So you missed where Samsung and HTC have vowed to keep their bootloaders open and have been true to it ever since, and Sony has an unlock bootloader on their own website, that works for a majority of their Android phones?

Don't like the application launcher? Change it to one of 2 dozen. Even access your phone solely through VNC. Don't like your default video player? Change it to one of 10 available. All this even without rooting or unlocking bootloader.

Within 5 years of GNU/Linux, this couldn't be done for GNU/Linux either. So wait 10 more years, and I don't see any reason this can't be done for Android too.

In context of your reply, my post can be said to have 2 parts:

1. Do the more cost-effective (your words) backup first.
2. Local backup is more cost-effective.

If you are saying that dropbox is more cost-effective and hence should be done first, you agree with the first part, where I am also saying more cost-effective backup should bedone first. There, you are addressing a strawman that doesn't agree with this.

As for your contention against the second part, that local backup is more cost-effective, unfortunately you forgot to mention anything concrete about cost AGAIN. Empathy about your shopping life stops me from ridiculing.

PS : I am sure your forgetfulness is aided significantly by the fact that cost factor utterly destroys your argument for dropbox being more cost-effective.

Ok, I see 3 issues with your post :

1. Incorrect or at least hugely unsubstantiated :

I live for 10 years in a city with population that has increased from 4.5 million 10 years ago to 6 million now. There have been precisely 4 big incidents of fire - one in a very low tech market, one in an office, 2 in residential houses. The office fire was all about smoke - building + furniture survived but basement fire released such smoke that some people were suffocated / jumped to death. Out of about million houses in 10 years. Expectation value of a particular house being destroyed in fire - less than once in a million years. NOT taking into account people burning their cake in an oven in an attempt to bake it - as I strongly recommend not keeping backup hard disks inside an oven in use.

Burglaries are more common, but complete burglaries are nearly unheard of. Burglars are scared - so they quickly grab cash, gold, and sometimes small electronics that they understand - like mobile phone. So yes, I am not sure data loss due to burglaries or fire are more than once a millenium events.

The post I was replying to already admitted those events happen once in 100 or 1000 years, so if you argue about whether it is 1000 or 100 years, it is pedantic in that regard. Without even the rigour of citation expected of a good pedant. My saying "once in a millenium events" was merely a way to refer to the events that parent post was referring to while admitting they happen in 100 to 1000 years.

2. Strawman, or at least misunderstanding the gist of my post :

I was arguing that the policy of "safest backup first", to the extent of protecting against once a millenium events (admitted in the post I was replying to) results in no backup at all due to people postponing difficult activities. This is human nature, and your misunderstanding it will not make it better. You don't even assert that this is not how human nature works, so your argument is addressing the strawman in that regard.

3. While arguing about remote backup being "cost effective", you completely ignored cost? Short term memory loss? Calculate the cost of dropbox account as compared to a USB drive per year and get back to me. The cost comparison is so laughable that I guess I don't need to compare but just mention that you forgot to take the primary motivation into account. It is like going for shopping and forgetting to shop and coming back home, but maybe it happens to you due to a medical condition. Hope it doesn't happen too frequently.

You also didn't take into account the upload bandwidth that would be required for online backups that most people don't have. And I know multiple people who depended on MegaUpload for backup.

Again, I remind you of an aspect of human nature - the following don't happen together :
1. spending on cloud backup,
2. even after MegaUpload and Snowden
3. by a non-geek
4. before a data loss actually happens
5. In spite of internet bandwidth and data limits

Reduce the cost drastically by asking them to get a USB drive and backup manually/TimeMachine/windows backup, in a few months - can happen much more easily while saving from less damage vectors.

My apologies, when I was typing about cctv, I thought I mentioned "casual observation from less than 8 feet away" too, but I didn't. If you use pattern lock a few times while teenagers are annoying you, it's game over. Observations of finger trail might also occur to them as an attack vector, which I did mention though.

