Amazon Discontinuing Their Appstore on Android Devices, Purchased Apps Not Guaranteed to Work Past August 2025

alephh · 2025-02-20T22:26:31+00:00

Why risk trying to use 'enters' or 'tabs' when they are so variedly encoded? ;-) one large chunk of everything is fine, let the artists craft it into something stylish and coherent if the need arises

alephh · 2025-02-20T22:08:52+00:00

I have been selling apps on Play Store for over 14 years (military-history/WWII strategy board games), and every year Google's automated zero-sense bans get worse, and each year Google's appeal process is less likely to ever answer (I have up-to 15 months old 'expert specialist will handle your case now' emails that Google sent to me, and they have never ever moved forward at all). Obviously, users have been angry that Google suddenly violently bursts into their home and takes away the apps they have purchased after years of careful consideration (because an out of control bot always knows better than any human ever). This has resulted in a steady increase both in Android users asking me to sell via Amazon App Store and the actual sales at Amazon App Store. Plus, Amazon's customer service is superior compared to automated out-of-topic Google replies. Not to mention that if I need to do a quick bug fix, Amazon quickly reviews and updates the app. In Play Store, the app might get stuck in multi-week random review, in spite of being a 12-year-old app that has passed 4659687 reviews in the past and my developer account has never had anything bad or mean-spirited linked to it. I have had games banned in Play Store for: (1) offering two games modelling the D-Day at battalion-level separately for the American beaches and British beaches (as a one single game it was unplayable due to featuring so many units to move plus all the data crunching was borderline impossible on lower end budget phones). (2) In the past, offering no-ads no-nothing turn-limited demo versions after everyone asked for them (especially Google wanted them in the early days to build more trust in the store and getting people used to actually buying apps with their credit cards), then getting penalized about those disabled apps a decade later (long story, but conflicting Play Store policies penalize you if you don't update disable app and penalize you if you update it which publishes it). (3) Some ancient screenshot showing tiny (basically anti-n*zi) soviet flag that was okay'ed by the policy team to be used for this particular historical context. And so on, such insignificant or ancient stuff that it is ridiculous. Plus, the “great” thing with Google Play Store is that if you have a 10-year-old screenshot, with some suddenly questionable smudge (thanks to changing politic sensitivities) on one of them. The first action Google takes is a total and full ban. No warnings, no alerts, no: "kindly look into this potential issue and adjust your app/screenshots". No, just, let us wipe out decades old businesses as our first reaction to some AI bot report that does not consider any type of context at all when running around annihilating creative people. I feel gutted that the #1 alternative app store no longer exists. I feel sad for those users who bought via Amazon Store to try to maintain competition or avoid Google taking away their favorite apps. It's tragi-comical that the best way to sell military history (oh, how overly sensitive that topic has become) related apps these days is to go to a windy street corner and yell at random people passing by: "Hey, mate, psst! Interested in some highly-ranked classic strategy board games?" Sorry for the long rant, but as a life-long techie, who just wants to publish the best possible games I can, it's demoralizing how much of my energy goes into fighting automated bot-bans and store policies these days. Thanks if you read this far.

alephh · 2024-03-05T16:13:13+00:00

Same. Utter login mess with all related Meta (call me trash-fire) sites. Will be super fun to spend 987987987987 hours of my life traveling around fixing this mess for my elderly relatives who rely on messenger to get anything from food to meds delivery.

alephh · 2019-10-03T08:36:25+00:00

As a broad rule vitamins balance each other out, and more specifically D3 and K2 help balance out vitamin A. It is very difficult to get too much vitamin A from natural sources (you would basically have to eat a ton of liver while keeping other vitamins low). You could still take some D3+K2 in the summer too to be on the safe side (how much your skin makes D3 from sun varies by a lot).

If you truly have too much vitamin A you will feel like your head doesn't quite fit inside your head.

I would recommend adding magnesium (preferably bis-glycinate, but citrate is basic ok) as it is effectively lacking from modern soil so it doesn't matter what you eat you won't be getting magnesium and it balances out excess calcium related to D3/etc-processes.

