Isn't the feeling of being spied on by your TV a symptom of psychosis?
Same department: never-vaccinated Laura Loomer agrees with a like-minded individual that since COVID, "things don't have much flavor anymore" but appears resistant to the natural conclusion, vaguely blaming... lab-grown meat?
2: One thing that occasionally surprises me is the way these folks blithely make admissions that are so obviously against their ideological interests. If I were Laura Loomer and had trouble tasting stuff, I'd never admit it -- even to myself.
I don't put MTG (in this example) in that category. Who knows what is going on with modern technology? I certainly don't.
3: I think political identity/interest for these people in particular is subordinate to the vision of being able to complain about every little thing at every minute of every day and to make a federal case of it.
The thing is, modern "smart" TVs are absolutely spying on us all, and using the data for god knows what. Maybe Congress should do something about it?
The Boebert/MTG feud is indeed entertaining, but it's not really new. They've always hated each other, for the good reason that they're competing for the same limited niche in the far-right movement.
Yeah, but Boebert keeps it real while MTG sold out to Kevin McCarthy.
Boebert only won in 2022 by 554 votes. She might be in more trouble next year.
5: What TVs are on the market that don't do this? I succumbed to the siren song of a (relatively) cheap TV with Roku built in, but for my next TV i'd probably pay more for a dumb TV attached to AppleTV. But I honestly don't know what to buy, and it's not as if LG is going to advertise "our spy-free TV!"
Adding: I'm only somewhat uptight about electronic surveillance stuff. Like, my default settings are towards privacy, I avoid signing up for/accepting stuff that will track me, but I'm not actually convinced that it's bad enough to justify significantly inconveniencing myself. So the TV thing is something where I'd prefer not to be spied on, but I'm not going to spend 2X the money to avoid it, or get something off-brand/lower quality.
Our TV is from 2009 or so. I think we're safe unless I decide I need to see Columbo's pores.
10, 11: I think you can't easily buy a non-internet capable TV, but you can turn those features off and run it through a streaming box that won't spy on you.
Add a muffler on the Roku remote's microphone?
They've always hated each other, for the good reason that they're competing for the same limited niche in the far-right movement.
By that logic, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley, and Tlaib should be enemies. Instead they became The Squad.
If they worked together, MTG and Boebert could be the Dynamic Duo of the Far Right. But maybe women working together is Woke?
16: Yes, there's a specific gender dynamic that applies on the right but not the left. They'll allow a token girl but women working together starts to look threatening to patriarchal norms.
The gender dynamic is going to get even more fucked up by the time Republican office holders publicly defends incest fantasies to protect Trump.
honestly, anyone who lives near her with any gumption should be trying to light that TV up at every hour of the morning, noon, or night. make sure to set your hostname to something silly ("NWO Surveillance Drone #327", "Obama Thugocracy Local 17", "Bugging Systems Inc Ref:MTG"). Like people used to do with WiFi access points.
17: plausible but there may also be another two factors:
first, the Squad are presumably trying to achieve certain policy objectives as well as getting media attention, so collaborating makes sense. If these loons are only trying to get attention, it's a zero sum game. Every chair on a conference panel occupied by one of them is a chair that is excluded to the others.
And also they are, like Trump, in the political branch of the professional wrestling industry, and very public feuds are absolutely key to maintaining audience attention.
13: we have a projector that doesn't have an internet connection at all, or even (I think) a way of achieving one. Nor does it have a camera or a mike.
It has Bluetooth so you can hook it up to a speaker, but that's it.
Also you can take it outside if the weather's good and watch films on the neighbours' gable end, which is very thoughtfully painted white.
14: I used my iPad through the TV with an HDMI cable, and it was fine. Our TV is from roughly the same vintage as Moby's.
Does Roku still exist? We had one a while ago.
19: I'm not sure about this strategy. Do we really want to make MTG crazier?
Yes, we want her to make a comical failed attempt to kidnap the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and be dragged away by white-coated practitioners
Yeah, I'm no longer confident that would be the outcome.
24: Ok, I guess that's a plan. Another possibility that occurs to me is that she could decide that Biden is trying to have her killed, and decide to follow Tara Reade and defect to Russia. I guess that would be ok.
||
Supreme Court thread at some point?
>
Does Roku still exist?
Yes, and thriving, among much jostling. The new lingo seems to distinguish "smart TV" where it's all baked together from "connected TV" where you stick something in a slot. Within CTV, Roku has the most market share, followed by the Amazon Fire stick.
When HBO Max unveiled itself in May 2020, it was without a contract with Roku, which ended up a 7-month standoff as they didn't make nice until December (for the holiday purchases). For a while I was loading HBO on my computer and casting that to the TV.
OT: Trying to resist saying "Your mother thought my log likelihood was great" in response to a journal reviewer.
My read on this year's events is that MTG may be more in the "say crazy things as a strategy camp" rather than the "actually believes the crazy things they say" camp than I had previously thought. Most of that is my surprise at her working with McCarthy, though.
When I recently bought a 4k TV there were no non-smart options I could find. I got a small TV because I don't feel like rearranging furniture to make room for a larger tv, and considered a monitor instead. I haven't seen anyone accidentally try to connect but I do see what must be neighbors devices on bluetooth lists.
32: Wild: I just checked Best Buy's site and was able to select "4K or 8K" and "Non-Smart", and there were results... but they were either ridiculously expensive or "business account exclusive" "commercial-grade" TVs. So the property manager at the fancy office building or airport can get a multipack of bare-bones TVs to display their directory or whatever, but the consumer can't.
My blood pressure monitor is the only Bluetooth thing I use.
With a brand name like "Scepter" I wonder if it's actually smart, but only intelligence agencies can use those features. I don't think I'd trust a 4k tv at $180 to be particularly good or reliable.
Remembering again the factoid that at least in big cities, a basic-model LG dishwasher will set you back less than having someone build a set of wooden cabinets to the same volume.
Are you suggesting just filling your kitchen with dishwashers?
Why stop with the kitchen? Stack them up to build an entire house.
Just that one is a miracle of science, industry, and design, while the other is wood in shapes. Seems to extend to the housing construction disease.
We're trying to find someone to make a vanity and it's not been easy.
We can't just buy a vanity, because we're replacing our bathroom dishwasher and none of the pre-made vanities fit.
A dishwasher could function as a vanity with a couple modifications.
make sure to set your hostname to something silly
I gained a ton of esteem in my son's eyes when he found out my wifi hostspot was named "FBI Surveillance Van"
"Bathroom Dishwasher" would be a pretty good name for a rock band wifi network.
It saves having to bring the cup you put your toothbrush in downstairs.
We can't just buy a vanity, because we're replacing our bathroom dishwasher and none of the pre-made vanities fit.
Vanity, vanity Dishwasher, dishwasher, all is vanitydishwasher