I will never forget Astroneer, it’s amazing.

This is exciting news, but the abbreviation makes me want to go to the Amigara Fault.

This is a video of a seal getting startled.

The human recording seems tedious, but I love the video nonetheless.

Could you elaborate? I’m sincerely unsure what you’re saying. Thanks in advance!

Not only is this true and annoying, but other things about the ads are getting worse, too.

I recently had to factory reset my TV and, after the first time I opened the YouTube app, immediately had to find the “don’t play video preview” option. It worked, except for the huge banner ad at the top of the list of videos, which still saw fit to play with deafening sound when I didn’t immediately change the video selection. I can’t find a setting to disable this.

Also, I’ve noticed the “fewer ads for this long video” message popping up during videos longer than thirty minutes (and now it seems like longer than twenty minutes). Not only is that message condescending like they’re doing me a favor, but I’m pretty sure it’s not true, at least not by much; and the ads are definitely longer and mostly unskippable.

Like someone else says in this thread, it feels like extortion.

You’re allowed to add buttons? I thought modern phones only took them away.

Hah! I like that comparison, very apt.

I am married. My wife is concerned because I enjoy and own an unreasonable quantity of video games and books; and we have a toddler with a growing interest in both as well.

My wife says that our next house won’t have a library, it will just be built from books.

On the plus side, one of my favorite authors - Terry Pratchett - once said “I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who has enough room for all of their books.” I would have liked to be friends with him.

What if I massively overbuy both games and books without consistently consuming either?

The prevalence of 45 and 47 among those numbers is kind of amusing.

Happy to be of service, hope you love it.

This is essentially the premise of Stop Killing Games but in a different world.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding your complaint, but it is available on PC?

edit: s/actually/available/

Autocorrect and inattention are not my friends recently.

A long time ago, I saw a post on Reddit from a user saying (paraphrasing because it was a long long time ago) “the only thing I want from a TV is an HDMI capable rectangle.”

When my toddler was much younger, they would take a bath in warm water, then get out in my well air conditioned house, shivering violently and happily declining any attempt to warm them up. We would always end up warming them up in the end, of course.

Nowadays they’re a bit older and will seek out the biggest pile of blankets they can find at any opportunity.

What about flying a kite in the dark?

And depending on the size of your lot, maybe you could use a reel mower. They’re nearly silent!

You could also use a scythe, but that sounds like a lot more work.

It sounds like you already have this problem solved, but just in case:

Back when I still used Windows, the workaround was just to make sure you didn’t have a network connection when installing the OS. This could be done by unplugging the NIC during install on a physical system or by deleting the NIC in a VM (or other ways, obviously, but these were the simplest). It still took some convincing, but then you could make your username whatever you wanted.

I don’t know if that still works - it’s been years - but if you still use Windows and still have that problem, this might be worth a try.

edit: program -> problem

Two things coming together finalized my choice to leave Windows:

• the ability to play almost every game on Linux thanks to Valve
• the fact that you couldn’t create a local account during a Windows install (back when I discovered this you still technically could with some workarounds; I don’t know if you still can but you shouldn’t have to put in any effort IMHO)

That is my preference, but my wife says she prefers only one step (turning on and using the TV) over multiple (turning on the TV, turning on the secondary system and using multiple controllers) so we go with the simpler setup per her request.

I did put my TVs on a Wi-Fi network separate from my main one so, while they do show ads as much as my pihole allows, at least they’re theoretically only spying on each other.

It’s entirely plausible that this is the case for your wife’s family and others, but it’s hard for me to imagine a household without at least one non mobile computer. However, I can.

Without non mobile internet, though? Again, I can imagine it … But it seems wrong.

It shouldn’t be so hard; I was around before the internet was prevalent. My life now involves constant internet access, though, so I guess it’s weird to me that some people have lives that don’t - and especially that that might be the average.

One must always remember the words of George Carlin, I suppose.

Is that really the average user? Especially not having internet service at home? I can reluctantly but relatively easily believe the “no computer” bit but, average or not, I don’t think I know anyone without some kind of non-mobile Internet.