globalization is not a choice. you can't opt out.
with 7,221,305,422 people , jets and the internet what do you think is going to happen
the people that are generating massive wealth simply understand whats going on better.

Or, you look at some of the things of globalization ... free trade, exporting of copyright laws, other things which distort the market and turn it into a farce where the game is rigged ...

And you decide, does this really make any sense?

I think those people "generating massive wealth" who "simply understand whats going on better" have sold us a bill of goods which says "the way to prosperity is this, follow me", when in fact what it says is "fuck you, jack, this stacks the odds in my favor and now I'll rip you off"

I think the economic models championed by the people pushing the shittiest bits of globalization are lies, and I think "globalization", as America has been selling it, it basically a long-con.

I think if countries suddenly said "why aren't we protecting out own jobs, and our own products, and our own economies", instead of operating under the myth that letting those be lost to "globalization" and ruthless corporations. What fucking benefit to society is it if a foreign-owned company maximizes their profits while cutting domestic jobs and leaving an vacuum?

Globalization is predicated on gutting as many smaller companies as possible, in order to get one massive corporation -- all so that shareholder value and executive bonuses can be maximized, while local economies are gutted and left to rot.

The notion that Country A should buy companies in Country B to, only to move jobs to Company C is only good if you're in Country A ... otherwise it's pretty much raping and pillaging Country B.

Globalization is about the eternal quest to find a Country B to fuck over as much as you can.

Globalization is a fucking Ponzi scheme.

Ah, I see what you're saying. In all of those cases, I'd say Google shifted to working on a component that integrates with other Google services. It does happen that the service-integrated component largely duplicates the features of an existing OSS component, plus adds a lot, but I don't think that's because of any move to close Android.

At this point there's really no need for Google to maintain generic apps for all of those things; there are plenty out there in every category you mentioned. I'm less sure that there are open source apps in all of those categories... but anyone who wants is free to pick up that ball. I suppose it would be nice if Google were to do it, but that's no longer necessary for the success of the platform.

I reiterate that the above represents only my personal opinions. Google pays me to write code, not define platform strategy (except in my narrow area) and certainly not to act as a proper corporate spokesperson. When I say stupid stuff it reflects on me.

It wouldn't be hard to do something nicer, but my Tasker profile is a pretty crude hack. Since I never connect anything that doesn't have its own volume control, I just have a profile that runs every minute and turns the volume up to max. So if anything turns the volume down, it quickly gets turned back up.

WTF does being anti or pro Microsoft have to do with the fact that the fucking headers are being rewritten by Verizon?

I'm not blindly pro or anti Microsoft -- but let's not fucking pretend a Windows phone is a magic cure-all for something which is happening at the carrier level.

But, hey, don't let common sense or facts stand in the way of being an idiot.

Are you clueless or something?

Verizon's controversial technology basically involves attaching tracking numbers whenever customers view Web pages. Generally, to visit a Web page, my computer (or phone, tablet, etc.) sends a request message to the website with that page. Think of this like a very (very!) fast version of sending a letter through the mail, requesting some information.

Now imagine if the Postal Service assigned an identification number to me, and every time I sent one of those letters, a postal worker opened up the envelope and stamped the ID number inside. That is more or less what Verizon has been doing: Every time a Verizon Wireless customer requests a Web page, Verizon rewrites the request in transit to include a tracking number identifying the customer.

There is no way to disable this, and certainly not with your damned Windows phone.

Verizon is directly injecting this crap into your request, on their servers, independent of what YOU do.

Basically Verizon are acting like a bunch of greedy assholes, and setting every request you make to be something uniquely identifiable as you.

The volume thing annoys me, too. I fix it with a Tasker profile.

As for navigation, try using voice to start the navigation. It's zero-click. I don't know that the maps team intentionally increased the number of taps in the non-voice case, but I think it may actually be a good thing for safety if it encourages more people to use voice rather than taking attention to poke at their screen.

Mass extinctions which are, most likely, also the biggest driver of speciation and diversity :-)

I think the Holocene Extinction may be the exception to that trend, though.

Could be yours is malfunctioning? Mine works.

Um, no. The proximity sensor shouldn't depend on how you're holding it. I'm suggesting hardware defect, not user error.

By "officially supported" do you mean officially-supported by CM, or by device vendors?

From within Android, I see no such movement. In the short term security concerns have motivated the movement of more stuff into GMS, where it can be updated by Google. Eventually I think the larger update problem will be resolved and that movement will be reversed.

Because globalization is the directive, and you can't think this way and be a globalist.

And what evidence do we have the globalization helps anybody except corporations who fuck the rest of us over in the process?

Everybody acts like globalization is a good thing ... and unless you're a multinational corporation, I have yet to be convinced that's true.

H1B visas are just large corporations cheating the system by bringing in cheaper labor from other countries.

I'm of the opinion that globalization is a crock, championed by those who make money from it, and which comes at the expense of everybody else.

Easy answer: don't trust any of them.

You'll be far less disappointed by assuming all corporations and government are lying, self-serving bastards who don't give a fuck about you, and will happily climb over you to get what they want.

It's probably not far from the truth.

Sorry, but am I meant to believe the US government doesn't also insist on backdoors?

Because they pretty blatantly want backdoors in crypto and everything else.

So let's not pretend it's just China doing this ... every damned government is insisting on this crap.

And, really:

With these new regulations, foreign companies and business groups worry that authorities may be trying to push them out of the fast-growing market. According to the Times, the groups -- which include the US Chamber of Commerce -- sent a letter Wednesday to a top-level Communist Party committee, criticizing the new policies that they say essentially amount to protectionism.

Boo frickin' hoo. You think China gives a crap about a stern letter from the US Chamber of Commerce? Or that they care if you have access to their markets?

Other than that's the only way they can keep expanding indefinitely, what makes corporations feel like they're entitled to be in any market?

I'm betting a bunch of the companies involved in this collective hand-wringing are already enabling the US government to have access through other backdoors -- so don't pretend it's even more terrible when China does it.

If America is so concerned about backdoors and exploits in Chinese made products ... make 'em yourselves.

American companies need to stop acting like they can tell countries where they do business what they're willing to do. Suck it up, you want access to the market you play by the rules. Just like they would have to do to do business in the US.

I hear this crap and I just hear "Waaah, how are we to make a profit if you impose rules on us, woe is us, how will be maximize executive bonuses if there are rules?"