slashdot because I find it entertaining, and sometimes I learn something interesting from other people. I stopped reading his post after the "Limbaugh" reference because it was just gross, and left me feeling that the rest of his comment would likewise have no redeeming qualities. I said nothing in my original post that was particularly offensive, and after some number of years on this site you can generally recognize when someone has nothing of substance to say, and just wants to use your post as a launchpad to an irrelevant and obnoxious rant. So I skipped it. Now, if you are telling me that his post did indeed have some useful content, perhaps I will revisit it.
Not everyone thinks the same way you do. Perhaps you feel some morbid compulsion to read every word of every post you open, but I do not. There are plenty of more reasonable and interesting comments to read.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not like they will read you, it's probably a bot.
I know. It just made me feel better.
(article in German)
Most of us will have an excuse not to read TFA this time.
(As if lack of an excuse ever made much difference.)
Really. Although, I've been mod-bombed a few times for failing to read the article, so it does bother some people no end if you don't read it.
Correct, you are required to own one, but there is no law that requires you to keep it on you at all times. Although most Germans do not know this either.
Law or not, the question is: if an officer asks you for it and you don't have it, what, if any, are the consequences? The legality of the matter is often less important than how you are treated by law enforcement. In the U.S., there are laws about what a cop can and cannot demand from you in specific circumstances: but even when they don't have the right, they may still expect you to obey and give you a hard time if you don't. Depends upon where you are, in many cases: I know there are some towns that I simply avoid travelling through because the cops have a bad reputation, or because I've personally had a bad experience. Other places the police are better trained and more respectful, although from what a friend of mine who has lived in Germany for the past ten or fifteen years has told me, the German police tend to be more on the civil side. I'm planning on going there next year: that's one country I've always wanted to visit.
I don't think the men have got much do to with it.
Yes. It's obviously a mouse driver problem anyway.
actually there is an older mini usb and a newer micro usb,
Mini usb on the left, micro on the right. http://www.usb-mobile-charger.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/mini-micro-usb-connector.jpg
Yes. That's what I was referring to. I know the G1 has the older, more common one, and I believe the N1 has the newer connector.
I still like the USB interface. Convenient and practical cabal alz
Goddamn spammer. Go away.
I'm using an Android phone with Rogers Pay as you go in Canada. There is a configuration setting to disable mobile data, it's very easy to turn off and use with Wifi only. They don't sell Android phones on pay as you go plans, but that doesn't mean you can't buy the phone outright, buy a pay as you go chip separately, and disable the mobile data option on the phone. I'd be quite surprised if the situation in the US were any worse than here.
Well, as an American I've heard stories about Rogers, as I'm sure you've heard stories about Verizon. More to the point, whatever you have heard about Verizon, well, it's true. They really do suck that badly. I'm fortunate that I can get T-Mobile: I wouldn't want Verizon, Sprint or AT&T at this point.
It is kinda ironic that one of the most consumer-friendly carriers in the U.S. is nothing more than the domestic extension of Germany's Deutsche Telekom, the obnoxious entrenched incumbent over there. Here they're the underdog, and that means they're willing to work more for their business. Well, they were: with this business about the G2 locking out third-party firmware I have to wonder (yeah, it's been cracked, but it shouldn't have to be.)
Ownership of subscriber level equipment was just the tip of the iceberg of Ma Bells' abuses. If that's all you have to go on, it's obvious you aren't old enough to remember how bad it was. SBC's abuses aren't a patch on Ma Bell's.
I guess you misunderstood me. The GP was saying that AT&T was broken up just because of their lock on subscriber equipment. Obviously there was more to it than that.
And the term "abuse" takes many forms. I do remember that AT&T's field service types were well-trained, and always did the job right. At least that was always our experience. Yet, ever since the breakup, the quality of field service has been dropping, to the point where I've had these guys just leave bare wires hanging from my ceiling. The last time I had service from SBC, the pricks charged me over $350 for "installation" when the house was already wired and the tech just plugged in his test set and got tone. They claimed the technician was in my house for five hours. I disagreed, and told them I wasn't going to pay, so they turned off my service. I went cellular for a while until I got Comcast Digital Voice (not that Comcast was much of an improvement.)
Never had a problem with anything like that when AT&T was running the show. So, there are tradeoffs. We broke up the monopoly and got more competition, but we failed to maintain a proper regulatory stance. AT&T's abuses were largely systemic, and yes that resulted in higher phone bills, but their service was pretty damn good. And they weren't allowed to cherrypick: you wanted a phone, you got it, whether you were in a city or on a farm.
