TV providers can either bundle up or slim down.
The post Cable’s fork in the road, Amazon’s Apple TV ripoff appeared first on Cord Cutter Weekly.
The Blog
Published work, shop talk, and stray thoughts.
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New TechHive story: Cable TV hits a fork in the road
A couple things happened over the past month that could lead to big changes in how TV bundling works. Read the full column ->
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omg.lol
This looks like such a neat offering for which I nonetheless probably have no practical use:
- A fun domain name (like newmy.omg.lol or whatever)
- An omg.lol email address that can forward elsewhere
- A Markdown-based profile page builder
- Access to the social.lol Mastodon instance
- An IRC community
- Some other stuff like a URL shortener and Pastebin instance
At $20 for a year it’s alluring for reasons I can’t quite articulate, given that I already have my own domain name, email address, website, and good-enough Mastodon home (on writing.exchange). Convince me that I actually need this!
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Cool Site Zone
Speaking of neat old web things, Michael Klamerus of Virtual Moose is assembling a “Cool Site Zone” with Geocities-style buttons you can click on, like these:
I’ve thought about adding a blogroll/webring for independent tech and gaming sites here as well. In the meantime, block out some time to click around on Michael’s site and discover some neat indie games.
Update: It’d be rude not to include the Virtual Moose button as well:
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Forums!
Over the years, forums did not really get smaller, so much as the rest of the internet just got bigger. Reddit, Discord and Facebook groups have filled a lot of that space, but there is just certain information that requires the dedication of adults who have specifically signed up to be in one kind of community.
He’s assembled a huge list of active forums on all kinds of enthusiast topics, from audio gear and gaming to gardening and—yep—taking drugs. If you remember the old internet all of this will resonate with you, in large part because many of these forums look roughly the same as they did 25 years ago.
I once came across a forum that was a treasure trove for downloading bootleg concerts from the 70s and 80s. I’ll post a link if I can remember it.
Update: From an astute comment, forums are “publicly accessible and search indexed resources,” while sites like Discord are “private, hard to find and search hidey holes.” (And Reddit wants search engines to pay for access now, thanks to AI.)
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The latest Advisorator: Should you not fully charge your phone?
Whether to deprive your phone of a full charge has become a topic of geeky debate.
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Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom
Developer: Panik Arcade
This madcap mash-up of Mario 64 and Crazy Taxi trades running and jumping for accelerating and steering as you hunt for collectible Gears around colorful 3D maps. The game boasts of having no jump button—technically true, as most vertical traversal involves using ramps to boost yourself skyward—though a double-tap of the boost button gives your cab a little bounce, which becomes essential for climbing the occasional step.
The idea works, and the goofy plot is appropriately low-stakes, but I wish the levels leaned more into puzzle-solving and found more ways to emphasize the thrill of scooting around at high speeds. Too much challenge comes from wandering around in search of each Gear rather than performing the right maneuvers to collect them. A hint system might be the one nod to 3D Mario that’s missing.
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Three awesome review sites that have nothing to do with technology
File these under “the kind of sites you’d hope to land on while clicking through StumbleUpon in the late aughts.”
Afoolzerrand: An extensive database of chocolate milk reviews. (Alpenrose Swiss Supreme Chocolate Milk: “Much more sweet than chocolaty and has a beefy yet accessible 6% base– which pays dividends in the highly satisfying afterglow.” 9.5 out of 10.) Via Naive Weekly.
AppleRankings: As in, the fruit. (Red Delicious: “Nowadays, you can find this thick-skinned, flavorless, mealy imposter unwashed in a dirty wicker basket on the floor of a convenience store.” 25 out of 100.) Via M.H. Williams on BlueSky.
The Mix Review: Excessively granular analyses of modern pop songs. (“Please Please Please” by Sabrina Carpenter: “By changing the key of the second verse, the music rouses us listeners from our complacency with a jolt of novelty, but without any risk of rendering the verse’s underlying musical content less memorable.”) Found searching the web for “please please please modulation” because I was wondering if anyone else appreciated it, while also wishing someone had bestowed similar love upon the crunchy altered secondary dominant chord in “Feather.”
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Google’s going to ruin quick settings on Android, isn’t it?
Mishaal Rahman dug into Android 15’s source code and found a change that he believes is being held over for Android 16 next year:
Pulling down the status bar a second time no longer brings down the Quick Settings panel. Instead, the Quick Settings panel is accessed by pulling down the status bar with two fingers. This is the change that I expect will be the most controversial, as it requires you to put more effort into accessing your Quick Settings tiles.
Samsung is reportedly planning to split quick settings and notifications in a way that essentially rips off iOS—something Xiaomi has already done and, saddeningly, claims that 90% of users prefer it—but this sounds even worse.
Two-finger swiping is not a common gesture. It’s also impossible to accomplish one-handed. Google needs to rethink this.