"He also leverages OTA for local channels, mostly for news"

Ditto. I use a 2 tuner Tablo (not the latest version -- mine's 4 years old now). I've got it set up to nightly download recorded OTA tv shows (again, mostly news, but some old TV shows (Dick Van Dyke, I Love Lucy, etc) and the occasional new TV series episodes). My script drops them in to appropriate folders that are accessed through my HT software.

While the device skips commercials (for a yearly fee), the downloaded episodes don't benefit from that. I'll likely cancel that next subscription roll around as I really haven't watched directly from the Tablo in a long while.

I have an Onn. It's not too bad. I've had issues with audio and bluetooth with it, though.

"What's your rationale for sticking with any of these products? I view every digital media player as a spyware device."

Simple answer: They're cheap and easy to navigate. I'm not concerned about "spyware" reporting back what I watch data going home to Amazon as much as wife and kids complaining about navigating with a remote keyboard and mouse. I do have one set up like you describe and it works fine -- for me. It's in our guest room/my home office. The "mouse" is cool as it's not a pad or a bottom navigator. It's got a built in gyroscope and you just move the remote around and the cursor just moves. But kids don't like and wife hates with the fiery heat of 10,000 suns.

If I need to use a generic android gizmo I'll spend some time with my home firewall to monitor outgoing requests from it and block those. Right now I don't have to. Yes, I could do that for the fire stick/tvs, but again... why? Let them know how much disney + my daughter watches...

"What Amazon really cares about is reaching hundreds of millions of eyeballs on a wide range of inexpensive devices, and then monetizing those eyeballs with ads and services – and a custom OS built-in house may just be the best way to do that."

I prefer Fire Stick/Fire TV over other android devices (many reasons). If they switch platforms (which would mean no real way to side-load androids apps on Amazon gizmos) I'll ditch Amazon stuff in favor of generic Android devices.

"Consumers have grumbled, but have so far been willing to keep paying up."

I've dumped apple TV after the latest hike. I also went down a tier on Netflix. I dropped Hulu (kept Disney+ -- for now). Dropped a tier from SlingTV Blue+Orange down to Orange.

The latest hikes ended up saving me quite a bit. Even they raised their rates.

Wow. The fact that CA is purchasing out of state power (and non-renewables, too) doesn't make you scratch your head?

We do not have enough power in our state. And that problem will grow.

I stand by my comment.

"They are importing wind power from Texas and Idaho where oiled interests are more than thrilled to have the revenue from the wind turbines installed on their property."

Hell, CA is importing power from Utah. Coal power. We can't produce enough power as it is. Every megawatt should be stretched.

"As to the other question, if all the cloud services went down for good I wouldn't care. Given the price of hard drives why would I store anything in the cloud?"

Access to data when you don't have your "hard drives" with you comes to mind -- as well as off-site back ups.

Having 32 cheap hard drives with multiple copies of your stuff does you no good if you don't have access to it when you are away from your storage -- or if your storage went off line while you were away.

Now. If all my storage went up in a fire while my back ups (located at a relatives home) likewise burned up, too -- I wouldn't care -- because my important stuff is in the cloud also. I can rebuild.

I can also make the claim of cloud services vanished, I wouldn't care -- because of the cheap storage I had.

For your sake, I hope the "freak fire thing" I mentioned doesn't happen before the "great cloud storage vanishing" thing you mentioned.

It was called OnLive

"Because it's severely constrained by a bay, the ocean, and mountains, meaning you can't just build outwards into a never ending sprawl like LA."

Most of California isn't like SF. "Lack of places to build" isn't just the supply side -- the fast majority of "places to build" are unavailable precisely due to the cost of building our outright unavailability DUE to regulations.

(btw, I am a native Californian as well). There are "vast" (to use your word) swaths of otherwise available land that cant and wont be developed due to cost imposed by regulations and never ending "studies" that developers must pay for.

(boggles).

"I already left and am feeling happier for "

Wife and I plan to retire "elsewhere" (and that's not too many years away). Between "justice reform" that's insane and needing to dodge sniper fire of taxes and fees on everything, the only reason we're still here is wife has family here -- and their mostly considering the same thing (leaving CA when "retirement" time comes.

*Justice reform has bit my family hard from being a victim of a horrific crime to our DA (and now state) trying to rob us of the justice we worked hard for.

I've read a few FAs. All those that mention the video of the driverless car show that the pedestrian crossed against the light.

Example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Another:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

"Both vehicles advanced when the light turned green, according to witness accounts and video recorded by the Cruise vehicle’s internal cameras and reviewed by The Post. ***As the cars moved forward, the pedestrian entered the traffic lanes in front of them***, according to the video, and was struck by the regular car." (emph added)

This is the only instance where it suggests otherwise. Regardless, the ped should NOT have been there. End of story.

I stand by my post.

"Yeah true. But also, housing costs"

Housing costs "bone" is connected to the government 'bone'. The insane regulations required to build ANYTHING make it next to impossible to make money for a developer UNLESS they build high-end expensive housing.

Toss in the "grift" involved, and that adds even MORE costs for business to cover to get anything built.

That doesn't even include the fact that the land is expensive. Too many people want what is a limited resource. No affordable housing? You'll never build "affordable" housing when the land you are building it on isn't affordable itself.

"Not a single word in it is false or misleading."

Except that it's not surprising (or freakish) when someone walk in to traffic, against the traffic light and gets hit by a car.

The "accident" isn't unusual in any way other than it involved an AI vehicle AFTER another vehicle that initially struck the victim (and then ran away). Certainly not "freakish".

How about: "Idiot Californian walks in to street against traffic and gets it by a car after the state passes "freedom to walk" act"? Not a single word is false or misleading about MY headline.

The folks with higher balances (age 40-49) are generally making higher than average incomes.

Age 29 and below, smaller balances -- but also, generally, much smaller incomes. The lowest earners are between 18-25.

The stats you provide don't contradict NoSleepDemon statement.