I just finished playing around with a Roku TV that I inherited, and found it interesting that during the setup, it asked for some personal info - the usual stuff - and that in the "gender" box, it offered "Non-binary" among the options.

I was pretty impressed.

Not impressed with the TV, or the ease of use, though.

A friend got himself the Roku stuff, and then sat on it for 3 months. Didn't know what to do. He finally hired the neighbor kid to come over and set it up for him. He's happy now.

He shouldn't feel technologically inferior to the kid. He probably knows how to work a rotary phone and the kid doesn't have a clue.

Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Thu Feb 03, 2022 8:08 pm He shouldn't feel technologically inferior to the kid. He probably knows how to work a rotary phone and the kid doesn't have a clue.

Yes, but rotary phones these days are about as useful as a Model T Ford on an interstate highway.

I haven't watched TV since 2014. TV imposes a lot of unnecessary information. Intrusive advertising is especially annoying.

I'm quite happy with the internet. I turn off ads and can only watch, copy and save what I want.

In my opinion, the so-called "smart TV" takes my time and often just zombifies.

The latest news is sometimes useful to look at, although the Internet is also enough for me for this.

Losethem (imported) wrote: Fri Feb 04, 2022 10:05 am Yes, but rotary phones these days are about as useful as a Model T Ford on an interstate highway.

Yeah, but great fun to watch a teenager start and drive a Model T. Now, about advancing the spark lever .........

Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Fri Feb 04, 2022 12:51 pm Yeah, but great fun to watch a teenager start and drive a Model T. Now, about advancing the spark lever .........

Not to mention those pedals on the floor don't do what you instinctively think they do.

Losethem (imported) wrote: Fri Feb 04, 2022 10:05 am Yes, but rotary phones these days are about as useful as a Model T Ford on an interstate highway.

Well, you can always get this: https://www.justine-haupt.com/rotarycel ... index.html or build something similar .

fhunter wrote: Fri Feb 04, 2022 5:41 pm Well, you can always get this: https://www.justine-haupt.com/rotarycel ... index.html or build something similar .

That thing looks like it weighs more than my dick did. No thanks!

I ditched broadcast TV years ago. No satellite, no cable, no antennae. And I reduced my TV watching by quite a bit.

But... I no longer really agree with the "I don't watch tv" mindset where one thinks of it all as ads and doom and gloom.

Thing is, I love to laugh, and I love to get immersed in a show. Now that here in North America we aren't just restricted to the Big Three (NBC, ABC, CBS) like in the old days, there is some GREAT programming mixed in with all the horseshit.

I used to pay a hundred a month for barely above basic cable; now I just pay 30 a month for Netflix, YouTube Premium, Amazon Prime and Crave/HBO, and I torrent (yes, steal... sigh) all my old favorite TV shows and new stuff that's not in my subscriptions (and manage them with Plex, an amazing free server that makes your tv/movie collection look like Netflix).

I never see ads. I never watch ANYthing that I'm not watching on purpose. Tv has become a cheap entertainment and education source in the modern world, I think.

(Why YouTube Premium? Youtube has a CRAZY amount of good, solid, high-effort, interesting specialists-in-their-field channels. I make my feed so I don't get the idiocy (or at least, I see very little and can ignore it). I don't allow it to show me political stuff, only my subscribed channels for the most part. And, set to max quality, the music library is VAST and pipes directly via bluetooth to my amp, giving me an excellent alternative to Spotify when it doesn't have what I want).