From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego

technical fails

I tried to be good and donate money. Not to some obscure shadowy organisation, but the the public libraries I visited to use the internet in USA.

Libraries in the US are awesome, if anyone here really believes the stereotype of the illiterate American, who only watches talk-shows all day, go and visit any random library in any random town. They are well organised, have free internet access and are staffed by lovely people. And even random tiny towns somewhere on the road have one.
They are also funded by the individual communities and are mostly underfunded. Therefor as a thank you for the nice service I pulled out my credit card and tried to donate 10$ to each. These are:

Palmer (Alaska) Public Library
Seattle (WA) Public Library
Portland (OR) Central Library
Library in some random fishing town in Oregon
Some Library in another random fishing town, in California
Monterrey (CA) Public Library
Yuma (AZ) Public Library (the only one not in the centre of town)

Now my credit card is blocked. Because? Because.

I also bought a phone, as I have to grow up and get a job. I even went all the way and bought a smart phone. Aaaaaaaaaaand I don't like it.
Well, I like that I can use it as an internet access, but it really bugs me that I cannot delete any pre-installed applications. Not the useless (to me) Facebook application, not the You Tube viewer (I'm not that much into cat videos), not the music video viewer and not even the downloader for some game I don't want to download.
I identified 13 apps I don't want or need. This might be ok, but there is not that much space on the phone (even with moving apps and contacts etc to the SIM card) to install all the apps I actually DO want. And why?
Because if one allows people to play with their system too much,they might brake it and it would be too complicated to provide service for them.
Seriously, that was one reasoning I found on the internets. Thats like building a car, which can only drive 30km/h because if one drives faster one might crash it and repairing it might be too complicated. Its my phone and I should be allowed to destroy it as much as I want too.
So I tried to root it, but every method I tried failed (phone still works, though). What does a skill lacking geek girl do? I guess I don't have a choice, I have to befriend computer nerds again... Does anybody know someone in Chile?

P.S. 9000 hits, yeahhhhh, lets make it 10!
P.P.S. I'm fine, not in Santiago, Valparaiso seems riot free...

Posted on 4 Jan 2013, 23:28 - Categories: General
Comments: »
obviously...   Posted on 11 Jan 2013, 5:53 by me
... the above needs mentioning of the [url]basic freedoms of the user to control the program they are using[/url]. I was a Windows user for many years, funnily enough, Androids treatment of the users bothers me more. Maybe because I did not expect to be kept from something as basic as deleting a program from MY system (Windows lets you do that), especially from an open source product. It is a good example of the difference between open sorce and free software. It boils down to this: I expected to be buying a computer and got a toaster instead. And I would not have paid 100 euros for a toaster. P.S. I ment toaster to be a Battlestar Galactica reference, but then I thought that I had read that comparison before... And I had, so [url=http://www.smarimccarthy.is/2012/08/centralization-vs-decentralization-two-centuries-of-authority-in-design/]here[/url] my point (plus several more) from someone smarter than me.