Posts Tagged ‘satire’

13 Jun

How to de-Google your Android phone

Posted by Nolan Lawson in Android. Tagged: , .

First, download a ROM from this Russian message board. It’s okay! You can totally verify the GPG signature. Allow yourself 30 minutes to remember how GPG works, then verify that forum poster LeetAndrej420 has indeed signed the file.

Next, root your Android phone. You will need to hold the volume-up and power buttons for ten seconds, then unplug from USB, then reboot a few times after you mess it up, then give up and download the Android dev tools.

After you figure out the Android adb and fastboot commands, you should see a friendly UI with green Courier text on a black background. Press the button that says, “I void my warranty and completely exonerate the OEM in the likely event that I am actually pwning myself by installing random software from the internet onto a tracking device I carry in my pocket every day.” But it’s okay. You trust Andrej, right?

Next you will need to install the “recovery” tool. Despite the name, this is actually the best way to brick your device. Luckily it is incredibly feature-rich, boasting 12 buttons on the home screen, including an “Advanced” button containing more buttons. These buttons will invite you to do things like “clear the Dalvik/ART cache,” which you totally know what that means.

When you download the recovery tool, make sure you get the right version for your phone! Of course, it’s not named after your phone’s brand name, but rather a cheeky internal name chosen by the OEM, like “bacon”, “cheeseburger”, or “mahimahi”. The professionalism on display from all parties should fill you with confidence.

You will download the recovery tool from a site called SickWarez.biz. Use GPG to ensure that it’s signed by Andrej.

Once downloaded, go into recovery mode and install the ROM, being careful to press the one correct button out of 12, like a game of Minesweeper that will brick your phone if you lose. This will also factory-reset your device, which is fine because all your photos and contacts are backed up to your Google account… ah, right. You’ll want to do something about that.

Assuming you have successfully installed the ROM without turning your phone into a $700 doorstop, you can now install apps. Thankfully there is F-Droid, which hosts all your favorite open-source apps. Wait, your favorite apps aren’t open-source? Well, at least it has Signal. Wait, it doesn’t have Signal?

Once you’ve installed the Yalp Store, which sideloads apps from Google Play in a way that may or may not be totally illegal and will get blocked by Google once they read this blog post and realize that it exists, you can now download some actually useful apps.

Thankfully, though, your personal data will be safe and secure from third-party developers, because these apps will not work. Be prepared for error messages like, “Please install Google Maps,” “Google Play Services required,” or “What kind of sicko has a Google phone without Google? What is wrong with you?”

After all this ceremony, you can now relax and enjoy your Google-free Android device. Note, though, that weather widgets, GPS, push notifications, and the majority of Android apps you rely on will not work. That said, there are some great note-taking apps! Plus SMS will still work. Good old SMS.

So now that you’ve successfully turned your $700 Android device into a glorified $30 Nokia flip phone, which may or may not be siphoning your passwords to a Ukrainian teenager, you can finally have a Google-free smartphone experience. Or you could just buy an iPhone.

28 May

In defense of the Right Thing

Posted by Nolan Lawson in Web. Tagged: , , .

It has come to my attention that many people believe the Wrong Thing. I find this to be an intolerable state of affairs, so this is a blog post defending what is Right.

How do I know there are so many people who believe the Wrong Thing? Well because, like everyone, I use Twitter. And holy moly! My feed is chock-full of Wrong Thinkers.

Sometimes it feels like everyone in the world believes the Wrong Thing, and I’m the last lonely person clinging to what’s Right. There must be a global epidemic of Wrongness. Why else would Twitter fill my feed with so many of these dunces and ninnies and halfwits?

I don’t even follow these people. Why should they be in my timeline, unless the whole world is full of Wrong people?

Every time I see their Wrong tweets, I seethe with rage and eagerly click to read the full thread. I might spend hours this way, thumbing through Wrong tweets. “How can so many people be so Wrong?” I’ll say to myself, shaking my head as I continue to scroll.

Sometimes when I find a really Wrong tweet, I’ll quote it and tweet it out with the perfect devastating repartee. That way, more people who agree with me are exposed to these Wrong views. That’ll teach ’em!

I do have to commend the others who proudly rise in defense of what is Right. On Twitter, I often see them caught in an epic battle with the Wrongers – “34 people are talking about this!” Well, here comes a 35th, joining the fray to fight the good fight.

To be honest, I sometimes get tired of feeling angry all the time. But how can I not be, when the world is full of people who are so very Wrong?

Curiously, the Wrongers seem to come from all sides of any issue, and they are legion. People who use margarine instead of butter, people who peel the banana from the top instead of the bottom, people who crack a boiled egg from the big end rather than the small end. These are exactly the things that drive me nuts, and somehow my feed is full of people who believe the opposite of me on precisely those issues! Sometimes I feel utterly embroiled, helpless, a tiny voice of reason shouting against an angry mob of Wrong Thinkers.

But sadly, this is just how the world is these days. The world is full of people arguing, calling each other out, or watching a fight unfold with the horrified glee of a driver craning their neck to get a good look at a car wreck.

I know this is how the world is, because I see it on Twitter. And Twitter is an utterly unbiased mirror of the world, with no algorithms that subtly push the discussion in one direction or the other, regardless of whether it is good for discourse or compassion or human well-being but only whether it is good for Twitter.