The ads and recommendations on Firetv sticks has been getting worse and worse. I tried modifying it to use a custom launcher but they keep breaking it.

I think I'm going to just trash it and get a Onn. 4k Pro and install projectivy on it.

I can happily recommend that option from experience. I've used Walmart's "Onn" Google/Android TV boxes on both 1080p and 4K televisions. They work, and with Projectivity as the launcher you can pretty much rid yourself of any and all advertising placements. If you want to be super thorough, use adb to remove the default launcher once Projectivity is installed and set to default.

I now use an NVIDIA Shield in basically the same way. Projectivity Launcher set to default and advert-buttons on the remote control overridden in software. Jellyfin & SmartTube as primary apps for streaming. VLC & FCast Receiver for random video thrown around the network. LocalSend to easily sideload apps (sadly ending within a few years). Moonlight for game streaming from my PC (via gigabit ethernet). HDHomeRun app as a backup for any Jellyfin failures with live OTA TV streaming. Other apps from Google Play only as absolutely necessary (Google Play TV apps include a number of popular VPNs, along with tailscale).

It's honestly better than my experience with Apple TV 4K. And if Google continues to close down and wall off AOSP, there's already at least one community build of Lineage OS with Android TV for the Raspberry Pi.

I bought 2 recently. They’re awful. I’ll never buy another. I was going to put Projectivy on them after I saw how nasty the stock launcher has become, but you can’t do a complete replacement.

No need to connect or use any smart tv feature.

How much is your time worth? Apple TV is the best experience (not even close to FireTV) for the cost of it. There are ways to get completely ad free if you have time. I've been using a HTPC for close to 20 years for example.

I think that if you want a modern 70+ inch screen I am not sure that plugging anything into and HDMI input will do it. You need to lobotomize the TV. I could be wrong. I am probably going to explore this to some depth next year.

Depends on the TV brand. I use an LG OLED TV and it’s 100% fine being used as a “dumb” TV. I keep it disconnected and use an AppleTV. I never see the TV’s operating system unless I want to adjust picture settings.

> No need to connect or use any smart tv feature.

Many 'smart' devices now have their own 5G modems, you don't have a choice of connecting or not.

> Many

How many? Can you provide some examples?

Staying out does both, is also the easiest and costs less.

In Ontario "two-six" is called a twixer

It's a 750.

"Twixer" must be relatively new, or more specific regionalism. I've only known them to be called "twenty-sixers"

Same here. Also, 13 oz is a 'mickey', and the 3L is a "Texas mickey". (I noticed I did ounces and litres)

> I've heard so many ridiculous stories about 'AI' that I'm at the point where I initially took this to mean the LLM and not the company had made the request.

Only through its human bots

> I expect that interpretation won't seem outlandish in the future.

AI human manipulation could be a thing to watch out for.

> I’m sure I’m way over simplifying this, to the point of stupidity, but tariffs raise prices on foreign goods to encourage the sale and/or development of local goods, don’t they?

What about all the businesses that export products or the ones that rely on imports. Businesses go bankrupt, prices go up for everyone and less people have jobs.

We had to bail out soy bean farmers last time to the tune of $25B. That's just one instance of how they backfired and did more harm than good

It didn't suck. BlackBerry had native API support for Air. You could easily port a Flash game using Air and integrate any native APIs you needed. We gave phones and tablets away to any developer who did this. It worked in the browser natively too without the need to install an extension.

But fuck Adobe because they didn't give BlackBerry the latest runtime.

Adobe killed Flash when they bought Macromedia.

> It didn't suck.

We're talking about a viewer for Flash web content, though, not freshly authored applications.

As point for reference: there was a Flash plugin for Android, for a short while (around 2011-2012). It was awful - not only did a lot of Flash content just not work at all (because it required mouse/keyboard style input), but any content that'd run at all would typically run very poorly on even high-end phones.

I guess I should have prefaced that if it was made with responsiveness in mind and you took from factor into consideration. Anything can suck. Responsiveness was a huge issue back then not just for Flash.

I remember this! I ported one of my games and indeed got a blackberry tablet. Then I ported another one and gave it to my friend to submit, now he also had one... It was huge for a poor student!

When is the last time you tried Cursor? It definitely doesn't import libraries. It can if you prompt it to but you have control.

I find it works great it you prompt it one step at a time. It's still can be iterative but it allows you to tighten up the code as you go.

Yes you can still go yolo mode and get some interesting prototypes if you just need to show someone something fast but if you know what you're doing it just saves time.

It has been some time since my last try but importing libraries isn't my core concern.

I still feel more comfortable with the chat interface where I talk to LLM and make it generate the code that I end up putting together in a dumb editor because I'm still writing code for human based analysis that will be interpreted by machine and my claim is that if the code is actually to be written by machine for the consumption of a machine, then the human should be out of the code creation loop completely and fully assume the role of someone who demands stuff and knows when its done right and doesn't bother with the code itself.

Not the only WordPress host and they have no obligation to anything for an open source project.

This story isn't about them it's about their customers who chose to use their service and how Matt chose to make them collateral damage. That choice has consequences which is what this is.

The internet still exists outside of social media sites designed to keep you there. I hope kids under 16 get addicted to anything else and don't turn to social media when they're old enough.