You don’t own your [smart] TV

You don’t own your [smart] TV. Why?

Smart TVs Are Dumb

Earlier this month, Vizio’s chief technology officer, Bill Baxter, told The Verge that the reason his company can sell TVs so cheaply now is that it makes up the money by selling bits of data and access to your TV after you purchase it. Baxter called this “post-purchase monetization.” 

“This is a cutthroat industry,” he said. “It’s a 6-percent-margin industry, right? … The greater strategy is I really don’t need to make money off of the TV.” 

This is why your TV was so cheap. But it also changes the relationship the TV makers have with their customers. Consumers are no longer their sole revenue stream, but one among several. CBS and Netflix are more important to their business success than you are.

I have nothing more to add to this article in commentary... Well, other than the fact that I’ve been telling people, for years, about what the computer industry has been doing to every other industry where computers and software have been introduced into products to add marginal consumer utility. EULAs are consumer abuse. Data-mining and consumers-as-cattle, to be sold to advertisers and other entities, is abuse. The current government loves this laissez-faire free-for-all ideology of capitalism. The democrats are just as owned by corporate America, too, so don’t expect that anything will improve just by voting for the other duopoly party.

Advertising Industry Still Not Getting the Message

Because of intrusive advertising on websites, a tool called the “ad blocker” was invented. MANY ad blockers exist. It is a VERY popular tool which can make the internet somewhat TOLERABLE again (but only somewhat).

And then there’s this shit:

Intrusive begging to turn off ad blockers are the response to blocking intrusive advertising.

It’s not just that websites are begging us, and criticizing us, for daring to attempt to claw back some sense of control over our web experience. There is a cottage industry of web tools designed to be sold to and plugged into these websites to do this intrusive nagging (and you who market these tools: you’re a very special kind of scum; like the inventors of pyramid schemes, or high level Activision executives).

Look at that oh so cute artwork. Bored Panda sees itself being starved by the weird demon creature (your ad blocker; but really: YOU)  gobbling up their ... what? Food? No, their ad revenue. They’re telling you that you the user are a selfish, piggish monster, stealing from this poor, starving, cute, harmless, scrappy little website. Look at that piggy nose and that tiny panda unable to fend for itself...

That’s not how I’m reading it. I read it as this rude, obnoxious demon called “a paid surrogate for advertising” slobbing its way, unwelcome, into my web experience.

It would be one thing if Bored Panda had truly great, original, content. It doesn’t. Most of what is posted there is culled from existing stories around the web, re-spun with bad formatting and nary a proofread, and (weirdly) quite a lot of anti-vegan hit pieces. Seriously, what is their problem with vegans? Are vegans the last acceptable target for mockery when you’re struggling to be progressive and inclusive? Is it some kind of pressure-release valve for the bigotry they’re suppressing?

Dear websites living on advertising: This is your own goddamned fault. We’ve told you this before. We turn off our blockers and you literally serve up a steaming pile of malware ads.

Now, you’re even telling people off for wanting privacy.

Advertizing is on every goddamned surface and it’s never enough. Online stores who’s primary business is to SELL THEIR GOODS have third-party advertizing on their sites (Amazon, NewEgg, etc). Even subscription services are still serving up ads (are you enjoying paying to watch commercials on Hulu?).

Any revenue losses you’re seeing are YOUR OWN FUCKING FAULTS. Don’t point the finger at the people who’ve decided to rebel against you. If you want to make money selling online content, create a truly ad-free experience for subscribers only (instead of double dipping like most of you will do, “because capitalism”).

No, I will NOT turn off my ad blocker.

Wall Street is Gleefully Destroying American Economics...

... but if you’re wealthy (or a temporarily-embarrassed millionaire ... often a Libertarian), you don’t give a shit. Your kind believes in the myths and the religion that is laissez-faire, utterly uncontrolled, compulsory capitalism. The rest of you are the choir. So this content basically will do nothing at all.

For anyone who gives the slightest of fucks, here’s just one industry that is gleefully wrecking lives just so its billionaire executives and “investors” can continue their sociopathic quest to have ALL the money (and you can bet it’s part of the computer industry if it’s posted on this blog):

Because someone needs to point this shit out. Repeatedly. Loudly. Thank goodness for Jim fucking Sterling, son.

