Huh. The biggest mortality factor currently is perinatal death -- kids that don't make it out of the womb. Any genetic factor which works against that will see strong selection pressure.

And remember that as far as reproduction goes, once you're 45 or so you are used up. Genes which affect health after that date have no or very little effect on natural selection.

Just another attempt to make sure you pay for every listen.

This movie looks to be as dumb as _Robot & Frank_ (2012). And that script was so dumb that just thinking about it raises my blood pressure.

We have allowed the internet to become the playground of ruthless monopolists. cf Cory Doctorow and enshittification. The solution is to BREAK THEM UP

Last 2 phones came from swappa.com. I have no complaints. Of course, every Android device I own gets rooted & has a 3rd party build installed before I start using it.

Heh. I'm reading this story on my Rooted & re-imaged 7" Amazon Fire, running lp-fire-nexus-rom-20161124 (Android 5.1). It's a nice little machine, but it took me a full day to get the Exploit that gave me control to work. Not so simple for someone on the wrong side of the Digital Divide.

This theoretically opens a way to Root ANY android phone. That could be Great.

The main dangers to you as a smartphone user are your cellphone network carrier and the manufacturer of your phone. Both both of them have a direct interest in invading your privacy for money or to keep you captive to their machinery.

Fortunately, Android is built on open source foundations, so Google must publish the source and a build chain. Rooting your phone and installing a 3rd party Android build ( such as LineageOS ) goes a long way toward foiling this kind of carrier or OEM fuckery. It won't keep your carrier from examining your packet stream. but at least he won't be able to surveil you directly or install programs on your phone which you cannot remove. Because of this, many smartphone providers take steps to make rooting their devices difficult or impossible -- but this vulnerability might provide a way around all of them.

Hmm. This sounds extremely sketchy. The first thing I do with my android devices phone is root them and install a 3rd party build, usually LineageOS ( http://lineageos.org ) That protects me from at least some kinds of Carrier Fuckery, like Carrier IQ ( http://mashable.com/2011/12/01/carrier-iq/#hc ) and OEM fuckery, ( http://www.techradar.com/news/beware-these-android-phones-sent-texts-other-sensitive-info-to-a-server-in-china ) . Of course, Apple users are not immune either ( http://bgr.com/2011/04/20/apple-recording-storing-gps-position-of-iphone-3g-ipad-users-video/ ).

This does not of course protect me from network analysis or spying on the data streams coming in and out of my phone, and the Radio software is a hot mess of proprietary code and horrid security practices. But at least I can push back a little bit. Rooting the device also means that I have complete control over what is on it -- I am territorial about my bits.

I have trouble imagining that anyone would lease me a phone and allow me to hack it in this way. Buying used or reconditioned gear seems like a much more sensible course of action.

Ouch. Presumably, if you're running an AOSP build this won't affect you.