Let's Talk Hangouts for a Second

We've covered a lot of phone stuff in this blog, and that seems to make sense considering that communication is at the forefront of many successful series. This year, the logistics of telephony have changed dramatically. Both Apple and Google have pushed for Data-based calling as an alternative to your traditional dedicated cellular service. In fact, when Hangouts Dialer showed up in the Google Play store, I jumped on it right away. I went as far as to get a Data-Only tether and forward all of my calls to my existing Google Voice number. Here's how that went.

First things first, I want to make it very clear that CDMA-cellular calling is far more reliable than GSM in terms of network coverage area, but the quality is absolutely terrible. So while I could get service in the middle of nowhere, my calls were always jittery and poor sounding due to the limitations of that type of audio transfer.

Having Google Voice/Hangouts changed all of that. On my home Wi-Fi network, every call has been crystal clear due to high data speeds. And even on 3G CDMA/EvDO (at a mere 2Mbit/sec), calls are still much clearer than traditional voice network ever was.

The downside? Considerable lag. Calls take roughly ten seconds to connect on either Wi-Fi or 3G, regardless of the device I'm using. There is also a delay of up to two seconds between send and receive. This is something that will need to be fixed in order for Data-based calling to really take off.

The deciding factor? I'm going to have to give it to the ability to use any device without being tied to a carrier. Because I have a mobile hotspot/tether, I can pair any phone, tablet or computer to it. My iPod Touch? It's a phone. My Nook Tablet? Phone. My LG Optimus Fuel? Haven't activated it, but I can still make calls thanks to Hangouts. I can literally swap devices depending on the day of the week, which is something that cannot be said of those who must hold onto the same phone for eighteen months at a time. 

So, where do we go from here? The next step obviously is to make the service work more efficiently on minimal bandwidth (128kbit or less for those in the backwoods). After that, we absolutely must make devices cheaper so that more people pay in full for them from the get-go. The days of subsidizing a $700 phone and paying it back over a year and a half need to end. 

My First iOS Device Will Be My Last

So for years, I have had a critical opinion of Apple products. Considering how they only seem to sell through marketing hype, I've always told people to steer clear of the brand. Then I decided to put my money where my mouth is, and plummeted $200 on the newest iPod Touch (and $60 for AppleCare). I figured if the claims of a quality product were true, I would soon find out.

Turns out I didn't. Though before I get into why this device is terrible, let me try to paint a picture of its strengths.

Romeo X Juliet - Acts 01-03 - Right to One's Name

Romeo and Juliet is a work that most of us should be familiar with. Telling the story of the Montagues and the Capulets, this play by William Shakespeare has withstood the test of time through a variety of renditions and recreations. Romeo X Juliet is an adaptation of the same story, albeit with a variety of twists. 

As opposed to the traditional duels between the two great houses, the Montagues decide to jump the gun early and kill off the entire Capulet house when Juliet is just two years old. As the sole survivor, she is forced to change her name and outward gender appearance for fourteen years to prevent the corrupt Montague forces from finding and killing her. On her sixteenth birthday, all of this is revealed to her, and the Sword of Capulet is given to her as an inheritance of the family name.

To make things even more complicated, during the time in which she masqueraded as a boy (by name of Odin), she became a skilled swordfighter and began to don the title of "The Red Whirlwind." Hiding behind a cape and mask, she darted through the streets defending the weak and abused.

So, who is Juliet Fiammatta Arst De Capulet really? Or rather, who does Juliet have a right to be? 

You see, halfway through the first episode we are made privy to the fact that Odin and Juliet are the same person. However, by the end of the third episode we see this segregation into two distinct identities with two distinct definitions. One of the trials faced by our protagonist is that she wants to retain the traits of both, but she is not allowed to do that. 

Society tells Juliet to sacrifice her femininity because it is "the right thing to do" in order to restore the Capulet name when the proper time comes. The story even goes as far as to paint her attempts to restore her femininity as selfish until that time when it's contextually appropriate. When it does become contextually appropriate, the inverse occurs, and her life as the Red Whirlwind is treated with scorn by those around her.

The issue is that even though Odin was always a false identity, the trials and tribulations that identity faced were real, have meaning, and should not be cast aside for any reason. It should be understood that Juliet is Odin is Juliet, regardless of the name the character identifies with. People have multiple identities and multiple definitions, and a name is only meant to highlight the majority identity and the majority definition.