Amazon Sells Fake Products That Can Harm Your Computer

There are multiple products being sold through Amazon described as a “FireWire Female to USB Male adapter”, or “USB 2.0 to FireWire adapter”, etc.

DO NOT BUY THESE THINGS!

FireWire and USB are entirely different buses with entirely different data and electrical formats. You cannot just make a plug to push one into the other. An item like this can damage the FireWire and USB electronics on equipment interconnected by these so-called adapters! And, looking at the reviews posted by the unfortunate scammed customers, this has already happened to people!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U7DJ3XU/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008XYG4KA/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VRN2OTY/ <— this one is actually fulfilled by Amazon.

...and more...

Actual customer reviews indicate (in the tens to hundreds of reports) that these don’t work. Of course they don’t. They can’t possibly work. Some customers are informed enough to realize these are garbage items. The positive reviews are a mix of people who blame themselves or their devices for the product’s failure (because we have a culture that makes non-tech people feel stupid and ignorant, which is how the computer industry insulates itself from accountability), and obvious fake reviews. By the way: Amazon has no system to deal with fake reviews. “Verified customer” can be bypassed by sending gift codes to people in the cottage industry of review sellers (this exists).

Yes, Amazon have been informed. They have a track record in regard to counterfeit products which is... unimpressive. No doubt, due to the fact that you can indeed conduct electricity between the two ends of this “adapter”, they will conclude it is not “fake”. Bravo, Chinese scammers.

Are you irritated by my “click bait” headline? It’s really not clickbait. Those are fake products. Yeah, the Amazon “marketplace” sellers are selling and fulfilling many of these items (not all; see above), but what’s the difference to consumers? When you go to Amazon.com (NOT eBay.com) to buy something, and you’re not a savvy & experienced web denizen, and you buy scam and/or counterfeit products, the subtle difference in seller details is meaningless to you.

It’s not like we need more examples of why laissez-faire capitalism is horrible, but here you go; yet another one. We need regulation. More importantly: We need regulation to actually be fucking enforced. If you’re one of those “tax is theft” and “regulation is bad” libertarians, you really need to grow up. Meet reality; it’s a lot different from your theories.

The Bullshit Web, because pathological capitalism ruins everything

It’s almost as if I picked the title... This is a great article about how the internet is mostly a bunch of wasted bandwidth, because: marketing.

[...]At the time, a few of my friends were getting cable internet. It was remarkable seeing the same pages load in just a few seconds, and I remember thinking about the kinds of the possibilities that would open up as the web kept getting faster.  And faster it got, of course. When I moved into my own apartment several years ago, I got to pick my plan and chose a massive fifty megabit per second broadband connection, which I have since upgraded.  So, with an internet connection faster than I could have thought possible in the late 1990s, what’s the score now? A story at the Hill took over nine seconds to load; at Politico, seventeen seconds; at CNN, over thirty seconds. This is the bullshit web.

Read here: The Bullshit Web

Software Disenchantment

We need WAY MORE developers to scream these very same statements to the computer industry...

Modern cars work, let’s say for the sake of argument, at 98% of what’s physically possible with the current engine design. Modern buildings use just enough material to fulfill their function and stay safe under the given conditions. All planes converged to the optimal size/form/load and basically look the same.  Only in software, it’s fine if a program runs at 1% or even 0.01% of the possible performance. Everybody just seems to be ok with it. People are often even proud about how much inefficient it is, as in “why should we worry, computers are fast enough.”

Another good bit:

Programs can’t work for years without reboots anymore. Sometimes even days are too much to ask. Random stuff happens and nobody knows why.  What’s worse, nobody has time to stop and figure out what happened. Why bother if you can always buy your way out of it. Spin another AWS instance. Restart process. Drop and restore the whole database. Write a watchdog that will restart your broken app every 20 minutes. Include same resources multiple times, zip and ship. Move fast, don’t fix.

Read the whole thing here: Software Disenchantment

Sci-fi: Stop with the damned holographs already

Just a brief note to every science fiction writer, director, producer, etc.: Holographs, as seen infuriatingly often in today's TV and film, are NOT POSSIBLE. Even the "hard science" series The Expanse has these damned things.

There is no basis in physics to suspend imagery (animated or still) in mid-air. None. Zero. Nada. All you're doing is making your "science fiction" into "techno-fantasy". It's magic, not science.

STOP IT.