Slashdot Mirror

Another good option is to re-use the existing wires in the wall to carry data. Ethernet-over-power-lines is cheap and works well (as long as your two endpoints are on the same circuit, and your appliances aren't too electrically noisy). Ethernet-over-phone-lines rather pricey but also works well (I'm able to get broadband data traffic up to the third story of my building from the garage using 1970's-era phone wiring with this device).

Another good option is to re-use the existing wires in the wall to carry data. Ethernet-over-power-lines is cheap and works well (as long as your two endpoints are on the same circuit, and your appliances aren't too electrically noisy). Ethernet-over-phone-lines rather pricey but also works well (I'm able to get broadband data traffic up to the third story of my building from the garage using 1970's-era phone wiring with this device).

While I'm sure this is a concern for some people, I'm questioning whether its a realistic concern.

The book "Death to Dust" (by an MD, and which is fascinating, BTW) examines this point in detail.

He comments that there is no certain method to certify being dead. Absent massive bodily damage we can't determine true death with any certainty.

There are many cases where the patient has no perceptible breathing or heart rhythm, but wakes up at a later time - in some cases living years longer.

The book refers to a study of Civil War coffins which were moved to a different cemetery, where they studied the buried corpses, and noted some 7% (IIRC) showed indications of having woken up after burial, such as scratches on the inside of the coffin.

Those corpses were buried in a time before embalming, and given the proportion of *those* burials who had severe traumatic damage due to the civil war, the proportion of dead with *no* traumatic damage who wake up inside a coffin would be proportionally higher.

Being pronounced dead when you're not actually dead appears to be more likely than one would imagine, at first glance.

Probably had something to do with this: The Crown. I know my stepson & his wife were pretty intrigued by John Lithgow's performance and they wanted to know more about him, so I ended up getting them a Churchill book for Christmas, which they appreciated.

I have the original on DVD. Lucas released it in the mid-2000s, bundled with the (then) latest recut version. There was much howling on Slashdot at the time because the originals were shipped letterboxed rather than anamorphic (the recut version was anamorphic) - supposedly they were digitizations of the official NTSC laserdisc copies, with Lucas saying he felt trying to replicate the original using surviving film copies was a waste of money.

So, no, VHS isn't the only test and plausibly rather a lot of under 35s have seen the original version given the DVD bundles came out only ten or so years ago.

"... the US's general posture in the world is wildly preferable..."

The U.S. government has many secret and semi-secret agencies. No one, literally no one, knows all of them, or which are badly managed. As we've seen, the secret and semi-secret U.S. government agencies often hire outside consulting companies that often have areas of sloppy management.

The U.S. government is, by some measures, such as money spent, the most violent in the world.

The U.S. government has killed, or caused the death of, an estimated 11,000,000 people since the end of the 2nd world war.

War is extremely profitable for some corporations. See the book, House of Bush, House of Saud, by Craig Unger. Bush and Cheney started a war that was profitable for them.

The U.S. has the largest percentage of its citizens in prison, of any country, in any century. The prison system is hugely profitable for prison corporations. Two of the many articles:

ACLU: With only 5% of the world's population, the U.S. has 25% of the world's prison population.

ThinkProgress: The United States Has The Largest Prison Population In The World -- And It's Growing.

If only someone else had thought of a way to use magnets to attach things to your ear! This is courage taken to a new level, we're talking iCourage levels here...

That's my thinking too - how in hell could a patent ever be granted for this, given such obvious prior art? The fact that a company would even be bothered to apply for such a patent is proof positive that the patent system is horribly broken. But then, everybody here already knew that.

It's not a patent, it's a patent application. Your outrage is misplaced, but oddly ironic considering you're complaining about the patent system's ignorance, without actually knowing what you're talking about.

Second, they're not simply claiming a magnet connected to something for your ear, but a very specific implementation. But realizing that requires reading the application, and again, you thought it was a patent, so... yeah.

