Cool Story, Bro time:

My domestic partner is very pretty and the dbag who runs the nearest Tesla dealership was trying really, really hard to get with her. He let her borrow his dealership's loaner Model S Plaid for a week as part of his "That Guy" package.

We thought we'd have some fun since it's supposed to be this super cool sports car. It turned out to have a governor on it that limited acceleration and top speed to something any Honda Odyssey owner would find comfortable.

I'm not sure whether it was that guy's doing or is that's something directly from Tesla itself but we both thought it was hilarious.

Not saying this is a good idea, but I don't think the gig worker would know if you're paying $6.99 or $2.99 for the delivery, which is what would tell them if you have more than $100k in assets.

In general data owned by app A is not readable/writable by app B. This is a pretty important security feature. There are ways for apps to choose to share data, but by default every app's data is private to that app.

I can see how that might inconvenience you, but I think it's Really Good Idea.

Nah, their previous plan already provided the bare minimum, since it didn't restrict sideloading of unverified apps via ADB. This is just an attempt to calm the complaints by offering an even easier sideloading option. Unfortunately, it will probably make the whole scheme pointless, since malware authors will just train users to click through the scary warnings.

This is sadly true. They're going to attempt to throw up a lot of warning dialogs to dissuade users, but we know from long experience that users will click through anything to get to cat videos.

This is actually not a change, really, since they were already going to leave sideloading via ADB open, so their plan already included an "advanced user option" which users could be trained to do. This new thing must presumably be easier than ADB. My guess is that it will feature more scary warnings than enabling ADB, but will allow sideloading without using a USB cable to connect to another computer so that on balance it will be approximately as hard.

During another discussion of this I posted a story that an Android OEM related to me when I worked on Android security, when they asked me when we were going to "close the USB vulnerability", i.e. disable ADB.

How so? The developer verification does not require compliance with any of the Play store policies or anything at all other than the rule "don't distribute malware", since distributing malware would result in the developer account (and signing certificate) being revoked, which is the point of the whole thing, to enable Google to shut down malware authors. Or at least to slow them down, since they'd have to register for a new account, with a different government ID.

This does leave determination of "what is malware" up to Google, but they've been doing that for a long time and I've yet to see any case where people disagreed with their assessment. Note that I'm talking about designation of malware, not about removal from the Play store. Identified malware is removed from the Play store, but there are lots of other policy violations that can trigger Play store removal.

This is not correct. Per the information on Google's developer console sideloading of unverified apps via ADB was not going to be disallowed:

Q: If I want to modify an app and install it on my own device, or if I'm a power user, is there a way to turn this verification requirement off?

A: We understand that's an important use case for many developers and power users. While the verification requirement itself is a core OS feature to help protect the broader ecosystem from malware and can't be turned off, developers and power users can still use Android Debug Bridge (ADB) to continue to build, test, and install modified or unverified apps on their own devices.

(Emphasis mine)

This information has been up since shortly after the announcement.

For example?

Yeah, no doubt. But for all the good they do me, right?

Sheesh, talk about a rookie mistake.

Dress rehearsals are intended to be a run-through under full production, not dev, conditions. You hope and pray you never discover problems during dress rehearsals, but they exist for a reason.

And there are countries in Europe where if you do NOT do that sort of minimalist transaction arithmetic, you are given such a serious stink eye by the cashier that you think twice about going back again.

I jest ... but only a little.

Samsung makes three tablet lines: the A, which is a value product that isn't bad for around $200; The S6 Lite, which is a specific mid-tier offering that is updated less than annually and has its own model specs per release. There's also the full-fat Tab S line, which are premium tablets.

I have an S6 Lite from 2020, a Tab S8 and an S9+. The S8 has a fairly normal 10" screen and is actually my favorite of the bunch; I find the 12" screen on the S9+ too big since I mostly want a reading device rather than a watching or playing device. I use the S9+ as a portable monitor and video capture device for my camera when I'm shooting photos with models. It's big and bright enough to see even in outdoors in broad daylight. All three of them have reasonable Qualcomm SoCs and big-boy amounts of RAM. All three of them have an SD card slot for big-boy storage. Newer Tab S series tablets are also water resistant, if you're someone who might use such a device in the bath or near a pool.

Not everybody wants to buy a premium Android tablet and I'll admit I don't pay full price for them either, but they're superb hardware, and I have no problem recommending the S6 Lite or the comparable Lenovo M11 for general use. Those aren't waterproof and they don't have high end SoCs, but they have nice screens, work well in their intended ecosystem and they aren't saddled with a sub-par mobile OS like Apple or Amazon hardware.

Yes, I know it's possible to add the Play Framework to a FireOS device. The problem is that you have to fight to keep it that way since Amazon updates will eventually reset your settings. As far as I know, there's no cure for the limitations of iOS, which is why I'd never bother with an iPad.

One would think the third-party doctrine would pretty much scuttle OpenAI's objections.

Yeah, it would probably take legislation forcing all of them to post and advertise prices including taxes. If everyone had to do it no retailer would be disadvantaged by being the first.

That said, I think it's a bad idea, unless retailers also have to itemize out the taxes on receipts so that consumers can see how much tax they're paying, which typically doesn't happen in Europe, as far as I've noticed (other than VAT, which is often itemized out on some purchases so that foreigners can get a VAT rebate). I think it's important that people see the taxes they pay so they can evaluate whether they think they're getting good value for their tax money. This is why I also oppose corporate taxes and any other sorts of taxes that are ultimately borne by individual taxpayers but are hidden by layers of obfuscation. Actually, there's another reason to oppose corporate taxes: Corporate taxes delegate to corporations the decision of how to allocate the cost of the taxes between customers, employees and shareholders. That allocation is an important public policy matter, and it should be decided by legislation, not by corporate bosses.

To be clear, I think there are a variety of public services that absolutely should be funded by taxpayers, and wholeheartedly support taxation for those purposes. But exactly what should be taxpayer-funded, at what level and with what efficiency are all important questions that voters should have input into, and that requires that they actually see what taxes they're paying.