Real life is often subject to this same problem. Take the writer of this blog post (me) for example. My given name is Madeline Nicole Koller; my legal name (birth name) is Matthew Nicholas Koller. These are treated by society as two distinct identities with distinct definitions, which leads to all sorts of issues. 

• Only the identity of Matthew can sign a legally binding contract, because only Matthew has a Social Security Number. However, the identity of Maddy is the default recognition by the people who interact with her (by seeing or hearing her). People who cannot establish the connection distrust her when she claims to be Matthew (and yes, this has actually happened to me when trying to present a Photo ID).
• Matthew was defined (up until age eighteen) as an honor student, the son of a law enforcement officer, and having some hobbies more in line with a male persona. For all intents and purposes, Matthew disappeared on September 20, 2011. Maddy, meanwhile, is defined as an educational worker, the daughter of a law enforcement officer, and having some hobbies more in line with a female persona. For all intents and purposes, she is considered to have no past. None.

Here's where I stand on this issue. Matthew Nicholas Koller is dead, and has been for four years. However, many definitions which made up his persona have since transferred to Maddy and as such, should be treated as her own. The fact that Maddy has male traits (be them biological or psychological) should be considered valid and relevant even though they are not her own. They shouldn't exactly be ignored since your past really does make up a lot of who you are. 

But at the end of the day, the identity of Maddy remains my majority. I have a right to the definitions of my two halves, and I have a right to my majority identity. Just because I committed to one half does not mean the other half is written off. It doesn't work that way. 

Just like how Juliet committing to one half does not write off her other half. 

Testing the LG Optimus Fuel - Rooted

Well guys, it's that time again! Recently I ended up getting an StraightTalk LG 34C (known as the Optimus Fuel) as a hopeful replacement for my Huwaei Glory. However, my plans changed when I discovered some rather interesting things about the phone. I would like to share those things with you here. However, there is a little twist. If you use Towelroot, you can root this phone, meaning that my review will be taking root privileges into account.

First, all the things I hate about this phone:

1) False Advertising - The sellers claim the phone has 512 MB RAM. In all honesty, you get 424MB, which is still very low for a phone running Android KitKat (4.4). Another thing they fail to mention is that the internal storage is only 1.85GB (though the ROM space adds another 1.7GB to that).

2) The System Settings Menu/APK - The manufacturer of the phone (LG Electronics) decided that they would load the phone with as much bloatware as possible (more on that in a second. This included a custom launcher, a custom keyboard, and a custom lock screen. All of these have dedicated strings in the settings menu. If you remove the default launcher, keyboard or lock screen, you will have references which no longer work and crash the settings app when you click on them. If you want to fix this, you have to edit the Settings APK directly using ADB, which is a LOT of work. It would have been so much better for those strings to have not been in there in the first place.

3) The Bloatware Itself - This phone came with over 130 APKs built in, making it rather sluggish before root. (To give you some perspective, CyanogenMod comes with maybe 70 APKs). You'll find yourself deleting a LOT of stuff, (Be careful though, as deleting certain APKs will break the phone completely).

4) Terrible Camera App - The default camera app has a lot of cool settings, but the problem is that when you send your pictures to your computer, they will not autorotate. As this is LG's version of the Camera, this is very much something they are at fault for.

5) THE TOUCH SCREEN - On one hand, the touch screen registers input flawlessly (something the Huawei Glory failed miserably at). On the other, the screen is so prone to blemishes it hurts. I got two scratches on my phone in two days. The Glory lasted two months before the touch screen started to show wear and tear.

6) THE MUSIC PLAYER - Why the hell doesn't the music player come with lock screen controls? I don't fucking know. So I pulled the APK from the phone as soon as I rooted.

X) Guys... It's KitKat... - This is a personal thing, but I absolutely despise the aesthetics of KitKat. I hate the font defaults, and I hate that the icons are white. I feel that Jelly Bean was the most aesthetically pleasing interface and Android L looks even worse to me.

Alright, with that out of the way, let's talk about all the things I LOVE about this phone:

1) 1.2 Ghz Dual Core - That added core really does make all the difference. This phone is so much faster than the Glory, and under normal circumstances, apps should almost never crash.