Third, even aside from that, there are some obvious difficulties incorporating a strong magnet next to (i) an aural transducer that requires (wait for it) a magnet to function, and (ii) a Bluetooth antenna that requires (wait for it) a stable EM field to function. Simply gluing a magnet to your Bluetooth earbuds is likely not going to work well.

Disclaimer: while I haven't looked into this particular patent beyond the above info, I'm an audio engineer, former exec of a chapter of the Audio Engineering Society, and a patent attorney who regularly deals with earbud design.

well fuck that, my wife will simply wait for something else, she was already eyeing a Galaxy 7, but wanted to wait till next version now. However rumors are that Samsung may do away with the jack as well which would also make it a non starter

Go onto Amazon. There are at least a dozen charge and listen "Y" cables. MFi rules be damned. LynwoodRoister has been crowing about this "restriction" in the MFi rules for about 3 months now. Meanwhile, thousands of Y cables have been openly sold on Amazon.

So, if that's what's the holdup, check out Amazon, and pick yourself up a cable like this one.

If only someone else had thought of a way to use magnets to attach things to your ear! This is courage taken to a new level, we're talking iCourage levels here...

That's my thinking too - how in hell could a patent ever be granted for this, given such obvious prior art? The fact that a company would even be bothered to apply for such a patent is proof positive that the patent system is horribly broken. But then, everybody here already knew that.

AND CHARGE THEIR PHONE AT THE SAME TIME.

I have literally not done that ever. I plug in my phone at night, I use headphones during the day... or I have the phone attached to my car via USB cable, which routes audio.

Do I have to spell this out for you?

If you really, really need to charge at the same time there are already multiple solutions.

Since the original post said it could not be done - well, the word "bald faced lie" is really not too strong, now is it?

If only someone else had thought of a way to use magnets to attach things to your ear! This is courage taken to a new level, we're talking iCourage levels here...

Oh, I agree. Cooking can be complicated, but only if you want it to be. Julia Child's recipes are amazing, but insanely complicated. Mark Bittman's recipes on the other hand are simple, fun and reliable -- I just bought his beginner cookbook for my college student daughter and she is thrilled to be making delicious food from scratch instead of instant ramen.

I grew up in a restaurant family and I love to go out to eat, but I can't wrap my brain around people ordering something like hamburgers. Stuff that's easy make and don't involve a lot of clean-up. For the price of a bad hamburger you could be eating steak. Or a good hamburger. Olive Garden is a major head-scratcher. The food is shockingly unappetizing or in some cases downright bizarre. It reminds me of the TOS episode The Menagerie where the Talosians tried to put the girl back together after the crash but had no idea what she was supposed to look like.

CUBOT Cell Phones - all less than $150. Many Xiaomi models including their competitors Oppo and Vivo have numerous models in the $50 - $150 price range. My own phone, a Xiaomi 2015 model (with microSD) is still about $150.

You sure?
Show me a link to verify from Amazon what you just said.

Why would you trust a link from Amazon? But, If you're going to trust Amazon, then here is "proof" that the Echo only sends audio shortly after it hears the wake word:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help...

When Amazon Echo or Echo Dot detect the wake word, when you press the action button on top of the devices, or when you press and hold your remote's microphone button, the light ring around the top of your Amazon Echo turns blue, to indicate that Amazon Echo is streaming audio to the Cloud. When you use the wake word, the audio stream includes a fraction of a second of audio before the wake word, and closes once your question or request has been processed

If you don't trust Amazon, then why do you want to see a link from Amazon confirming that if the device doesn't send data, then it's not sending audio? Surely Amazon is not going to tell you that they use the top-secret invisible NSA access points to send data, so you won't be able to detect it.

Time for an OpenBSD Phone?

My favorite phone is still my Kyocera DuraPlus that I use on Ting. Battery lasts ~2 weeks. It does have Bluetooth and a bare bones browser for when I *need* to see something on the web. It would be nice to plug it into my laptop and use USB or bluetooth as a LTE modem, when I have the opportunity.

