@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I mean, simple Flash games, maybe; but 3D games?

whatevs. For 50 euro it almost doesn't matter. But I can't see it being an exciting tablet. It will do some tasks acceptably, and other tasks not at all.

smells Pilgrim in the air

@Cerberus Lots of games are 3d.

Let's consider me.

I tried a game with 3D animations once on my phone.

Only played it for maybe 10 minutes, then got bored.

you? As in, "a tablet for cerberus"? You will be disappointed, I'm sure, by any tablet that doesn't even keep up with your phone.

I rarely play games on my phone.

@Cerberus me too... they're much better on the tablet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 No, no, I didn't mean that.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I don't know.

@Cerberus The bigger screen makes it easier to hit the controls and to see what is going on.

Of all my Ipad-owning friends, I have never seen or heard of any playing anything beyond Angry Birds.

@Cerberus Well, I guess it must not happen then!

They're just not into (semi-serious) gaming.

It's not cool.

It supposedly takes too much time.

Funny, all my ipad owning friends speak endlessly about the games they have on their ipads.

(when we talk about ipads)

I think we have very different friends.

But how can that be!

And I have to say I think mineses are more typical for the average Ipad user...

Has anyone yet used speckle patterns to generate random numbers?

Mine know nothing about computers.

@Cerberus What makes you think the avg ipad user knows nothing about computers?

The majority, at least.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 My friends.

@Cerberus Maybe you just have dumb friends? :)

And basically just most people I see or hear talking about and interacting with computers.

@Robusto not me

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 They're not dumb, just not interested.

@Cerberus Well, most people I know, period, know nothing about computers.

And yet lots of people play games without really understanding anything about computers.

That is true.

The thing about ipad users that is common to most of them is that they have money

Nah.

there are lots of things they use it for

You don't need to have a lot of money. You just save up.

Some of the kids I tutor have Ipads.

@Cerberus Yes, for a minority of people.

None have other tablets.

@Cerberus and do they have computers at home? You know some people don't even own computers. They're called poor people.

Oh, come on. The average person spends, what, € 200 a month on clothing?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Uhh a 2nd-hand computer is very cheap.

If you can buy food, you can save for an old computer.

@Cerberus That doesn't mean they can afford it.

€ 100.

Or less.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I was sure it would have been you.

@Robusto I just felt like someone should answer your question

anyway, @cerb, I think it's fair to say that I don't think you have a good grasp on what an average computer user is, or what an average ipad user is, or how much money they have.

So I'm not going to try to argue with you how easy it is, or isn't, for people to buy computers. I've seen people protesting library-hour cutbacks because the public library was the only way they could get computer time to do their schoolwork.

I'm sure those people already spend all their money buying second-hand clothes, nevermind second-hand ipads.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Look, I hate to have to say this, but you shouldn't say that. It's rude and unnecessary. And an argumentative "fallacy" to boot.

@Cerberus Well, we've talked about "average" users before many times. And I just don't see your "average" user anywhere I've ever looked.

I'm not trying to be rude. I'm just pointing out that I disagree with your ideas about what "average" is.

And I've disagreed about it for a while. And we re-hash this conversation so many times.

@Cerberus The mode for clothing is nothing at all. The average person spends $0.00 per month on clothing, because most months they of course buy no clothes at all. That means the mode is zero, since they don’t get outmoded so easily.

I've purchased more clothing this month than I care to admit, but I needed it (see tchrist's statement).

So anyway, your el-cheapo tablet: I'm sure it's a great deal for certain tasks. Like ebook reading. Or angry birds. But inevitably it will disappoint you if you demand a lot from it. It could be useful for putting in your car as a gps device, or backseat babysitter.

Actually, only at certain art fairs is the normal mode of clothing nothing at all.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Then you say it like that. It is a breach of etiquette and it disrupts a discussion to comment not on someone's arguments or position but on his less transitory properties, like insight and character. That's what you think, but you don't say it, unless it becomes necessary. You just argue against his arguments or state that you disagree on premises, if you can.

@tchrist My wardrobe changes, on average, once every 2-3 years, at minimum. I have family members who upgrade their computer(s) (for they usually do own more than one) every 5-10 years (despite having more than one, and despite them being cheaper than ever). I remember one who went out when Windows 3.1 had come out, bought an HP for maybe $3,000 at least. Had a 3 1/2" floppy and a 5 1/4" (?). I played Zork installed on a 5 1/4". . .

@Cerberus well, I'm sorry if I offended you. On re-reading what I wrote, I could have said it better.

