culot

Ah, perhaps my experiences are only valid for US/North American buyers of US carrier variants. I know that there was a proliferation of repackaged V20 models being sold as new, and they all seemed to come from the same source - they had the same packaging Chinese/international packaging, but the devices included were used/remanufactured and were often incorrectly-specced for their purported carriers, giving away their fraudulent origins.

Like the packaging shown in that Ebay link is incorrect for an AT&T variant. AT&T almost never uses OEM packaging, instead they use some weird gimpy branded boxes of their own. If it didn't come in a box like this, then it was a fraudulently repackaged and was not new:

https://i.imgur.com/n2dFAq2.jpg

Also the printed inserts should have AT&T branding on them, and will include AT&T-specific inserts. The flood of fraudulent LG V20s usually include generic international versions of the printed inserts. Watch for the IMEI label on the box being pasted over with another label, to hide the ID numbers of the device the box originally came with.

Just because its not new doesn't mean it might not work fine, it just means you'll likely never get warranty coverage; or if you do get LG to accept it once they examine in-house for repair you're probably boned.

I think it's mostly a Facebook hit piece.

And actually since back then Facebook apps have become easier to disable on most Android phones. Used to be that you couldn't delete them nor disable them on most phones. Nowadays is usually possible to disable the apps, and they are usually just stubs, so their impact is minimal to null.

Still would rather not that have them shipped, but when it comes to bloatware I'd say Google was a much bigger culprit.

They would have needed to get on Verizon or T-Mobile to really make a dent in the US, being only available on Sprint was never going to be enough.

> force their shitty software down people's throats every day

Did Facebook force OEMs to include their software on their devices? Isn't it more likely that OEMs are getting paid for the placement and the blame for its inclusion lies with OEMs?

Facebook has for some reason angered the mainstream media and is suffering their wrath. I wonder if its because of their support of Republican political stuff? That's definitely a big no-no if you want to keep in the good graces of the media. Or is it because some other reason? There has to be some major transgression that caused this coordinated media flagellation, essentially for doing things that many other firms are guilty of doing.

Why such the laser focus on them specifically instead of on Silicon Valley giants in general? Why is the focus of the article on Facebook when they are not the only app that OEMs and carriers force onto their customers devices? What is the real reason that Facebook is being targeted?

Also weird how the article focuses on Samsung when it is an industry-wide issue with Android devices. It reads sort of like an Apple ad with a bonus anti-Facebook slant. To focus only on Facebook and Samsung for this issue is disingenuous on Bloomberg's part. The part quoting random Twitter users chiding Samsung is a poor choice for the article: its not just a Samsung problem and they know this. They acknowledge in the article that the issue is not just Facebook and Samsung, yet the focus is kept on them.

Fascinating!

I wonder what developer access you can achieve with that 8110 device? For FirefoxOS devices the debugging and developer stuff used to be fun via Firefox browser and was simply Android on the low level. Also FirefoxOS devices were generally not locked down in any meaningful way.

Curious to see what you can hack with their devices on that FirefoxOS fork. Hmmm. Need to get me one of those phones, so cool looking anyway.

It might sound silly, but there is a delicious warm feeling that comes with waking up and having no internet available. The day feels less harried, more focused, and just calmer. The boon of increased productivity in every direction also feels incredible.

There is an LG G7 with Android One. That seems like it could be a great mix of flagship hardware with stock android.

Careful about buying 'new' copies of that phone on Ebay: there are none. Almost all of the new copies bring sold on Ebay for the last year or so are fraudulent. Finding an actual new LG V20, outside of perhaps Korea, is unlikely.

edit: just checked Ebay, and yup, there are no legit new copies to be had, except for maybe AT&T or unlocked variants for $400+. There's a very low chance that anyone will be/or has been able to find a new LG V20 for at least a year, and almost certainly not for a reasonable price.

It is a similar situation for numerous other smartphones on the used market, most new copies for sale are actually remanufactured/used that have been repackaged and fraudulently resold as new from somewhere [originally] in China. The fake LG V20 new copies began flooding the market somewhere in the past 1-2 years, and have dominated since, but that practice is typical for smartphones in general.

AT&T variants usually came with crapware. You could uninstall most/all of it though. AT&T Android phones are of course far worse though.

I recently stood at a light for like 15 minutes before I realized a button was available. There was no pedestrian crosswalk scheduled at that light at all. Once pressed traffic in all directions stopped in about 1-2 minutes. It was glorious.

Up until last year at least swappable batteries were still common in lower-end smartphones. Generally none of those OEMs sold spare batteries though; even when many high-end models had swappable batteries, up until 2015/2016-ish, almost no OEMs sold spare batteries. I think it was the beginning of 2016 that LG actually started selling spare batteries, the same year they produced their last two high-end smartphones with swappable batteries.