I would absolutely pay for an OpenBSD phone in the same form factor that worked and was as secure as the Kyocera. You could also use the same software/hardware to make a secure IoT device. There are a lot of devices out there running cell modems attached to questionably secure Linux distros.

Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature, edited by Jacob Weisman. I don't generally read short stories, but this collection is quite good. Stories from "literary" writers not normally known for science fiction. Not all of the stories are really sci-fi-- which is a positive aspect. I wouldn't go so far as to call it literature, but many of the stories do have themes and the style that one might typically find in literature. Really one of the best short story anthologies I've ever read. Here's the Amazon link: https://smile.amazon.com/Invad...

Maybe some big company could make its own version of Android.

Girl in a Fishbowl addresses the problem of knowing what is true or not in the information age. Very relevant to our times.

Google's Site Reliability Engineering was my favourite book of 2016.

Even without diving too deep into technical aspects (with the Load Balancing chapter being a good exception) there's plenty of good information around running large scale teams and systems. The concept of SRE is one of a kind and the details shared in the book help to understand how DevOps is not SRE and vice versa.

Last but not least such transparency is welcome and more big players should follow the example.

Command and Control - Eric Schlosser
https://www.amazon.com/Command...

https://www.amazon.com/How-Win...

It taught me that anyone who says otherwise is a cuntwad and a Trump-U alumnus.

The Liberation of Folks Bell Link on Amazon

The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don't Have with People You Don't Like Doing Things You Don't Want to Do

https://www.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Not-Giving-Spending/dp/0316270725/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482778852&sr=8-1&keywords=the+life+changing+magic+of+not+giving+a+fck

I'll tell you what, somebody left this book at my house back in April and I threw it in my pack on a road trip from Connecticut to Houston, Texas. Bored with motel TV, I started reading it sitting next to an empty pool not far from Gettysburg, PA and continued a bit every night. I had some Bo Crowder-looking dude give me the fisheye in a Waffle House in Tennessee when he saw what I was reading, and a Civil War buff in Virginia sat down and talked to me for like an hour in a diner since he had read the book and loved it.

I'm not usually a Civil War history guy, and political biographies have never been my thing, but this dude... I highly recommend this book. I bet your local library has like a dozen copies, so you'll be able to read it for free right now.

https://www.amazon.com/America...

Shoedog by Phil Knight. His memoir and the history of how he built Nike.

For example, (map f (map g sequence)) might or might not be measurably faster than (map (lambda (x) (f (g x))) sequence). You won't know until you try. So this particular subtree of operations is a candidate for replacement. The process is rather generic and could be adapted to a wide range of problems: find possible transformations for the current tree, pick one of them, repeat until you hit a terminating condition. Do this non-deterministically so that you ultimately try as many diverse results as possible. The set of patterns and their replacements and the termination condition are problem-specific, the generic pattern is not.

I've thought about ray tracing, actually. A lot of complexity in modern ray tracing implementations seems to stem from the interaction of programmable shaders with the tracing and sampling algorithms. I've peeked into this book, which is otherwise very nice, but the code made wonder "what if one could generate and run specialized versions of it on demand, instead of the few hardcoded special cases?". I suspect that solutions like the Open Shading Language are heading in this direction already. Now, with SPIR-V on the horizon, the idea is more appetizing than ever. You don't have to generate C at all here.

Agreed. If you think you are one of those, or know somebody that might be like that, I encourage you to read the book Quiet by Susan Cain and/or subscribe to the author's blog on the subject. Ms. Cain, in spite of being an introvert, is a great public speaker, and you may enjoy her TED talk about introversion.

It's the typical blather of the rich and shameless. All the bad things were just luck and all the good things were just their innate superior abilities and hard work.

Fact is, anyone can grab the brass ring if they can afford multiple tries, but most people are lucky if they can afford even a single try.

Nicolas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness great book

Yes
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help...

