Technological/practical "backward steps" we all just accept now

if you pay for cable you might be able to use their app. We have a DVR/Cable but never use it, just use tons of apps in the appleTV, but one of the apps is the Spectrum App, which is just access to their live TV. Don't have the DVR capabilities but the interface is actually better and faster.

yeah uh getting local pro sports games is definitely something that's gotten much worse over the last decade

lol.

"I've cut the cord!"

"great...well now we need to find a way to watch sports"

"oh, that's easy. CBS is showing the football games."

"oh cool. wait, I have to log in and prove I have a cable connection."

"oh, well that won't work. wait, here is YouTube TV, for $60/month, we can get access to specific channels, including CBS, so we can watch the games"

"you mean....like having Cable?"

Autosaving. Sometimes you don’t want to save your work, just want to play around and tweak it to try something different.

Yes! This is why I feel more comfortable writing drafts on a regular old Word document and saving it to my computer, instead of using Google docs or or a Word doc that autosaves or whatever. There's an unease about knowing that my every sentence is being saved to the cloud as I write it that really hampers my ability to relax and just write.

lol esp since I used to write out difficult conversations i was about to have at work by scripting them in Word.

come back to Word months later, find all these files named "Doc1" that read "Thank you for joining. Now, I want to explain why I am upset about xx thing you just did."

"great...well now we need to find a way to watch sports"

tbh if you don't have this need and don't actually want to watch shows in general it's really not a problem

sports are the only thing I watch live! and tbh I pirate most of that which I can't watch, or I sign up for free trials of things (I have ten YoutubeTV accounts with ten diff cards)

I've come to realize over the past few months that I watch a lot less media than most people I know. I legitimately don't know what a Roku or Fire actually is, tbf, and I'm NOT trying to lord that as some sort of testament to my superiority. I actually find it a bit weird that I don't care about these things. Just not the sort of thing me or my partner are interested in.

I can get CBS by connecting an antenna to my tv! Same as it’s ever been

an... antenna?

does that support Bluetooth

no, I prop my bluetooth up with a dictionary

well played

I've come to realize over the past few months that I watch a lot less media than most people I know. I legitimately don't know what a Roku or Fire actually is, tbf, and I'm NOT trying to lord that as some sort of testament to my superiority. I actually find it a bit weird that I don't care about these things. Just not the sort of thing me or my partner are interested in.

― it's like edging for your mind (the table is the table), Monday, March 15, 2021 8:35 PM (thirty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i haven't had a streaming subscription for almost a year. i feel a little bad because my partner likes to watch shows and stuff more than i do, but thankfully he seems pretty happy just watching stuff on his phone. i can't fully explain why but sitting down and watching something for more than five minutes is .. never something i want to do.

I've come to realize over the past few months that I watch a lot less media than most people I know. I legitimately don't know what a Roku or Fire actually is, tbf, and I'm NOT trying to lord that as some sort of testament to my superiority. I actually find it a bit weird that I don't care about these things. Just not the sort of thing me or my partner are interested in.

― it's like edging for your mind (the table is the table), Monday, March 15, 2021 3:35 PM (fifty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Do you not watch streaming services at all? Because that's all a Roku is, a device to watch streaming services on a TV (that isn't already equipped for them) -- not much to it really.

FWIW tho I can't think of the last time I watched a Netflix or Prime type show. Maybe Long Strange Trip (the Grateful Dead multi-part doc) which was easily over a year ago. The Roku is really only used by my kids.

an... antenna?

They actually make digital antennas that look like old-fashioned rabbit ear antennas now. Right now I'm using a pair I got at Walmart for like $10. It's actually way better getting channels than the wing-like pair I had with a prior TV.

^^And there more expensive versions that have a greater range.

thanks for explaining that, man alive! i really had no idea lol.

we have Netflix, which my partner uses to watch anime and cartoons while he cooks or works, and which we use mostly to watch Star Trek re-runs.

but no TV. or, i mean, we have one, but it isn't even plugged in or hooked up to anything. just sitting in a closet.

i'm guessing the people who are having issues are watching on a computer/device instead of a tv?

Not always. I first noticed this a few years ago when I had a friend complain on FB about not being able to watch the Oscars; in the comments section it was revealed that she didn't have cable and used a PlayStation for streaming and Blu-rays with the TV whenever she wasn't watching stuff on her computer or phone.

