Missive #298

40. NASRUDDIN’S BURIED TREASURE

One of Nasruddin’s neighbors noticed him in the yard digging a hole. When he went to find out just what Nasruddin was doing, he saw that Nasruddin had dug many holes here and there.

“Why are you digging all these holes?” the neighbor asked.

Nasruddin stared at him wild-eyed. “I’m trying to find the money I buried here last year! Now I really need the money, but I can’t find the spot where I buried it.”

“Didn’t you use something to mark the spot?”

“I did!” said Nasruddin. “I buried it under a cloud that looked just like an elephant.”

This Tale is from “Tiny Tales of Nasruddin” by Laura Gibbs. The book is licensed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. © 2019-2022 Laura Gibbs.

[T]he GDP of the United States is 21, $22 trillion, and the GDP of Russia is one and a half trillion dollars. We are talking about vastly different industrial systems. And the reason why the United States doesn’t have enough ammunition and by the way, that is part of the reality of why Russia is doing as well in the war in Ukraine as it is.

It’s not because they produce more or better, it’s because they don’t have and this has going to affect a lot of Americans if they take this seriously. They don’t have the level of corruption that we do. We have outdone them. And you know what this is like. This is the same story that has afflicted every empire in human history.

This is the story of why the Romans could not defeat the barbarians in the fifth century. It’s why medieval kingdoms fell apart. It’s not because they couldn’t produce enough knives and guns and spears and all the rest of it, but that the internal mechanisms of the system made it no longer functional and bullshit like efficiency calculus is part of the mental corruption, if you like, these make-believe categories. Efficiency Is Hilarious by Michael Hudson

I have continued to experiment, using my Fire 8 for the ‘crash tests’. I have read enough to know that the knowledge needed to ‘root’ the Fire 8 is way over my pay grade. Therefore, I started looking at what would be my alternatives. What I’m looking for is a 8″ tablet that has only those apps on it that I use, any others are simply taking up space on a 16MG tablet.

I have read a lot about Custom Android OS but all of them are ‘vanilla Android’ that the developers have built upon to specific make and model of tablets. So the Custom Android OS is not all that different from what the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) provided. The developers add the apps that they think are needed which in my case might not be wanted. Since I now know how to uninstall/disable such unwanted apps that may still be something I’ll do in the future. But I can’t do it with the Fire 8 since it would have to be ‘rooted’ which I can’t do.

I then started thinking about running Linux on an Android tablet and that can be done with ‘rooted’ and ‘unrooted’ tablets. For the ‘unrooted’ approach there are some Android apps that can be installed that will do that – so they claim. The first one I tried was UserLAnd which repeatedly failed to open and run. The next thing I tried was NetHunter Rootless which was a very complicated install that I followed and was successful in getting it to run. What I didn’t know at that point was, what can I now do with it? Nothing that I wanted to do so discarded it and moved on doing more research.

The more I read the less inclined I have become in trying to install any custom os on an android tablet. Then the clincher was finding a few sites that said the same things that I have quoted below.

“Why You No Longer Need a Custom ROM for Android Devices” by Andy Betts.

It’s fair to say that the golden age of custom ROMs has passed. Android phones/tablets are better than they’ve ever been, even at the budget end of the market. [W]hether you’re using a flagship, quality mid-ranger, or even a budget phone/tablet in some cases, or are just happy with what you’ve got—there’s almost no benefit to using a custom ROM.

What I have decided to do, and have done, is buy a used Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0 (2019) SM-T290. I will see what apps are on it and uninstall or disable all of those that I do not want; this I think I now know how to do. After that I see how I like it and make other decisions about rooting and flashing a custom os. I’m thinking I will not be doing that. This tablet will be a backup for the Fire 8, or vice versa, and will be used sparingly. Almost all of my book reading is now done on the Kobo Libra 2 and the Onyx Boox Page.

But it’s not only America’s adversaries who are defying it. Its allies are beginning to as well. Saudi Arabia, considered one of Washington’s best allies in the Middle East, is building a strong relationship with China and has openly considered selling oil in yuan instead of the dollar, part of a growing trend of de-dollarization around the globe. — Ian DeMartino, Sputnik correspondent

“If these countries… get off the dollar, it’s going to actually create incredible inflation here in the United States because of the lack of use of the dollar internationally. And you’re talking about more than 40 countries that are looking very seriously at that right now. [Biden has] terrible problems on the front burner. Nobody is being held responsible.” — F. Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.