2) Better Clock - LG's version of the Clock is wonderful. So many alarm settings, a built in Timer, a built in Stop Watch, and a built in World Time feature.

3) An actual compass! - LG included a gyroscope in this phone like they did with the 38c. The one thing I hated most about the Glory is no longer a problem.

So where do I stand with this phone? It has its fair share of problems, but those can be fixed thanks to rooting. I would say it's as good as the Glory is - better in some aspects, worse in others.

What I Did With It

First thing I did once rooted was I uninstalled the Google Play apps I was never going to use (Newsstand, Music, Books, TV, etc.). The stock Email app went bye-bye but I opted to keep Gmail. Youtube was pointless since you can use the Browser, so I uninstalled that too. The office software which came with the phone is something I pulled without hesitation.

I uninstalled the LG Home Launcher and wrote NOVA Launcher + NOVA Prime into the ROM using Titanium Backup PRO. I pulled LG's keyboard and wrote Google Keyboard into the ROM. I installed Xposed Framework, and installed the "Disable Fullscreen Keyboard" module. I overwrote the ROM versions of Maps and Calendar with their most recent updates. I froze/disabled Unified EULA since it was being annoying.

As a precaution, I wrote the Pro Key of Titanium Backup into the ROM. I recommend this if you ever do something stupid like get rid of Google Play Store. Titanium Backup can be installed with a direct link, but the Pro key can only be redownloaded from the Play Store once purchased and you ABSOLUTELY NEED IT to make changes to the ROM.

Kill La Kill Fascism: A Response

So Kill La Kill has seen something of a resurgence in popularity with the release of the English Dub and anticipation of the upcoming OVA. Therefore, it is not at all surprising the PBSIdeaChannel did some analysis of the series (the full video can be viewed here). In this analysis, Mike Rugnetta sought to draw a correlation between life fiber uniforms, technology and Fascism.

"But perhaps Kill La Kill's lesson is that the crazily increased agency we experience when the space between ourselves and our technology collapses to almost nothing is an effect of some much larger system or set of intentions and agents that doesn't or don't necessarily hold the interests of its subjects in the highest regard." - Mike

The evidence for this is held in the fact that the "technology" of the series (in this case, the life fiber clothing) is used not only as a tool to excel, but also as a symbol of status and even exclusivity. He points out, however, that there is an equivalent exchange where the cost of the alleged status is a total allegiance to the producers of said technology. And he has a point; if you put on that wedding dress, you do become a slave to clothing (at least, as far as the series is concerned).

The thing is, there is something of a flaw in Mike Rugnetta's reasoning when you consider that the purpose of wearable technology is inclusivity...inclusion...some other synonym. The point is, the technologies which stood at the forefront of wearable tech succeeded when people worked together to bring the cost to a level that everyone could hope to afford.

The Pebble Smartwatch, for example, was crowdfunded to the tune of ten million dollars by nearly seventy thousand backers. This $150 wearable can interface with most iPhones as well as phones running Android 4.0 or higher, the phones themselves getting produced more cheaply with each passing month. Google Glass, which debuted to the tune of $1500 a pair, is also set to drop in price as the technology becomes easier to manufacture (assuming Moore's Law continues to remain a universal constant).

Perhaps the true nature of wearable tech is not in becoming a symbol of status like Honnouji Academy, but in becoming a norm like the REVOCs Corporation. The point was to cover the world, which means uniting everyone under one standard. There's a sort of mish-mash here where you have the advantages of Honnouji's augmentation strategy and the direction of REVOCs's proliferation strategy.

Retake: Rebuild of Evengelion 2.0

(The joy of reading or watching a particular work is that when you go over it a second or third time, you begin to see alternate perspectives on how the story is playing out. You get to highlight new items of significance and draw new parallels. So while we have covered a great many works in the WLIA blog, a select few will have multiple articles dedicated to them.)

Title: "Rebuild of Evangelion: 2.0"
Series: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Original Topic: The March of Technology

As we mentioned in the original article, the charm of the Evangelion series is that it is over a decade strong, and as such, it has been subject to many aesthetic changes thanks to real world changes in technology. Now, that article was written over nine months ago. Since that time, many changes in the real world have already manifested which coincide with futuristic tech predicted by the film. It's a good thing too, because most of these predictions have to do with the global water supply.

