Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful youāll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Taking over for Gerard this time. Special thanks to him for starting this.)
Re: Smart TVs, what works for me is a Roku TV, skip all of the sign-in shit (donāt even connect it to the internet ā update firmware via USB if necessary1). Then, plug in whatever devices and navigate to them. Close enough to a dumb TV for me.
I almost have Android TV figured out: Bought a cheap Onn Android TV box, sideloaded SmartTube in case I need to rewatch The Gemsbokās Video performing an existentialist reading of Fucking Dark Souls2, installed MullvadVPN3, and sideloaded whatever other apps I needed. The only reason I say it is almost figured out is I couldnāt bypass the Google account creation/login ā an insufficient stopgap is to create a throwaway account, though itās very hard to do this in a way that isnāt linked to your real identity, I think.
(This will be part of my āhow to privify/securify your shitā series, if I ever learn to write.)
1: it isnāt
2: this sounds angry but itās more pumped up, this shit rules
3: note that āblock connections without VPNā is built into regular Android, but not Android TV, as far as I can tell
Thatās why I try really hard to avoid such things. I still try to (so far successfully) avoid having any Google-created operating systems anywhere in my home, because I trust them even less than Apple (for some years I used an AppleTV, but grew too frustrated with its limitations, and also Apple is becoming less and less trustworthy as well).
My solution currently: connected to an (older, non-smart) UST projector is a small HTPC (a little box from Asus based on an Intel N200, low power and fanless, but still has a GPU with a modern video decoding engine so it can decode even 4K video without issues). Since itās a normal x86 system, I run a normal desktop Linux on it. To access streaming services, youtube, etc. I just use the web interfaces in Firefox. Big advantage of the setup is privacy, and best-in-class applications for playing local files (on streaming appliances thatās usually annoying and bad). And I can even watch broadcast TV on it with a USB DVB-T2 thingy, although I do that rarely these days.
Disadvantage: need to have desktopy computery input devices on the couch to use it (also have an IR receiver in there, but itās not working well). Still, for me the upsides outweigh that downside.
I tried something similar with my Steam Deck (Bazzite + Gamescope works OKish) but I got tired of using a KB+M.
I will let you know if I figure out any way to bypass Google account creation. I have this old bullshit Amazon Fire HD 6 (Fire 6 HD? Who fucking names this shit?) that I am trying to fuck with and you can bypass connecting to the internet at all by
clicking any SSN ā back ā not now, so maybe itās possible on some Android TV devices. Or maybe not and I can finally get around to reading Don Quixote.Edit: turns out you can remove your Google account from the device after youāve reached the home screen, which is a better solution. Also, should have mentioned that I replaced the stock launcher.
Thanks :) Although Iām so far happy with my current setup.
Using a mouse on the couch sucks, yeah. I still had an old unused Apple Magic Trackpad here, which (to my surprise) works perfectly with Linux, and with that itās pretty nice.
Thatās awesome. :)