This may be the most useful response I've had yet about the phone.

Unfortunately, it's still within the context of the Android ecosystem. My search on Teh Google for "Blackstar ROM" does not turn up info or a link for the canonical latest version, just a lot of spamsite references that don't tell me what's the latest, who puts the ROM out, etc.

Got any links?

The random reboots in the supposedly stable CM10 were what really bugged me. Wiped the phone completely, including all caches, etc. before installing.

Sometimes I'd be working at the desk and see it reboot 5 or 6 times over an afternoon, just sitting there. Not good.

Have CM10.1 RC1 installed now, and it hasn't rebooted on me once, but the UI speed is horrible compared to CM10. Blah.

by putting on a bumper, there would be a much greater chance of me keeping it.

As it is, I have a case on it, but it drops calls anyway and I can't even do an immediate callback because for the first minute it's busy booting.

You could make the case that there's a parallel there, but the difference is in the degrees.

just works, but without the features that I want, vs. the features that I want that just don't work. :-P

I said in a comment in another story that I wish the universe would cough up a marriage of the iOS ecosystem and the Android ecosystem—all of the features, all of the stability.

For very sound empirical reasons, this is unlikely to happen. But good to dream.

And while it's not rebooting, CM10 on the i717 is pretty sweet. But the damned thing needs to work.

When you're on the phone to international clients, you don't want spontaneous reboots and callbacks. It's just not good business.

I need a phone to work. So far, Android is not fitting the bill. But there's another week or two of patience left in me. We'll see how CM10.1 RC1 does, though so far it's laggy as hell.

Sure, it takes a minute or two to actually install a ROM, but the time spent crawling Teh Google just to learn what the Android ecosystem looks like (i.e. that there is something called CyanogenMod, and where to get it, and so on) is expensive. Increases exponentially if you want to look at other ROMs.

People keep saying "try another ROM" and all that kind of stuff, but just finding download links is like playing 'net tag. I don't have (or want to have) the time for this nonsense.

If there was a single source of links that was a portal, not a forum to wade through like XDA, Android would be far ahead of where it is.

was to get the phablet size—it was between an iPad Mini with calls using Talkatone and the Galaxy Note series. I went "small" w/the Note series...but I'm within a week or two of just chucking it on eBay and getting the iPad Mini after all.

in my world. I don't have three hours to spend on my phone during any given fiscal quarter, much less any given day. Maybe I could dedicate three hours a year to phone maintenance, but it's seriously a problem for Android.

I'm using the i717 builds of CM. Just reverted back to CM10.1 RC1 and it seems relatively stable—but the lag is awful.

Still not particularly happy w/Android...

I switched to Android from iOS earlier this year specifically to get a bigger screen and widgets (Galaxy Note).

The Samsung ROM was horrifically slow and ugly and filled with unremovable apps I didn't want, plus it contacted the AT&T mothership constantly even though I don't use AT&T and the phone is unlocked.

So I downloaded a CM10.1 experimental build. It was guaranteed to spontaneously reboot during the first 5-10 second of any placed or received call.

So I wiped and downgraded to CM10 stable. This one lets me make calls, but randomly reboots at least half a dozen times a day.

My first experience with Android phones (and it has been expensive in terms of learning curve to get rooted/installed) has not been pleasing. Android may be more flexible, offer larger screen devices, and have more active hacking community surrounding it, but first and foremost, I want to be able to rely on my device.

I'm now trying to decide whether to revert back to the Samsung ROM (Jelly Bean was finally just released for the i717 on the 3rd) and see if that restores the stability of the original Samsung ROM (though no doubt it will also restore the ugliness, slowness, and bloat) or try out a CM10.1 nightly...or just sell the device and get another iPhone and jailbreak it, even without widgets and a big screen.

I should say that my experience with cheap-ass Android tablets from China has been much better. They run stock and are stable and fast. But the phone thing is killing me.

(1) Go to Amazon.com
(2) Search for "Android Tablet"
(3) Buy ICS Android tablet @1GHz/8GB/SD-slot/Dual cameras/7" for $80 or less new
(4) Profit

Bought one for wife, one for each kid. Fast, stable, functional, cheaper than dining out as a family @a diner or casual joint.

Freakishly expensive? Methinks not.

written on an iPad.

and the rest of the non-tech business infrastructure is probably the bigger question.

In my experience, the business wing of most companies has little interest in testing. Works/doesn't work is far less important than building brand, driving sales, and so on. I haven't seen many cases in which a "show stopper" was really a show stopper that held up a launch or a release, or in which anything that was broken at launch or release was ever worked on again.

Before launch/release it's "we can't hold anything up, just release and we'll fix it later" and after launch/release it's "numbers were adequate even with that 'issue' in evidence, which means that it doesn't critically affect sales and we shouldn't spend anything to think about it; let's work on new features."

I bought a SquareTrade plan for about $20 for a $250 smartpen in 2009 on the reasoning that a pen is a fairly fragile device that goes through a lot of abuse.

About four months later, the pen's display broke. SquareTrade asked me to verify the serial number, then gave me $250 as a payout, no questions asked, which I used to buy the pen's replacement.

After that, I've covered my phones, since the coverage is relatively cheap in comparison to the cost of a retail smartphone, and a smartphone also goes through a lot of abuse. I wouldn't bother for a laptop or computer, or for something very inexpensive, but for a very expensive device that is not easily user-serviceable (I have had occasion to change the screen and battery on an iPhone for a friend, and I would not like to do it again), I'm happy to have the coverage given my good past experience and the fact that they offer coverage that covers even your own boneheaded moves (dropped in water, cracked when sat on, etc.)

Bonding is largely a matter of care. Evidence says that adopted infants and infant children of single dads do not suffer from the psychological disorders that commonly proceed from poor parental bonding.

Now the data do tell us that amongst the sample populations that we have, your data is accurate—the bond between mothers and children is, on average, stronger. But your reasoning about the cause is wrong.

It is precisely because there is a strong cultural bias offering (or requiring of) women far more caretaking that the numbers tell us that more bonding occurs. You're putting the cart before the horse—it's not that children bond with mom because she's a woman, it's that because she's a women, children have infinitely greater opportunity to bond with mom.

It's primarily a social outcome, not a biological one.

compared to climate change effects.