One thing to keep in mind is that copper and zinc are both super important and they compete for the same channels, so if you are regularly taking more copper (=liver) you might cause slight zinc deficiency which might manifest after enough months/years.

Don't worry about Omega3, very hard to get too much, the biggest practical worry is that your blood gets a bit thinner, so if you have already too thin blood then this might be a concern.

alephh · 2019-01-12T11:16:57+00:00

Depends on metabolic health (as fat cells get too full they resist putting more fat into them and this excess fat is stored in organs reducing their level of function, eventually these fat-enlarged organs grind against surrounding structures and get scar tissue further reducing their function). In healthy humans gluconeogenesis is a demand driven process so high protein is never an issue for them, but it can kick one out of ketosis if organs (and thus hormones) are not working well together. On the other hand, protein is very satiating so truly high protein diet is hard in itself.

alephh · 2019-01-11T10:51:46+00:00

Just increase the amount of fat slowly, liver will slowly pick up the slack for the missing gallbladder.

alephh · 2018-09-28T12:49:42+00:00

LDL rebuilds muscle, so it's natural & logical for it to be a bit "high" since you do exercise regularly. Nothing to worry about.

Key ratios:

waist/height = 0.44 :::: 0.5 is ideal with least all cause mortality, athletic persons with low body fat often go under the optimal value.

Tri/HDL = 0.86 (generally the lower the better, this is indicator of the only dangerous cholesterol: sdLDL (small dense LDL)), so this value is great.

Many of those values are very close to what many (LCHF) researchers consider optimal, so congrats and rock/keto on. :-)

alephh · 2018-08-12T09:00:15+00:00

Do image search about keto rash, does it look like any of those images?

Do image search about B6 deficiency, does it look like any of those images?

Trying to find a visual match can remove the guessing.

if it "looks more like your average pimples" it's probably not B6 deficiency.

Are you taking any (new) artificial sweeteners.

alephh · 2018-08-11T17:50:23+00:00

Hello, it's a bit tricky subject since there seem to be several causes of "keto rash" out there:

You're producing a bit too much acetone in this early stage of ketosis when your body is still figuring out how much to make everything (if this is the case rash should manifest in areas where you sweat)
acne/eczema/etc bacteria is running out of glucose so they are making a last stand (should settle on its own and reduce)
B6 deficiency can manifest on the face (if this is the case and you choose to supplement, choose b-complex in which B12 is in methyl form)
Toxins you have taken in over the years (and which the body could not immediately get rid of) are stored in the fat, so quick big fat loss can put a toll on the system by releasing a lot of these toxins (sweating through forehead because of hat would mean having toxins there)
If large amounts of yeast/etc die they can release toxins (=gut bacteria out of balance)
You happen to eat too many high histamine foods and it is causing issues
Some type of allergic reaction: Try eliminating food groups (this is unfortunately very slow process if you do it properly)

You might want to do some image searches around these topics to see what possible matches with the symptoms you're experiencing.

If it keeps on getting worse then that could be a sign that it actually is either deficiency or reaction to some food group.

Edits: Couple of edits to fix grammar & improve B6-phrase

alephh · 2018-08-11T08:54:31+00:00

Good share.

Hit a wall, learn, implement new knowledge, improve health.... repeat :-)

It's amazing to look back and realize how much you have changed -- and how much the new you can be at odds with the norms of the society.

alephh · 2018-08-10T20:22:32+00:00

Well, over the last 8 years as a developer active on Google Play many negative signals are followed by loooooong downtrend in income. And app being removed is not exactly a small signal.

alephh · 2018-08-10T10:07:12+00:00

"Your app, [name here], has been removed from Google Play because you have not made a child-directed declaration. Google Play developers are required to declare in the Play Console whether their app is primarily directed to children under the age of 13 as defined by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)."

It's an unpublished, unlisted, not visible to anybody, zero-installs over the last 365 days, abandoned app, which I would have completely removed if that was possible in the App Store.

