I'm unfortunate enough to own a Vizio TV at this point in time, and I've seriously contemplated getting rid of it and just getting a CRT. I think it would pay off for several reasons:

1) there wouldn't be any of this "smart" bullshit bogging down the experience of just using a TV. And if I really decided I needed any of that, I can probably pick up a cheap old Roku and be about my day. It's unlikely that I'd need it, but if I did, it's certainly better than having the whole thing baked into the TV. All I'd need is a decent HDMI-to-composite adapter and it would probably work fine,
2) better color depth, especially with black, so the picture, while smaller, would probably look a fair bit nicer,
3) I already play a lot of older game consoles built in a time when CRTs were the norm, so the experience of playing would likely be enhanced by using the proper TV for the job,
and 4) let's be honest, CRTs are just cooler anyway.

My Vizio TV is a few years old, so perhaps I won't be affected by any of this nonsense with Walmart, but I could stand to replace it anyway, as the experience of using any of the "smart" features is unbearable with how slow everything runs. You'd swear my TV was powered by an Intel Atom if you saw how badly it performs even the most simple tasks.

Guess this is just my motivator to ditch the Vizio and pick up a decent CRT. Maybe a Sony Trinitron...

While 44TB seems inordinately excessive for any purpose outside running Earth-destroying AI clanker slop upon first glance, I can definitely see this being useful. I'm something of a data hoarder, so the idea of having 44TB or more available to me sounds heavenly. It'd be especially nice if it manages to be reasonably affordable.

I would love to be able to go to an online store and buy such a huge HDD for a good price. I would just die of happiness if I were able to buy some 100TB drives for $1000 or less. Unrealistic, I know, but only for now. Eventually, I'm sure such high storage will become cheap. Just think back to when 4GB SD cards were considered huge - now we have 1TB cards for about 50 bucks or so.

It'll get there one day, and I'll be there with my money.

...it's purely because the import-processing system isn't built to handle a task of such scale. Totally couldn't be that the administration is just stalling as long as they can, just like they've done every other time they've gotten in hot water for their bullshit.

For all we know, they could've figuratively (or even literally) dumped water on their server cluster just so they can claim there's a problem while the people the tariffs benefited most can move their money offshore before shit hits the fan. Then they can go and say "we don't have the money we need to give back." The American people get fucked over again, and these uber-rich cunts get to keep the money once things eventually fall through, because the Supreme Court can only drag this case out for so long before they eventually have to call it a loss.

But that's just my cynical layman's perspective on the whole matter. Perhaps for once in their goddamn existence, the government is actually telling the truth, and there really is a problem with their import-processing system not being able to handle such an abundance of refunds. But given the past history of this administration (even though we're only in the 2nd year - yikes), I feel like there's some attempt at stalling for the purpose of personal gain, like the invasion of Venezuela conveniently happening on the same day the Epstein files were set to be released in their entirety.

Just a thought.

but what if you're consuming something like a video silently, whether it be with subtitles, or your ability to read lips, or maybe you're catching up with the latest funny moving pictures from that hilarious scamp, Charlie Chaplin?

Would they still take issue? Or only when there's noise being made from it?

I'm intrigued by Apple's decision to add another MacBook model to their lineup that, for the most part, has stayed pretty much the same since the early 2010s, but I think there's a fair bit more bad than good.

Pros:
* More affordable than almost anything else from Apple, but you're still looking at Apple's absurd prices for what you get
* Nice display size, bonus points for not having that goddamn notch Apple seems to love
* Runs on an ARM SoC, which could open the door to future support from the Asahi Linux project
* Comes in yellow, which is my favorite color

Cons:
* Only 3 ports on the entire machine - come on Apple, I thought you were past that bullshit. I guess decent port selection is only for the rich
* Runs macOS, which is a net negative in my opinion
* SoC is from a smartphone, so probably not very performant compared to other MacBooks or even a decent x86 laptop
* Linux support (if it comes at all - for all we know, Asahi might decide to skip it) won't show up for a good while, so you're stuck on macOS if you pick one up right away
* If we're being realistic, Apple's SoCs probably have a backdoor somewhere that we don't know of (and therefore can't disable like the Intel Spyware Engine)
* Probably has worse build quality than Apple's normal standards, which are already kind of low in some regards
* You're left with the shame of being viewed as a member of the cult of Apple hipsters

I'd just smash my device, or I might legitimately go insane.

"...no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of Americans (which is illegal) "

Gee, it's so nice that the government is so law-abiding. I can't think of any past occurrences of the US government conducting illegal, non-consensual mass surveillance of American citizens. Nope, not a single occurrence.

In all seriousness, that's exactly what they'd do. It'd just be PRISM 2.0, but with significantly more misinformation, thanks to hallucinating clankers being at the forefront of Big Brother.

In my stupid and insignificant opinion, Xbox hasn't been a relevant gaming platform since the days of the Xbox 360.

And now that Phil Spencer is stepping down and being replaced by M$' AI boss, it would seem the clankers are about to creep in to the ecosystem.

I know Sharma says she's not looking to incorporate "soulless AI slop" into the Xbox ecosystem, but on the other hand, Micro$oft has stated in recent years that they love open-source. In either case, I trust that statement about as much as I'd trust John Wayne Gacy around a small child.

At this point, then, I wouldn't be upset in the slightest if Micro$oft decided to just kill Xbox once and for all. If that happened, it'd be a great opportunity for Sega to come along and announce a new console. That would absolutely go wild online and in game journals. In fact, that's the future I'd want.

So unless Ms. Sharma holds true to her promise of a return to the classic Xbox experience (I'm hoping she means that of the 360 or earlier), then for all I care, Xbox is dead. Netcraft confirms it.

and not that this site is slowly being taken over by the clankers just so they can report on news 4 years late.

Because now, the Penny Plunderer is soon to be out of a job :(

I'd like a phone that I can actually use like a phone, instead of treating it like a delicate, overpriced art piece.

More specifically, I want a phone that's solid, thick so as to allow for a headphone jack and removable battery, and has a camera that, while good, DOESN'T stick out from the back of the phone like a prosthetically enlarged caveman forehead. I'd like for it to have big bezels on the top and bottom so I can watch stuff on my phone without accidentally hitting the screen and completely fucking up the watching experience. I'd like for it to have a display no larger than 5", and it doesn't even have to be all that high-res - I'll take 720x1280 as long as my wish is fulfilled (which it never will be, but we can hope).

Ideally, I'd like for it to run completely FOSS software, and have upgradeable hardware (INCLUDING A MICROSD CARD SLOT), much akin to the Librem 5, which I desperately want to buy at some point. No locked-down bullshit, no invasive always-listening "voice assistant" and certainly no "classic Apple innovation" in the form of working against everything the sensible users want and then charging them a premium to get proverbially fucked over.

Of course, Apple will never heed the word of their users, and will just keep peddling the latest shiny object to spend one grand or more on every 9 months, and that disappoints me greatly.

...and I shall let myself get stung by one, so that I may become "The Amazing Wasp-Dude!!"

Then again, I've never been stung by a wasp or any bee-adjacent insect, so I could just as likely be allergic and die.

Only one way to find out :)

You can't kill Nokia. They're indestructible.

I'm imagining a body horror monstrosity, like David Cronenberg meets Sepultura's Arise album.

I can just see me using one of these flesh computers, and whatever interface I'm using to interact with it will pop up with the words "kill me"

Now users won't have to see ads, but then the hot moms in your area will be out of business :(