This is interesting. Not a lawyer, but I’d encourage anyone in Australia to demand a free repair under Australian Consumer Law because the company bricked the laptop. I’d guess it would fall under the Acceptable Quality consumer guarantee, since the fault was caused directly by the manufacturer.

Not sure how you’d go about proving that, but you could then just take it to your state tribunal, like VCAt in Victoria and file a small claim.

Not a lawyer, not legal advice, but something to think about if you’re in this situation.

This is truer than you might expect. Just not as blatant as the meme. Especially in a work context, people will underestimate someone’s abilities, be inpatient with clarifications or simply favour others for tasks.

It’s unconcious with some people, they don’t even know they’re doing it.

I am a first language English speaker, but my partner isn’t and it’s really opened my eyes to how much we underestimate the language difficulties immigrants can have.

Not to say everyone is struggling, but just that I think English speakers do take language skills for granted. And unconsciously are biased towards people based on their preserved language skills.

Even once you’re fluent, like my partner well and truly is, it’s still hard.

I am dreading the day my company makes me “upgrade” my windows 10 laptop to 11. I really hope they’re paying for legacy support for 10.

I right click, soooooo often when managing files at my job. I’m going to pull out my hair if I can’t change the “see more” behaviour.

Also, I’m a top taskbar user (that’s where programs put their tabs, it just makes sense!)

I don’t know how they could fuck up windows this badly.

Is this a joke? (I know it isn’t).

Why would I want to know the dimensions of the unfinished product? I’m not a construction worker, so honestly is there any reason?

I just hopped to another launcher by total coincidence a couple of weeks ago. This is welcome news

TotalLauncher

I’m an engineer (a non-IT engineer) and have 4. There is so much ensuring consistency between drawings and documents. I’d like 5 (including the inbuilt one) but graphics card on my high performance company laptop says no.

At least one for file explorer, then other three could be pdf editor, or word, or excel, or internet browser.

I regularly have 4 drawings open, plus another reference, plus windows explorer for file management.

It’s never enough. I could totally do with more than 4 screens, I’m already squeezing multiple drawings onto one monitor.

You too friend :)

Not sure, perhaps I should change this to “Google Pixel Android 14”

It’s not “available” in the Australian Playstore either, whether it’s installed so far seems to be how old your phone is (rough feeling based on comments). Not yet clear what the pattern is.

What model do you have, out of curiosity?

It’s literally phoning google services, and the package name has google in the name.

It’s a google thing.

Apparently this included on some phones running GrapheneOS according to some other commenters.

I agree with your sentiment, but think we need to urge our governments to regulate the ever-loving god our of these companies.

It’s getting more out of hand, and I don’t think we should just resign ourselves.

Flashing GrapheneOS is not an option for the vast majority of people due to barriers to entry, and potentially essential banking apps not playing nicely.

I’d rather not move on. Heck 'em.

Many thanks for this

No worries mate

Good to hear! And thanks for providing this data point. I may get around to doing a survey, and trying to rope in some people who know their way around android development to see what’s going on here.

Only somewhat. I think I should be able to figure the ADB terminal out as I’ve used it before (on training wheels following instructions).

Yeah overall I’m not too worried for me personally since I have it blocked behind a firewall.

It’s more than google has this installed for many more devices than it should be, and the purpose of it in general.

Makes my blood boil, with how far corporate overreach has come.

They should NOT be allowed to enable extrajudicial enforcement like this. The world worked just fine before this. People had property repossessed, just there’s a legal process to take. And a third party (the judicial system) decided whether to allow enforcement, not the creditor themselves.

Imagine you miss one phone payment (your card expires or something) and then you can’t access you phone, the primary device for most people to manage their digital lives. They’ll just be fucked, and it’ll be the most vulnerable in society who suffer.

It’s so wrong.

I think it’s much preferable that some bad apples just don’t pay and the creditor loses some money, than vulnerable people get their lives fucked over because they missed a single payment.

Yikes. Well at least I feel vindicated that it’s not somehow my “fault” for using Shelter. It’s where I install all my questionable

Why in the world would this be bundled with AOSP? (Or is Graphene not built on stock AOSP, I have no concept of how that works)

No, it may not appear in the appstore (doesn’t for me), but does appear in my apps (when you show system apps)

I’m of the strong opinion that this ought not to be a thing. Even if you stop paying rent, they can kick you out, but there’s a process they need to follow (in Australia anyway).

These software locks means they can do whatever they want, even if they’re in the wrong, and then you’re shit out of luck until you can take them to court, if you even have the time to do it…

It’s so wrong, because of the power imbalance I really think this kind of thing should be railed against at all costs.

Google should not install this shit by default, and sneakily as well.