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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

#271

Post by 01100011 »

jamesgill wrote: post #261

" I wanted to build something for my 3-year old son that he could understand and use independently " As a father I can't imagine ever leaving a 3-year-old alone with media so they can be 'independent'. If for no other reason, that's an age and developmental stage where media should be almost nonexistent in their lives.

This sort of blanket judgement on media puts quite a lot of pressure on parents that require an electronic babysitter to function. Sure, it's great when you have a support network and a child who can keep themselves busy, but some of us just need Mrs. Rachel, Caillou, Daniel Tiger, etc to sedate/educate our children while we cook/clean/work/etc.

Besides, non-interactive, low-stimulation media with a plot line and simple dialog is not on the same level as giving your child a tablet and letting them have at it.

My real concern with this project is the amount of time the builder spent away from his children. Now I get it that some folks(dads on the spectrum?) might feel their best contribution to their child's development stems from something they build in the lab but your children are only young for such a short period and taking time away from them to build a custom electronic solution seems narrowminded and selfish.

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

#272

Post by drewg123 »

array_key_first wrote: post #190
aidenn0 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Paramount plus is one of the worst apps I've ever used. It's so bad that I can only assume they tried as hard as possible to be is unusable. Unstable, slow, and lots of things just don't work right.

What gets me is the "play/pause" button behavior on a firestick remote. How many presses of play/pause would you think it takes to pause then resume playing? 2? Oh, no. Its 4! Pressing play/pause on the remote brings up the UI, like a mouse-over on some crappy web-player. You have to hit pause twice to actually pause the video. Then play again brings up the UI, then you have to hit it again to play again.

And don't even get me started on the times where the app opens and plays OK. Then you go to ff/rw and all it will let you do is pause. So you have to re-start the app to get control. Then it forgets where you are.

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

#273

Post by 01100011 »

peteey wrote: post #126
rspoerri wrote: post #72

My 3 year old watched TV for the first time for 2 minutes in her life (it was hard hiding it from her in an airplane on an overhead screen) and I can tell that TV is generally bad for kids at that age.

Generally agreed. Though, Daniel Tiger and Paw Patrol should be judged differently. Paw Patrol is mindless and addictive. If you desperately need a distraction, PBS shows are less bad. A few moments of pacification may be worth not disturbing the other airline travelers. Daniel Tiger may be helpful to parents too. Interacting with children is not intuitive. Techniques from PBS shows have helped me. For example, singi…

Some commenters either:

1. Do not have children.

2. Have a strong support network.

3. Have their partner or professional handle most aspects of child raising and have a warped understanding of dealing with a precocious and active toddler.

It's great that some folks have kids that like books and keep themselves busy. It's not so great that their parents think that is the reality most parents enjoy.

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

#274

Post by 01100011 »

gffrd wrote: post #176
cheald wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don't overthink it. Some of us were raised on Looney Tunes and MTV and somehow still figure out normal social interactions and do quite well in life.

40 years ago my parents had a close friend with a young and irresponsible wife who raised their child in front of a TV. At 4 years old the child could barely speak. My parents began babysitting and helping socialize her. Now she's a successful businessperson herself and is doing quite well in life.

Studies on the impact of media on children are informative but don't lose sight of the fact that kids are adaptable and will overcome most kinds of sub-optimal upbringing.

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

#275

Post by rspoerri »

stavros wrote: post #122
rspoerri wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understanding of what is happening is often very limited. When I read books or talk to her, I sometimes use words that are unknown to her, she only started asking for the meaning of them recently (she just turned 3). So she will probably only understand 20%-30% even when she understands conversations quite well at home. She is still missing cultural context. She is only starting to understand the difference between a…

But that's an issue with the content, not the medium, right? There will be shows geared exactly towards kid that age that teach them the right lessons.

I allow her to watch me work (mostly text documents), and we often search for images of an animal or object that she wants printed (today we searched for stars). Also, she can video-phone the grandparents, which is not that addictive from my experience.

My screensaver (animated colours) is problematic. Watching a video of herself or the grandparents on the smartphone can be problematic as well, but at least they are typically only a few seconds.

So yes, it's a thing of the medium. But most media for kids are colourful, highly animated, childlike characters and voices. Optimized to catch their attention for a long time.

Also, the media for kids are barely matching the level of the kids state of knowledge. I use words she understands describing things she asks me about, a TV show never does that.

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

#276

Post by eru »

> There is a pin 34 “Disk Change” that is supposed to give this information, but this is basically a lie. None of the drives in my possession had that pin connected to anything, and the internet mostly concurs. In the end I slightly modified the drive and added a simple rolling switch, that would engage when a disk was inserted.

I wonder if he could have just polled the drive every five seconds?

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

#277

Post by eru »

> A remote control should be portable, and this means battery-powered.

I don't know, I would have just have the kid get off their seat in between shows and walk up to the TV with drive attached and change disks there. Very similar to how you had to change VHS tapes.

Unless, of course, the above was just an excuse to do some tinkering, then it's fine and fun.

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

#278

Post by eru »

jliptzin wrote: post #245
brabel wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a 75-inch TV I inherited, it was on the higher end and the TV UI was supper snappy. Then, I broke it accidentally and got only 1/4 of the money from insurance. Because I barely watch TV, I thought I would just buy a TV of the same size, but on the lower end... both TVs were Samsung anyway. What a huge difference. The image quality is a little worse, barely noticeable after you get used to it. But the UI is agon…

Plug a new chromecast into one of the HDMI ports and use that and only that and weld the setting shut so that you never have to deal with the TV’s default UI ever again.

Though you still have to turn off the frame generation on the TV.

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

#279

Post by hamdingers »

bartread wrote: post #226
hamdingers wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is always the top reply and it's not particularly useful. I want the ease and convenience of having a single device both play and display content, there's no reason that should be so hard. Of course I know I could Buy More Things but that sucks as a suggestion. This is how most people use their TVs these days (despite the issues with it). It's reasonable and fair to ask for a better experience.

Well, you say it's not particularly useful, but do you want a TV that runs like a bag of spanners or not ? Because if the answer is "not" then complaining about how your TV performs whilst stubbornly allowing it to download whatever updates it likes and stubbornly refusing to buy one additional device (like an Apple TV or a Firestick) to plug into it is kind of dumb, don't you think? Ornery even? I agree that it is r…

> complaining about how your TV performs whilst stubbornly allowing it to download whatever updates it likes and stubbornly refusing to buy one additional device (like an Apple TV or a Firestick) to plug into it is kind of dumb, don't you think? Ornery even?

No, I have plenty of other devices that update and remain useable. So do you.

I would describe your attitude that way though.

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

#280

Post by HNisCIS »

eru wrote: post #276

> There is a pin 34 “Disk Change” that is supposed to give this information, but this is basically a lie. None of the drives in my possession had that pin connected to anything, and the internet mostly concurs. In the end I slightly modified the drive and added a simple rolling switch, that would engage when a disk was inserted. I wonder if he could have just polled the drive every five seconds?

Reading the drive is a mechanical process so it would be constantly making noise and wear out components
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