I just never could wrap my head around a [smart] watch, with a tiny screen, tiny battery life, and a VERY high price, given you can pick up a watch for almost nothing

Here they come. The slew of "But my Casio ..." posts that always pollute any thread about smart watches.

Your problem is the inability to get past the word "watch" in the name. It's the size and form factor of a watch, but it's not a watch. It's a fairly powerful general purpose computer. My "watch" runs a 4-core SD 410 @1.6GHz, 512MB RAM, Android 6.0 OS, a 320x320 display, has bluetooth, wifi, accelerometer, heart rate monitor, barometer, GPS. The analogy is between a smart phone and an old flip phone. Is the flip phone a better "phone"? Sure it is. Why would you ever carry a smart phone then? They cost more, the battery sucks, bigger and heavier, less durable, and so on. The answer is obviously that a smart phone isn't a phone, it's a portable computer with a built in cellular modem.

Does anyone *need* a smart watch? Nope. Does anyone need a *smart* phone? Nope either. If you like gadgets a smart watch is great. If nothing else it's a watch with programmable faces of infinite variety and function. Add in that it's a fitness tracker, it can run simple apps like note taking, flashlight, google authenticator, it has media controls, it can present simple bits of information like weather, messages, emails, etc. and even allow input / responding with voice.

A word on battery life. Yes it's bad, but if you return home every night 99% of the time like everyone else it's really not an issue. You just plop it on the charger along with your laptop, phone, headphones, and whatever else needs daily charging. Smart watch battery life is more of a zombie apocalypse problem then a real, everyday problem.

Re: cost. If you bought a non-smart watch that had GPS, barometer, altimeter, and a fitness tracker you'd be paying $250+,
https://www.amazon.com/Suunto-...

As much or more than a smart watch. Like just about any product, it's going to seem expensive if you don't use 90% of the features you are paying for. That doesn't make it a bad product, it makes it the wrong product for you.

There's still a thriving calculator market for students since some exams have a list of permitted calculators

And a TI-83 still goes for about $100 new...

I gave one of those away awhile back. I think mathcad is free now, though the current version was crap last i looked. They still have an old version at work. For that matter there is octave on linux, though i haven't used it much, and of course there is actual code for any complex problem.

There's still a thriving calculator market for students since some exams have a list of permitted calculators

And a TI-83 still goes for about $100 new...

1) No, your analogy is ridiculous. It shows that, despite your desire to buff up the scholarly chops of your post with a link to a dictionary definition, you do not understand the legal concept of assault.

2) Not every goddamn thing is about "The Left" (or I suppose, by corollary, the heroic "Right"). By choosing to couch your entire worldview** in these terms, you do yourself a great disservice. When the only tool you have is a shoehorn, everything looks like a left or right shoe (to paraphrase Maslow).

But often times, as is the case here, you'll find yourself trying to jam a 1L Torts textbook into some weird partisan ideological clog, and it comes off as ham-fisted and inapt. What's next? Can we work "SJWs" in here somehow? Is it too much of a stretch to blame this one on Islam?

**If your worldview is somehow more nuanced, it hasn't come across in your prodigious post history.

Read The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Paul Kennedy.

You mean like these?. I mean, with Amazons 10,274 results there has to be something like what you're describing. ;-)

That's why I'll be offering a special device called an AirPods retention strap. It consists of a small cord connected to the end of each AirPod, that you tie to the device. It's so genius, and so obvious, I don't know why anyone never thought of doing that before.

You'd better patent that one fast... or let Apple do it for you...

Too slow: https://www.amazon.com/Spigen-...

" I don't know why anyone never thought of doing that before."

Get your $10 string, right here.

Have you ever read Ecotopia before?

Note, that's just rhetorical question. The book is fucking awful, a ridiculous fantasy top-to-bottom.

Perhaps it's you that doesn't understand Fascisim. I suggest a well written and researched book instead of Wikipedia.