My problem with cctv is that minimum wage drones have to / get to see lots of cctv footage, who are the same people who will find phones forgotten / dropped in malls. I agree someone "pulling " footage is making a lot of effort, but the drones are a real worry.

I don't think anything that will be used by more than 0.1% of users can ever defend against dedicated attackers so I try not to talk about such security in phones.

Don't you get tired being wrong so much?

I don't have a Nexus 4. You want to send me one?

Citation needed. Which would be pedantic and yet my point stands. Do backup with better cost benefit ratio first.

On Atrix 4G, back of the phone IS where you touch to activate the phone anyway. There is only one physical button on Atrix 4G, and that is the back button, which is the fingerprint reader.

Pattern lock has a worse convenience to security ratio than fingerprint. Pattern is trivially bypassed by low resolution CCTV footage, as well as by observation of pattern trail on the phone, both by completely unskilled adversaries. Brute force is likely to work within an hour too, because typically the number of "points" to make the pattern is 12 or less. Pattern lock does all this , at a higher "cost" i.e. the distance the finger has to move on the phone.

Fingerprint is resistant to all these, and it's vulnerable to fingerprint collectors but only to moderately skilled adversaries.

I love the fingerprint reader on my 2.5 year old Motorola Atrix. Nothing military grade, but great against annoying teenagers.

There is no comparison between Haswell and any ARM based chips. Order of magnitude difference in performance. So forget Haswell.

See Intel's Atom, which gets state of the art fab tech starting Bay Trail.
1. $10.
2. Ivy bridge level graphics, so more than good enough.
3. Open source graphics drivers so Android manufacturers can adopt it without having to worry about drivers - so Intel invests in fabs for it without worrying about success of Win RT.
4. Already 22nm , next year successor should be built on 14nm. Blows away the ~30/40nm ARM chips.
5. Performs at par with ARM chips.
6. And backward compatible with software written for x86 in last 20 years.

No Bill the juvenile, wrong again. And the other specs are so wrong you are not even trying to defend them any more.

Even for slashdot standards, your reluctance to admit your mistake and attempt to bluff your way out of it is remarkable. But most people learn at the age of about 7 or 8 years that it doesn't fool anyone. Not you, though.

Better handled in software. Otherwise the device is kaput once either of the contained ssd or hdd fail. With software we can decide the aggression of caching better.

You can put 2 3.5" drives in a 5.25" slot by breaking at least one hdd. So only one works. There is also the problem of cooling if you stuff hardware too close to each other.

That's why cooler master sells a 4 in 3 module ( http://www.coolermaster.com/product/Detail/case/case-accessories/4-in-3-device-module.html ). Makes sense, even though it might appear they could have fit one more hard drive sideways in the same space if they removed the fan. Maybe more. But not a good idea. Because small amounts of heat add up to high temperature in absence of cooling.

Hard drives spaced comfortably don't need dedicated cooling, typically.

You can say that, but their long term answer is better. They are better than Intel at integer , and once they can shift to using the integrated "graphics" component for floating point, their floating point performance should improve drastically. Intel would also improve by then so I am not saying they will definitely beat Intel.

On the other hand, Intel's approach is "winning" but it is more risky. They have bet everything on process advantage, which is enormous now and in near future. But you never know when they hit a brick wall. They might have an ace up their sleeve, but it is not visible from here.

Meanwhile, if you question their ability to survive till then - notice they bagged multiple big game console deals. This should help in directly earning revenue, and also they might get slight advantage in gaming PCs as much of PC games are console ports these days. Their high-end graphics cards can be said to be beating Nvidia's, but it is subjective.

Yes, so that having difficult work to do first causes people to postpone the whole backup project until a data loss. Just to protect against once in a millenium events. I heard somewhere that the perfect is the enemy of the good.

Or, adopt the data protection scheme with the best cost-benefit ratio first - which for most people is a local backup. And then worry about once in a millenium events.