Here's a bit of perspective: California, the US's most diverse agricultural and economic region, is currently facing its most severe drought in history. As of today, over 50% of the state is in the highest drought level, to the point that wasting water has become illegal. Needless to say, if we want to continue to sustain water needs, we need to bring in water from elsewhere. The best place would of course be the ocean, but that requires removing dissolved solids from ocean water first.

In the "Rebuild" films, one of the key background points was how the Second Impact occurred across all of Antarctica, tainting the water supply of the southern oceans before spreading to cover all interconnected bodies of water, turning it all a deep red. In order to reverse this, oil rigs were converted to giant water treatment facilities in order to clean the oceans year over year. Since the release of the 2.0 film, there have been numerous new water purification technologies in the works.

First on the list is Float Lab, an experimental container which floats on an open body of water. It takes that water into itself, purifies it and continues to hold it in storage. The design is going to be used to create +Pool, which is a series of large movable swimming pools for human use to be built on contaminated water. Then you have a special carbon-graphite material which uses solar energy to purify water. It's currently in a small-scale production, but larger systems could be made which utilize solar mirrors.

Of course, all of this technology costs money and will only be funded if the need for it is dire, the way it was in Rebuild. Some would say that time has already come, while others are holding out for just a while longer, squeezing the land of every last drop (no pun intended). The bottom line though is that if we do nothing, we will be subject to the same challenges and tribulations as those in the dystopic world of science fiction.

More Phone Talk (Partial Discussion)

If there's one thing we love to discuss here at WLIA, it's mobile phones. In the past, we have discussed the microeconomics of telecom for the end-user (a sort of want versus need when paying for service). We've also taken the time to review two phones in particular: the LG38c and the Huawei Glory. There is a lot more that we could cover as the technology changes, but there are also things we can cover as older technologies fall out of favor. Our goal in bringing forth this discussion is to answer two questions:

• How will new technologies in mobile allow individuals to further change the world around them?
• How can old technologies be repurposed to allow less wealthy individuals to change their world?

To answer these questions, we have to take a look at how people are using their phones in the first place. 

Talk and Text - A Legacy System

There is something of a dispute in aesthetics when it comes to discussing the very basics which have been around since the very first phones. Some people almost exclusively use their phones as intended: to make phone calls. Others prefer the silence and speed of the Short Message Service (SMS). Most fall into a spectrum where the phone is reserved for business, while the text message is reserved for fun.

Telephone usage can be one-to-one or multiple-access (conference calling), but it is very difficult to successfully carry on more than one conversation at a time. Text messaging gets the upper hand by being one-to-one, multiple-access (group texts) or one-to-many (having multiple one-on-one conversations simultaneously, and very effectively at that).

That said, the Short Message Service is rather limited. Messages are confined to 160 characters, sending internationally is either very expensive or absolutely forbidden, and it plays a major role in an individual's monthly bill. Thus, the emergence of internet-based texting clients (WhatsApp, Viber, Google Voice) has predicted the eventual death of SMS.

So what will happen to the service when it's fallen out of favor? After all, the numbers surrounding it are quite staggering to comprehend. To simplify it, let's consider that a text message has a maximum size of 140 bytes. With 22 billion texts being sent a day, that's roughly 2.8 Terabytes of data being transferred per day on the service. Now, it may seem like the data from SMS will simply be converted to 3G/4G data, but when we take into consideration the high volume of Wi-Fi usage, there will indeed be a significant drop in the amount of actual cellular data being consumed. That's important. Freeing up this traffic for calling purposes may not do too much to improve quality of the legacy networks, but it is indeed something.

...Especially when we take into consideration the loss of over half of the legacy spectrum. Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) are still relying heavily on those legacy networks; their niche is providing these services at a low cost. As the resource pool of legacy signals decreases, purporters of older tech will need to offload a significant amount of usage, most preferably to WiFi-based home and business networks.

Lastly, how is the end user affected? For one, abandoning the archaic Short Message Service for an internet-based one should lead to increases in the size of each text (hopefully to 320 or even 480 characters). More texting will be allowed between nationalities. Services which rely on texting (such as the ever-popular Twitter) may see increases in their own capabilities thanks to changes like these. Finally, those who rely heavily on the legacy networks would see major increases in phone capability, without the requirement of being a smartphone.