I clicked on your link, hoping to see a dispassionate analysis of fascism from an academic poli-sci wonk. Instead, you point to a screed from Jonah Goldberg, contributor to National Review and Fox News, that torturously redefines fascism to fit an anti-liberal agenda.

Try again.

It is abundantly clear that you don't know what fascism is. Maybe this will help.

Fascism is perhaps too strong a word to describe Trump's ideology. But authoritarianism sure does seem to fit.

Perhaps it's you that doesn't understand Fascisim. I suggest a well written and researched book instead of Wikipedia.

"Stronger together!" is classic Fascism. "I'm with her!" is classic cult of personality associated with Fascism.

https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref...

It is still available for sale, and it looks like different versions are available. Glow in the dark sounds...interesting.

If you work 40 hours a week

But there are a lot of part time jobs that manage to slip under the threshold for many benefits. Some by design of the employer, some by the availability of the worker (gig work, etc.).

If you're running a business and can't afford to pay your workers enough money to get by on

... use AI.

Right, so expect only $40k of income from that $1M of 401k investments. Unless you've got other income...pension, Social Security, etc., it's gonna be difficult to make it on that.

At 58, I've been doing a lot of reading on this, and often wondered why you should be aiming to maintain the principal balance. Assuming you don't care about leaving an inheritance, shouldn't the ideal goal be to die broke? What's that quote?...I want the last check I write to bounce. Anyway, I'm planning to read this book soon.

https://www.amazon.com/Die-Bro...

Amazon won't release an app for Apple TV (mumbling some crap about "stream from your phone with AirPlay!"), so it's a nonstarter. I don't want to tie up my phone while watching shows on a big screen. Oh, they'll go on about "we're protesting Apple's pricing!" or such, but the app is already on iPhones and iPads!

The real story is that they don't want to undercut their own TV hardware. They dropped Apple TV from sales, and searching for Apple TV on Amazon gives their own crap streamer as the top suggestion. No, Amazon, I don't want your hardware. I already have my own. If I have to buy into your ecosystem to watch Prime Video, I'll stick to Netflix.

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

They weren't terribly expensive frankly.

My Citizen watch cost me way more money.

https://smile.amazon.com/Citiz...

But I guess no matter how much you spend on things, someone will have an issue with wasted money.

This is the exact kind of crap that should really drive folks to do this.

I figured my set up....

For local channels, I set up an indoor HDTV antenna (you can find these on sale, I got mine at Wally Worldmart for $79). I put this up on a pole in my house and works great. I had to get this, in order to get our local PBS (WYES) that is still on VHF, and is very hard to pull in with other antennas. Otherwise, I'd recommend one of the Mohu Leaf HDAntennas. This one worked great except for my local PBS and I like some shows on there.

I bought a Tivo Roamia OTA 1TB DVR to act as my local channel tuner. It comes with included lifetime guide service. Worked great out of the box.

The only drawback of the Tivo unit, is that the Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming which it also does (and searches across), the front ends are horribly laggy, but for OTA needs, it is amazing.

For my streaming needs, I got the Amazon FireTV.

I got this over the FireTV stick for its extra computing power. It streams VERY well Netflix, and Amazon Prime (4K on these too). AND...the power was needed for my streaming app that solves my "cable network" needs.

I did Playstation VUE. I got the 70+ channels package for $35/mo. It has all the ESPNs (I like during college football season), all the cable news I want (MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc), and channels like TCM, TBS, Nat'l Geo, FX..etc...

It also has built in DVR functionality, which makes it great for catching the Walking Dead on AMC to watch at my convenience and skip commercials.

The Fire TV is powerful enough to use the VUE guide....Roku 3 and PS3 could not use the guide very well at all.

So, this is my living room.

For the other TVs in my house (bedrooms, office), I set up a bit of networking for those.

I set up Tivo Minis to stream from the main unit into each bedroom, for DVR and live HD tv. The main unit has 4 receivers, so you can watch different stuff in each room. I also have an Amazon FireTV for each other room, so I can watch streaming or VUE cable channels in each room. Again, each can be watching different things.

