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Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

blog.smartere.dk

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Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#171

Post by ustad »

amiga-workbench wrote: post #163
reaperducer wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but the markup is quite high Maybe a decade or two ago, but I looked into this last year, and the prices were just about the same.

I got mine 2nd hand on eBay as new old stock. £300 for a 55" 4K panel. The only thing I can ding it for is that the backlight local dimming is done in columns which is extremely distracting, so I turn it off. You have to remember this thing is designed to sit in a shop window in direct sunlight. Ticks all my other boxes though, powers on as soon as my finger leaves the button on the remote, same with input switching…

Whats the model?

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#172

Post by naravara »

brk wrote: post #48
tantalor wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest gripe is how terribly slow it is to navigate UI on a TV. The latency between user input and the UI responding can be upwards of 10-20 seconds. Just incredibly user hostile.

That sounds like you have an overly shitty ‘smart’ TV. Plenty of external devices (I’m partial to AppleTV) have no significant lag. Or it could be you’re using some niche service that has its own issues.

The AppleTV is best in class sure but by the standards of older, pre-internet technology the lag is noticeable. The UI itself is smooth, but any time it makes a network call (which it does for damn near everything) it can take some amount of time. And once you introduce receivers and HDMI-ARC and auto switching and frame-rate differences between applications the whole thing just fucking sucks. It’s constantly turning off and on and has sound cutting out and back on.

And that’s assuming the apps are well written, which they are not.

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#173

Post by maccard »

brk wrote: post #48
tantalor wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest gripe is how terribly slow it is to navigate UI on a TV. The latency between user input and the UI responding can be upwards of 10-20 seconds. Just incredibly user hostile.

That sounds like you have an overly shitty ‘smart’ TV. Plenty of external devices (I’m partial to AppleTV) have no significant lag. Or it could be you’re using some niche service that has its own issues.

My television has a > 5 second lag on bringing up the input device selection. The buttons don’t actually respond when the menu appears, it’s about a second after that before they work

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#174

Post by hadlock »

tantalor wrote: post #24
tete wrote: post #3

> Modern TVs are very poorly suited for kids. They require using complicated remotes or mobile phones, and navigating apps that continually try to lure you into watching something else than you intended to. I'd argue that's not too different for grown-ups. ;)

My biggest gripe is how terribly slow it is to navigate UI on a TV. The latency between user input and the UI responding can be upwards of 10-20 seconds. Just incredibly user hostile.

The "smart" TV in my office is hooked up to a chromecast thing and I interact with the chromecast dongle. My TV has never been hooked up to the TV and in fact I haven't even accepted the EULA. The GUI on the TV is lightning fast, and since it can't update itself (and never will!) it will remain lightning fast. If my 4k HDMI dongle begins to struggle, I will plug in a new device via HDMI.

I was not able to win that argument with my wife on the living room TV but our LG (C series) I was able to disable the ads and with a recent update I can now turn off all but the ~4 apps we use (youtube + disney+, + netflix and one or two rotating services). Fingers crossed LG does not push the "brick your TV" update before it's usefule EOL. The HBO app on our ~2016 era samsung was totally useless by 2018. I am hoping we get more than 2 years out of our current TV before the GUI starts creaking under it's own weight. The Samsung also started showing ads in the app menu selection about 3 years after we started buying it (from korean car makers, really good way to ensure I never buy your brands!).

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#175

Post by neutronicus »

fredley wrote: post #96
neutronicus wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a Yoto here as well, for our six-year-old. The concept is great - RFID as a replacement for cassette audiobooks (with fewer storage limitations!). I do wish it integrated better with sources of free audiobooks. The Libby app gets us access to a lot of audiobooks through the public library, many of which are not even available for purchase through the Yoto player. We can only use it to play them for him as a B…

The Yoto system actively encourages you to buy 'blank' cards to fill with your own content, and the process is relatively simple. Simply remove the DRM from the borrowed media, (convert to an appropriate format if required), then upload to the card. Wipe your card whenever you borrow a new audio book from the libarary for a clear conscience. yt-dlp is also a great source of content.

This is true - we've taken advantage of it somewhat (my wife ripped Harry Potter this way, and we recorded ourselves narrating some favorites).

Mainly (shamefully) "Simply remove the DRM" is doing some work in your sentence. We just, uh, haven't gotten together the executive function to figure out how to do it with the Libby app on the iPhone. As a Hacker News poster I want to be the type of person who figures this out. But, I have not.

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#176

Post by gffrd »

cheald wrote: post #160
Auracle wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to praise Paw Patrol as something on the level of Daniel Tiger or Bluey, but it's not completely mindless. It shows problem solving, teamwork, and encourages being helpful.

It's not entirely devoid of value, but that doesn't make it a good idea. Junk food contains healthy ingredients, too.

My gripe with Paw Patrol is that everything is met with a cheery "sir, yes sir!" and then the show stops short of ever showing real challenge, friction, risk, failure, or loss.

It's a missed opportunity.

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#177

Post by aidenn0 »

al_borland wrote: post #132
brk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like you have an overly shitty ‘smart’ TV. Plenty of external devices (I’m partial to AppleTV) have no significant lag. Or it could be you’re using some niche service that has its own issues.

I’m using an AppleTV HD with Peacock and it’s pretty bad. I wouldn’t consider NBC a niche service. After an episode ends, I need to wait for the new one to start to be sure it marks the last one as watched. When going back to the main screen, it can take upwards of 30 seconds, maybe more (it feels like an eternity), for the “watch next” to update. If I don’t wait for it to update, it will start playing an old episode…

If you think Peackock is bad, try Paramount+, it's an impressively bad app that, along with being very laggy, will crash fairly regularly too.

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#178

Post by wrs »

al_borland wrote: post #132
brk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like you have an overly shitty ‘smart’ TV. Plenty of external devices (I’m partial to AppleTV) have no significant lag. Or it could be you’re using some niche service that has its own issues.

I’m using an AppleTV HD with Peacock and it’s pretty bad. I wouldn’t consider NBC a niche service. After an episode ends, I need to wait for the new one to start to be sure it marks the last one as watched. When going back to the main screen, it can take upwards of 30 seconds, maybe more (it feels like an eternity), for the “watch next” to update. If I don’t wait for it to update, it will start playing an old episode…

Pretty much every streaming app I use (not just on AppleTV) has a hard time remembering where I left off. I now have the habit of skipping through the credits and letting the app play the last 8 seconds and close the episode itself, in the perhaps misguided hope that then it will remember I've played the episode.

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#179

Post by DrAwdeOccarim »

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #9
DrAwdeOccarim wrote: post #2

I love this! I really wanted to go down this road when my kids were younger, but the paucity of floppys and the low storage space made me go down the Avery business card print outs with RFID stickers on the back and a raspberry pi with an RFID reader inside. Of course, the author is using the floppys as hooks instead of as storage media...what a great idea. The tactile response and the art you can stick to them makes…

Did you build an enclosure for this?

https://thepihut.com/products/highpi-raspberry-pi-b-plus2-ca...

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#180

Post by anotheryou »

wffurr wrote: post #110
anotheryou wrote: post #27

A few rfid stickers would have been easier :) Does it play exactly one video?

But RFID stickers don't have that satisfying ka-chunk and brr-brr whirr-whirr chunka noises.

hehe yes, but you can have both I thought. Let the drive do its thing but don't rely on it for the actual ID.

It's of course not the nice way to do it, but the easy one I thiiink.

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