crossover

The realpolitik answer is that they’re the only country in the region with highly functioning western-style market economy. That is valuable to other functioning western style market economies. Its a system trying to help itself propagate.

Last time I visit a wax museum while tripping on acid.

They’re addicted to attention. And will do anything to get it.

I run an LG OLED TV (disconnected from network), AppleTV, and my own media server. I haven’t seen an ad in my TV for years.

These threads always have comments like “I want a fast device that’s well built and has years of software update support and doesn’t have ads and respects my privacy…but I’m not an Apple customer”.

I mean, fine, fuck Apple. But stop buying the cheap alternatives and complaining about them.

This is one area where Apple have actually done a decent job.

Even the article reluctantly admits the AppleTV is the best media box now. Because it’s the only one that doesn’t throw ads on the home screen.

HomeKit also enforces local network control so you don’t need the manufacturer app or third party cloud services.

But the industry as a whole really needs better standards and accountability. And people need to stop buying products from an ad company (Google).

Who the fuck tips their landlord anyway?

It’s sad how Apple’s strategy of “just use an actually fast CPU and make a Home Screen without ads” is a breakthrough in the industry. It shows what a fucking mess everyone else is in.

There is a 16:9 “open matte” edition of blade runner 2049 floating around many torrent sites. Unfortunately it’s only 1080p SDR. But it does look great and is a neat way to rewatch the movie.

The fun way to watch movies is to have a NAS with a Plex/Jellyfin server and browse them on your TV with a nice UI in the comfort of your living room.

Want to watch this movie in 4K Dolby Vision with atmos? Just browse or search for it and click on the poster art. Want to stop that half way through and watch a tv series instead? Go for it. It’ll take all of 5 seconds to navigate to it and have it playing.

After going through the effort to set that up, I can’t go back to anything else.

If a drive fails or other issue occurs with my NAS, it will send me an email and then shut itself down. Replace a dead drive and off I go again. No data loss due to RAID. (insert obligatory comment that RAID is not a backup solution and that you should have a separate backup for important files)

The biggest advantages:

• Speed. The processor is far beyond anything else on the market. It makes everything feel so responsive that it’s hard to go back to anything else after using it.

• No ads or bullshit in the operating system. You can opt out if data tracking. The Home Screen is just a grid of apps. Individual apps may have ads in them but the OS itself feels like it respects you.

• Reliable frame rate matching. 24fps video content outputs as 24hz signal to remove stutter and frame skips etc. Other devices offer this but are less reliable.

• Infuse. Great app for playing back your own files. Connects to Plex, Jellyfin etc and works extremely well. Makes Kodi feel ugly and clunky in comparison.

• Good integration with other Apple stuff. Like using your phone as a remote. Turning it on and off using Siri. Etc

• The screensavers. They’re seriously great.

Disadvantages:

• Price.

• Lack of customisation. There’s not much to tinker with under the hood.

• Not easy to side load apps

• No audio passthrough for playing Bluray atmos rips. Best you’ll get is lossless 7.1 audio.

Unfortunate not. The only option (other than paying for YouTube premium) is to airplay from a phone/laptop that has ad blockers.