My 1985 analogue TV set is curved too. And has a woodgrain finish too!!!
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I wonder if Iâll get visited by SWAT if I say something inappropriate to my girlfriend infront of my TV, like âWhat a bombastic weather out there, letâs go outside, raise some Hell and paint the town redâ. Or at least, we have to beware of those words: http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-prism-keywords-for-domestic-spying-2013-6?IR=T
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Given how few terrorists are actually out there, how big the terrorist-hunting apparatus is, and that it needs some visible results to justify its existence, there is a definite reason for worries.
Matter of time until they get âquotasâ, like the traffic cops do.
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except that manufacturers liberally interpret disabling one and any sensors in your devices as disable whatever feature or benefit the âdisabledâ element provides to the individual consumer, but by all means, keep sending, storing and cross-analyzing the data from the aforementioned sensors for the benefit of any and all parties willing to shell out for the invasion.
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And thatâs why you need your home router to be more capable than just a dumb packet forwarding box. Running logging, nullrouting, and DNS faking is becoming a must-have set of features.
A distinct possibility is employing a Raspberry Pi class board with a USB-Ethernet and/or USB-wifi dongle in the packet shuffling duty. OpenWRT, a distro geared towards embedded routers, comes as a raspi-compatible package, too.
As a general rule, try to avoid things you cannot connect into as a root. Or have such device under your full control between the Net and the devices not under your control.
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Iâm sure youâve all seen this, @Skeptic and @ChuckV, but this seems relevant:
There is a book on this, too, which I need to read, Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman.
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convex =/= concave!
Forget visiting your kitchenâŚcould you come visit my kitchen, please? With a stop-off at the family desktop? If you explain very slowly and I take notes, I should be able to keep whatever you set up running properly.
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Are concave cathode ray tubes hard to make? I remember when flatter CRTs were all the rage.
You get all sorts of issues with the electron beam path. If the surface is part of a sphere, the deflection of electrons translates linearly to the position. Flatten the surface, add distortion that has to be compensated. Concave surface adds even more distortion, and the electron beam smears as it impacts under a more oblique angle.
I believe itâs technically doable. I am not certain if it is worth the cost.
With LCDs, this gets easier (of course for limited values of âeasierâ, as adjusting the manufacturing from straight, flat surfaces to curved ones may not be entirely trivial).
What about the physical integrity of the tube?
This will be a bit of an issue; a convex surface confined from sides with vacuum inside is loaded in compression, and glass can withstand much more in compression than in tension. A concave surface, in turn, is loaded in tension. But the solution here is using a thicker glass; so there will be merely a weight penalty.
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Iâve got a 39 inch LCD. I can move it by myself, quite easily. A CRT of that size, while having some advantages over the LCD, (black levels) would weigh more than I do.
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I had enough of hauling my 17" CRT screens. Cf. an easily portable 24" LCD. Just cannot be compared.
The cost of raw materials and handling itself makes LCD much cheaper in comparison.
You didnât pay extra for the elves? Get a job, hippie.
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The argument in their favor(aside from âlooks cool at trade shows, hopefully helps the booth babes distract the audience from the fact that everyone is selling basically the same rectangular pixel-battery so customers will be buying purely on price by Quarter 3 of this yearâ) is that, if you are sitting close enough to a large enough screen, the areas of the screen toward the edges will be noticeably further from your eyes, and noticeably âoff-angleâ, unless the screen curves a bit to compensate for that. Whether this is actually relevant in practice is less clear.
Of course, the downside is that, for the standard âTV at a distance, everyone on the couch can see itâ use case, curvature messes with everyone except the viewer in the center unless it is so gentle as to be largely cosmetic; which cheaper flat panels occupy less space and keep distortions within acceptable levels for all.
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⌠but we are talking about the exact same thing. Or do you have another example of BoingBoing fear-mongering?
Ok, what was BoingBoings motive?
( you make it too easy, but I believe in you )
Alex Jones is a known fearmonger. However, they usually get the keywords right, so they are a good starting point for further search for more reliable sources. Inforwarsâ value is as an early warning indicator that usually goes off with a false alarm but sometimes gets a useful info nugget.
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ButâŚis it so much a life choice, as just a technological preference?
It used to be, of those who said they had no TV in their house, I would assume a quiet cathode-ray-less life of reading and familial interaction. But now, I usually find that kind of statement just means they are watching pretty much what I am, but on their computer screen, though perhaps with a bit more control due to the interface (though my TiVO gives me quite a bit of thatâ commercial skipping, collecting only shows I deem worth watchingâand the Netflix experience on a TV is essentially the same as that on a computer). And smart TVs, or those equipped with Rokus and the like, are pretty much like a computer in that regard anyway, including the ability to watch crap on youtube and waste time on the internet.
So, unless someone says âI donât have a televisionâ and "I donât ever watch âhulu/netflix/youtube/etc.â I donât really ascribe it much weight in terms of a life choice or taste-issue so much as one of their preference of delivery.
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Look at it this wayâŚItâs probably better that Samsung explicitly warns you to be careful of what you say. Fairly responsible thing to put in a EULA if you ask me. Most people donât have a clue what using a third party service for speech recognition means. They just think the TV magically understands what you say to it.
Iâm not a fan of Smart TV simply because I know Iâm paying for something that will have limited support and planned obsolescence. My current TV has a big, beautiful 60" picture and a few apps (basic Netflix, rather crappy DLNA player, horrendous web browser) that were outdated the day I bought it. Who cares? I have boxes for that stuff. There were much âsmarterâ models available, but nothing in that size/price range with the same picture quality.
