Out of curosity, how was the weather in your end of the world? We had the same thing happen this year, but mostly because it was unseasonably warm.

Granted, it was also 'cause we had a fog machine this year, but the weather played a big part.

Start here for inspiration: https://piratebox.cc/faq

Non-alcoholic gin and tonics are the shit. If you’re legit looking for non-alcoholic drinks and like G&Ts give it a try.

This was my thinking as well, plus addressing the ‘solution for those without IT experience’ bit. Search for video/article on removing wireless connectivity hardware, grab your screwdriver and get to work.

Still takes some work, obviously, and a lot of people are scared to void warranties/open up consumer electronics, but from the outside it sounds more straight-forward than futzing about with network settings. IMO worth it if concerned about the connectivity bits, willing to do it and the price is right for the TV as a dumb TV.

Alternatively, use used dumb TVs for as long as you can.

Serious question: How much of a brick risk is opening up one of these smart tvs and ripping out the wifi card? Can’t connect to the internet if you don’t have the hardware to do so.

(Obviously pretty high if legit caveman-style ripping out. Could also be really hard, I have no idea).

Aaand Mill Street is now boycotted.

Illegal in Canada too - if it’s not 20 +/- 0.5 oz, you can’t call it a pint.

Can’t say I see the word ‘pint’ at pubs very often anymore, though.

I wonder…

Suppose you had a company that, at it’s core, was closer a vps provider than anything else. People who want to host videos on the service pay a fee. The hosts can solicit money via the usual means (patreon, personally working with advertisers, merch, whatever), but part of the service agreement is that the hosting service itself cannot place their own ads. You also have some backup system in place where after x amount of time, videos get archived to some outside service (Internet Archive, some peer-to-peer mechanism - no idea what the options are). This is to at least try to mitigate storage limitations and other problems with retaining a large back catalogue.

All of this is said from a position of deep ignorance - but could something like this work? My stumbling block is anyone running a company is eventually going to need/want an additional revenue stream and ads are an obvious first stop. For this to exist it would pretty much take an activist owner not budging and ruling with an iron fist. That, and would such a service be able to offer hobbyist hosts a fair price, given this is where a lot of people start?

I pay $25/month for a single line that gives me unlimited talk, text, and data (Visible). Couldn’t be happier.

cries in Canadian

The Matrix comment there gave me a moment of sudden clarity. Literally never considered that interpretation until now.

So hold up - does anyone have a better source? Who is this guy? What’s his story? How much influence does he wield?

Pricing for the large scale theatre chains in Canada is similarly brutal.

The only movies I go to now are at the local independent cinema. Cheaper per ticket, membership that gets you access to two free members-only mystery screenings a month, the building itself is fucking gorgeous and I swear they grease their popcorn machine with crack.

Went a long time pretty much swearing off theatres entirely, but COVID gave me a bit of a “You need to support nice things that you want to keep existing” shake, so I’m happy to toss them a couple of bucks for the experience once and a while.