ares35

catalog shopping had been popular for decades prior to the 1980s. it’s online shopping that some didn’t predict or believe would ‘take off’, including sears–the king of catalog sales prior to the rise of the internet.

the mailed letter… yea. but post offices overall are at least equally significant today, as they are the last-mile for a massive chunk of online orders.

yup. just windows (or linux) desktop applications and networking. i don’t need a ‘10-foot’ ui; and don’t (atm, anyway) need the remote streaming capabilities or other features of a jellyfin or plex.

the keyboard i have is an original logitech k400. it’s really the piece that makes my setup usable, otherwise i’d have a full-sized separate kb and mouse sitting on the ‘coffee table’ (it’s really just a low-standing tv shelf on wheels) instead.

i just uncovered a box with over 100 vhs tapes from the days before i switched to pc-based recording. that’ll be a future project after i get done with de-duplicating and consolidating the files i already have.

yes. yes they did. i still haven’t been able to get all the way through the ‘reboot’.

i mostly use windows on the tv, an old laptop and a wireless kb/trackpad. runs cool, even with the lid closed all the time. reliably wakes up outputting to the external ‘monitor’ as long as it hasn’t ‘lost’ its connection to the tv (can’t unplug that input temporarily for another device–would have to flip open the laptop lid later to re-enable the external-only setting), and it’s new enough (skylake) to have decoding in hardware for the formats i’ve been using.

the other hdmi is a linux sff desktop set up similarly, but i haven’t got all the kinks worked out yet.

use firefox (with addons and some userscripts|styles) for online sites, and usb externals or lan connection for ‘saved’ content. shortcuts on the desktop (to web sites, playlists, lan shares) function as the ‘home screen’ or ‘launch’ page.

i do have the tv ‘online’ atm, though, because a lot of pluto ‘live’ tv get watched here, and the tv ‘app’ is faster and more reliable than their web site. the remote has a hotkey for it, too, which goes directly to the last ‘channel’ it was on.

as soon as services and sites start doing the same thing yt does… delivering ads via the same servers and hostnames as the content… pihole and other dns-based solutions lose their effectiveness.

‘we reserve the right to change… (this, that, and everything else)’

not really. it’s that credit cards usually cost a lot more per transaction in fees to the merchant.

we just got done with a prime ‘trial’… they are really pushing the extra-cost subs and rentals in the ui now, which buries the actual free-with-prime content so much that it’s much easier to use a third-party site to find stuff.

i fucking hope not. there’s a few films and series that should never be remade or ‘rebooted’, and bttf is one of them.

that’s literally the only thing preventing a near-immediate end to the war, aside from putin surrendering tomorrow and sending everybody home.

my little town is replacing all the water mains… when the streets above them need repair or rebuilding, along with the lines to customers where needed. they’ve done two streets in the last ten years, each about 8-10 blocks long. they’ve got a long ways to go. 10 years ain’t nearly enough time unless someone is gonna pony-up a ton of cash.

that may very well be what those that are pulling-the-strings or providing the funding want… all-out war vs Israel.

at least if it’s auto-installed, you don’t need to have your windows tied to a microsoft account just to set up your damn printer. there’s some models where the stand-alone driver installer just doesn’t work worth a shit, and the ‘app’ is the only thing that works (there’s also a few that go the other way, the ‘app’ fails but the stand-alone driver is fine).

my landlord’s labor? hasn’t done shit in three years except slap on some paneling, lay down cheap carpet, and triple the rent on a couple ‘newly remodeled’ units. property taxes are down due to lower valuation on the property. utility bills (common areas, which are unheated) are stable, probably lower because of a perpetual vacancy and a couple tenants now being part-timers (less hot water use, lower gas bill for the building’s hot water heater).

he shouldn’t be speaking at all… at least not the usual total bullshit and lies, and this opinion piece is overflowing in shit, just like his diaper.

google execs: “great! now exploit the fuck out of it before they fix it so we can add that data to our own.”

“today is the best day of the rest of your life.”

my rent went from just under 30% of my gross, to two-thirds of it–and that’s with a modest raise mixed in there. it was stable for twenty years (3 building owners during that time) before this new landlord. utility bill is about the same–with reduced consumption on my part helping that, but i can’t really go ‘down’ any more. cable (internet) is up. phone is up. groceries are at least double–and for less of it, as i hit the food pantry more frequently. it cost more than double for each trip to the laundry. the once or twice (at most) a week i get a little fast food or kwik trip is about the same–but that’s only because i just get less (i stick to my modest budget for that regardless of how much it buys).