@tchrist I don't think so. My spending is far below average, and I have bought a pair of (cheap) gloves this month.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I am not offended, just irked. It's fine.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 We just want to watch movies (just had one relative who was debating about either a tablet or netbook, got a netbook and was irked it had no DVD drive), surf the Internet, type up quick notes (no heavy-duty word-processing), maybe read a book/pdf. I think we're average. . . (shrug).

@Zairja Yeah, that is also my impression.

@Zairja Yeah. And for "watching movies" you might be surprised how poorly some high-end tablets react when handed a "movie" of ... dubious provenance.

@Cerberus On the corporate side, a lot of our folks love tablets but they haven't increased productivity. They only make our product demos seem more "cutting-edge". It's actually a bit disappointing. We have hundreds, maybe thousands, of first-gen iPads sitting around and we'll probably just dump them on the local school district, if they even could get use out of them.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Does provenance determine format?

If you stick to files that are H.264-encoded that you downloaded from iTunes or Google Play, you'll be fine wiht most tablets.

@Cerberus it correlates.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 are you getting enough . . . calcium?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh my.

@Zairja tablets are not that good for work.

@cornbreadninja calcium?

@Zairja Haha I'm not surprised. I am surprised, however, that companies actually thought they'd be more "productive" with tablets, as opposed to just a fun little gadget.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 ;)

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I don't think we can download films from Itunes or Play.

Certainly not from Play.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You're telling me.

Nor from Amazon.com.

@Cerberus well, that's because you live in a tiny, unimportant country :)

Well, I think it isn't possible in many other EU countries either.

You want productivity, give them Nostromos or AHK and teach them how to make hotkeys and scripts.

AHK! Yay!

:)

So I have a Transformer TF101, the first-gen Transformer tablet from Asus. When released it was the top of the line: dual core, 1GM ram, yadda yadda. And there are some video formats it can't play out of the box, and stutters when you use a third-party app. There are some games that perform badly on it. There are times when you have to wait for something to load.

@Cerberus have you looked at youtube for getting films?

they have a selection, legally

So I can't see how I'd be happy with a lower-end tablet with half the cpu and half the ram.

It stutters when you use a third-party app? How is that possible?

@MattЭллен I never watch films, actually, so no, hehe.

@Cerberus lol, oh well!

@Cerberus I dunno? It happens though. Maybe it's poor coding? Poor file-encoding? who knows. It happens.

Films stutter on my PC too.

Even though the CPU is barely in use.

And RAM is more than half empty.

@Cerberus well, there you go. And we have decades more experience making good players for PCs.

But it is totally not important.

A tiny stutter here and there.

Well, it's important if "watching videos" was one of the things you wanted it for.

No.

@Cerberus No, no, I mean, unwatchable.

Oh!

Then you should have said so!

Well, any film I throw at it is is perfectly watchable on my ancient single-core laptop.

I have to install half a dozen movie player apps in the hopes that one of them will succeed to play a particular movie.

With 500 MB RAM.

Just install VLC.

I think my laptop must be 10 years old?

Maybe 8?

@Cerberus Last time I checked, VLC wasn't available on android, except as a private beta.

play.google.com/store/apps/…

I haven't tried it on Android (yet).

By the way, don't you think normal videos should just play OK on Android 4+?

@Cerberus yay! Maybe it will solve all my problems!

Good luck.

Did you have Android 4?

@Cerberus What the "internet" considers "normal" video and what The Powers that Be consider "normal" video on things like consumer electronics are totally different.

Eg: my samsung BD player has DLNA so it can play movies that are stored on my PC. Except, not any of the formats that I actually have.

@Cerberus haha, do I have android 4

Mostly Youtube, I think,'s what people watch on tablets here.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 So no?

Because Android 4 might make a difference.

@Cerberus youtube works fine, if you have a net connection, which many tables don't because they don't have 3G.

It should have fancy drivers and all.

@Cerberus of course I have android 4. I wouldn't have bought a tablet with no Android 4.

You said it was an old tablet.

well, it shipped with 3.2, but they promised an update to 4 and by the time I got it that update was out.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Uhh just Wifi will do for most people.

@Cerberus Many people like to use tablets when they're not at home.

But not nearly as much as at home.

@Cerberus I dunno. if my tablet had 3g I'd use it more out of the home.

I was talking about their "main" video consumption.

@Cerberus well, when you're at home, why not watch a TV, or even a computer screen?

Then you'd need to switch SIM cards...or get a second plan.

I only watch movies on the tablet when I'm NOT home

@Cerberus I'd just piggy-back it on my existing plan, they have data-sharing plans

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You don't need to convince me that tablets are useless. But people happen to use them on the couch. That is the no. 1 spot.