Other than Apple who is not using the micro USB interface these days?
As I'm sure you're aware, there's more than one of those, connector-wise.
Yeah, breaking up Ma Bell was a terrible idea. I just loved having to pay rent on every phone in my house every month, because you weren't allowed to own your own phone.
You know nothing.
You know less than you think. AT&T was a heavily-regulated government instituted monopoly, and it was a lot easier to regulate that single entity that it was to regulate what was left of AT&T after the breakup, and the thirteen so-called "Baby Bells" that provided local phone service. And now, they've all come back under the umbrella of SBC, only now without much of the regulation, and are if anything are more abusive to their customers, and more generally corrupt, than the old AT&T ever was. So tell me again how the breakup was inherently a "good thing (tm)?"
It wasn't necessary to break up AT&T just to break the lock on subscriber-level equipment: that would have been an easy change to the relevant regulations: "AT&T doesn't own your phones anymore." Done. AT&T was broken up because it was a monopoly, and some people in government don't like monopolies. AT&T never really understood what the furor was about, considering that it was the Federal Government that granted them their monopoly in the first place, in exchange for a specific regulatory burden, quality-of-service standards and (most importantly) universal coverage. When you hear complaints about Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and the like cherrypicking what locales they service, well, now you know why. Also remember that, up until that time, AT&T did offer just about the most reliable telephone service anywhere on the planet. No, it wasn't cheap, I agree.
The Feds tried to break up IBM, and failed, and (if I recall correctly) the head attorney on the government's side said, "Well, big isn't always bad." So there's not a whole lot of consistency when it comes to antitrust enforcement. If any company was deserving of a breakup at the time, it was probably IBM. But they got a free pass, and AT&T got shattered. And in the end, because the rise of packet-switched networking and the Internet changed everything anyway, we all got those cool services that Judge Greene wanted us to have, and it didn't take a breakup to do it. I'm not saying that it was the wrong thing to do (or the right thing, for that matter), I'm just saying that you're incorrect in assuming that such a heavy antitrust penalty was required in order to let you buy your own phones.
Technology and frequency differences? You've got to be shitting me. They don't work because the cell operators are greedy assholes.
It would be interesting if the cell phone manufacturers offered a swappable, standardized radio module that would pop in and out like the battery. That way you could buy an expensive smartphone, and leverage that investment by just picking up a new radio module to move to a new network. Of course, the reality is that these pricks can't even agree on a particular power plug, so I wouldn't hold your breath and besides, they're perfectly happy if you are forced to buy a brand-new phone just to go to a different wireless provider.
They don't work in the U.S. because carriers (who, in the end, are no better than record companies) want to control everything about the devices, because a. they feel entitled and b. because they can use that control to extort extra money from the customers. I'll tell you this: they can take that sense of entitlement and stick it where the Sun don't shine. They are nothing more than not-particularly-fat wireless pipes, and it's past time they were made to understand that, and act accordingly. I'm thoroughly irritated that the government broke up old AT&T (as Judge Greene himself pointed out, that was partly in order to break AT&T's anticompetitive lock on end user equipment in order to encourage the development of more and better services) they failed to apply the same logic to the soon-to-be cellular marketplace. Allowing communications carriers to have total control over subscriber-level equipment just results in, well, all the things we complain about today with regards to our cellular providers.
So... the proposal is to turn Earth into something like Pandora, with all its night-glowy goodness? Is that it?
Sounds like it. And frankly, while Pandora looks like it might be an interesting place to visit (so long as you go heavily armed) I'm not sure I'd want to have my nighttime environment glowing like a Christmas tree on steroids. I think I'd get tired of it after a while.
Erm.... we make (made, almost) fillings from mercury and lead. Just saying.
It's an amalgam, with very different properties from either of the pure metals.
Verizon has done this for years (others may have too but going from my own experience here).
Yeah, Sprint too. I had them for a couple of years, and it was a pain. I had a nice semi-smart phone. It was a decent phone for the time, but Sprint crippled the hell out of it. For example, Bluetooth could only be used for headsets: to get your own pictures off the thing, you had to have a data plan from Sprint and fucking email them to yourself. I found the manufacturer's spec sheet for the phone: it could do a hell of a lot more than Sprint would allow, because (as you say) they wanted to force you to buy a data plan and pay for value-added crap on top of that.