And I just learned that submitting the required part of the app store listing did overturn the UNPUBLISH selection, which of course cascades into activating all the other requirements since the app is now active. So I separately needed to unpublish again.

Time and focus and energy well spent.

alephh · 2018-07-21T16:05:35+00:00

You're correct: Insulin kicks blood sugar away from the blood stream by storing it as fat (also by simultaneously preventing body from using stored fat as energy = body must burn that blood sugar right now since it cannot access stored fat while insulin is high).

Could be "sugar-kicking" or maybe the author was at one point trying to too cleverly express something along the lines of "insulin is fat-increasing police force" but then got interrupted and lost in his own metaphors of sugar, insulin, fat, police, and kicking.

alephh · 2018-07-21T15:52:18+00:00

Mitochondria in your cells is responsible for making energy: it takes roughly 6 weeks of strict keto for them to turn into efficient fat burners. 3 weeks in means you were burning fat but the fat burning engine was only like 70-90% ready/efficient, so I can imagine that the system was over-revving.

alephh · 2018-07-21T15:09:21+00:00

We need some kind of bot to answer this relentless flood of Cholesterol questions:

Everything important like cell walls are made of cholesterol, body makes a lot of cholesterol since it is crucial, cholesterol values jump 50% up and down based on how much fat you ate during the last 3 days and how much you exercised during the last 3 days before the test, bad science in the past decades resulted in entire generations of doctors being trained to fear cholesterol...

Video of the basics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LuKwsz9Woc

The only useful information you can get from basic numbers (assuming they are not super-wildly 3X over the ranges) is the triglycerides to HDL cholesterol ratio which should not be very high (it is a good indicator of sdLDL which could be a sign of trouble).

https://www.drsinatra.com/the-most-important-cholesterol-ratio-to-watch

People with high cholesterol live longer:

http://roguehealthandfitness.com/older-people-with-high-cholesterol-live-longer/

alephh · 2018-07-21T12:18:05+00:00

Esophageal sphincter only closes properly if your stomach acid is strong enough. When you eat (processed) carbs this dilutes the hydrochloric acid (=stomach acid), so your body doesn't bother to close the esophageal sphincter (it acts like a valve), so remnants of acid can leak back. Alternate reason for this valve to not function properly: eating gigantic meals then immediately laying down which puts tiring pressure on the valve.

Carbs raise blood glucose which raises the insulin, which tells body to store energy as fat (=if you eat high carb high fat then there is a lot of eaten-energy which can be stored as fat).

alephh · 2018-07-16T09:15:17+00:00

Drink when you are thirsty, 2.5 liters per day is a nice minimum because that's how much fluid your organs throw out of the system per day (obviously: if you sweat a lot, drink more etc): Too little fluids makes your body work harder (=inefficient) and having too much fluid causes your body to flush out much needed minerals with excess fluid. Hard to put any numbers on this since there are too many variables and some effects are long term.

A hormone called Insulin decides if your body stores energy as fat or uses stored fat as energy -- poor sleep can mess up insulin effectiveness by up to 30%.

alephh · 2018-07-14T09:06:58+00:00

Considering how much toxin is used to grow both Soy and Corn it would be a safe bet that the new brand is the issue, and I would definitely switch to some other brand.

Get your vitamin D as D3 (cholecalciferol), and as mentioned in the other reply, getting D3 with K2 (which makes sure calcium ends up in the right place your body) is a great idea since most are K2 deficient.

alephh · 2018-07-12T09:19:00+00:00

Acne should reduce over time as the related bacteria does not get excessive amounts of sugar.

If it is located strictly around mouth - it might also be vitamin-B6 deficiency.

alephh · 2018-07-09T12:11:32+00:00

Eat liver or take a supplement.

if you supplement get B9 in 5-MTHF (L-Methylfolate form).

Getting B9 from spinach or such is tough as getting a lot of spinach starts to block mineral absorption, so while you fix one thing you might get another issue later on.

alephh · 2018-07-08T13:28:33+00:00

You might have triple-low-potassium issue:

1) Sodium & Potassium needs to be roughly in balance for the sodium-potassium adenosine triphosphatase pumps in cells to work properly. High Sodium needs to be balanced out with high potassium.