The Tivo Minis don't work wirelessly, and I also found the FireTVs don't work as well wireless as they do wired.

So, for each room I have Ethernet over AC....and a little TP-Link switch there too.

So now..everything hooks up nicely, and I dropped from $113/mo for UVerse to $35/mo with VUE.

I figure in about 8 mos I'll break even on the new hardware.

So far, the only caveats....my house has some less than optimal wiring, I think leftover from Katrina rework problems. At times, my Tivo has problems with slow network, but not that often. Also, setting up the Tivo minis...it has to go through Tivo Centrals computers before it can get recognized by your main DVR unit. This is a horribly thought out, PITA...but if you register your Mini online with tivo 24 hours before you hook it up, and then you have the main unit phone home a few times while trying to sync them , it will finally work. They need to fix that. I almost gave up on it, but once it syncs..works as intended and I live the Tivo guide and user interface. Auto commer

This is the exact kind of crap that should really drive folks to do this.

I figured my set up....

For local channels, I set up an indoor HDTV antenna (you can find these on sale, I got mine at Wally Worldmart for $79). I put this up on a pole in my house and works great. I had to get this, in order to get our local PBS (WYES) that is still on VHF, and is very hard to pull in with other antennas. Otherwise, I'd recommend one of the Mohu Leaf HDAntennas. This one worked great except for my local PBS and I like some shows on there.

I bought a Tivo Roamia OTA 1TB DVR to act as my local channel tuner. It comes with included lifetime guide service. Worked great out of the box.

The only drawback of the Tivo unit, is that the Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming which it also does (and searches across), the front ends are horribly laggy, but for OTA needs, it is amazing.

For my streaming needs, I got the Amazon FireTV.

I got this over the FireTV stick for its extra computing power. It streams VERY well Netflix, and Amazon Prime (4K on these too). AND...the power was needed for my streaming app that solves my "cable network" needs.

I did Playstation VUE. I got the 70+ channels package for $35/mo. It has all the ESPNs (I like during college football season), all the cable news I want (MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc), and channels like TCM, TBS, Nat'l Geo, FX..etc...

It also has built in DVR functionality, which makes it great for catching the Walking Dead on AMC to watch at my convenience and skip commercials.

The Fire TV is powerful enough to use the VUE guide....Roku 3 and PS3 could not use the guide very well at all.

So, this is my living room.

For the other TVs in my house (bedrooms, office), I set up a bit of networking for those.

I set up Tivo Minis to stream from the main unit into each bedroom, for DVR and live HD tv. The main unit has 4 receivers, so you can watch different stuff in each room. I also have an Amazon FireTV for each other room, so I can watch streaming or VUE cable channels in each room. Again, each can be watching different things.

The Tivo Minis don't work wirelessly, and I also found the FireTVs don't work as well wireless as they do wired.

So, for each room I have Ethernet over AC....and a little TP-Link switch there too.

So now..everything hooks up nicely, and I dropped from $113/mo for UVerse to $35/mo with VUE.

I figure in about 8 mos I'll break even on the new hardware.

So far, the only caveats....my house has some less than optimal wiring, I think leftover from Katrina rework problems. At times, my Tivo has problems with slow network, but not that often. Also, setting up the Tivo minis...it has to go through Tivo Centrals computers before it can get recognized by your main DVR unit. This is a horribly thought out, PITA...but if you register your Mini online with tivo 24 hours before you hook it up, and then you have the main unit phone home a few times while trying to sync them , it will finally work. They need to fix that. I almost gave up on it, but once it syncs..works as intended and I live the Tivo guide and user interface. Auto commer

This is the exact kind of crap that should really drive folks to do this.

I figured my set up....