Plus which I had a plan with unlimited texting, and the bastards would spam me regularly and then charge me for the privilege. That's another story however. But I too am sick and tired of these bloodsucking corporations that have nothing better to do than nickel-and-dime us to death.
Why not?
Why, when it only disenfranchises the end user?
This conflicts with the manufacturer being allowed to ship things locked down. I can understand secured with option to disable, but stuff like what Motorola does (and HTC, if they start signing the bootloader) precludes your right to work with your property, and solely for the benefit of the manufacturer.
I agree. This makes me think of the DMCA and Fair Use ... yes, we have that right (technically) but since content distributors were not required to make it possible for us to exercise that right (and in fact, the anti-circumvention and no-trafficking-in-tools clauses of the DMCA makes it largely impossible) we're still screwed. It's the same thing here: if we have a "right" that is removed via technology, then it's not really a right.
And it is, but it may void your warranty; which it should.
Why? Does it it void your warranty if you install Windows XP on a computer that used to have Windows 98 on it? The only reason there's any risk whatsoever of damaging a phone while installing a third-party operating system is because the phone manufacturers have made it that way. Now, I had a G1 (rooted, running Cyanogenmod) and with a decent recovery partition installed and Nandroid backups it was damn near impossible to brick it. Not impossible, just very difficult ... and it wouldn't have been hard for HTC to made it impossible to brick. This "void your warranty" excuse is just that: an excuse, and frankly I'm sick of carriers making up reasons to turn powerful personal computers into pocket calculators. Pisses me off.
IMO if you want to use someone's service, you have to use it their way. Certain Apple Apps would require a certain firmware that may have not been jailbroken yet. However, it should still be someone's choice to do what they want with a physical device they purchase.
Sure, and I will cheerfully agree not to use my cellular provider's service to rob banks or trigger bombs like they do in movies. But we aren't talking about use of service, we're discussing what you yourself said: the right to use our own property as we see fit.
who have been bread for ignorance.
If more people could get bread for ignorance, they could cut down on their grocery bill.
But that has nothing to do with jailbreaking. I can just as well use that much bandwidth streaming Pandora all day on a non-jailbroken iPhone or non-rooted G2 and the idea that jailbreaking somehow is going to add to bandwidth problems is rather silly at best.
Carriers say they need total control of the applications and operating system so that "rogue" applications can't run amok and dilute the "user experience." Or something. What it comes down to is that they want to sell locked-down black boxes that can't do a fraction of what they should be capable of doing, so long as the user can't remove the crapware they install in an effort to generate an alternate revenue stream by selling advertising. That fucking pisses me off: trying to monetize my phone. Frankly, if they're going to pull that shit they'd better give me half off my monthly bill.
> These are miniature computers that handle phone calls as a subset of their capabilities.
Actually, it's even deeper than that. With every Android phone I'm aware of, the actual low-level "phone" functions are handled by a separate CPU (or core that's partitioned off as a de-facto second CPU), runs its own firmware, and basically looks a lot like a metaphorical voice modem to the rest of the OS (not entirely a coincidence... the first PalmOS PDA phones were basically cobbled-together agglomerations of a voicemodem chipset with a PDA and a cell phone, tied together by a serial bus. The metaphor stuck, even if the underlying hardware has been massively consolidated into 2 or 3 chips).
Yes. My old G1 has two ARM cores in it, one runs the operating system and the other runs the radio firmware.
Tethering is part of the OS and is sitting there in the network menu where you'd expect it. There are also applications you can download from the market that accomplish the same thing.
That's a very recent addition to the Android featureset. For a long time you either had to use a third-party tethering app (as you say) or run an alternate operating system ROM like Cyanogenmod, which has had that feature for some time now. Rooting was never really a requirement for tethering, even on early versions of Android, since apps like PDANet were available and didn't require root access.
What does rooting the Android accomplish? Beyond the ability to change your prompt... what is the result of this?
I don't have an Android so if somebody could enlighten me (and I'm sure others as well).
Much appreciated.
