Hmm, I'd return it then, if they have got that much worse. A friend got a recent Panasonic 32" budget set and that seemed very responsive and quick to start up.

I think for all his faults, Xi does genuinely hate poverty and desire to lift people out of if. Maybe it's for selfish reasons like cementing his place in Chinese history, I have no way of knowing, but he is succeeding at it. His methods can be extreme of course, amounting to genocide in some cases, but the fascists got the trains running on time...

But if you are using it as a dumb TV then why do you need the interface? All you need is to change channels and inputs, and maybe the volume (I use my Nvidia Shield remote for that via CEC). I barely ever touch my TV's remove.

As for the lag, it depends on the model. The older and cheaper ones are bad, the newer ones are fine. I had one a few years ago (returned due to developing a fault with the screen after a couple of years) that was inexpensive and didn't think the lag was bad.

I'm a little surprised nobody has made a fridge with a motorized door yet. It seems so obvious, and those guys spend their working lives thinking about how to make fridges better.

It depends what you mean. Compared to the USA today... I'd say it's at least comparable. The UK legal system seems to be having some issues at the moment too.

But also failure to deploy renewables faster enough. This week we have had two periods of free electricity due to the abundance of renewables. The things keeping retail prices high are mostly gas and a bit of nuclear. Our system works on the basis that everyone gets paid the price of the most expensive source, which is always gas or nuclear (we don't have any coal).

Another example of NIMBYism making things worse for everyone. Every objection to renewables is forcing prices to remain high.

Tesla started doing it, now everyone is at it. At least with Xiaomi they don't change the behaviour of the system unless it's actually broken. It's not like Tesla were one week it does a stretch of road perfectly and lulls you into a false sense of security, then the next week it's broken and you die in a firey wreck.

I've heard complaints from autistic people that they have been accused of being AI due to the way they write. I bet the false positives are pretty bad with this one.

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

The problem is that distribution networks are highly regulated monopolies, many of them operating in the red because of fire-related lawsuits or government-mandated rate limits that don't respect the costs. They have no real incentive, and in some cases no funding, to expand to meet the ever-increasing demand.

There's a long backlog of electricity producers waiting to be connected to the distribution network, but that network is expanding very slowly.

Meanwhile, supply meet demand. Consumer demand is increasing, AI demand is increasing, all uses of electric power are seeing increasing demand. The supply is choked by the distribution network. Increasing demand, limited supply -> increased price.

I heard Linus of Linus Tech Tips talking about being required to buy 3 Chromebooks for his 3 kids. He lives in Canada.

On the other hand, they decided no more wood burning stoves around Bejing, and overnight they all went away.

Courts so have a lot of power in China, and rulings are generally not interfered with by the government unless there is a very specific reason to. An example I've been following is copyright, specifically the GPL. A court ruled that it was an enforceable contract, and more than one company had to scramble to come into compliance. Many seem to have taken the opportunity to leverage open source by publishing their own code, with some success stories.

I have not personally tried it, but I hear that if you just decline the EULA on LG TVs they work pretty well as dumb TVs. When it comes time to replace my Panasonic I'll have to do some research. Current one has some smart features but is not connected to the network, and behaves like a dumb TV.

I'm not saying it's acceptable or anything, but most countries are at least a bit like that. Look at how we treat travellers, or participate in the Israeli genocide.

What I'm saying is that it's not good just complaining about all the bad stuff China does, we can only win by proving ourselves and our ideology to be better. Also hoping that the Chinese people will wake up and overthrow their oppressors isn't going to work either. Not accusing you of either, just explaining the point I was making.

I have used it once. The main issue is that some events only allow you to apply if you have an address in Japan, a common issue with things like loyalty cards too. Fortunately I can get around that, but most people can't.

Seeing how after 30 years my wife and I still don't agree upon dishes placement in the dishwasher, I don't want ai to get into the fight !