On 22 June 2022 Chromecast with Google TV was released in New Zealand – available through ‘big box’ stores (to quote an Americanism) such as Noel Leeming (where I bought mine) as a replacement for the built in ‘Smart TV’ software (Samsung uses Tizen). The problem with my television is that it doesn’t support 5GHz WiFI which requires me to run an ethernet cable from my television to my router which isn’t ideal where as I was able to hook up the Chromecast with Google TV to my television and connect to my 5GHz WiFi network without any problems.
Once all hooked up there was a 758MB download to update it to the latest version. I was holding out for an updated version but I decided that what ever improvements may exist in a theoretical future product, I doubt it’ll be a massive improvement to justify holding off till its launch. All the apps are rock solid and the device is working great, fast and responsive – funny enough I’ve found it more responsive than my Apple TV. If you’re wanting an affordable alternative to Apple TV that is just as good then the Chromecast with Google TV does the job.
Another interesting thing that has happened recently is Twitter launching Notes (link) which will enable long articles to be written as a single article rather than it being spread across multiple tweets that are sewn together. It’ll be interesting to see whether this poaches some end users from Facebook as Twitter add features to make their service more comprehensive beyond just microblogging capabilities. It’ll be interesting to see whether, at some point, Twitter offer a messaging app that is seperate from their Twitter app for those who want it or whether they’ll keep it part of the main app particularly if the rumours of Musk wanting end to end encryption, maybe utilising Signal to achieve that. Although I am on Mastodon I also keep my Twitter account just in case things change but most of the time these days I am on my Mastodon account where the vibe is a lot nicer than on Twitter.
I’m going to write up an article about the whole overturning of Roe vs Wade but I’ll do that tomorrow. All I can say is that this overturning of Roe vs Wade is part of a much longer plan that the right wing have been working on for decades. If you believe that the rolling back of rights will stop at Roe vs Wade then, to quote a great Americanism, “I have a bridge to sell you”. This is what happens when you keep telling yourself that “I’m not interested in politics” – well, you may not be interested in politics but politics are very much interested in you.
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