ThePowerOfGeek

Imagine how galling this must be for Jeff Bezos. He’s put so much effort into his Bond villain persona. The guy even now looks like Dr Evil. But he’s being out eviled by a pudgy, dorky-looking South African nepo-baby.

Sure. The device I use is an Onn streaming a Android TV box. I think I got the 2023 4k streaming version and it was about $20, from Walmart. You can probably get cheaper models, but I wanted one with an Ethernet port.

Then I installed a couple of alternative launchers from the Play store on device. I also loaded F-Droid as well (though I had to do that directly through an apk). I can’t remember which launcher I went with in the end, but it was either FLauncher or Projectivity. They were both good.

The wrinkle here is that the OS defaults back to the default launcher (which has ads and a lot of clutter on it). But I used a free command line tool called adb to switch the default launcher off.

I’ve been very happy with the new setup. My kids (who use it all the time) occasionally complain that an app will crash while they are watching something, and take them back to the home screen/launcher. But I haven’t run into that, and it’s probably just them accidentally hitting a remote (which I know they accidentally do a lot).

I documented the process and posted them here, in another thread a few months ago.

Additional note: The default YouTube app isn’t very conducive to quick profile switching, which can be annoying. To switch profiles you basically have to go back to the OS level and do it there, then go back into the YouTube app. It’s an Android TV quirk. But I discovered that if you side-load the Amazon Fire version of the YouTube app onto the device, you can switch profiles within that version of the app, and it works just fine.

Some good options already listed. But here’s another.

Hey an Android TV box (Onn brand or similar) and install an open source launcher on it, like Projectivity. You have to use adb to disable the default launcher after the new launcher is installed, otherwise it keeps defaulting back to the default one. But once don’t it’s smooth sailing. You have a dedicated streaming device with a remote control and a nice UI with zero ads on the home screen.

So glad I ditched Roku. My modified Onn box (with an open source, ad-free launcher) is so much better.

Interesting article. It fits beyond the recent trend of AI and into slightly more traditional automation. It also covers some good concepts on job categorizations in general.

The ultimate point seems to be that AI-driven job automation is just a subtle evolution on general white-collar job automation that has been happening for 30+ years. And that makes a lot of sense. Although generative AI is expanding that automation into other areas beyond office and some manufacturing job roles.

Well, given the subpart quality of most complex AI-generated code right now, it could easily mean that too. You just have an AI system generate some spaghetti code and then just vibe with it and ignore the cavalcade of errors and issues that code causes.

Even better, have it quote RATM: “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!”

“Scruffy’s on break!”

It’s basically the evolution (or devolution?) of the Internet in a capitalist global economy. This is just the next step in the effort to profit off digital Data and communications.

Back in the early 2000s pretty much everything was free to use, and revenue came from passive ads. Then ad blindness and ad blockers kicked in, revenue went down, and the cat and mouse game began of companies trying to find ways of getting clicks and views while the consumer didn’t want to do that. This has escalated over the last 20-odd years.

We’re now at a point where paywalls are fairly effective (for now). So that’s what’s being pushed. Plus, subscriptions and everything-as-a-service is in vogue right now.

I expect that will end when the money-making enshitification of the Internet reaches a critical mass and the economy nosedives for various reasons.

Ahh okay. Thanks.

What happened around the middle of February that caused that slight but sharp drop-off?

Isn’t driving around in one of those poorly-made death trap vehicles enough then?..

…Nah, probably not.

Fits in perfectly with the Tesla brand then, doesn’t it.

Musk calls it a “massive cyber attack”.

I call it “systemic infrastructure and personnel losses caused by the malignant narcissistic man-child who is running the company into the ground”.

Good article. Thanks for sharing it OP.

Additionally, there’s are some pretty nice free plugins for Java Minecraft server (e.g. Deluge) that allow Bedrock users to play on it too - from a PC, Xbox, PlayStation, phone, or whatever.

Swasticars for a fascist government. Makes sense.

Cybertrucks are ugly, poorly-built, and poorly-designed vehicles. These protesters are doing any potential owners who get deterred from wasting their money on them a favor.

Thank you for the sanity check! I started reading it, and it was just rambling on, flourished with scenarios that didn’t seem to relate to the already vague title.

I went to it on the Okay Store and uninstalled it. It didn’t commission and so far all phone functionality is working funny. It seems like an addon that’s not tightly bound to core OS components.