Even though swappable batteries do continue on the low-end, I think maybe [in the US] only Motorola actually makes spare batteries available for consumers to purchase, even for devices that don't have readily swappable batteries. I think this year Motorola will ditch swappable batteries, pretty sure, but will supposedly continue to make spares available for select models via Ifixit.

That could lead to real change: drastic increase in tobacco taxes that only abate if cigarette waste drastically diminishes.

"Here's an extra $3 per pack tax that will stay in effect until cigarette waste is no longer an issue."

Unless there is a crackdown with real consequences people won't stop littering. It's too convenient, most will have to be forced to abate.

I would welcome a law enforcement branch that patrols the streets to prevent and punish these sorts of offenses. You can enact law after law, but if there's no enforcement then change is going to be elusive.

At some intersections there can be a button that will give you priority and issue a full stop for all traffic, but those aren't too common.

Both Reddit and Twitter are intentionally designed to be annoying, so as to encourage you to install their apps. So frustrating.

Ha! As I was reading that and pictured my pirate I was focusing on getting the drape of his pantaloons correct, so they hung over the top of the peg leg just so. When I went back to check color I realized it was like a coloring book image, thickly inked, but colorless.

Usually a sudden reboot rather than a shutdown. It happens.

Biodegradable on what time frame? Isn't everything biodegradable given enough time? Is there an official definition on what time frame of biodegradability allows something to be legally declared 'biodegradable'? (Looking into this now, fascinating!)

If there's no reasonable legal definition of biodegradable, then isn't that label useless?

Wow, that guy is really something. Turn dumping trash in public into profit, get others to volunteer to do the work, charging the people the entire time, for both the dispersal and the cleanup, all the while claiming his trash dumping is a powerful deterrent to crime. Master scammer.

Maybe the police should consider dropping confetti on rioters? Maybe implement in clubs and bars? The solution to world peace: confetti. Who knew. :P

> More than 100 sanitation workers begin their eight-hour shifts. Using street sweepers, backpack blowers, and push brooms, they will remove the 57 tons of material that’s left behind

This is actually disgusting. I think the idea that dropping confetti prevents violence, or that it was responsible for the drop in violence the article attributes to it, seems silly. It sounds like they are just trying to justify the massive expense and waste associated with this reckless behavior.

Of course the owner of the company who gets paid mad money to dump trash on the public is going to tout his works as transformative and important. Does his company also pay for the 100 sanitation workers to clean up his mess? Or do the people foot the bill for both the dumping of the trash and the cleanup?

I know Samsung does offer security updates for devices >2 years old. I have a Galaxy Note 4 that got 3 years of updates. They weren't monthly, but were fairly regular(1). It does appear that this is common for Samsung flagships, but probably differs depending on variant.

(1) https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-28899

> If you think Android is a decent OS try removing Google from it.

Actually that was one of my favorite things about my Xperia XZ1 Compact: running LineageOS without Google services. The battery life was insane, like 10-12 hours of screen-on time. I simply did not have to think about charging the thing; I'd charge it every 2-3 days.

Having a device that I could readily bootloader unlock that also has official AOSP support complete with device trees direct from Sony was such a refreshing change for me after years of hacking together homemade device trees for various LG devices.

I regret trading that phone for an LG G7, with its mediocre battery life, heavily bloated, laggy software, and precarious glass build -- also cannot ever be bootloader unlocked, and even if it could you'd have to rely on some community approximation for the device trees, forfeiting fully-functional camera support.

Sony's Xperia flagships are quite regular with their monthly updates.

I think they've also ditched the headphone jack in their latest models though. For a while it seemed like they'd hold out against glass backs and dropping jacks. But no.

Prime Video on Fire TV boxes now autoplays some selections in the menu (maybe just Amazon original content?). Now I have to mute my TV with Prime Video just like is required for Netflix.

Prime doesn't have the bizarre, useless, space-wasting auto-expanding selections like Netflix though.

Netflix stream selection UX is so infuriatingly atrocious.

In all the many play-throughs I did on that game I don't think I ever hit the time limit. I always thought it was generous enough to enjoy the game fully.

If you really want to explore [sort of] unhindered Fallout 2 takes care of that, even letting you continue to play after you finish the game.

I don't think many computer RPG players took Diablo or Diablo 2 seriously in that respect back then. They weren't really comparable to computer RPGs at the time. They were like console-friendly RPG-lite-type games.

Tangent: 'Relentless, Twinsen's Adventure' aka 'Little Big Adventure' is officially available on Android. It's actually kind of fun and playable on the small screen.

Looks like the Exult, the Ultima 7 modernization/remake, is still being developed:

https://github.com/exult/exult

Last time I played U7 through so many years ago it was via Exult. I wonder how far its progressed over the last decade? hmm.