I don’t believe this is a Trump specific thing, at least that was the impression I got when I did get a chance to live in the US.

I am a long-time Ars reader and subscriber. I am not American, but I always found their articles on various public policy issues to be interesting and fascinating.

One particularly fascinating element is the callousness of the various “legal arguments” used to justify (and enable) various crimes/corruption schemes.

“I didn’t know this was illegal … it’s the fences fault … we sold both voice and data info, so umm it’s legal.”

Motherfuckers, you were selling real-time location of your customers to random thugs. By any real understanding of the term “justice”, you should be locked up for decades with full asset seizure.

No sane person would agree for you to sell their real-time location data to random goons. You know this and you dare to come up with this gibberish?

It’s not even so much the corruption/criminality that is fascinating (things like that happen everywhere), but the arrogance and callousness inherent to their world salad.

There is a reason the “forbidden fruit” concept was chosen for inclusion in religious texts. :)

This hasn’t been said just once though.

What is the point of this article?

Agreed. I wish the source page had a better summary of the research paper.

Perhaps that’s an opportunity, if you don’t think it’s a value trap that is.

The 6P was a really nice phone.

EdgelordOS

I like that it’s a separate application. I had issues with the way OneDrive integrated with Windows/Office and conflicts with my corporate OneDrive account (this was a while ago, this may have been fixed).

I always prefer to have a full local copy (Google Drive, which a use for specific data has been really annoying with this) without using Cloud Files API or any extra features. A literal cloud sync of specific folder, nothing else.

I mostly use Dropbox out of habit (and because I have a grandfathered account). I’ve been meaning to switch to ProtonDrive (already have a paid account with them for email), just haven’t got to it yet.

One advantage of Dropbox is that it is not that integrated into Windows/office.

I use Dropbox, albeit I have an old free account with much more storage than their 2GB base.

You don’t need to use SAF if your app is not distributed via Google Play? This is news for me.

Pichai steered around such questions on grounds that the case is in progress, but warned possible remedies “could have unintended consequences, particularly to the dynamic tech sector and the American leadership there.”

And monopolies also have consequences in terms worse pricing, fewer product offerings and less innovation.

Going to pile on, I have a Samsung A73 and videos are fine.

Do you use some sort of custom settings?

Meta AI (I didn’t even know this was a thing) has 185 M WAUs?

Is this a real number or some sort of misleading stats where they include people are only technically using it via some sort of hook into FB/Insta (don’t use them so not aware).

The 3 year security update schedule is an issue. I agree. The price does soften this issue somewhat though.

Thank you for the offer and kind words. I use a A73 these days. To be honest, the quality is good enough for my needs. I do notice a difference with friend’s pictures. Don’t really need a GCam mod at this point.

I used to use Gcam mods, but I stopped because there were too many issues with making sure they worked correctly.

I think in 2-3 years the difference in camera quality between mid-range devices and flagships will be small enough that it won’t matter for most people.

I’ve been a mid-range phone user since around 2018 or so. Don’t really see any reason to get flagships.

The one area where mid-range devices do lag the flagships is camera quality.

Clippy 2024!