If you go with a Nexus phone or tablet, updates have been rolling pretty steadily. The same goes for the Moto * line of phones... Far better than any carrier at this point. From the start I've stuck with hackable devices that has been well supported by third party firmware... the issues always comes down to closed source drivers.

The issue is that the platform doesn't have a common boot, and initialization system... also, said devices are often packaged with only the drivers for that device, specifically compiled for that version of the OS... now that things are maturing, Google should come out with some common driver interfaces so binary drivers can work across platform versions. This would make sense as Google is breaking portions of the OS into upgradable units.

There's already a free fix.. Android 4.4.*, 5.0, 5.0.1 ...

In Soviet Russua, the meme tires of you...

What concerns me, is how much this may be used as a strawman for more agency powers (MI6 is already asking for more). Seriously, there is nothing that can be done to stop a little bit of crazy, no matter how much data you collect, or who you spy on...

Take a brief pause between "Free" and "NAS" ... problem solved.

Lessons learned from my dabbling with FreeNAS (and having hardware failure).

* Use generic HDD controllers that are supported in the box. (Using a 3rd party controller and driver, only to discover that when it reports an error, it becomes unavailable altogether, reboot to start again)

* Understand the features you are using. When I started, I configured a ZFS array with two hot spares, when a couple drives failed, the hot spares didn't activate, and I was stuck...

* Practice a version migration early on.

* Use a motherboard with ECC Ram if you're using ZFS, I can't understate this enough. AMD CPU + ASUS Motherboard seems to be your best bet here for Unregistered ECC memory in terms of bang for the buck.

* Use as much memory as possible... if you can use 32GB of ram, do so.

In general, it was fun while it lasted, right now, I put 4x 4TB drives in my old Synology 409 box, and it's running okay... I'm going to get one of the 12-drive synology boxes in a few months and test my old drives, putting them all in that moving forward. I really don't have the time and patience for dealing with a homebrew NAS.

I don't mean for this to discourage anyone, only pointing out that it's sometimes far easier to buy an appliance that DIY.

What do you mean you don't have a smart phone license? No smart phone!?!? What are you communist?

Funny... Police cruisers can look up your driver's license based off of your Social Security number or Driver's License number (if you know it)... I've been pulled over when I'd forgotten mine, and there was no problem. Not sure what problem this really solves except maybe more invasive government.

It's not even just windows... there's a lot of code that with compatibility can be retooled to any new x86 platform... and there's a lot of such code that wasn't written with portability in mind.

And for some there are other genetic conditions... knees that pop out of their sockets (incredibly painful) under even modest stress loads, and a relatively high weight for example. I've been over 400# and under 330# over a dozen times in the past decade and a half. Every time I start getting more active, I get injured. Last time I went for a longer walk, I had blisters (I'm diabetic with some advanced metabolic syndrom issues)... I've been changing a bandage on a small ulcer in my foot for the better part of two years... I've eliminated most of the starches from my diet altogether, and have a minimum of carbs in general from non-whole sources that are also higher in fiber.

It isn't nearly as easy as some make it out to be... I wish some people that think it was could have their knee dislocated every time they try to run or go up more than a flight of stairs, and see how that feels. The only time I even resembled a normal weight in my life was when I swam for 3+ hours a day on top of football practice in my mid-later teens.

Their sales (of other company's goods) are still very much in the black... iirc, aws is too... where they seem to be failing is in capturing an open market for their hardware. TBH, they really need to clean up their interfaces for the video/audio services, and offer their apps for regular Android devices, or get the play store on theirs.

They'd only need to cut their own hardware (beyond the kindle), and possibly their streaming services and they could be well into the black.

For me it was about two and a half weeks of feeling ill, back in January (apparently a more harsh variety)

You do realize that the flu killed more people in the 1900's than all the explosives, bullets and other tools of war combined, right?

I think the opposite happens far more, that people refer to a cold that has them down for a day or two as the flu so as not to seem like a slacker by the same metric. I had the flu in January, and could not really function well at all for two and a half weeks.