For local channels, I set up an indoor HDTV antenna (you can find these on sale, I got mine at Wally Worldmart for $79). I put this up on a pole in my house and works great. I had to get this, in order to get our local PBS (WYES) that is still on VHF, and is very hard to pull in with other antennas. Otherwise, I'd recommend one of the Mohu Leaf HDAntennas. This one worked great except for my local PBS and I like some shows on there.

I bought a Tivo Roamia OTA 1TB DVR to act as my local channel tuner. It comes with included lifetime guide service. Worked great out of the box.

The only drawback of the Tivo unit, is that the Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming which it also does (and searches across), the front ends are horribly laggy, but for OTA needs, it is amazing.

For my streaming needs, I got the Amazon FireTV.

I got this over the FireTV stick for its extra computing power. It streams VERY well Netflix, and Amazon Prime (4K on these too). AND...the power was needed for my streaming app that solves my "cable network" needs.

I did Playstation VUE. I got the 70+ channels package for $35/mo. It has all the ESPNs (I like during college football season), all the cable news I want (MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc), and channels like TCM, TBS, Nat'l Geo, FX..etc...

It also has built in DVR functionality, which makes it great for catching the Walking Dead on AMC to watch at my convenience and skip commercials.

The Fire TV is powerful enough to use the VUE guide....Roku 3 and PS3 could not use the guide very well at all.

So, this is my living room.

For the other TVs in my house (bedrooms, office), I set up a bit of networking for those.

I set up Tivo Minis to stream from the main unit into each bedroom, for DVR and live HD tv. The main unit has 4 receivers, so you can watch different stuff in each room. I also have an Amazon FireTV for each other room, so I can watch streaming or VUE cable channels in each room. Again, each can be watching different things.

The Tivo Minis don't work wirelessly, and I also found the FireTVs don't work as well wireless as they do wired.

So, for each room I have Ethernet over AC....and a little TP-Link switch there too.

So now..everything hooks up nicely, and I dropped from $113/mo for UVerse to $35/mo with VUE.

I figure in about 8 mos I'll break even on the new hardware.

So far, the only caveats....my house has some less than optimal wiring, I think leftover from Katrina rework problems. At times, my Tivo has problems with slow network, but not that often. Also, setting up the Tivo minis...it has to go through Tivo Centrals computers before it can get recognized by your main DVR unit. This is a horribly thought out, PITA...but if you register your Mini online with tivo 24 hours before you hook it up, and then you have the main unit phone home a few times while trying to sync them , it will finally work. They need to fix that. I almost gave up on it, but once it syncs..works as intended and I live the Tivo guide and user interface. Auto commer

This is the exact kind of crap that should really drive folks to do this.

I figured my set up....

For local channels, I set up an indoor HDTV antenna (you can find these on sale, I got mine at Wally Worldmart for $79). I put this up on a pole in my house and works great. I had to get this, in order to get our local PBS (WYES) that is still on VHF, and is very hard to pull in with other antennas. Otherwise, I'd recommend one of the Mohu Leaf HDAntennas. This one worked great except for my local PBS and I like some shows on there.

I bought a Tivo Roamia OTA 1TB DVR to act as my local channel tuner. It comes with included lifetime guide service. Worked great out of the box.

The only drawback of the Tivo unit, is that the Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming which it also does (and searches across), the front ends are horribly laggy, but for OTA needs, it is amazing.

For my streaming needs, I got the Amazon FireTV.

I got this over the FireTV stick for its extra computing power. It streams VERY well Netflix, and Amazon Prime (4K on these too). AND...the power was needed for my streaming app that solves my "cable network" needs.

I did Playstation VUE. I got the 70+ channels package for $35/mo. It has all the ESPNs (I like during college football season), all the cable news I want (MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc), and channels like TCM, TBS, Nat'l Geo, FX..etc...

It also has built in DVR functionality, which makes it great for catching the Walking Dead on AMC to watch at my convenience and skip commercials.

The Fire TV is powerful enough to use the VUE guide....Roku 3 and PS3 could not use the guide very well at all.

So, this is my living room.

