Excellent, the small mind control device that makes you think that is working 
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The mind control device is the TV itself.
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Time for a universal remote?
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Thank you!
That is indeed what the remote looked like.
And Itâs true that it did not seem to be very reliable, but I always liked the idea that it didnât require batteries.
We had an old top-load VCR that came with a wired remote, it also had a dial tuner, yet this TV I encountered predated that VCR, yet seemed to have used more advanced technology. I always wondered why they gave up on that design.
Anyhow, I always thought the remote could also serve a secondary function as a pet training tool. Have Lassie go fetch the newspaper at the push of a button.
I still donât have one of these models, but newer Roku remotes have a headphone jack.
I thought about getting one a while back, as I have a Yamaha amp sans remote, and the settings went mental on it, and a used replacement remote costs more than buying a used amp and remote on eBay. Fortunately, it transpires leaving it unplugged long enough allows the batteries that allow it to store settings to run down, and sanity is restored. Sometimes, I hate the future.
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I occasionally get to use a remarkable remote control - our radio telescopes can be driven by an engineer via the Internet, so I can command the positioning of a 40 foot diameter antenna dish from a hundred miles away!
But only when the remote isnât lost in the couch or the batteries arenât deadâŚ
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Jingling your keys was the original tv-b-gone.
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Thanks for the flashback to art school. This is the most subjective navel-gazing on BB since âwhat your typing style says about youâ.
Remotes are cultural artifacts, objects that contain significant information about the societies they emerge from and impact. They have a lot to teach us, for instance, about changes in US gender roles and family dynamics during the twentieth century. They reflect the ways that broadcast mediaâs presence in the home challenges longstanding ideas about what counts as masculine and feminine, public and private, within and beyond our control.
If you say so. How does this fit with the concept that most remotes are mass-produced in far away lands for sale in tons of differing countries?
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Just about all AV receivers have a front-panel button mash you can do to factory reset them. Google can help. Also, if you want an excellent universal remote I hightly recommend any of the Logitech Harmony models.
The Harmony I have has a wifi-connected hub that can blast out IR and Bluetooth. No line of sight required and there are apps for mobile devices. Seems superfluous, but it is nice to have everything powered up before you even come downstairs.
I hope there is a good password on that.
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Itâs a bit unfair to criticize her for something she wasnât trying to achieve: her piece made no pretense of being a history of the remote control, and sheâs probably not very interested in the technological aspects of it. On the other hand, I donât think itâs particularly good writing.
It kind of does, though not a complete one. The brief history is merely from a cultural perspective rather than a technological one.
Not really buying the thesis. Using the remote to control a smart TV, which uploads our viewing habits, really does communicate our âchoices and preferencesâ to the media, which data they then use to scheme to extract the maximum amount of money from us at the least cost to them. I wouldnât call that democracy, though.
Mostly, the essay seems like a nearly random assemblage of blather based on an academic key word search for âremote controlâ.
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Then I perhaps misunderstood what she was trying to achieve. Anybody wants to hazard a guess?
The thing with technology is that you cannot divorce its other impacts with its technological aspects; these very aspects govern the technologyâs behavior, which then determines everything else.
And the important cultural omissions of the DIY/hobbyist sector where the ideas and first implementations were born does not exactly improve her result as well.
Aye, thatâs what the lad I bought the amp off told me, but could I bollocks find it. Fortunately, starving it into submission whilst using the emergency backup amp works fine 
Why not removing the battery and shorting its power bus, like itâs done with misbehaving PC BIOS setting? (At least with those that rely on a SRAM instead of EEPROM?)
Iâll always take a medical tack, and try non-invasive procedures first. Gives the patient a better chance of survival 
