Today I’m donating my streaming sticks. I got a ONN brand 2k one I bought for 15 and I got an Amazon Firestick 4K I got for $3 from a thrift store because they didn’t know what it was.
And I love the concept of stream sticks, I really do. Too fucking bad that corporate interests got in the way and now everything has to have a bundle of ads at every damn turn. Not even some of the things I’m subscribed to is free from ads because this is the future apparently, we’re here.
Shame because I don’t want to let these go and even if I were to subscribe to Netflix’s ad-free subscription, that’s only one source. Why do that when I can just grab a long HDMI cable, plug it into my desktop and to my TV and I can watch everything that’s there, without ads because of the extensions I use to block ads.
My mum.
Windows. I am tired of the constant enshitification. I was waiting for it’s end of support because of games and the extra work needed to make them work on Linux (had to have the support of two friends who know Linux to try and get my steam to actually recognize my games and run them with proton, and it took 3 nights of help to find the issues and then fix them to get it working consistently) but I am so glad I’m doing this now, I’m already enjoying Linux more than windows and the issues I’m having are because of companies like discord not making streaming unnecessarily a pain
Lemmy.
- Rombas. I had a knock off, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but it was just easier with a regular vacuum, and faster. I also feel like a normal vacuum, currently, does a better job
- Streaming services. I got lazy, but them breaking apart everything into services has gotten me back to basic. Laptop and an HDMI I cord, I can handle the rest. 🏴☠️
- Working. However, I recently changed departments, so that will keep me quiet for awhile.
DNC
Slackware Linux. For a while I thought, when it boots up KDE with a browser you’re basically done, and it’s kinda cool running the oldest surviving Linux distro.
The simplicity under the hood is kinda cool, too.
But every single thing I tried to get working on top of the base install (Flatpak, Steam, Slackbuilds, energy management, etc…) was a fight, and at some point I thought “fuck this, all these issues were solved 15 years ago by others.”Dealing with people who have a problem with me, but will refuse to tell me why. Either tell me, so we can discuss it or stop wasting my time. I no longer have the patience with the whole “read between the lines” bullshit.
I’m still trying to learn this. It bugs me knowing someone has some problem with me, yet won’t tell me what it is. It’s the not knowing why that kills me.
McDonalds. It’s the shittiest fast food place and maybe the most unjustifiably expensive.
If my kids didn’t go do crazy for happy meals I’d never spend a dime there.
You can just buy the dam toys you know
The price of the you alone isn’t worth it, the kids will happily eat the food and it’s less than 6 bucks for a meal and a toy for them.
Oh yeah they’ve got that market cornered for sure. I’ve got an 18 month old, so all that to look forward to.
The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. I just can’t get into them at all. I’ve tried half a dozen times and just got bored after a few hours of gameplay time.
I’ve accepted that I just don’t like them. Games should be fun, not feel like a chore to play.
For me it’s Kingdom Come: Deliverance. I just gave up again after bouncing off it for like the third time. On paper it’s exactly the sort of thing I should be into, but that game just doesn’t respect your time.
Felt the same. I dropped the Witcher after 10 hours. A solid try, in my estimation. I usually quit games around the 2 hour mark if I’m not feeling it.
I was in a bit of a depressive rut when I started c2077 so I just kinda plowed through the beginning not knowing if I didn’t enjoy it because of the game itself or if I was on the edge of offing myself. Whichever reason it was, after the world opened up a bit I started to fall in love with the characters and story about 15 hours in. Which is a huge ask. If you’re into games as a storytelling medium, it’s a 10/10. On a mechanical level, it’s about a 7/10 for me. It’s ok throughout, and even really great for some of the set pieces.
Yeah the opening of CP2077 is a bit of a slog. I’m glad my buddy warned me.
Exactly. These are among my all time favourites but there are other very popular games I just cannot seem to enjoy, so I get the feeling…
Keeping in touch with people. I have no idea what causes it but people just stop talking to me. I’ve lost touch with so many friends and family members over the years that in a lot of ways its just not worth the effort to make new ones. Which gets pretty lonely but I don’t see an alternative.
I realize that part of it is my fault as I’m not the best at keeping up with people either, but I at least make the effort with the few friends and family I’m trying to keep so I don’t lose absolutely everyone. The only exception is work colleagues and my mother who I have a strained relationship with.
I’m sure the work colleagues will fade if I ever leave the company, as has happened every single time before. I’m sure you can guess why my relationship with my mother isn’t something I necessarily want to improve.
I’ve received multiple reasons that people never message, usually some variant of forgetting to respond due to being too busy. But what’s especially frustrating are the people that say, I think of you often and things of that nature, but that never seems to translate into, “let’s see how they’re doing by reaching out”. Adding to this is how I’ve never had much luck making friends so it’s not like I’ve ever had a large pool to draw from.