AC
Well, I will tell you what. Among a number of interesting things, rooting allows you to run any of a number of third-party operating system ROMs. One guy even got Debian Linux running on a G1 (not too practical, but it shows the power of an open device.) My personal favorite, and by far the most popular, is the Cyanogenmod ROM. Keep in mind that the relatively open nature of the open-source Android operating system has made this a legitimate affair: this is not remotely comparable to what iPhone users suffer under Apple's heavy-handed rule. Frankly, having used Cyanogen's product (generally faster, more stable, and more featureful than the stock firmware) for over a year now, if a particular phone won't let me install it ... well, that's one handset I won't be buying. More interestingly, Cyanogen (aka Steve Kondik) has a close relationship with the lead Android developers at Google, and much of his team's work has been used to improve the mainstream OS, so even those who are running the stock firmware have benefited. Are you listening, T-Mobile? Yeah, and that applies to the rest of you bloodsuckers as well: open is good for your customers, and good for your business.
Here's the deal folks. It was one thing when we were all using not-particularly-smart phones that had a few built-in applications, a camera, and maybe some extra flash to store a few MP3s. That's not what we're talking about here: these are not cellphones, they're personal computers that happen to fit in your pocket. I cannot accept that cell phone carriers (who are, after all, just fat pipes, not gods) have an intrinsic right to determine what operating system and/or applications we can use on our rather powerful pocket computers. I wouldn't accept that treatment from a PC vendor, and I see no reason for society to accept that from corporations who have spent years trying to convince us that they absolutely must limit the potential of these devices in order to "manage their networks", to provide us with a "better user experience." Of course, we all know what it means when a carrier is in control of the user experience. I will decide upon the kind of experience I want, and so far as network management goes, well that's not my problem. I expect to be provided with the service that I pay for, and that includes a hands-off approach to the phone and it's software. It's my pocket computer, not yours. Just deal with that, and stop trying to use it as an alternate revenue source.
We are human beings, and not machines. As such, we are handicapped (or helped, depending on who you ask) by our inherent nature as emotional creatures.
That's as may be. However, if your true intention is to communicate, to make your own ideas understood and perhaps accepted ... well, let's just say that Copponex's approach was lacking. My point is that Copponex was not trying to communicate with me, he was trying to fulfill his own need to tear someone else down, to destroy their position without regard to validity or relevance. And he's more than welcome to do that: this is a public forum. On the other hand, his approach immediately lost any respect or credibility I might have given his position if he'd taken a more reasonable tone. I'm usually willing to listen: part of why I frequent this site is to expose my own thinking to that of others, because sometimes I learn something.
Now, I understand what you're saying, I do. However, let me say this: civility is important, it's the foundation of civilization. Furthermore, since you're the one opening the door to "our inherent nature as emotional creatures", let me point out that this works both ways. You are saying that I, as the individual on the receiving end of abusive language, should be more understanding and listen to his ideas in spite of his offensive (and, actually, rather grotesque) rhetoric. Now, maybe I should: but you have to ask yourself one question: why should I bother? We all filter our inputs, and to honest, I filed Copponex's opening line in my mental SPAM folder.
So, my friend, this works both ways. As I was trying to point out, if you are trying to convince other people of the validity of your ideas, want to convince them to re-evaluate their own position, you should accept that they too are "emotional creatures", and are very likely to discount every word you say thereafter if your first words are belittling or, as in Copponex's case, outright insulting.
That also is human nature. Defend him if you wish, but from a practical perspective he has a lot to learn.
Yeah, but the truth is, you did read his whole comment and chose not to address it. You know it, he knows it, I know it, and all of Slashdot knows it. No one actually stops reading a comment because the first sentence pisses him off, and no amount of verbal tapdancing can hide that universal truth from all us Joe Binaries who have spent decades sitting at a terminal.
Actually, you're wrong about that. I didn't get past the Limbaugh reference, not because it pissed me off (nothing on Slashdot "pisses me off", simply because I ultimately do not care what a mass of basement-dwelling Troglodytes thinks of me.) I post on Slashdot because I find it entertaining, and sometimes I learn something interesting from other people. I stopped reading his post after the "Limbaugh" reference because it was just gross, and left me feeling that the rest of his comment would likewise have no redeeming qualities. I said nothing in my original post that was particularly offensive, and after some number of years on this site you can generally recognize when someone has nothing of substance to say, and just wants to use your post as a launchpad to an irrelevant and obnoxious rant. So I skipped it. Now, if you are telling me that his post did indeed have some useful content, perhaps I will revisit it.
Not everyone thinks the same way you do. Perhaps you feel some morbid compulsion to read every word of every post you open, but I do not. There are plenty of more reasonable and interesting comments to read.