So now the same corporation that owns Fox News is going to own Roku? No thanks. Guess it's finally time to switch to a custom Android TV box or Apple TV. Or roll my own, but I've tried that and found it pretty difficult.
They already own Tubi (think Hulu alternative) which I've used when literally no other streaming service had what I was looking for, and is surprisingly decent. I assume this is the beginning of their leap into streaming, wont be surprised if there's other acquisitions that will take place in similar spaces.
Personally I never bought into Roku because I didn't think they'd last very long.
> Or roll my own, but I've tried that and found it pretty difficult.
I agree, there seem to be no good options for this. You can use Kodi or whatever, but I want something that supports playing my ... totally legally acquired content... and Netflix/Disney/iPlayer/etc. In a package that's silent and low power.
Doesn't seem to exist unfortunately. I guess the closest is Nvidia Shield. You can apparently still sideload APKs onto that... for now. I'll buy one when they release an update. I'm patient!
I would not recommend Apple TV. I like the computers and the phone, but the TV is disappoint. Would recommend Nvidia Shield or something.
What I am going to do down the line personally is just buy a gaming laptop and use that. Can play games via Steam and watch stuff via Windows apps (e.g. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Crunchyroll).
Only problem of course is the laptop will be pricier, but if someone was going to buy a tv streaming thing AND a gaming system of some kind, probably cheaper.
If you already have a gaming desktop, I can recommend Shield for both. Streaming services work out of the box of course. Then I use Sunshine[1] on my desktop to stream to Moonlight on the Shield. Both have wired ethernet connections. Latency is not noticeable in most cases.
I like the laptop idea, I'd go with Linux instead of Windows, and even then I think it would be a challenge to get it working well with a remote. Nvidia Shield is just Android TV, which means handing Google all your data. Of course, Apple TV means handing Apple all your data, but that seems like maybe the least bad option. I don't know, I'm just tired of all of this shit.
Agree Apple TV is not especially impressive (like, it’s fine, but I especially dislike the remote). I mostly just use my playstation, but there are some apps (criterion being the main one) that are not on the PS, so I use the Apple TV for those
Do you have any examples of the government NOT exploiting that? It's hard to know for sure how data is being used or sold out for others to exploit it.
when you were into Legos, the bricks used were of universal shape. modern sets like this are mostly of a shape that is highly specific to the intended outcome. which is basically orthogonal to the original appeal of playing with Lego. I'm saying that as someone who grew up with two large boxes full of Lego bricks and pieces.
This is actually not particularly true. In fact, the problem of unique pieces almost ended up sinking Lego because they were spending so much on molds and manufacturing of a single piece that was only used in one set. If the set didn't sell well, Lego could potentially lose money on the set overall because of all the tooling costs.
Back in the aughts, they redid their philosophy of having large single-purpose pieces and went to having those large pieces be replaced by subassemblies of much smaller pieces that were much more general purpose. That's when SNOT became huge in Lego's official sets.
As someone with multiple decades of experience with Lego, things now are much much better than they were back in the 90's and early aughts specifically because of this pivot that Lego did. There is something to be said about part count inflation, and how many of the parts nowadays are tiny little pieces rather than the big 2x2 or 2x4 bricks. And also, some sets and some themes do require their unique pieces. Friends has their little minifigures that are different from the standard minifigs. The Mario sets might need to have some specific pieces -- there's no standard 'mario mustache' tile. But overall, Lego has done a pretty incredible job of increasing the utility and decreasing the single-use aspect of many pieces.
With a lot of the adult-oriented sets (ICONS and others), especially anything plant-based, they go out of their way to point out how they're using existing pieces in an unusual way. One example is the cherry blossoms on the bonsai tree are actually frogs, but cast in a pink color for the first time, called out in the instruction manual as you're building it.
I love it, knowing about these little details. Also fun to share with friends that inquire about the various LEGO on display in the house. This, and all the fancy mechanics (e.g. typewriter, nintendo), engender a ton of respect and awe for the designers.
I've talked with a Lego designer before, and for some themes they're not allowed to even request new molds. Even new colors of existing pieces can be contentious. My own head canon about the bonsai set is that the reason they made such a big fuss about having the recolored frogs is because it probably was a big fuss internally too. "Who'd ever need pink frogs?" sort of thing.
It's been many years. But today I just wouldn't buy a set that had too many single-use pieces. If I were still Legoing, I would probably just hunt craigslist or facebook marketplace for people selling lots of random bricks.
It's an impressive model and I'd like to see it in the Lego shop - but I wouldn't like to own it. When it comes time to use the pieces for something else, that's ten thousand beige blocks. Its like some of the Star Wars Lego, for instance the AT-AT is a fantastic creation but its just all the same colour, and to me isn't interesting for more than a few minutes. I like the larger builds that are minifigure-scaled e.g. the bookshop or Hogsmeade or Ninjago city gardens, there's much more detail and variation and fun
when I was into legos (as a kid; I've sadly had too many hobbies and not enough time as an adult) I would jump directly to step 2. I only bought (asked my parents for :)) specific models if they had a lot of interesting new piece types.
The fun thing is that in some way it's a bit inaccurate. We auto port-forward ports from the remote machines to your localhost, so you can still just go to localhost:3000 or whatever, and it goes to whatever machine you have selected in the desktop app. We'll give you a browser in the mobile app too soon to hit "localhost" on mobile.
Yeah, no. I don't give a fuck about port forwarding to make a remote machine look like it's running on my localhost. I don't want to cede any more of my computing needs to the cloud than I absolutely have to. I like to own my hardware, not rent it.
Lol ++. Although my local host for agent/codex stuff is a raspberry pi I connect to on LAN from my gaming/powerful desktop for sandboxing. However my use case seems to be the exact problem they are trying to solve! Might have to take a look into it at some point.
I do provide cloud support for somethings like embeddings and crawling, but you can run it local if you want. The only thing closed source is the memory system, but it still runs local if you want it.
Yeah, I don't see it. Trump is also pathologically incapable of admitting defeat (see Jan 6) and it will be very difficult for him to claim victory without getting something better than the deal Obama got. There's little to no incentive for Iran to give him any such deal. Israel also doesn't want the war to end and they can easily sabotage any real negotiations that appear to be getting serious.
Trump has no off ramp. I don't see this ending until he is out of office.
My understanding is that prices have been kept low by drawing down our strategic oil reserves. We're also somewhat insulated by domestic production, although a lot of that is sold overseas.
Well, yes, that's what the article says. But why didn't companies do that for Biden, for example? Instant price rises for him, drawdowns of reserves for Trump.
Companies don't control the release of strategic oil reserves. The President does that, and Biden actually did do it during the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. At the time, Republicans criticized him for doing it, but if he hadn't gas prices would have gone even higher than they did. The big difference is that Bidden didn't create that crisis. The current mess is 100% Trump's doing.
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