Never heard of Scout or seen the logo, but that’s a big swirly poo, right? I’m not crazy, am I? This feels like being punked.

It’s most definitely a poo.

You forgot they called it Bing in the middle too

On the other hand, this is how companies fall. In my area, many small businesses are foregoing Google entirely. SEO is expensive and complicated, and so are websites, map prominence, and most of the things Google sells. They’re not worth the investment.

Mostly, companies are shifting toward Meta products, so it’s not as though everything is hunky dory (want to know when that hip new boutique is open? Don’t bother with the web search, just look up their Instagram). There is a very real threat of collapse if Google keeps up the antics.

Exactly.

I see what you’re going for, but… No thanks.

I want my…

I want my…

Date that will live in infamy 🎶

More processor more fast good compute

Excuse Me??

One must become the propane and propane accessory.

~ Dao of Hank

I feel like this is a “baby in the river” scenario. You know — after the third or fourth one, you should stop just diving in to save them and go look upstream to figure out who is throwing all the babies in!

We need to stop saying “wow, another person abused their position and inside knowledge to make money on polymarket.”

Of course they did. Polymarket is practically purpose-engineered to be abused by people with inside knowledge. It would be more shocking to discover that no one was abusing it. It’s basically a casino that lets you bring your own cards from home. I honestly don’t understand why it wasn’t shut down a long time ago.

Always a concern. They will eventually require a Walmart account I guess. I’ll have to remember to disable updates.

Well… People have been doing this with Raspberry Pis and Kodi forever. Add a bluetooth remote and you basically have an open source streaming box. You could even install LineageOS and run all of the android apps you want.

I got some cheap ONN boxes, Which seem like the best value for true Android TV devices. If you have the funds NVIDIA Shield TV is probably the way to go.

It’s possible to skip the Walmart account login at setup, but probably not possible to skip the Google account sign-in (let me know if you find a way!).

Setting up side-loading is trivial, although largely unnecessary. I loaded Stremio, Jellyfin, and a VPN for better streaming experience and control. I replaced the default home screen with Projectivy Launcher. You don’t need to go into ADB shell or anything like that. There are also other home screen launchers that fix the major problems with the default GoogleTV screen; Emotin UI (closed source), FLauncher (dormant), Leanback Launcher, ATV Launcher (closed-source).

There are lots of options for web browsing, File Explorer, on-device media, stores, etc. that are easily available.

Roku is another prime example of enshitification.

Now I have all my “smart” TVs disconnected, and I hooked up some inexpensive Android TV boxes (with a couple minor modifications). No more ads!

Hey, I resent that comment!

Wait, not resent. Resemble.

Clearly AI - in reality, it would require 100s of pounds of force to remove a finger like this.

/s

Are you in a single party consent location for audio recording?

I don’t want to undersell the design or technical achievements of the films. They are truly beautiful and it’s clear where the budget went. Other than being pretty to look at and inspiring a Disney Park, what is the cultural impact?

For contrast, Kevin Smith made a movie for the cost of a car that people still quote 30 years later.

I was thinking about this the other day - I saw the movie and I know what a Navi is, but I can’t recall a single memorable quote or name a character. There is no memorable SNL sketch except the one masking fun of the Papyrus font. There is no fandom, there is nothing

We should ask Claude how to solve this. /s