When YoutubeTV launched in 2017, it was $35 / month. It carried all of the channels that I cared about, and was similarly priced to Slingbox (choosing Orange or Blue), Playstation Vue or AT&T's DirecTV Now. It really was a great option, and service was much more reliable for me than the other options I tried. It had a great core group of stations, and streamed well without experiencing some of the quality and buffering issues of the other service at a competitive price.

Taking a page out of the cable TV industry's playbook, however, they kept signing deals with additional content providers to add to their lineup. Instead of adding these as packages containing that content provider's networks, as an optional add-on, they rolled them into the base offering, each time "regretfully" announcing an increase in price to bring this enormous value to their customers!

They started small, and tested the waters, with a $5 / month hike (to $39.99/month), in 2018, grandfathering existing eccounts. They apparently liked the results in attrition and on-going new subscriber numbers. So, then they did a $10 / month increase (to $49.99/month), no grandfathering this time around, 1 year later. They watched the numbers for the next year, and decided that they could get away with more, so another $15 / month increase the following year (to $64.99 / month). Problem was, the pandemic hit, and they weren't sure how their numbers were looking over the next few years, so they needed to wait until people started returning to their "new normal" to see what they could get away with. Now, they're testing the waters again with a minimal price hike of $8/month. Get ready for more yearly price increases to come!

YoutubeTV execs are obviously not targeting the cord cutter, but trying to hone in on Spectrum and Comcast's bread and butter. Because, most of these new stations are garbage or niche stations, and the reason that people cut the cord and slimmed down their services in the first place. It's not that people didn't like having a cable box and a separate pipe for their TV, its that they disliked spending $80 - $100+ for a bunch of stations that they never watched.

I'm so confused how TiVo is even a company any longer if people *want ads*. It's like they forgot one of the primary reasons that they were successful in the first place... allowing people to fast-forward through commercials.

My favorite design flaw is a home theater device which requires you to login to your account. All of the old apps were egregious in this by presenting an on-screen keyboard for you to use, but helpfully masking the input as you type. What kind of genius thought up that paradigm?

Thankfully, many of these devices have gone away from this mechanism, by presenting a URL and code to use for activating from a device to which you've already logged in.

You can use the TIVO Bolt (not Bolt+) or the Roamio OTA with an OTA antenna. It also connects to Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, etc. and allows you to search for content across all of these platforms. In fact, you can setup a OnePass that will list available streaming options for a show across the variety of content providers, as well as record any broadcast of that show and present it all for you in one place.

You should do some new research.

I just made the switch back to Cable from U-Verse. I did this partly because of my love of the Tivo software (I was an early adopter on the original Tivo), and partly because of the cost savings.

For each cable box, it would have been about $7/month. I need 1 cable card (M-Card) which only costs $3/month. For 3 TVs, this is almost a $20/month saving. Tivo service fees are less than that difference, so it's a net savings. Plus, I get to use the much superior Tivo software. If I didn't want the Tivo software, or wanted to save additional money on fees, I could always opt to go with a homebuilt DVR setup, or one of the other options available that don't incur the Tivo service fee.

It's because math is no longer required to program effectively, right?

You should check preview before posting. The HTML parser removed the "<" from the quoted code, making your example wrong as well.

Should use if (false == var) to avoid incidental issues of assignment. A good pre-processor will catch the inadvertent assignment and flag it for repair, but it is a good practice to be in for code that you don't run through a pre-processor.

Walking in LA? WALKING IN LA? Only a nobody walks in LA.

I spent countless hours playing Battlefield 1942 and its expansions. That game was a favorite at many LAN parties back 10+ years ago, and for good reason. I found Battlefield: Vietnam a little less engaging, but quite interesting for the time period and the addition of Helicopters to the fray.

I pre-ordered Battlefield 2, but when I installed it, I found that the game wouldn't run longer than 5 minutes without freezing my system. I never returned to the franchise.

When I went to college orientation (about 15 years ago), while all of the other incoming freshmen were taking placement exams, I was listening to the school's pitch to the parents. Why? Because I had to take absolutely 0 placement exams.

Based on my AP test scores I skipped:
2 quarters of Chemistry (both required for my major, meaning I did not have to take any chemistry at college) - AP Chemistry 5
2 quarters of Calculus (going straight into the 3rd of the 4 quarter Calculus cycle required for my major) - AP Calculus BC 5
1 quarter of English (required for my major, I had to take 1 English composition course) - AP English 4
1 quarter of Physics (required for my major, I had to take 1 additional Physics course) AP Physics - 4
2 quarters of American Social Studies (required for a General Elective category for my major) - AP US History 5, AP US Government 4

Essentially, these credits saved 2 quarters of real college work toward my degree.

I also received in addition to the above:
5 credit hours Math (the "intro" class to prep you for the calculus series)
15 credit hours Spanish - AP Spanish 3 (I didn't even take the AP class, just the test)
10 credit hours low-level Comp Sci - AP Computer Science AB 5

These additional credits meant that, following my 1st quarter at college, I had enough earned credits to be considered a Junior as far as class rank went, which was nice for having advantages for priority in class enrollment, football season ticket, dorm selection, etc.

Oh, and by the way, this was for an Electrical Engineering degree.

If you have any experience with Toyota's in-dash Nav solution, then you would know that this system is already in existence. With Toyota's system, you can choose preset destinations whenever, but you can't enter an address or do more advanced searches.

I wondered why the system doesn't use the passenger-side airbag detector to figure out that there's a passenger in the car to allow these options. But, sadly, they didn't implement it that way. There have been a few times we've had to pull into a nearby parking lot for me to place the car in "Park" to allow access to the functionality.

I'd love for them to limit the type and amount of distractions from my wife telling me where to go, too.

To be successful, this kind of a device will need substantial improvements in Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) devices. I used one of these 2 to 3 years ago, and it required a finger-stick reading to "calibrate" it at a minimum once every 12 hours, but recommended 4 times a day. Even with this calibration, the algorithm in their software didn't adjust to this as truth data, and would continue to read quite different values. Many times this was in the 60-80 point (mg/dL) range. When you're trying to control blood glucose into a range of 80-120 mg/dL, having an error so great is a significant challenge. Granted, this was likely 1 generation old technology, but from what my endocrinologist (who's also a pump wearing diabetic) tells me, the newest generation isn't much better.

I can't imagine what the device would do when you factor this error in along with the algorithm trying to account for situations such as eating, without having additional input from the user.

Oh, and one last hurdle: A newly placed sensor for the CGM devices generally take a period of 1 to 2 hours to acclimate, then need a "calibration", before the data is useful. What does a diabetic do during this time period (which needs to occur once every 3 days)?