The thought of a closed source firmware phone in this day and age is so much a non-starter. I won't touch a phone without an unlockable bootloader, at least unofficial support for one of the AOSP variants, and optimally a relockable bootloader. Bonus points for EDL support.

They don't share their EDL keys. Without that, you can still lock yourself out via an AFU flash.

They are also really hard to get in 'Murica.

It's a great attempt, but they fail to stick the landing.

^^THIS^^

No mod points to give, sorry. Just like Mozilla/Thunderbird... too many religious wars to "advance" to something new, even if "new" is less functional than its predecessors.

But yeah, wish someone would back-port OAuth2 et al. Y'know, like actually ADDING new stuff as the world demands it.

If you want a cell phone that supports US cell bands (meaning, no internationals that only do like 1 out of 5 a US carrier may use) and has an easily unlockable bootloader, there aren't a lot of options. The Google phones, OnePlus, and *SOME* Motorolas are all I know of other than some very rare and expensive outliers (like the Asus ROG).

Most of the phones still have proprietary radio code and other hidden partitions of unknown makeup (other than to maybe government agencies) that even a AOSP overwrite won't fix... and running without security updates to those can be... concerning.

If you want it FOSS, try Koler off of F-Droid. I like it better than Simple tools.

For those of us too lazy to spend half the day looking, do you have a recommendation for one of these that allows a US address, reasonable SMS, voice and data while "roaming" on US carriers? In my travels in Europe, most countries wanted a passport or similar absurd amount of paperwork to associate with a SIM- the Netherlands was the only one where EUR20 got a sim card from a vending machine in the airport with no questions asked.

The most important question is, of course, if it comes with an unlocked or unlockable (without any drama) bootloader. Everything else is water under the bridge without that.

No big deal. Plenty of space in the physical pipeline between refinery and consumption that the electricity replaces to put a HV powerline. Just replace the refinery with whatever, and the end of the pipeline with an electric substation.

I have a 1+ 6. Unlockable bootloader, with NO drama. (And, hence, easily rootable). First phone with dual sim, nice for overseas travel. Great coverage of the LTE bands, pretty much everything other than Verizon, who hates customers anyway.

The only other real candidate for a drama-less unlock is Google (Pixel)... and they don't have expandable storage or removable battery either. Came from a LG G6, with plenty of firmware bugs... never going back to them as they cherry pick what they will let you unlock. If I'm paying for the hardware, it better not be crippled.

I'd rather have the Chinese listen to me [effortlessly] than the rest of the world.

Tankless systems have the same corrosion problem. They also have the added benefit of scale reducing their effectiveness and eventually clogging them entirely. If your tanked heater was properly installed -- it has a catch pan and drain -- then the eventual pinhole leaks will not be the ruination you claim. Either way, preventive maintenance is necessary to keep them running for years. (my previous one lasted 23 years! The flue eventually burned through -- short of spraying it with the stuff used to protect welding tips, not much I can do to protect the steel from the fire that's supposed to heat it.)

(the ones at my parent's house (electric) have always rusted from the inside out because no one replaces the cathode rods)

who the fuck has a water heater that is network connectable

Mine can be -- iCOMM industrial control system. It's in my house, so it doesn't have one. And it wouldn't be "connected to the internet" if I did, but it would be connected to my leads-to-the-internet LAN.

Having seen numerous documentaries and tours of the UK National Grid, and various US grid operators, nobody runs at exactly 100%. A healthy grid is run with some excess capacity as a buffer -- while small, for obvious cost reductions, it's important to have that buffer to avoid brownouts due to sudden increases is load. (i.e. the exact thing the hacker is trying to cause.) I'll pick on the UK because their load has the grandest predictable spikes... when many "click on the kettle".

Because most people dumped Solaris more than a decade ago?

"Not entirely" as in [in my experience] many former solaris shops still have bits of solaris remaining. It wasn't "dumped", but incrementally replaced over the years. (solaris 10 was the real kick-in-the-ass to start moving... SMF, the systemD of the Solaris world.)

OpenSolaris was as much a marketing ploy as it was a means to remain relevant -- "Open Source" being the trendy new buzz word / business model. You could already get solaris for free -- for "non-commercial" use. (surprisingly, even under the infinite greed of Oracle, solaris is still available for free.) Sun was the only source for sparc hardware to run the OS, so they already had your money. (solaris/x86 never had much of a software market)

(Sure, anyone running x86 hardware is far better off moving to linux or even windows. The few solaris/x86 installs I knew were moved to linux and windows.)

Not entirely. I still run across the odd solaris 7/8/9 system from time to time. I still run one myself. You don't fuck with what isn't broken; there hasn't been a need to replace it, although it has been discussed. (maybe should based entirely on the power bill)

(I have several systems standing by for testing and troubleshooting whatever might come across my desk. But they aren't actually on.)

Incorrect. A growing amount of Cisco hardware is running linux. Old School IOS and Old School PIX aren't linux -- which shouldn't be a surprise as they pre-date linux, but modern ASA, NX-OS, IOS-XR/XE have a linux base. (XR started out with QNX and moved to linux ~5yr ago)

running on top of linux... on top of commodity merchant (*cough*broadcom*cough*) silicon.