Surveys, Polls, and Other Interruptions

Surveys, Polls, and Other Interruptions

Email Surveys

I get a constant stream of email surveys from businesses that I have used. The surveys usually start with something like "would you recommend this business to a friend?". That indicates to me is that all that they care about is sales, not improving their product. Furthermore, what I want is not necessarily what my friends want. Delete.

If still going, I will start answering the questions, each one rating some aspect of their product/service. These aspects rarely get to the things that I care about. After about ten - Delete.

If still going, maybe they offer me the option to write something. If not - Delete.

So now I can give them some useful information. If I still care about the business, I will take some time to answer. I wonder if they will read my answer.

Phone Polls

I get calls regularly that are polls. My answer - "I don't do polls" and hang up.

To politicians who use these polls - tell me your positions and I will vote for you or not. Don't choose your positions based on polls. My big issue with politicians is that when they say something to me, it is them telling me what they think I want to hear. I want to know what they really think. Well, another big issue is stupidity.

To news services that use polls that are biased with leading questions to push a narrative - I'm not participating.

Twitter

And on a related topic. To news services that use Twitter to judge public opinion - I don't use Twitter and I don't care what people who do use Twitter think.

Spam Phone Calls

I am not selling my house to you. And I do not want you to turn my web page into the kind of garbage that most web pages have become.

Web Pages

And speaking of web pages - if I am looking at your web page on my phone, that likely means that I do not want to use your app. Please stop annoying me with nag screens that ask me to use your app.

And to the European Union - your requirement that web pages nag me about whether to allow cookies is far more annoying than the cookies. Why couldn't you have requested a small browser switch that lets people choose to allow or disallow cookies, saved for each URL. My search for relief found this Firefox browser add-on - "I Still Don't Care About Cookies". It doesn't look optimal but it might lower my stress level a bit.

Television Tech

Television Tech

In a previous post, I complained about the difficulty of turning closed captions on and off on my television. This was primarily so that I could watch a basketball game without captions covering the hoop. It led me to think that maybe I could find a TV that had closed captions on/off on the remote control. And a friend suggested that soundbars offer TV speech enhancement. So I set out to get a new and better system.

I have room for a 32 inch TV and 26 inches for a sound bar. (Not that I need or want anything bigger.) This shuts me out of high end TVs.

A few TVs have "CC" on the remote. Smart TVs abound - these have internal handling of streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. I use, on a rotating basis, Netflix, Prime Video, Paramount+, Peacock, and Hulu. Many smart TVs have voice control, for which I have little use.

Soundbars replace a TV's speakers with a bar shaped package that sits in front of or below the TV. They have a several speakers, built in amplification, sound processing, and multiple interfaces to TVs. Not being limited to the thin packaging of modern TVs, and with signal processing, they can put out better sound than a typical TV.

I would have liked to get a soundbar to use on my old TV before getting a new TV. But you need a compatible audio interface - optical or HDMI-ARC (ARC is audio return channel). These isolate the audio signal and send it to the soundbar. HDMI-ARC is newer and has the bandwidth needed for seven channel audio. Only five channels for optical. Two channels is enough for me.

So a Samsung 1080p smart TV and Sonos Ray seemed like they would get the job done. After some work, the Sonos is doing pretty good. Default, it has boomy bass that ruins the sound. I set the bass way down and the treble way up. Then the sound was okay. I had to look online to figure out how to make the soundbar volume adjustable from the TV remote, but it was easy. Then I found speech enhancement. A huge improvement. And it works well with neutral tone controls.

Then I was looking through the Sonos phone app (required to set up the soundbar) and wanted to figure out how do turn speech enhancement on and off. It was not there. I did an exhaustive search of the menus. Finally a web search. You must have the TV turned on and sending sound. Then you just look in System and choose your device and the option appears. Sigh. Couldn't they have put a note in the app explaining that little detail.

On to the TV. Very small captions. And "enlarge" didn't do anything. Very confusing controls and very small text. The "smart" channels included Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Peacock, but NOT Paramount+. I couldn't see any way to download an app for Paramount+. I put my Roku stick into HDMI 1. Works well but I have to use two remotes. I was hoping to get it down to one.

Anyway, the captions are useless and I will return the TV tomorrow. Insignia makes a dumb (i.e. not "smart") TV with a remote that looks useful (has a CC button). 720p resolution. Two remotes required, but that's my current situation. I should get easy caption on/off and enhanced sound. Maybe not enough to justify the price of the Sonos Ray.

The Next Day

Best Buy makes it very easy to return things. I returned the Samsung and got the Insignia in 15 minutes.

YES! The Insignia dumb TV is great. Reasonable captions with easy caption on/off. Easy to configure. Easy to set up with the soundbar. The picture is as good as my old TV.

Of course basketball season is about over. This year's UK team is wildly inconsistent - not good for doing well in tournaments. Likely won't need the CC button for nine months.

Lessons Learned

Getting a smart TV means giving up useful buttons on the remote. If that's okay, make sure that the smart TV has all of the streaming services that you want. Otherwise you will have to add an external device anyway.

If you want a high quality, high resolution TV, it will likely be smart. And you will likely get a stupid remote control with it. Perhaps voice control will make up for the stupid remote. But I find voice control to be annoying.

You can't win.

I wonder if there is some accessibility option that helps people who have lost their voice use voice control. Maybe a lip reading TV or a TV that understands sign language.

Tomorrow

Oh no - boxes, packing material, old hardware scattered about my living room. Cleanup day.

 A Tip for Streaming Services (2023-03-16)

I just signed up for Netflix. The menu showed three options - 720p with ads ($6.99), 1080p ($15.99), and 4k ($19.99). My TV is 720p, so there's no point in paying for any higher resolution. But I'm willing to pay to avoid ads. Ah - a button at the bottom - show all options. This displayed the above three options plus one more. 720p without ads - $9.99. I'll take it. The higher resolution options allow watching on multiple devices simultaneously, but I have no use for that feature.

I have also purchased episodes of shows on Amazon Prime Video. If you look carefully you can find (at least in some cases) 720p versions for a significantly lower price than 4k or 1080p versions.

What is Wrong with Linux?

What is Wrong with Linux?

My Chrome version is very old. I have been using Firefox.

Chrome says it is out of date, can't update, must reinstall. Okay, I follow the link to download a new version.

Downloaded the .deb file (used by Ubuntu Linux) and ran it.

And? What do I do from this screen???

Apparently I can't do anything since the .deb file MIGHT be a security risk. I trust it - Chrome led me to it. Linux doesn't trust it. What do I do?

I clicked on the yellow circle. This led me through some incomprehensible way of telling Gnome that the .deb file was trustworthy. How many hours will it take me to decipher the procedure and make it work? I have no idea.

I will stick with Firefox.

As much as I dislike Windows and Microsoft, I must say that I have never had a problem like this. I can't remember having a problem installing anything under Windows.

Update 16 May 2023

A tip from the internet and I finally have the current version of Chrome installed.

Uninstall Chrome, from the command line - sudo dpkg -r google-chrome-stable .

Install Chrome by double clicking on the previously downloaded .deb file. Now you still get the screen that says it's potentially unsafe, but there is also an install button. It works! I don't know if it's unsafe, although I expect that any version of any browser is unsafe. And I don't know what will happen when another update is needed.