I wasn’t asking for a citation that their methods aren’t altruistic; I was asking for a citation that they aren’t enshittifying the product with ads or subscriptions or whatever and then gouging you for full price anyway.

Isn’t it none of them, because they all want special-snowflake configurations that are supported by the vendor and not upstreamed to “mainline?”

Independently verifying it is still worthwhile.

The hypocrisy is by design: it’s how they mock and taunt you with their power.

“Never believe that [racists and bigots] are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The [racists and bigots] have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

Many smart TVs are cheaper than an equivalent dumb TV

How TF do you know? There aren’t any ‘equivalent dumb TVs’ left to compare to!

[Citation needed]

There is zero fucking evidence whatsoever that the alleged “savings” from the ad “subsidy” are getting passed to the consumer.

and lobby to get the behavior outlawed.

You used to be able to still buy ‘dumb’ TVs from Sceptre up until a year or so ago, but even they’ve stopped selling them now. (I’m kicking myself for not buying one when I had the chance…)

But the important part of my comment was this:

and lobby to get the behavior outlawed.

So he’s saying “send a German” but what I’m hearing is “tow a gurney with a bike.”

There’s no more reason to doubt the existence of a Jewish carpenter who pissed off the government and got nailed up for it than there is to doubt the existence of the Roman official who ordered the nailing.

The supernatural stuff is a different matter.

Yep, do it.

(Posted from a Pixel 7 running GrapheneOS)

At this point I consume most media literally on my computer or my phone, but I still want there to be a good solution for a big living room TV (50"+ range). I have yet to see any reasonable ‘computer monitor’ option for that.

The other problem with using a monitor as a TV, BTW, is that they often don’t have built-in speakers.

Gather a lot of mint, put it in your cave in a pile, and lay down on it before going to sleep for the winter.

Buying the TV and then not connecting it still rewards the bad behavior.

We have to boycott these fucks and lobby to get the behavior outlawed.

This is why, for years, I’ve been trying to point out that “if you don’t like it, just don’t buy it” isn’t good enough. Boycotts aren’t enough; we have to force the law to change to prohibit the abusive corporate behavior.

I used to recommend Sceptre, but even they appear to have stopped making dumb TVs now too.

That’s a good point: it’s not just that LLMs fail to give you an optimal password, it’s that they’re inherently designed to give you a pessimal one.

Guess that makes me the North Atlantic temperature anomaly. 'cause I’m getting more unstable but not more hot.

Never kill yourself for something that’s somebody else’s fault.

Yes we fucking can! We can absolutely blame shitty people for trying to do shitty things, and suing an archive for archiving is one of 'em!