Turns out all the "unremovable" Samsung apps from the android Galaxy A14 can be uninstalled after all. It's convoluted, but worth it: far snappier – far more responsive, less memory usage.
Enable developer options.
Under developer options, enable USB debugging.
connect to a laptop via USB.
Install "adb" (Android Debug Bridge) in the laptop, a command like tool. In Ubuntu 22.04, do "sudo apt install adb". There are packages online for other operating systems.
Discover which apps to remove. Not trivial, but there are various lists of Samsung "bloatware" online.
Then, use adb to discover which packages to remove. For example:
If no apps match the search, then use the "App List" (installable via F-Droid store) to list all user apps or system apps (from a toggle on the top-right menu), which lists all apps by name and with the package name under it.
An app that I removed that indeed drops some possibly valuable services but which greatly improve UI responsiveness:
"When and why does motor preparation arise in recurrent neural network models of motor control?"
"we modelled the motor cortex as an input-driven dynamical system, and we asked what the optimal way to control this system to perform fast delayed reaches is. We find that delay-period inputs consistently arise in an optimally controlled model of M1."
Cool findings from the lab of fellow #Pembroke1347 colleague Guillaume Hennequin.
Current biases and trends in scientific journalism. Study from a sample of Nature articles:
"we found a skew toward quoting men in Nature science journalism. However, quotation is trending toward equal representation at a faster rate than authorship rates in academic publishing. Gender disparity in Nature quotes was dependent on the article type. We found a significant over-representation of names with predicted Celtic/English origin and under-representation of names with a predicted East Asian origin in both in extracted quotes and journal citations but dampened in citations."
"workers are not simply scaled-down versions of queens that have lost their wings."
"Instead workers have a distinct thorax architecture with an enlarged muscle system to strengthen the neck and increase the range of motion of the head ... appears to be a key adaptation to allow ants to lift and carry objects or prey that are many times their own weight"
“Coding my handwriting”, by Amy Goodchild. On specifying each handwritten character as a vector path, rather than a font, and then rendering text in various shapes and colours. Beautiful. In #javascript.
How processed food companies muffle those who author studies that put them to shame:
"One large food company, for example, asked if he would be interested in giving a half-hour talk to its senior team, for a fee of £20,000. He said he would, but he’d pay his own expenses and give the money to a food charity.
When the contract came through, he changed his mind. Within it was a clause binding him not to disparage the firm in public statements, “throughout the universe and in perpetuity”."
On pizza, I entirely second Chris van Tulleken's statement: “Pizza has become emblematic of junk food ... but proper homemade pizza is very healthy.” The hilarious bit is that making pizza at home is easy peasy: just make baguette dough (takes you 5 minutes to mix, a couple hours to raise https://albert.rierol.net/recipes.html#Fast%20baguettes%20for%20everyday%20bread ), then roll flat and top with whatever you like or happen to have at home.
Another unusual insect: Tenthredo baetica (ssp. dominiquei), with only 118 observations world wide, of which 29 for this particular subspecies. It's a wasp – sort of: a sawfly.
The rear limbs are rather large, and I wonder why. For carrying prey?
Wikipedia points out an interesting reversal: in the Tenthredo genus, the larvae eat plants while the adults prey on other insects. Whereas many typical wasps do the opposite: the adults sip nectar but hunt insects to feed their young. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenthredo One wonders then what is this adult doing on a flower, engaging in motion patterns characteristic of foraging on nectar and pollen.
An unusual fly: red-belted hoverfly, Brachypalpoides lentus – a sawfly mimic. The larva is yet to be described. About 20 observations in the whole UK; 172 globally.
From Hyde Park, London (June 2023). Standing right next to Peter Pan's statue.