mattvot (u/mattvot) - Readit News

mattvot commented on Fire TV now also displays full-screen video ads on its homescreen flatpanelshd.com/news.php... · Posted by u/croes

wkat4242 · 2 years ago

Can you view your own content on an Apple TV? Like with VLC? I don't own much Apple stuff anymore but I'm getting sick of all Android TV options getting so commercialised.

I don't currently subscribe to any streaming service though except Amazon prime (mainly because it's included with the shipping)

mattvot · 2 years ago

Not sure about VLC, but I’ve a Plex server locally and Apple TV app works fine for streaming from the server.

mattvot commented on Fire TV now also displays full-screen video ads on its homescreen flatpanelshd.com/news.php... · Posted by u/croes

fbdab103 · 2 years ago

The Firestick/Roku/Chomecast all sell for roughly the same price point. I cannot believe they are all losing money on the physical device. This just strikes me as continuing to enshitify the platform because they can.

mattvot · 2 years ago

Looking at this it looks like the vast majority of Roku revenue comes from their platform, not devices.

https://www.investopedia.com/how-roku-makes-money-5119488

Within devices/players:

> The segment reported a gross loss of $90.6 million in 2022, a deterioration from the gross loss of $37.8 million one year earlier.

mattvot commented on Fire TV now also displays full-screen video ads on its homescreen flatpanelshd.com/news.php... · Posted by u/croes

trefoiled · 2 years ago

this feels like a race to the bottom which every industry player except Apple is competing in. I never would have considered an Apple TV just a few years ago, but my Shield is gathering dust ever since I made the switch.

mattvot · 2 years ago

Biggest wins for me when recently switching from a Firestick to an Apple TV is how much faster it’s been to use and the lack of crud.

Seems the Firestick has some heavy subsidises they make up for with activities like this post.

mattvot commented on Speak English to me: The secret world of programmers github.com/npmaile/blog/b... · Posted by u/npmaile

AndrewPGameDev · 2 years ago

Slight tangent from the original post:

I wish "normal" people were more tech-literate. I don't think they realize just how much of their autonomy they've given up by choosing to use Microsoft Products/Reddit/Twitter/Spotify/Facebook/TikTok/Apple Products/ etc.

We're at a point where now the average person depends on several layers of technology that they can't even conceive of, and often the companies building that technology don't share their political interests. But then the average person expresses frustration at having to use open-source alternatives (which is completely understandable when the open-source alternative is definitively worse!).

Basically, for me not understanding how technology works when it's so central to our everyday lives just seems baffling. I suppose someone could say the exact same thing to me about not understanding how my car works, or how to grow my own food. Maybe technology seems easier to learn than agriculture? But then of course it's easier for me, I'm a professional programmer. So I try to have a lot of empathy for everyone who doesn't understand technology, especially my mom when she doesn't know how to convert a PDF.

mattvot · 2 years ago

> not understanding how technology works when it's so central to our everyday lives just seems baffling

I don’t know. I appreciate the sentiment and would also like more tech literacy, but there are lots of areas central to our lives and I think it’s unrealistic to expect a good understand across it all.

I think it’s on us to be able to adequately communicate and understand the needs of those that ask us for help.

Just as you would want a doctor to explain what your condition is in a way you would understand.

Having buildings to live in is pretty central to most of our lives too, and we have some knowledge and intuition of what looks safe and can be used, but most of us leave the engineering to someone more in the know.

Farming too, I rather people in the industry work on maximising yield to feed us all with tools made and tailored for them.

I think when people go to the quickest solutions for them in tech (i.e. Ms 365, Spotify, John Deere, ABC MRI Scanner etc), I’d rather have them focused on the details of their trade than learning how to use a terminal, jailbreak a tractor or replace a magnet in an MRI scanner.

Those that want to, great, but I think most don’t have the time or interest to take on that kind of deeper learning.

mattvot commented on Ask HN: What's on your home server? · Posted by u/_moof

lxgr · 3 years ago

I've been using a Raspberry Pi as a home server, and it's been holding up amazingly well, given everything I've thrown at it:

- The excellent Home Assistant, for unifying across Homekit and Google Home and tracking historical temperatures and a couple of automations. The RPi has Bluetooth built in, so I can capture the data from a few Bluetooth thermometer/hygrometers running custom firmware (https://github.com/pvvx/ATC_MiThermometer) without a 802.15.4 bridge or similar.

- An AirPlay to Google Cast bridge, mainly for listening to Overcast or the occasional YouTube video on Google speakers (without subscribing to Youtube Premium/Music)

- A SMB server, for file storage and potential Time Machine backups (but I don't currently have enough storage, and locally attached SSDs are just hard to beat in terms of performance)

- A DLNA server, for watching photos and videos on my TV

- Tailscale, for the occasional use of my home connection as a VPN when traveling (really glad to be having symmetric fiber for this!)

- Caddy, as a frontend for everything web facing, to benefit from its excellent Let's Encrypt integration for automatic certificate requests and renewals

Most of this is running in Docker containers and configured via Ansible, so that if the microSD card burns out (or I botch an OS update), I can just flash a new one with an empty image and recover from there.

mattvot · 3 years ago

Which AirPlay to Google Cast bridge are you using? Thanks

mattvot commented on Many UK petrol stations run dry amid panic buying ft.com/content/7e79e4a8-7... · Posted by u/sofixa

mhh__ · 4 years ago

A recent opinium poll suggests 33% of British adults blame the last labour government.

The government that hasn't been in power for 11 years now. This country is really not in a good place.

mattvot · 4 years ago

Source?

mattvot commented on Robot collision at Ocado warehouse near London sparks fire, delaying orders theverge.com/2021/7/18/22... · Posted by u/edward

mattvot · 4 years ago

Obligatory Tom Scott video of the robots working in presumably the same warehouse

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ssZ_8cqfBlE

mattvot commented on Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released tobyord.com/earth... · Posted by u/cyberhost

mattvot · 4 years ago

Don’t just look at the photos. Read the commentary. Adds an extra level of awe.