I think the only Premium TVs left are the business TVs that give you meaningful mechanisms to not have intrusive "Smart" features.

Is there a meaningful difference between a Sony TV that harvests data and won't let you opt-out of "smart" features, and a Wal-mart TV that harvests data and won't let you opt-out of "smart" features?

I guess I am blessed to not be an audiophile and not have flawless supervision :)

FWIW, I have:
- a 20 yo 720p dumb 42" plasma
- a 20 yo 1080P dumb 50" plasma
- a 1yo 4k Samsung 65" TheFrame TV

That last one was a splurge I wanted because the "Art Mode" is just too beautiful, and at the time, Samsung really had the only coherent offering. (I guess there are now "off brand" ArtTV attempts from HiSense and others.. i have no experience with them.)

On the ArtTV, we watch youtube or DVDs or XBox on it a little of the time, and all that stuff looks fine to me on the 65" Samsung. But the TV is otherwise displaying pretty artwork almost all of the time, and whatever Samsung has done with the screen, dimming control, bezel, etc, really does work and really is lovely. And you don't need a service or an app to get the experience - just stick a USB full of public domain masterpieces into the TV.

Even so, the Samsung ecosystem is pretty annoying. I can have it show my images in ArtMode, but i cannot have the "real" experience you'd get with a subscription - with Art XML metadata and stuff (artist, date, etc). We don't always remember what a piece is or who painted it when it comes up..

Anyway, AFAIK, the only way to get TVs that aren't enshittified spyware is a business SKU, right?

In my house, we use Steam to play "windows-only" games on:
- Devuan with XFCE
- Devuan with Cinnamon
- Arch with hyprland
- bone stock Ubuntu 24
- ubuntu 25 laptop w/ second GPU

From my POV, there's not much need to port games to Linux. With the heroic efforts of Valve, most Windows games now just work. Win32, DX, D3D, and whatever else windows game devs have been using seems to have become the defacto reference gaming API on Linux.

Steam makes it work on every linux distro we've tried.

In writing this, it occurs to me: The F/OSS ecosystem does a very good job of re-implementing someone else's API/products (WINE, Proton, LibreOffice, etc)

The F/OSS ecosystem does a comparatively poor job at independently developing its own technology and then standardizing/universalizing those choices. E.g. the transition from X11 to Wayland; the systemd "situation(s)", desktop environments... gui greeters, audio muxers...

I think Valve has done the right thing. They made existing games work on Steam; they made Steam work on most linux distros.

Making everyone use a reference linux platform seems to be a total non-starter.

We already have a reference gaming platform: Windows 7 thru 10. And what we learned in 2025 is that Steam on nearly _any_ Linux often implements that windows reference gaming platform better than Windows 11 does.

Ah, yes, I forgot that the constitution has a clause in it directing people to steal classified information and then flee to hostile countries. It was so forward thinking of the founding fathers to include that part!

Do all of your heroes live in Russia?

If you believe that people in the USA shoplift because they can't pay rent or buy food, you are hopelessly confused and cannot possibly hope to have a productive discussion on this topic.

You equate discipline with abuse? Well there's your problem ...

Ok, I just went and googled it as you suggested, and the first stat I see is that "liberal arts and sciences, general studies, and humanities" made up 39% of associates degrees, so you're clearly full of shit.

They're Bullshit degrees, which fits much better under art than it does under science.

I'm not sure where this silly idea comes from, that "nearly every other Western country" has tax agencies that send their citizens a pre-filled return. There are certainly some which do but, as far as I can tell, they seem to be the minority.

Jesus, Bill, don't you ever get tired of being wrong? Literally 10 seconds on Google could have sorted this one out for you.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

I feel the same way about TikTok videos.

You're right, its clearly worse than rape. Given the choice between being raped or spending 15 years in federal prison, you know that you'd bend over and bite the pillow without a second though.

It was worth trying. They were using a new type of concrete capable of surviving higher temps. It tested fine under lower thrust levels. The next step was to try it at full thrust and see if it would survive. If it worked, it would have saved them a ton of money in the long run. It didn't work, but nobody was hurt, and the resultant damage was well within their ability to handle, so what exactly is your problem? As for the "village", its a small smattering of buildings, most of which are owned by SpaceX. They attempted to buy out all of the residents exactly because of the " danger close" aspect of it, but some of the residents refused to sell, which is their right. Are you suggesting that SpaceX should have had the government seize the buildings using eminent domain laws?

Life isn't a zero sum game; only children and fools see it as such.

Why in the world would you need links for something so well known? It's like demanding a link to prove that Neal Armstrong said "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind". Don't be a fucking idiot.