But hardly anyone is running the stock Android anyways. They've all expended on the code, and made it different. Almost no one actually uses the "official Google version" at all...

But they can't because it's open source software. No one could make all of the Linux Distros use the same official kernel... it's not possible, because it's open source, and you can make it yourself.

But this is already the case. Amazon and Barnes and Noble do not sell Android devices with Google services on them.

I don't get why people have such a difficult time understanding that Google can't wrangle these cats, because it doesn't have an Iron Fist on the source code...

I've never seen a RISC processor that can match the performance of the best CISC processors. You know, nevermind the fact that tons of money has been poured into CISC processors making them faster and faster.

Sometimes, it's just a matter of where the attention has been placed.

Exactly. You can't defend against every threat. The best you can do is go with redundancy. The chances of one site being destroyed by fire, flood, tornado, or loss to burglary is slim. The chances of 2, 3, or 10 sites all simultaneously suffering the same fate is very very slim.

Yep, this! Buy a hard disk for a trusted friend or relative, and rsync your stuff to their server periodically.

I've also started using AWS Glacier for backups of my raw photo archives. (Only the "good" processed photos get published to Google+, where no one really sees them, and maybe cross-posted to Facebook occasionally after some public event like a wedding or something).

Anyway, to upload stuff to Glacier I use the SAGU java client, which is relatively straightforward. It's something like 10 cents per GB per month, so I currently get a bill for 42 cents per month. I can live with that.

Every year or so I tar up the previous year's photos and upload them. Then I copy the manifest to Google Drive or some other thing. I gpg encrypt the sensitive stuff. The private key is on a USB drive in the fire safe, at some point I should get around to writing down the passphrase and tossing it in there too. I joke with my wife that if I get run over by a bus, I'll scrawl the passphrase next to my body in blood. She might be contacting some of y'all to help decipher the 133+5p34k characters, though.

i see what you're saying, but i have a different perspective

compare to music

if i listen to an album alot, eventually my friends/family will hear it...if they like it, that's one more listener/customer/concergoer for the band

same with FOSS, imho

if i use GIMP and Audacity to make pixel/art for an Instagram to promote my graphic design side job, that's the same thing

"all images made by GIMP"

now, if you want to be over-litteral, i guess you could say that it's not *the act of using* but the "evangelism" that happens *when it is used*

so in that sense i guess we could agree

I didn't even know FlightAware had a program like their ADS-B FlightFeeders I checked their map, and I'm a bit farther North in my area than the nearest feed, and there's a large gap to the next.

I have some questions for you. Hopefully you read this. What services accept hobbyist input, besides the ones in the article? Is there hardware you recommend for cheap and reliable?

I only took a quick look through, so I have more reading to do. Is there a software that reports to multiple services? Like Cumulus for my PWS reports to 5 plus two of my own personal feeds.

I've had a weather station up for a few years, and it's been feeding off to APRS/CWOP/FindU, MetOffice.gov.uk, PWS Weather, Weather Underground, Weather Underground, and my own twitter feed and web site. It's nice putting up a resource that can be useful to everyone. As I understand it, that data is in turn aggregated by major weather services to give better weather reporting and forecasting. It helps the weather stations report with resolution down to "It's raining on X street, but Y street is still dry."

It's also useful so family and friends can check on the weather here. Not just "some reporting station within 50 miles, here", but "right at his damned house, here". When I'm away from home, I can check the weather there, so I know what I'm going home to.

It would actually have the opposite effect. Rather than willingly taking on co-conspirators, a would-be attacker is more likely to be paranoid of everyone and not let anyone know his plans.

That brings us full circle back to the "He was a nice guy. Very quiet. Kept to himself. He didn't leave the basement much. We were really surprised to hear about [some action] on the news."

Without co-conspirators who turn on him, or accidentally trusting investigators as co-conspirators, or getting caught buying supplies, that makes them much harder to find until the attack happens.

I'm not saying that investigators instigating someone who could be an attacker, into actually doing an attack in a horribly flawed way (like a bomb made of 2000 pounds of dirt) is a good thing. I don't know everything that happened. I've only seen a few news reports on this one. If he really was the instigator and the investigators just provided some technical "assistance" in making a dud bomb, that was probably a good thing.

If they just picked a random target with little interest, and convinced him that he must make the dud bomb so they can bust him in a terrorist plot, that's something else entire, and they will get bitchslapped by the courts for it.

care to elaborate?

Snowden released all of his information to journalists before he left the country.

Snowden is both a resident and a citizen of the US. Yes, we revoked his passport, but we cannot revoke his citizenship without his consent. As a citizen, he cannot be blocked entry into the country. He can be detained indefinitely the second he enters the country, but we can't stop him from returning.

For the last time, THIS EO DOESN'T APPLY TO SNOWDEN. *mumbles mumbles mumbles*

INDEED! If they screw that up, it's bad, and they should be the ones holding the responsibility if it accidentally exposes data that they don't want exposed through uPnP... no one else is able to properly infer the right thing to do.

Yeah, my OpenBSD machine specifically refuses to do uPnP as well, because "security"... I've looked into getting some sort of uPnP working... but in the end, I'm just like, "nah... it makes my life a little bit more of a pain, but at least I know what ports are open"

As noted by the sibling post. Bing already does do this. And it's the right thing to do.

But that's the provider's problem, isn't it?

Google can't force providers to use AOSP, and unlocked bootloaders, and all that...

Wait... Google provides your cellphone directly? How did you get on their corporate plan?

Or are you talking about those Nexuses that are provided by a different carrier, and as such that carrier retains the right to do whatever they want to the OSS Android underneath?

You know... because Google can't just go on to the Verizon/T-Mobile/AT&T/Sprint network and update everyone's phone. The provider provides the specific Android build.

And that's why they can't update all the devices at once. Because everyone and their mother can develop their own kernel, and their own Android for their platform.

Now, if everyone just ran AOSP, then Google would be fine to update everyone at the same time.

I think just using the software counts as "participating in the community"

GIMP is a good example...

Winamp spread this way