@Cerberus but for watching videos?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Then you'd probably need to pay a lot extra? And for a tiny data bundle?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah. I have witnessed it.

@Cerberus It's not usually very expensive.

Because they like to watch some Youtube videos on the couch.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Probably more expensive than a tablet, in 2 years' time?

@Cerberus ah, that's because they don't have sufficiently advanced TVs, or they don't know about youtube's leanback feature

They are completely clueless and they don't have an advanced tv.

Most people don't.

And are.

Swap those two lines.

And edit them so as to get the appropriate meaning.

I think I could get 3G for a tablet for an extra $10/month.

But the 3G tablets cost more too.

That's € 240 in two years.

You could buy four of the tablets I mentioned for that!

@Cerberus I could, but they'd all be worse than the tablet I already have

> move to system app for trial edition

What could this mean?

It is in the change log for Android Lost.

I dunno

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But you could put one each under your table's legs!

maybe it's operating at higher privileges?

It should already be operating at the highest level of privilege?

You can use it to track down your phone if it's stolen.

Sound an alarm, get coördinates, take pictures, that sort of thing.

What does it mean when you "move something to system app"?

I don't know

Hmm.

Then it is unknowable.

It looks like he is making a new androidlost

:D

a pro version

Isn't there already one?

I am trying to find out whether he is nerfing the free version.

Because then I won't upgrade.

I don't know what "move to system app for trial version" means, but it sounds like he's either reorganizing his code so that the two apps can share the code, or he is making it so that one version can be installed in such a way that it cannot be uninstalled.

Just as I stopped updating Firefox after the tabs-on-top fiasco.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 The two apps? As in, which two apps?

@Cerberus You know, his app is totally, and completely dependant on his server, which he fully controls. If he doesn't want to continue to give free access, you're SOL

@Cerberus The basic and the pro version

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 No, nerfing, not killing.

@Cerberus what is "nerfing"

play.google.com/store/apps/….

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Huh, so why would they need to share code?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ehm weakening. I think it is a game term.

@Cerberus because the pro version has all the features of the basic version, so it shares its codebase

In this case, I meant removing features.

@Cerberus well, again: every single feature of the app is controlled by the server. So if he wants to reduce what you can do with it, all he has to do is reduce what the server presents you.

It's a very simple app. It would be pretty easy to replicate most of the features, at least for nexus phones.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But he wouldn't remove features mentioned in the GUI...

Sure, there are in fact plenty of similar applications.

@Cerberus there's a 1-1 correspondence between the server GUI and the app on the phone

But you can't remove buttons from the GUI, can you?

I wonder what the average response rate is on online dating sites.

Ooh I have no idea.

7 women visited my profile in a day, probably 4 or 5 of them I had messaged. None messaged me.

I don't know whether my profile is just terrible, or that's par for the course.

Or you message the wrong kind?

I have no idea.

Haven't tried it in ages.

@Cerberus You mean, from the local app's gui?

Yes.

I don't even understand the options it offers.

@Cerberus well, it depends on the app. You could totally change what the app displays, depending on how it decides to display what it displayes.

Yes, but is that likely?

@Cerberus Well, lots of apps do it.

Anyway, this app has, what, 5 checkboxes in its gui?

In most cases, features are removed either by simply pulling the application from the web for new users, and creating a new, limited version; or by means of a sneaky downdate.

@Cerberus you could just have a sneaky update which adds the capability to remove features, without mentioning that in the changelog.

Of course.

Maybe the app phones home and says "what features are enabled?"

Anything is possible.

In fact, there are APIs in Google Play for that sort of thing.

But then it might not be like that.

It's a built-in feature of the marketplace

who knows?

But in this app's case, it's even easier. All the useful things it does are triggered by a website you don't control.

(Unless you use the remote-SMS-command features... I don't, because I only use this app on work phones, and they have no sims)

Anyway, if you already trust this guy enough that you have his app installed, you may as well continue to trust him. His app could totally mes with your life.

Different kinds of trust.

I trust that my banker won't pick my pockets.

So you trust that he won't try to take pictures of you while you're naked, or make your phone do annoying things, or accidentally expose your phone's controls to a third party, but you don't trust that he won't take away stuff he gave you for free, so you'll refuse to update the app, even though if he wants to do that he can do it easily without your consent anyway?

@Cerberus but banks are notorious for things that equate to picking pockets.

Like account fees for inactive accounts.

Or excessive transaction fees.

Or selling you mutual funds with high commissions and no expectation of returns

Oh, please.

