Today I’m donating my streaming sticks. I got a ONN brand 2k one I bought for 15 and I got an Amazon Firestick 4K I got for $3 from a thrift store because they didn’t know what it was.

And I love the concept of stream sticks, I really do. Too fucking bad that corporate interests got in the way and now everything has to have a bundle of ads at every damn turn. Not even some of the things I’m subscribed to is free from ads because this is the future apparently, we’re here.

Shame because I don’t want to let these go and even if I were to subscribe to Netflix’s ad-free subscription, that’s only one source. Why do that when I can just grab a long HDMI cable, plug it into my desktop and to my TV and I can watch everything that’s there, without ads because of the extensions I use to block ads.

  • Doordash and other similar services. My order is wrong 9 times out of 10, and the price isn’t justifiable. I’d rather save the frustration and money and just make ramen or similar meals when I’ve been smoking or drinking and shouldn’t drive to fulfill the munchies.

  • I think I’m at my wit’s end with “smart” things.

    Roomba? It takes less time to just vacuum the place than it does for the fucking vacuum to realize it’s been humping the same chair leg for most of its battery charge.

    Assistants?

    “Hey Google, open the bedroom blinds”

    “Sorry, that device hasn’t been configured yet”

    “Hey Google, open the bedroom blinds”

    “Sure, turning 2 lights on”

    “Hey Google, open the bedroom blinds”

    “Sure, opening the blinds”

    • I feel the same, but my anger is scoped to cloud-connected “smart” things.

      Like you, I can’t stand my iRobot gear. My Roomba hasn’t updated its map in over a year because it always has “some problems” (probably due to pushing everything to the jank us-east-1 data center).

      On the other hand my recent Aqara gear is very nice but it took me time to finally call it quits on Z-Wave beforehand.

    • I consciously avoid having to control any of my smart home devices using voice or other weird methods. Everything is toggled with buttons or fully automatic. This works pretty well for me and voice control is still available but it’s only optional. Sure you might ask why even make it smart then? Because I’m a nerd and because I keep forgetting to turn lights off when I leave. Also smart thermostats are great.

      Though I also gave up on my vacuum robot. Due to rearranging some furniture I had to move the vacuum base and let it rescan my apartment. But now for some reason it never gets past the dining room and aimlessly swirls around the table until the battery is dead, never finishing the room scan. On top of that it picked up a small pebble or something and scratched the floor. I had enough of it.

    • Roomba? It takes less time to just vacuum the place than it does for the fucking vacuum to realize it’s been humping the same chair leg for most of its battery charge.

      If you are willing to put in some work, Valetudo is fantastic: https://valetudo.cloud/

      My two robot vacuums have been working for 5 years with no intervention other than emptying the bin every 2 weeks and dusting off the sensors when it complains.

      Assistants?

      Same as above, if you are willing to put in some work, Home Assistant includes a voice assistant and they ship devices now with everything preinstalled so you can plug in and go: https://www.home-assistant.io/green/

    • Smart-anything is just a dumb novelty design because rich techie users are about as wowed as dangling plastic toy keys infront of an infant. Nearly nothing is anymore useful when it becomes ‘smart’ and largely gets that title because of it’s capability to connect to the internet and just become another app for data-farming services to nag you over.

      These things are just also another way to rob people more money because they’re going to have more models, the company is going to talk down to you for being filthy and not upgrading. You’re going to spend a lot of time dealing with a lot of variables that people already have presented for having a smart device and this is where the argument of “old is always better” comes into play.

  • Keeping in touch with people. I have no idea what causes it but people just stop talking to me. I’ve lost touch with so many friends and family members over the years that in a lot of ways its just not worth the effort to make new ones. Which gets pretty lonely but I don’t see an alternative.

    I realize that part of it is my fault as I’m not the best at keeping up with people either, but I at least make the effort with the few friends and family I’m trying to keep so I don’t lose absolutely everyone. The only exception is work colleagues and my mother who I have a strained relationship with.

    I’m sure the work colleagues will fade if I ever leave the company, as has happened every single time before. I’m sure you can guess why my relationship with my mother isn’t something I necessarily want to improve.

    I’ve received multiple reasons that people never message, usually some variant of forgetting to respond due to being too busy. But what’s especially frustrating are the people that say, I think of you often and things of that nature, but that never seems to translate into, “let’s see how they’re doing by reaching out”. Adding to this is how I’ve never had much luck making friends so it’s not like I’ve ever had a large pool to draw from.

  • The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. I just can’t get into them at all. I’ve tried half a dozen times and just got bored after a few hours of gameplay time.

    I’ve accepted that I just don’t like them. Games should be fun, not feel like a chore to play.

    • Felt the same. I dropped the Witcher after 10 hours. A solid try, in my estimation. I usually quit games around the 2 hour mark if I’m not feeling it.

