drnick1

> eliminate a lane of traffic and/or parking spots

It's out of the question in most places, it slows car traffic down and makes it harder for people to park in places where parking is already scarce. Then residents and customers of local businesses have nowhere to park.

Because, used sensibly, C++ is a better C. This is more or less what C++98 was, and even that is probably too much.

> Why are they "special" compared to other languages?

The world basically runs on C.

HN works just fine on mobile. I am posting from a GrapheneOS phone. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Why are people now so obsessed with dark modes? 20 years ago it wasn't a thing at all and computers were just as usable, if not more in some regards. If you wanted a "dark mode" you switched to a tty.

You need an HDMI CEC dongle or a USB remote plugged into the computer.

Never give your TV internet access. Plug in an old laptop or thin client, preferably with a FOSS Android build on it.

So what? The EULA can say whatever it wants.

Did Gamers Nexus not precisely demonstrate that audio is captured by TVs?

English is easy to speak but hard to write.

I have been running pure Debian for years on my router/home server. Ubuntu is a superset of Debian that mostly adds stuff that is irrelevant for a networking device. Just stick to base distributions unless you are a very good reason not to.

Yes, and I have done the same for a long time. It works, and the browser is key when you don't have native apps. But I recently spent some tokens on an Android x86_64 TV build with ARM support and it is far better than a Linux DE with the scaling cranked up. It's all scaled correctly, the UI can be navigated with the D-Pad alone, and all the apps are also designed that way. It's a massive improvement over a UI primarily designed for keyboards and mice.

Did Tailscale not have a major vulnerability just a few days ago?

I thought they did not, but after actually vocalizing them I would say they are basically indistinguishable in real (fast) speech.

> There's a big gap between LG and Samsung, whose terms of service states that they sell your data to advertisers, and Apple, whose privacy policy states that they don't do that.

This may be true, but Apple can change that policy overnight. Apple also won't let you run programs that are not on its store, and won't even give you a Web browser. It's shocking people that people are willing to accept such restrictions. It isn't my hardware if I can't decide what runs on it.

IIRC, IPFire is more or less that. I control my Debian router/home server using SSH and have no GUI at all. It's largely set and forget, and don't recall last time I touched the firewall.

The problem here is Microsoft as much as LG. The same monitor on Linux wouldn't download anything. This would require root anyway.

What the parent is saying is that the desktop versions of those programs are not remote friendly and the interface is not ideally scaled for 10-foot use. What you want are the Android TV versions, running on Waydroid or an x86 build of Android TV. See my other reply.

> I would go one step further and recommend a router with a customizable, Linux, firmware (OpenWRT, Tomato, DDWRT, etc).

Yes, those are good options, but in true HN spirit, my suggestion is a plain Linux distro. The firewall/router is just a few iptables lines, which AI can now provide in a few seconds.

> First of all, open the TV and disconnect the wireless radio from the main board

This. Never trust software switches. See my other reply for what I suggest instead of "streaming boxes" that aren't any better than the TV firmware.

Some good answers here already. Step 1 is always not to connect the TV to the Internet. You can go further and remove the WiFi daughterboard and/or desolder the chip.

Step 2 is to connect a TV box, but if you replace Samsumg, LG, or Google by Apple or Amazon, you have made no progress at all towards privacy.

Having researched this topic extensively, there are two main options for real user control and privacy. First, you can run an ordinary Linux distro on a mini PC, with a "launcher" such as Plasma Bigscreen. It's fine with an airmouse, but you will be mostly running upscaled desktop apps that aren't remote or controller friendly.

The best solution is actually to keep the mini PC and compile Lineage OS (Android TV 17) for a generic x86 target. This is a true degoogled Android TV distro that can, with some more hacking, run any ARM TV app from F-Droid, Aurora or other source. It is by far the best solution in that it is a true 10-foot UX and is compatible with almost all TV apk apps out there. The downside is that this not exist off-the-shelf. I spent a couple of days putting this together with Claude and it takes several hours to compile. I also found several upstream bugs in the process and will be submitting patches to the AOSP and Lineage.

Just use plain HTML for God's sake. HN demonstrates very well that you can do plenty without some Javascript monstrosity. At the very least, make your your websites degrades gracefully when JS is turned off.

> Or one is living in a country where all banks require a phone as the second factor for authentication.

A cheap smartphone left at home and powered on occasionally to log into the bank's website should be enough for this. No cell plan, just WiFi. If you want to carry a cell phone and actually use it, I would suggest a degoogled Android ROM. By cutting out Google, privacy is significantly increased.

> I rarely carry any electronics at all and exclusively use cash in person to make me mostly digitally invisible IRL.

> Stopped using X and all big tech services.

This right here. I haven't given up my cell phone yet, but I run GrapheneOS on a Pixel without Google anything and only with a handful of basic apps (OSMand, K9, Home Assistant...). If something can't be done in the browser, I pass.

Don't forget that your car may also have a cellular modem and rat out your driving habits to dealers, data brokers and insurers.

> whoever owns the hardware

Yes and this is why self-hosting is more important than ever. The issue with LLMs is the cost of hardware if you want something close to the frontier. But there is no excuse not to host your own files, email, media center, etc.

> But I also would prefer rather a genuine human's clunky prose to the smooth but soulless LLM.

And I wouldn't.

I only tip servers in sit-own restaurants. I don't tip drivers, fast food or coffee shop workers. Sue me.

They are better for human consumption/understanding. Have you ever had to type an IPv6? It's awful.

> People still don't see where this is going.

At least 30% of Americans use an ad blocker.

Pixels are good, if you replace Google's OS by Graphene that is.