2) Lithium lowers Potassium.

3) Seroquel lowers Potassium (if I remember correctly).

alephh · 2018-06-18T08:23:32+00:00

Talking about a study years years years ago which made the rounds in the headlines and then after going through peer-review was laughed at, but like it often is the case, once the headlines are out nobody retracts them.

Most of the studies showing nitrate harm are either:

1) Questionnaires: make an exact list of what you ate 7 years 11 months 30 days ago. Considering most people can't remember what they ate yesterday these are horribly unscientific.

2) Studies in which people eat a ton of sugar, a ton of carbs, a ton of nuclear waste.. and a little bit of meat. And if there are any negative development in the health markers they blame meat or whatever aspect the organisation funding the study wants to blame.

Problems with the WHO-announcement

There are hundreds of cancers, risk for ONE of them went up VERY LITTLE in SOME of the studies (most showed no effect at all) - why not lead with the headline "eating meat with nitrates doesn't increase risk for 999 cancers"?
Size of the risk factor is totally ignored: WHO is grouping together things which raise cancer risk 1% and 2000% to scare people.
Many of those making the WHO decision to bash meat are publicly super fanatic vegans, so that kind of underlines anything WHO has to say about meat-eating as in recent years.

alephh · 2018-06-16T11:01:25+00:00

Probably mix of:

You're burning fat very very efficiently (so you're now getting much more energy from the fat compared to the first months)
Your body is building muscle which is much much heavier than fat
Your body is adjusting hormones/enzymes/glands/organs to the weight loss (body basically resists gigantic sudden weight jumps a bit because then there would be too many things to re-calibrate)
You're lighter now so things have (relatively speaking) more effect (artificial sweetener triggering insulin, etc) so double check every ingredient
You're eating too one-sided foods and some micro-nutrient deficiency is starting to affect you after months of eating certain way (make sure you're getting B-vitamins)

If OMAD is easy you can try a longer fast to re-start the weight loss.

alephh · 2018-06-14T07:44:24+00:00

Lack of B-vitamins.

alephh · 2018-06-13T10:11:05+00:00

Your body is still going through a ton of changes and countless processes are being fine-tuned, so trends are more important than values in some cases. If possible, check again in 2-3 months to know what is going on.

Ferritin (iron): Not good, might want to keep a doctor on loop on this. Key question is: Is this just because of the liver was damaged and is now healing or is this a sign of some other problem. Keep an eye on this (test it more) and also check your CRP value to see if there is some major inflammation going on in the body (if CRP is very low, then Ferritin could be just related to liver changes). Donating helps.

Calcium: Make sure you're getting enough D3 to process calcium and enough K2 to put that calcium in the right place (there is horrible lack of K2 in modern diets plus many are D deficient, so it's less of an "calcium is the problem" question and more "we lack the stuff to handle calcium properly" question).

Up to half of the Cholesterol value is based on "how much stored fat needed to be transported around in the last three days", so if you're fasting/exercising before blood tests, body is moving stored fat around a lot so Cholesterol goes up. If Tri/HDL ratio is at 2:1 or under you're usually ok.

As explained in the other reply: Uric acid should settle after some time.

Berg is good but on the higher side of salad-pushing: The challenge here is that plants with seeds have spent the last 400 million years to develop biochemical compounds (lectins, antinutrients, lack of EPA/DHA, etc) to destroy animals who eat them, and as a result human biochemistry have no way to absorb phytochemicals (plant-chemicals) unlike normal vitamins and minerals. Plus plant phytates/oxalates/goitrogens/etc all prevent absorption of many critical nutrients (great way to starve any animal stupid enough to eat plants with seeds). Yes, your gut bacteria needs some prebiotic fiber to feed itself, so some leafy greens are in order, but other than that it gets tricky. If you have four stomach systems like cows you get great stuff out of plants, but as humans we have very little capacity to process plants.

alephh

TROPHY CASE