I myself find it hard to exist without access to basic channels, most of all for local news and PBS, but also the variety of specialty channels you can get with an antenna I find way more appetizing than most of what's on cable these days.

the wild thing about antenna tv now is, if you can put an antenna with decent reach somewhere in your place, is that every broadcast channel has subdivided their space and put random crap on 8.2 through (or whatever base channel you have) several numbers up. there’s probably some random sub channel giving you episodes of Bonanza all the time

you can watch PBS on a Roku -- how do you think I get my Bosom Manor fix?

Subbing to the PBS channel is treated as a pledge drive donation here, I could get the ugly tote bag every year if I wanted it.

the local PBS is something I should look into. I pledged not long ago to get expanded pbs app. in decade ago memory I’d probably get to see a live performance of the Red Green Show

the wild thing about antenna tv now is, if you can put an antenna with decent reach somewhere in your place, is that every broadcast channel has subdivided their space and put random crap on 8.2 through (or whatever base channel you have) several numbers up. there’s probably some random sub channel giving you episodes of Bonanza all the time

It's like a cross between vintage UHF and old school Cable minus sports.

And yeah, there's a Western network that basically just shows 2nd-tier TV shows like Wells Fargo and John Wayne movies 24/7.

the people who have absolutely loved this development are my parents. it fits into their bizarre approach to entertainment in which cable and streaming services are strictly prohibited.

I mean, my preferences plus 20 years.... if they had a few Law & Orders (not accepting NCIS etc) and related shows, some programming that isn’t outright evangelical crap... I’m in

If broadcast tv delivered me Night Court today, I’m on it.

The weird thing about people defining “cord cutters” is is always assumed cable tv is necessary. My family never had cable until I was well into college. The basic assumption that paying for television is normal is in itself a backward step that seems odd to me. It started as ad-based, and I feel like returning to that is the backward step we’ll eventually accept

Well I also don’t want to watch ads

XP there was a channel called Laff that used to run 2-hour blocks of Night Court daily.

xp same, and that is the main reason I pay for streaming content! few bucks to not see ads seems reasonable

every so often i think it'd be kind of novel to be able to turn on the tv and just see what's playing on cbs, or whatever, and then i remember the times in recent years when i've been at a hotel or home for the holidays or some other situation where that's possible, and just thinking about the ads killlllls all of the appeal of that.

adobe creative cloud fucking blows

it’s amazing how the mental kill file for ads also makes you tune out part of the tv plot

there’s so much repetition in ad-heavy network plots!

KM, very OTM— it's buggy and shitty and a lot of it never works properly or crashes all the time, even on newer machines with decent processing power.

i resent CC for sticking me with yet another application management app with notifications settings ... like, I have a computer, that is what the computer does -- it manages applications. Now I have this additional application that manages just the annoying Adobe creative cloud applications ... it's like how whenever you get a multi-function printer they want you to install their special photo editing software ....

lol, so much sad knockoff software attached to hardware. have pity for all the poor coders stuck developing Epson PhotoMagic, Canon ImagePerfect, HP PixelKing...

otoh, one of those coders probably also worked on the Dell webcam software that has now achieved notoriety with lawyercat

xp - i think it's HP Photosmart rn

Adobe cc does a lot more than just manage the apps. Sure it’s a buggy pain and needs constant updating and restarting but when you get into stuff like cloud libraries it becomes a lot note important. As well as other features that may be important to some.

Anyone who doesn’t Need Adobe stuff should def look into Affinity Photo/Designer/Publisher…good apps.

memory foam matrices. every night i have to redo the fitted sheets on mine because they won't stay tucked around the slightly rounded corners.

coming to theaters this fall, The Matrix Refitted

memory foam matrices. every night i have to redo the fitted sheets on mine because they won't stay tucked around the slightly rounded corners.

Not such a good memory there, eh?

I was at a brewpub/beer garden thing a couple weeks back and the only 'menu' was a QR Code on the counter... none of the taps said anything, and there was no chalkboard or dry erase, just the QR code. I'd left my phone at the table and then waited in line to get in to place the order, and this technological 'advance' just really irked me.

I just asked for something pilser-like, and an IPA that wasn't too strong.

maybe it needs a separate app for remembering how the fitted sheets should fit

oh the QR code thing -- yeah, I've seen a bunch of those since covid, it's for safety

I can see having the QR code as an option, but I have an uncle who doggedly holds onto his old flip phone (he's not alone), and nobody is going to be licking or coughing on a big chalkboard above the taps.. it just seems to be a tech solution looking for a problem.

my main problem with the QR code is that for me, it is faster to just like....find the restaurant's menu on their website, if you give me a URL and it's not ridiculously long. but I realize the QR code scan is to ensure the non-tech savvy can easily obtain a link to the menu without doing something stupid like making a typo or typing the URL in the Notepad app or something.