For the other TVs in my house (bedrooms, office), I set up a bit of networking for those.

I set up Tivo Minis to stream from the main unit into each bedroom, for DVR and live HD tv. The main unit has 4 receivers, so you can watch different stuff in each room. I also have an Amazon FireTV for each other room, so I can watch streaming or VUE cable channels in each room. Again, each can be watching different things.

The Tivo Minis don't work wirelessly, and I also found the FireTVs don't work as well wireless as they do wired.

So, for each room I have Ethernet over AC....and a little TP-Link switch there too.

So now..everything hooks up nicely, and I dropped from $113/mo for UVerse to $35/mo with VUE.

I figure in about 8 mos I'll break even on the new hardware.

So far, the only caveats....my house has some less than optimal wiring, I think leftover from Katrina rework problems. At times, my Tivo has problems with slow network, but not that often. Also, setting up the Tivo minis...it has to go through Tivo Centrals computers before it can get recognized by your main DVR unit. This is a horribly thought out, PITA...but if you register your Mini online with tivo 24 hours before you hook it up, and then you have the main unit phone home a few times while trying to sync them , it will finally work. They need to fix that. I almost gave up on it, but once it syncs..works as intended and I live the Tivo guide and user interface. Auto commer

This is the exact kind of crap that should really drive folks to do this.

I figured my set up....

For local channels, I set up an indoor HDTV antenna (you can find these on sale, I got mine at Wally Worldmart for $79). I put this up on a pole in my house and works great. I had to get this, in order to get our local PBS (WYES) that is still on VHF, and is very hard to pull in with other antennas. Otherwise, I'd recommend one of the Mohu Leaf HDAntennas. This one worked great except for my local PBS and I like some shows on there.

I bought a Tivo Roamia OTA 1TB DVR to act as my local channel tuner. It comes with included lifetime guide service. Worked great out of the box.

The only drawback of the Tivo unit, is that the Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming which it also does (and searches across), the front ends are horribly laggy, but for OTA needs, it is amazing.

For my streaming needs, I got the Amazon FireTV.

I got this over the FireTV stick for its extra computing power. It streams VERY well Netflix, and Amazon Prime (4K on these too). AND...the power was needed for my streaming app that solves my "cable network" needs.

I did Playstation VUE. I got the 70+ channels package for $35/mo. It has all the ESPNs (I like during college football season), all the cable news I want (MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc), and channels like TCM, TBS, Nat'l Geo, FX..etc...

It also has built in DVR functionality, which makes it great for catching the Walking Dead on AMC to watch at my convenience and skip commercials.

The Fire TV is powerful enough to use the VUE guide....Roku 3 and PS3 could not use the guide very well at all.

So, this is my living room.

For the other TVs in my house (bedrooms, office), I set up a bit of networking for those.

I set up Tivo Minis to stream from the main unit into each bedroom, for DVR and live HD tv. The main unit has 4 receivers, so you can watch different stuff in each room. I also have an Amazon FireTV for each other room, so I can watch streaming or VUE cable channels in each room. Again, each can be watching different things.

The Tivo Minis don't work wirelessly, and I also found the FireTVs don't work as well wireless as they do wired.

So, for each room I have Ethernet over AC....and a little TP-Link switch there too.

So now..everything hooks up nicely, and I dropped from $113/mo for UVerse to $35/mo with VUE.

I figure in about 8 mos I'll break even on the new hardware.

So far, the only caveats....my house has some less than optimal wiring, I think leftover from Katrina rework problems. At times, my Tivo has problems with slow network, but not that often. Also, setting up the Tivo minis...it has to go through Tivo Centrals computers before it can get recognized by your main DVR unit. This is a horribly thought out, PITA...but if you register your Mini online with tivo 24 hours before you hook it up, and then you have the main unit phone home a few times while trying to sync them , it will finally work. They need to fix that. I almost gave up on it, but once it syncs..works as intended and I live the Tivo guide and user interface. Auto commer