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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

#311

Post by pests »

gwbas1c wrote: post #214
SamBam wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they immediately fixed the lag?

Within a few days it appeared that the update was recalled. It was the bad update that made videos start playing as soon as you selected them, instead of going to the information page. I get the impression I wasn't the only person who complained; I suspect that any manager who sat down to watch TV that night probably twisted a few arms.

I'm seeing that again in some of their UI, where you have to specifically click More Info to get to the details page vs playing immediately.

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

#312

Post by aidenn0 »

tempestn wrote: post #306
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.

Agreed. There's a tier list that probably goes something like Bluey, Daniel Tiger, MLP, Paw Patrol, Pepa Pig,,,, Caillou.

I'm far from being a Caillou apologist, but putting it below, much less way below, Pepa Pig is rather harsh.

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

#313

Post by wombatpm »

Reason077 wrote: post #227
llimllib wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I think the device itself is fine, but the Apple TV apps are mostly terrible and often very laggy/poorly written. The way developers use the UI toolkit that the Apple TV provides also seems to tend towards apps where it's very difficult to figure out what's the active selection, which is of course _the_ critical challenge.

The issue here is that the app developers design & test for the latest Apple TV 4K models, which have about 10X the performance (and 2-4X the RAM) compared to the old HD models. Apple left a large generational gap because they kept selling the HD for many years (until 2022) as an entry-level device alongside much more capable 4K models. > ”it's very difficult to figure out what's the active selection” Yes, based on m…

Is that why the BritBox app is absolute garbage?

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

#314

Post by neumann »

nazgul17 wrote: post #289
palmotea wrote: post #32

There are some off-the-shelf products that work similarly in the audio space: https://us.yotoplay.com/ https://us.tonies.com/ I had plans to build something that for the TV, but having kids means I never had the time. And honestly, that might not have been such a bad thing since it made setting limits easier. I was able to teach my kid to turn the TV off when she was fairly young (and pause more recently), which seem…

Is there anything like this but for music selection? I mean, for adults. Say I want to have a dozen "albums" on my coffee table (NFC, QR, whatever), and insert one in a box to listen to them. Like an Audio CD, but without the risk of running, leveraging Spotify, or my MP3 connection. Something like in the OP, but using something less prone to stop working than a floppy disk (I was there, I remember).

yes! PhonieBox - But you built it yourself [0]. You make your own cards with nfc/rfid stickers in them, put a nfc/rfid reader somewhere nice, and hooked up to phoniebox rpi with spotify to a nice sound system.

https://github.com/MiczFlor/RPi-Jukebox-RFID

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

#315

Post by autoexec »

eru wrote: post #277

> 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.

Right? This is basically just reinventing the VHS.

The plus is that you get higher quality video and don't have to press the play and rewind button, but the disks are easier to lose/break (outside of the player).

The real benefit (outside of being a fun project for a certain type of parent) is having a curated library of shows for kids that they can use themselves.

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

#316

Post by wolvoleo »

drewg123 wrote: post #272
array_key_first wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

Another big issue with the fire tv is that it just refuses to work when there's no internet access. It just shows an error page you can't get out of. So I can't even play local content through VLC or Jellyfin.

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

#317

Post by wolvoleo »

mikestew wrote: post #46
wafflemaker wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given enough determination, you can learn how to locate antennas in the TV and remove them, which would render the TV dumb for all intents and purposes. I have no experience with it, it just might be less work to remove antennas from any TV than finding a dumb TV in 2026.

Or one could just, you know, not connect it to the Internet rather than ripping apart your new TV.

I'm sure sooner or later TVs will demand to connect to an "activation server" before they start working. And soon after that continuous internet access.

You know, for your own protection of course. You wouldn't want to miss out on exciting content recommendation features and AI integration! Your life isn't complete without a constant guided tour of all the wonderful things surveillance capitalism has to offer, after all.

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

#318

Post by autoexec »

loandbehold wrote: post #87
stavros wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you tell? What's the thing that made you say "this is bad for her", and why is it not the same for you?

There was a time people used think the same about books.

Books can also be harmful if abused. They can be used excessively as escapism. They can contain dangerous harmful messages and manipulation. They can be addictive just like anything else can. Content matters a lot, and anything that makes delivering content easy comes with the risk that it will deliver something harmful. Books, TV, and social media have all been used intentionally to spread harm and encourage addiction. Most adults have at least some chance of protecting themselves, but children don't have those defenses developed.

It's a good idea to be aware of every form of media children consume.

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

#319

Post by tisdadd »

This is a fun setup, I have a child due in March and have been thinking through all the things to help make things not instant for learning patience as well. While I may still to DVDs for viewing, as I kept my collection building. I do have a floppy drive available and like this idea.

For those talking about not using TV much, or that the UI is slow, my setup is a cheap projector hooked into my sound system and hooking up a laptop when streaming as necessary. Really dislike the smart anything that can be used in other ways for the reasons I already saw mentioned, but it is hard to lag something that has no Internet by looking for ads and updates for sure.

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

#320

Post by eru »

autoexec wrote: post #315
eru wrote: post #277

> 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.

Right? This is basically just reinventing the VHS. The plus is that you get higher quality video and don't have to press the play and rewind button, but the disks are easier to lose/break (outside of the player). The real benefit (outside of being a fun project for a certain type of parent) is having a curated library of shows for kids that they can use themselves.

> The plus is that you get higher quality video and don't have to press the play and rewind button, but the disks are easier to lose/break (outside of the player).

Well, the disks here are just for fun: they just tell the player which of the stored movies to actually play.

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