471–480 of 661 posts
I don't have a TV, only a few monitors (it's very liberating, actually). So instead I'll talk about my microwave. Yes, unironically! :D It has two dials. OMG how do I survive with only two dials? How do I program it? Well, the answer is, unsurprisingly, that I don't program it. Instead I crank it to watever wattage I need (usually the top one), and the time I think it'll take until the food I becomes hot. Aaaand that…
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Subsidized implies that the revenue from advertising defers the cost to the end user. This isn't generally true for TVs. With TVs, the sticker price pays for the hardware. The ads pay for the extra house the manufacturer's CEO feels he's entitled to have.
Not so much. That's why, as a bunch of other comments mentioned, there's commercial displays available with equivalent specs to smart tvs that are essentially dumb terminals with no smart functionality that cost more than twice the price. Your data is subsidizing the low hardware costs.
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Here in Ireland and based on my time living and travelling in Germany I'd say in most of Europe, its hard to get a microwave that isn't just wattage and timer. Here except for a few things like phones and tvs, smart electronics aren't as easily available as my home country, India. I speculate this is perhaps related to the age of the population.
Rather, richer markets are pickier.
I don't have a TV, only a few monitors (it's very liberating, actually). So instead I'll talk about my microwave. Yes, unironically! :D It has two dials. OMG how do I survive with only two dials? How do I program it? Well, the answer is, unsurprisingly, that I don't program it. Instead I crank it to watever wattage I need (usually the top one), and the time I think it'll take until the food I becomes hot. Aaaand that…
Microwaves have such terrible UIs. I always wanted to make an online Microwave UI simulator where it generates a random Microwave control panel and you have to work out which buttons to press to heat up some soup.
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My microwave has a wheel to turn the timer, a wheel to set the WATT, a stop button and a start button. If you press the start button it’ll automatically run for 30 seconds, if you press it again it’ll add another 30 seconds to the current run. It took me maybe 4 years of owning it before I learned of the start button feature. Not sure what the hell people are doing with microwaves that connect to the internet, but I…
I don't own a microwave, but find routers to be one of the most frustrating machines to deal with. All communication is done via different lights either on/off or blinking, and none of it makes any sense. How much is a freaking display these days?
(There is actually an option on mine that lets me turn off all the lights. (Except the power on light, dang it!))
I don't have a TV, only a few monitors (it's very liberating, actually). So instead I'll talk about my microwave. Yes, unironically! :D It has two dials. OMG how do I survive with only two dials? How do I program it? Well, the answer is, unsurprisingly, that I don't program it. Instead I crank it to watever wattage I need (usually the top one), and the time I think it'll take until the food I becomes hot. Aaaand that…
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We're going off topic now, but why do all microwaves have knobs now? I hate them. I want a number pad like the microwaves had when I was growing up. I want to close the door, press the numbers that indicate the amount of time I want and hit "start". When you turn a knob, either you have no indication of the exact time, or there's a display that moves in increments that the computer thinks are good (usually 10s). I do…
Found the millennial? The knob design is the much older one as it's purely analog. I don't have a microwave anymore for almost a decade now, but even before I used it occasionally only, mostly for heating up food from the day before, nothing where I'd need sub-millisecond accuracy. Also in general food tastes different/weird if you blast it at full power, so going for lower wattage and longer cooking times would redu…
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I like Australia's system better. You pay a very minor tax yearly regardless of tv ownership and it funds a few government run TV channels and radio stations as well as a news site. Despite the current governments best efforts, the ABC is still the only worthwhile news site in the country.
Same in Germany but the tax is a fixed price of EUR 17.50 each month per household and no escape from it except for very few special cases (e.g. university students receiving financial support from the state). Personally I agree with a mandatory monthly cost but it is way too high, should be in proportion to household income and the people in the upper ranks of the broadcasting companies shouldn't earn absurdly high…
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Ok, I'll ask. Which Microwave do you have?
I don’t know if this is the same one, but a quick Google came up with the Turbo Air Radiance Series TMW-1100NM. Never seen these but I want one, microwave UIs are the worst. That’s more of a commercial one, a cheaper version (Impecca) came up too but the link was broken.