Posts by HolySchmoley 116 publicly visible posts • joined 24 May 2018
"At least in my company's case, we don't sell or share your data (*)... the next phase is trying to figure out how to remove it, or even if it can be removed without breaking dozens of downstream processes."
Sounds like a long-term drug dealer trying to figure out how to remove the damage his business has done to other people's lives over the years.
(*) Neither did Facebook or Google in their early days.
"as people continue to move towards using their smartphones for the sort of tasks you'd normally want an actual PC for"
People who move towards using their smartphones for the sort of tasks [you'd] they'd normally want an actual PC for aren't doing the sort of tasks you'd want an actual PC for.
Smartphone: messaging, simple email, maps, games / social media / other kiddie stuff.
PC: substantial typing, spreadsheets, programming, substantial web... actual work.
>Oh please, HolySchmoley ..... silly random words?... Welcome to the Journeys.
You don't frighten us, digital pig-dog! Go and boil your bottom, son of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called martian man-substitute. I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper!
I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
>They are still THE premium smartphone.
Except for people who value function over form, control over their own device, adherence to standards (headphone and charging sockets), replaceable battery, micro SDHC slot, reasonable screen and cable resilience, USB connectivity to move music / images / other data, access to the file system, transparency about flaws and bugs and the resolution status, not being one of the herd, being ably to think differently (not using 'different' as if it was an adverb), not being a hipster / chav clone, etc.
For the rest, it's THE premium smartphone.
>That's easy. I don't have friends who use that :)
The only way you could be sure is to know that no one regards you as their 'friend', enemy, contact, etc., sufficiently to put details in their Contacts list. How would you know that? How would you be aware of people who /do/ know you and store information about you without realising to whom it's sent to or thinking it worth mentioning?
>Them having my publicly available phone # and email addresses aren't exactly a matter of concern.
... web history... dating apps... financial history... tagged images...etc... etc?
Such information is accumulated, indexed and sold on. Companies and their data assets are bought and amalgamated. The pieces that hang from an IP address, a MAC address, a Wi-fi access point are amalgamated. Somewhere, some day, someone adds a piece of information that humans recognise and you are no longer a number, or a free man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW-bFGzNMXw
Good on you for trying, but the Zuckerborg, Googleplex, etc. are enormously more powerful.
>Not with me. FB's known IPs and URLs get blocked at the DNS level
etc.
And how did you block the Apps / OS on your friends' mobiles?
E.g.
Almost everyone I know who uses a mobile uses Zuckerberg's WhatsApp and not one asked me whether I'd object to them saying yes to uploading contact details, including mine.
>A cheap phone attracts poor people
A phone with a high performance / price ratio attracts smart people.
A fashion-statement phone attracts the sort of person who would believe that Trumpian fake hair does something for their public image whilst being ignorant of exactly what it does and why people laugh at them.
"What's interesting is that Trump appointed Giuliani as "Cybersecurity adviser". I suppose that chimes with him appointing people who know fuck-all about science to science positions." (*)
And people who know fuck-all about politics, the world, science, culture, most civilised things to political positions?
(*) Upvoted.
"Those of us who voted in favour wanted a clean break"
A what?
Impressed that you know what a "clean break" is whilst those in the politics industry have been arguing the toss for two years still don't have the vaguest idea. Or perhaps you don't either.
Haven't Got a Clue means Haven't Got a Clue, as Ms. May might have said with the deep insight of a politician.
"Soon you and your fellow South Britons will be driving around in your C5's, knocking up spiffing apps on your Amstrads and laughing at the Scots farmers for wanting to stay in business rather than eat new Zealand lamb like the English."
Hang on! I'm English. I live in the "Home Counties", and if anyone could show a way for those counties to become an annexe of Scotland rather than of self-serving Westminster Bozos I'd be there in a flash. So would many other "South Britons" I know.
"We'll just have to take the bull by the horns, re-build our Industry again and become the technological force again that we once were. We need innovative ideas from innovative people like there used to be..."
That speech would've made a good Monty Python sketch, with the orator sinking into the sea as the sun sets on the British Empire...
If they ever charge "up to" £x / month for "up to" y Mbps I'll have up to a small amount of confidence in their reasons to upgrade.
To date, "up to" £x / month = £x / month
and "up to" y Mbps << y Mbps.
If supermarkets and petrol stations tried the same con I wonder how long they'd last.
"After Apple changed the world with its smart phones in 2007"
The only world that changed was the world of the aimless slurping their Starbucks. 99.99999% of 'the world' has little to do with staring and dabbing at a small slab of glass for hours every day.
"Regards Zuck being a hoarder, Ellison a cretin, Bezos a miser, I think ALL these guys will be giving their riches away sooner or later."
>I believe the phrase is 'trying to buy a ticket to Heaven'
Too late. For a couple of them a thin asbestos suit in the other place is the most they can aspire to,
'An iPad Pro is only a substitute for the five Surface owners who actually use it as a tablet.'
I've seen 2-3 Surfaces in use (amongst hundreds of independently purchased PCs I see most weeks). The 1 person I've talked to about it loves it. I wouldn't. Too expensive / restrictive.
I've yet to see an iPad Pro.
'If they are trying to optimise and improve the OS used by a billion people then of course they are going to need to collect diagnostic data!'
Stop being so paranoid.'
No one doubts they are trying to optimise and improve the OS. Only the naive imagine that's all they're doing.
'"And you get your pick when it comes to updates?"
With Win 10 Pro, the answer is YES. You can defer feature updates by a year and other updates by a few weeks, enough time for any issues to be ironed out.'
It's not under the users' control if it's merely 'defer'. And I've yet to see any 'ironing out' of spying / controlling concerns of users.
"If you don't force an update most (non technical) people don't bother and end up running an unpatched and hence very very vulnerable machine."
True, but only part of the picture. MS and Apple have also used updates, for years, to erode / remove users' control of their own hardware.
>I think Windows 10 getting worse is pretty much a given
Yep.
Ditto Mac OS / OS X, iOS, Android, Chrome OS.
They've all been increasingly 'cloudifying', taking control away from users, spying, restricting, for years, and all seem to get worse as each year passes, data lock-in ratchets up another notch, and UIs change for little reason other than to persuade the masses that there's something New and Significant about the latest release, which there hasn't been for most people for ages.
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