Today I’m donating my streaming sticks. I got a ONN brand 2k one I bought for 15 and I got an Amazon Firestick 4K I got for $3 from a thrift store because they didn’t know what it was.
And I love the concept of stream sticks, I really do. Too fucking bad that corporate interests got in the way and now everything has to have a bundle of ads at every damn turn. Not even some of the things I’m subscribed to is free from ads because this is the future apparently, we’re here.
Shame because I don’t want to let these go and even if I were to subscribe to Netflix’s ad-free subscription, that’s only one source. Why do that when I can just grab a long HDMI cable, plug it into my desktop and to my TV and I can watch everything that’s there, without ads because of the extensions I use to block ads.
My job. I resigned earlier this week after 8 1/2 years.
i’m about to do something similar and for a job that is a 56% percent pay cut for me; but it’s as far away as i can find from the profit seeking evil that has characterized my most recent jobs while still employing my skillset.
Yeah, I have a feeling I’ll be in a similar situation once I get my head clear.
Congratulations! I am working out my notice period of my job right now, I am taking December to regroup and will begin job hunting in January. It feels so liberating!
It does. Not sure your situation, but I have a mortgage and two little girls. It’s a big risk, but I’m betting on myself.
Regardless of the uncertainty about the new year, it’s the first time I’ve felt any sort of positivity for the longest time.
Good luck to all of us.
Mortgage and three cats (plus a clingy stray and three chickens outside). Luckily the husband has a good job so we’re ok.
I always try to live my life imagining this all being a memory to my elderly future self, and thinking about how I’d be reacting to it. Am I feeling strong pride or regret about my choices? Is there something that feels like it matters right now that will totally be forgettable in the grand scheme? It really helps me when I encounter difficult decisions, and it’s how I realized that I need some time to realign myself with the things that bring me joy.
Best of luck to you, I have a sense (knowing nothing about you) that elderly you is SO freaking pumped that you’re doing this.
Doordash and other similar services. My order is wrong 9 times out of 10, and the price isn’t justifiable. I’d rather save the frustration and money and just make ramen or similar meals when I’ve been smoking or drinking and shouldn’t drive to fulfill the munchies.
My gripe is with the androidTV/roku/etc being built into the TV. Just give me a big monitor that can switch inputs, that’s it. I install TVs for work and I can’t count the amount of times the TV is just trashed because the software is screwed up and you aren’t even able to switch it to HDMI1 and carry on like it doesn’t exist. It’s hot garbage, keep that shit on little HDMI sticks that you can throw away without throwing away the whole TV. Seriously, your TVs life gets cut in half if you have a whole OS on it. Bring back dumb firmware.
Dumb TVs exist, and they’re 5x the price of smart TVs.
Ads and data mining subsidizes the hardware cost. If you want cheap TVs you get spyware and ads.
A smart TV is a dumb TV when it doesn’t have an internet connection. I won’t put mine on the wifi and do everything through Chromecast or Xbox.
Dont forget Roku’s patent for a way to show you ads over anything you plug into the hdmi.
I think I’m at my wit’s end with “smart” things.
Roomba? It takes less time to just vacuum the place than it does for the fucking vacuum to realize it’s been humping the same chair leg for most of its battery charge.
Assistants?
“Hey Google, open the bedroom blinds”
“Sorry, that device hasn’t been configured yet”
“Hey Google, open the bedroom blinds”
“Sure, turning 2 lights on”
“Hey Google, open the bedroom blinds”
“Sure, opening the blinds”
I feel the same, but my anger is scoped to cloud-connected “smart” things.
Like you, I can’t stand my iRobot gear. My Roomba hasn’t updated its map in over a year because it always has “some problems” (probably due to pushing everything to the jank us-east-1 data center).
On the other hand my recent Aqara gear is very nice but it took me time to finally call it quits on Z-Wave beforehand.
I consciously avoid having to control any of my smart home devices using voice or other weird methods. Everything is toggled with buttons or fully automatic. This works pretty well for me and voice control is still available but it’s only optional. Sure you might ask why even make it smart then? Because I’m a nerd and because I keep forgetting to turn lights off when I leave. Also smart thermostats are great.
Though I also gave up on my vacuum robot. Due to rearranging some furniture I had to move the vacuum base and let it rescan my apartment. But now for some reason it never gets past the dining room and aimlessly swirls around the table until the battery is dead, never finishing the room scan. On top of that it picked up a small pebble or something and scratched the floor. I had enough of it.
Roomba? It takes less time to just vacuum the place than it does for the fucking vacuum to realize it’s been humping the same chair leg for most of its battery charge.
If you are willing to put in some work, Valetudo is fantastic: https://valetudo.cloud/
My two robot vacuums have been working for 5 years with no intervention other than emptying the bin every 2 weeks and dusting off the sensors when it complains.
Assistants?
Same as above, if you are willing to put in some work, Home Assistant includes a voice assistant and they ship devices now with everything preinstalled so you can plug in and go: https://www.home-assistant.io/green/
Smart-anything is just a dumb novelty design because rich techie users are about as wowed as dangling plastic toy keys infront of an infant. Nearly nothing is anymore useful when it becomes ‘smart’ and largely gets that title because of it’s capability to connect to the internet and just become another app for data-farming services to nag you over.
These things are just also another way to rob people more money because they’re going to have more models, the company is going to talk down to you for being filthy and not upgrading. You’re going to spend a lot of time dealing with a lot of variables that people already have presented for having a smart device and this is where the argument of “old is always better” comes into play.
I hear you on the streaming sticks. 10 years ago, you could throw a Chromecast in your suitcase, plug it into a hotel TV, and cast anything you wanted from your phone. Now, if you try to do that, you have to set the Chromecast up through the Google home app, tell it what “room” it’s in, but then you can’t cause you arent at your “home”, so you have to set up a new “home”, and then that doesn’t usually work, so you just quit and read a book instead.
So, I have a 1st gen chromecast and a travel router and when I’m in a hotel I just connect the travel router to the hotel internet, and my chromecast is ready to go, no need to setup the chromecast every time and I don’t need to sign into my streaming apps every time either