      I was in a bit of a depressive rut when I started c2077 so I just kinda plowed through the beginning not knowing if I didn’t enjoy it because of the game itself or if I was on the edge of offing myself. Whichever reason it was, after the world opened up a bit I started to fall in love with the characters and story about 15 hours in. Which is a huge ask. If you’re into games as a storytelling medium, it’s a 10/10. On a mechanical level, it’s about a 7/10 for me. It’s ok throughout, and even really great for some of the set pieces.

    • I’ve had to drop Monster Hunter World, it’s a game that I was so enamored by to play, had it on my wishlist for months and months. Seen many of my friends play it. I really dig what’s there. I finally had it gifted to me by a friend and I gave it an honest try.

      Who at Capcom, decided it was the best idea to not give that game a way to pause the game or skip the cut scenes? Like, I hope that person is fired because that is how you just brush away all of the patience one has for waiting for things to finally give you back control.

      And it’s because of that, I now have to leave it collecting digital dust.

      There were also many popular games that people have recommended so highly to me before that I just got and tried playing and ended up not liking. I ended up finding myself revisiting free games, older games and vice versa than playing what people recommended me. I’m sorry but a lot of AAA games are just boring experiences that have drained all of the good ideas that could’ve been much more.

      • My issue with MH was the extensive grinding. Getting a full set of armor from a monster could take dozens of kills, with each kill being 30-60 minutes. If I knew I could get it after a flat 10 or even 20 victories it’d be fine, but you’re at the mercy of 5% drop rates sometimes.

    • For me it’s Kingdom Come: Deliverance. I just gave up again after bouncing off it for like the third time. On paper it’s exactly the sort of thing I should be into, but that game just doesn’t respect your time.

  • Dealing with people who have a problem with me, but will refuse to tell me why. Either tell me, so we can discuss it or stop wasting my time. I no longer have the patience with the whole “read between the lines” bullshit.

  • Dual-booting, modding, or debloating Windows. And anything but the LTSC edition. It’ll all fall apart within a year given the nature of Windows 10 updates. Projects like Ameliorated, while well-intentioned, are a security mess waiting to happen since you have to disable any and all updates.

    So I bit the bullet on an extra laptop, exiled any Windows-specific projects, files, etc. to it and slapped on a copy of LTSC. I consider the machine compromised and only use it for what absolutely depends on Windows.

  • Slackware Linux. For a while I thought, when it boots up KDE with a browser you’re basically done, and it’s kinda cool running the oldest surviving Linux distro.
    The simplicity under the hood is kinda cool, too.
    But every single thing I tried to get working on top of the base install (Flatpak, Steam, Slackbuilds, energy management, etc…) was a fight, and at some point I thought “fuck this, all these issues were solved 15 years ago by others.”

    • Yeah, I get you. I hug very hard to the more popular Linux distros to be more user-ready than what feels like 98% of the rest of the Linux distros out there. Where you’ve got to have a Google search ready at every turn in hopes enough information is connected to resolve any and every problem you may have because you picked a distro that either isn’t supported well or poor documentation or everyone else gives it zero fucks.

  • Burger King. They’ve messed up orders, burned food, and drowned stuff in mayonnaise too many times to tolerate.

    Now I just cook frozen burger patties on the stove, and tell myself that their sides were never all that great anyway.

    • My therapist told me that family members can’t be replaced. I disagree. They can be replaced. They only become titles but titles also can be ignored.

      You don’t have to associate with, acknowledge or interact with the biological family members if they’ve proven to have been a contractual mess of toxicity in your life.

      I’ve replaced members of my ‘real’ family and I got better people. People who care and support. I recommend it, to anyone.

      • Yes, thankfully my therapist doesn’t say that but she does seem to say it’s all on me to deal with and change since I can’t change them, which is fair.

        Thankfully I have a few folks helping me escape them, but it’s a slow process.

        • I finally blocked my mom’s phone number earlier this month. It’s only taken me 7 years since she blew up at me in a way she couldn’t/wouldn’t take back.

          It can be a slow journey and you might question it as you go, but it’s worthwhile. And more people than you might expect are estranged from their families. I used to worry that my IRL acquaintances and friends would judge me for it, but nope.

  • Z-Wave. I could never get it working quite right despite purchasing highly recommended Aeotec stuff.

    The MultiSensor 7s and door sensors would always report a battery level of 100%, fall off the network, and do other crazy stuff. I spent a year with a Z-Stick 7 before finally bailing a buying a fifth generation stick.

    Firmware updates would take weeks because they just wouldn’t install. Constantly factory resetting them never fixed anything either.

    I really hate to say it, but Zigbee ended up working much better despite living in a 2.4GHz interference hell hole.

    • You just gotta clear the biter spawners around your factory so pollution doest trigger a ton of waves over and over.

      Once you get a car drive really far in each direction because nest you have discovered don’t evolve from time passing/pollution/killing spawners. Bring walls if you can and seal up choke points so you get peace of mind and can work on what’s important.

      Oh, and look into how to make a BUS. My first playthrough was full spaghetti. The BUS saved my life. There are guides on YouTube