Google. It’s been a long process but I’ve been degoogling little by little for a multitude of reasons.
I hear you on the streaming sticks. 10 years ago, you could throw a Chromecast in your suitcase, plug it into a hotel TV, and cast anything you wanted from your phone. Now, if you try to do that, you have to set the Chromecast up through the Google home app, tell it what “room” it’s in, but then you can’t cause you arent at your “home”, so you have to set up a new “home”, and then that doesn’t usually work, so you just quit and read a book instead.
So, I have a 1st gen chromecast and a travel router and when I’m in a hotel I just connect the travel router to the hotel internet, and my chromecast is ready to go, no need to setup the chromecast every time and I don’t need to sign into my streaming apps every time either
The way I solved this was by setting up a hotspot on my phone with the same SSID as my home network. The Chromecast doesn’t know the difference.
Enshittification at it’s finest!
Life. I tried several times to make it better and every time it “gets better” it actually gets worse than it was before. I was misdiagnosed as the blue puzzle piece and even though I literally am not that crap I’m still practically stalked by adult protective service even after changing my name and using a ups store as my “address”. I never tell anyone about the MISdiagnosis because they never believe it was a mistake. Yet a lot of people still infantilize me and talk to me like I’m minutes old. These people would treat a literal preschooler like they’re more mature than me. I can keep running but I can’t hide from that damn puzzle piece. And honestly I’m tired of running. 🥱🔫
Everyone can like or dislike anything, but that stupid puzzle piece made me like or dislike stuff. No, lostwave is not a “special interest” it’s just a thing I enjoy. I don’t play video games because of that stupid puzzle piece, I play games because they’re FUN. I made games for a hobby, not because that stupid fucking puzzle piece made me like programming. You don’t need to talk to other people about me in front of me like I’m an animal, about why these things “make me so happy”.
I hate how I’m perpetually too old AND too young for everything. Everything family friendly is age regression, and everything else is “not suitable” for me. Smash Bros and Overwatch were both, a game for little kids, and a game with too much violence. But if I don’t enjoy anything anymore, that stupid puzzle piece is why, and not all the bullshit I got from literally everyone in my life.
I give up on life because I’m sick and tired of living as a puppet controlled by a disorder I don’t even have. I’m tired of fighting to be human. I’m done.
Hey man/girl/w/e,
I’m repressing the boomer thing to tell you it’s going to be all right. I can’t promise that.
I can just say that fighting the system is hard, I tried. Try work with it sometimes and see how that works out.
Also don’t let anyone tell you thingsa are/aren’t suitable. What makes you happy is very important to you. I started playing tf2 when I was in my late 20’s and met a lot of people and had a blast.’
I feel, though, that my examples might not mean much to you now, and that’s ok. Just know that I felt like what you descripbed here and I managed to get it a bit better (i’m in my 40s now). Not everything is great, but I hop eyou find someone you can share some of your life with, that makes it easier.
Boomer out.
btw your username is great
My gripe is with the androidTV/roku/etc being built into the TV. Just give me a big monitor that can switch inputs, that’s it. I install TVs for work and I can’t count the amount of times the TV is just trashed because the software is screwed up and you aren’t even able to switch it to HDMI1 and carry on like it doesn’t exist. It’s hot garbage, keep that shit on little HDMI sticks that you can throw away without throwing away the whole TV. Seriously, your TVs life gets cut in half if you have a whole OS on it. Bring back dumb firmware.
Dont forget Roku’s patent for a way to show you ads over anything you plug into the hdmi.
My roku tv is never connecting to the internet again
Doesn’t that bypass an electronic lock per the DMCA?
Dumb TVs exist, and they’re 5x the price of smart TVs.
Ads and data mining subsidizes the hardware cost. If you want cheap TVs you get spyware and ads.
A smart TV is a dumb TV when it doesn’t have an internet connection. I won’t put mine on the wifi and do everything through Chromecast or Xbox.
I know OP calls out an ONN streaming stick, bu5 I just got one of their 4k Pro models, and I really like it. It’s a pure Google TV experience with no additional sds.
Oops All Planned Obsolescence
Doordash and other similar services. My order is wrong 9 times out of 10, and the price isn’t justifiable. I’d rather save the frustration and money and just make ramen or similar meals when I’ve been smoking or drinking and shouldn’t drive to fulfill the munchies.
Yeah…GrubHub is so fucking expensive that I’m surprised they’re still in business.
I hear you. I have Walmart + and thankfully it’s free. Because for the past 3 orders, one of which I paid $80+ for. The drivers kept dropping off my groceries at two different doors in the same apartment building I’m in. How the fuck can you mess that up?