I'm not going to laboriously explain a point that you already understand and agree with.

Just because you like disagreeing.

Well, I don't trust my banks not to pick my pockets. I scrutinize everything. And I refuse to use some common products if there are sneaky fees.

Similarly, I don't trust AndroidLost enough to install it on my main phones. :p

A whole nother point.

There is nothing that it could steal from me by having access to my phone.

So it has no motive.

However, it probably makes a lot of money from advertisements or something.

Well, it could steal my email. And that could be inconvenient enough. It could record conversations. I'm sure it could do other nasty things.

What could it do with those?

well, if you can control someone's email account, you can do things like password-reset any sites that use those email addresses.

Get control of enough sites and you can probably easily perform identity theft.

I suppose.

and identity theft has been used in Canada to do things like steal houses.

now, MY house is protected from mortgage fraud by insurance, but man what a PITA it'd be to deal with.

But can it truly read my e-mails? The log-in is through Google.

@Cerberus No, it could do it by virtue of the email being on your phone.

Which is an important reason why it seemed trustworthy.

Can it read e-mails on my phone?

Well, I'm not sure. But I wouldn't rule it out.

It can wipe your phone. It can access your SD card.

I haven't given it admin rights.

So it says it can't wipe or lock my phone.

In LBE, it says nothing about e-mail on Android Lost.

But it may have that permission.

I'd like to take it away if it does.

It would work by attacking the locally stored data, not by logging into google

Are those data stored unencrypted/readable?

These are the sensitive permissions LBE gives that Android Lost can use.

I could forbid a couple of those.

Then again, I'm trusting LBE as well, and the people on XDA who have modified LBE.

I could install Permissions Denied to check whether AL has direct access to e-mails.

play.google.com/store/apps/….

It has access to the SD card, which on some phones is world-readable. Encryption depends on the app in question. Expect that it's not encrypted.

It has access to your SMS messages (all of them).

It has access to "sensitive logs", whatever that means

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You think Gmail is not encrypted?

So the "system admin" policy that it has doesn't allow for additional data access. It's mostly password-policy, and wiping the phone.

@Cerberus Do I think gmail's local cache of files on the phone is encrypted? No, I'd be surprised.

But so many applications have access to the SD card!

Like, tons.

and didn't we talk about this earlier?

Maybe half the applications I had installed. I could see that because Permissions Denied showed it.

Surely they can't all read your e-mail?

@Cerberus I don't know that they can't.

I would be very surprised if they could.

Well, on the GN, they can't, because the filesystem permissions will stop them

Ah.

Well, there you go, then.

@Cerberus but rooted apps can

rooted apps break all the security wide open

rooted apps can do anything at all

AL doesn't have root access.

It could attack one of your rooted apps

Or one of my rooted apps could "attack" me.

But we'll have to take our chances, haven't we?

You can't rule out all risk.

nope

so anyway, today I am running on a Nexus S

my wife took my GN with her

Oh haha!

she says it's too big though

she'd rather have the NS but I need it for work

I may try to convince my boss to buy another NS

(By the way, even if a thief should buy something expensive off Ebay on my account, I could cancel the payment.)

honestly, he wants me to work, he should provide me with phones to work with

Heh.

Or your wife will get used to the GN!

Now I need to forage.

@Cerberus you could, but there could be complications, like if ebay or paypal or your credit-card company didn't believe you, or your credit rating was harmed anyway, or just your time lost.

Those groceries won't jump into my cart by themselves.

@Cerberus If she does, then a new N4 for me

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 They don't have to believe me: I just call my bank to revert the payment.

As to credit rating and lawsuits, yes, that is possible.

@Cerberus the bank might not believe you either

Although I don't think we have credit ratings that work they way they do in your country.

we already established that they're pickpockets and liars

@Cerberus hm.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 They don't have to. They are obligated to revert the payment.

@Cerberus just cuz you said so? What prevents fraud?

Nothing. Ebay can sue me.

The bank may postpone reverting the payment if they suspect that I'm a fraudster, probably, but I have the right to revert an automated withdrawal.

It is called storneren.

Perhaps you can too.

What happens if your phone company should withdraw € 5000 from your account, even though your bills are normally € 50?

You just call your bank to revert the payment, and there's nothing the phone company can do about it directly.

They will have to disconnect and sue.

And rightly so.

Actually it's different here.

the automated withdrawl system is fundamentally fucked

it has little or no security

cheque fraud and the like are rampant

direct-withdrawal problems are common.

One reason I don't use direct withdrawal.

How does that work?

I have procured aliments.