I’m so tired of the “e” word. Most of the people tossing it around, like the commenter up above, apparently don’t even know what it actually means.

Here’s a tip: It doesn’t refer to something that got more expensive and / or moved services around in existing tiers like MS did with GamePass. You can read Cory’s Book or check out the wikipedia page for the actual definition. Go read one of them and then Stop abusing the fucking term!

For so many of my use cases the Echo and Echo Show products by Amazon are exactly what is needed. For instance in the living my full sized echo is ideal for voice commands and playing music but in my bedroom a Show 5 / 8 is what you want in order to see the time, play music, and have wakeup alarms. I wish I could either find a company building a generic version of them or find a way to reload them to work with HA instead of Amazon. :/

I’d buy Android tablets and run the HA Companion App on them but it still doesn’t have wakeword support.

I could build a small fleet of rPIs in touch screen cases but even then you have to bolt on a microphone and speakers so they still wouldn’t have a finished / polished look.

I have no problem spending a reasonable, or even maybe unreasonable, amount of money to get a nice looking Wyoming Satellite but I’ll be darned if I can figure out HOW. I’m actually kind of astonished that no over-seas manufacturer has started making something like a gutted Echo / Echo Show that you can slide a raspberry pi board into.

I’m fine with NPUs / TPUs (AI-enhancing hardware) being included with systems because it’s useful for more than just OS shenanigans and commercial generative AI. Do I want Microsoft CoPilot Recall running on that hardware? No.

However I’ve bought TPUs for things like Frigate servers and various ML projects. For gamers there’s some really cool use cases out there for using local LLMs to generate NPC responses in RPGs. For “Smart Home” enthusiasts things like Home Assistant will be rolling out support for local LLMs later this year to make voice commands more context aware.

So do I want that hardware in there so I can use it MYSELF for other things? Yes, yes I do. You probably will eventually too.

“Enshittification” isn’t simply raising prices and moving features between service tiers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Yeah, it was pretty obvious that this was going to happen sooner or later. It doesn’t meet the definition of “enshitification” though. The platform, Xbox Live, isn’t losing functionality it’s just getting more expensive. There’s also no obvious shift to favor business customers.

It’s a pretty standard price hike with a small side helping service tiers changing features.

I’m not HAPPY about it of course.

When I opened the page in FireFox I was prompted to manage cookies. I clicked on that and then clicked the “site vendor” tab.

I got the latest version to work on Linux Mint but don’t ask me how because I can’t tell you.

I’d like to read the article but holy hell there’s over 700 companies in their tracking cookie policy!

Luckily there’s an archive of it: https://archive.ph/Yrcda

What are you referring to when you say "when can we use the weather forecast on our dashboards? "

I’ve probably got the simplest and most “Out of the Box” dashboard stuff going on you can imagine and I’ve got forecast data showing with automations that run against it. What am I missing?

I wouldn’t expect HDMI 3 given the HDMI group are openly hostile to open source implementations of HDMI 2.1.

It just takes a company with sufficient market power, like Valve, to get involved. For example Android had this same problem in the early days, then Google realized that their OS required it for market adoption and found a way to get it done.

I understand that it may not be possible but that doesn’t stop me from wanting it. :)

Something tells me that here in the United States of Greed, such a thing is ‘un-possible’, legally speaking.

It’s not only possible it happens reasonably often. So often in fact that the “poison pill” idiom was created by companies who were doing just that.

Here’s a Harvard Law paper on it.

I don’t know if there’s any pre-built scripting out there (yet) for this but it’s relatively straight forward in Windows to use powershell and either look in the registry for the assigned dhcp options ( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dhcp\Parameters\Options) or check the routing table for illogical routes.

Assuming that you aren’t using split tunneling you could also have powershell check your external IP address for the expected result.

Another possibility is to grab the dhcp test tool from Github, run it in non-interactive mode and then parse it’s output. Something I find VERY interesting is that Andrey Baranov specifically added Option 121 to that tool in March of 2023!

With any of those it’s a matter of what you want to have happen when you detect the problem such as warning the user and disconnecting the vpn or attempting to mitigate the problem by reconfiguring the routing table.

I should point out that Option 121 is a legit thing and it does have valid uses so you can’t assume something nefarious just because it’s being used.

I’ll probably be scripting up a remediation over the next few days, I’ll try and remember to come back and share what I did.

I know you are making a funny comment but my Wife would be exceptionally displeased if I did that while she was watching “Outlander”. People who live alone don’t have this concern but for the rest of us a TV and it’s attached streaming box are not single user devices. :)

4K, Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos to start with. Then it needs an HDMI 3.x port along with support for a regular TV style Remote.

I meant it when I said I would like a “user customizable, privacy respecting Xbox.”, so basically any capability that an Xbox has (aside from Live obviously) is what I’m looking for and why I want Valve to officially bring back Steam Machines.

What are the missing pieces you’re still looking for?

The addition of JF or Plex, even with a Steam Dock, doesn’t turn a Steam Deck into a user customizable, privacy respecting Xbox.

For starters it needs integrated streaming apps. I don’t WANT to have to use a web browser to access streaming content. Next up those streaming apps need Audio and Video support for 4K resolutions, Dolby Vision / HDR, and Dolby Atmos. My Wife doesn’t want to watch Outlander in 1080p with stereo sound on a 65" 4k television and I don’t want to do it when I’m watching shows on Disney Plus.

How about an HDMI 3.x port? (Steam Dock is only 2.x).

It needs support for a normal tv style remote control. Game controllers are great but I’ve yet to find a half decent one that has volume and mute buttons.

The last time I checked a Steam Deck wouldn’t automatically start in a 10’ interface.

Please understand that I’m not bagging on the Steam Deck with these comments. It’s a damn capable device for mobile gaming but it wasn’t mean to be an HTPC and because of that its never going to function quite right if you try and make it be one.

An Xbox Series X absolutely murders a Steam Deck as an HTPC when used with commercial services but its not user customizable nor privacy respecting. That’s why I want Valve to bring back Steam Machines.

You have to use your internet-facing programs in a VM in Windows to achieve the same effect

Eh, there’s 20 different ways to detect DHCP Option 121 fuckery and once you know it’s happening its fairly trivial to stop. Any VPN client worth its salt will be updated in 60 days or less to fix this and existing VPN clients can be hardened against TunnelVision with some fairly simple scripting.

It’s a serious vulnerability but it’s hardly the unfixable world ender that the media has made it out to be.

Home Theater PC.

What you, @crawancon@lemm.ee and @mipadaitu@lemmy.world are missing is a TV isn’t necessarily a single user item.

Deck hooked to the TV to play a game? Great…now what happens when you leave and someone else wants to play?

The problem gets even more obvious if you use the Deck as an HTPC to stream content. How does anyone watch a show once the deck has gone walkabout?

I’d like the Steam Machine to come back with the addition of being an HTPC. Why? Because Valve is big enough to arm wrestle streaming services into releasing an official app.

I basically want a user customizable, privacy respecting Xbox.

we’ll essentially see Valve vs. Microsoft, as the former would much rather not have to rely on Windows

Valve has been working on exactly that for a decade now. It’s why they created SteamOS, Steam Machines, and Proton. The current high point of all that work is the Steam Deck but it’s possible we could see an official return of console like Steam Machines.

The underlying problem is if games stop getting Windows releases and instead go directly to Xbox / PlayStation / Nintendo consoles only.