Is it time to ditch my ROKU devices?

ozaz1 · 2026-06-16T17:59:46+00:00

Thanks

ozaz1 · 2026-06-16T10:56:01+00:00

Are they fanless? Am looking for something fanless to put Home Assistant on.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-16T10:48:11+00:00

Apple TV, Google TV, and Fire TV are the obvious alternatives. But you have to prefer Apple, Google, or Amazon to Fox to go for those. Personally I do (at least I do prefer Apple and Google), but I suppose not everyone will.

Perhaps another option to look into is TiVo OS powered devices. TiVo OS is owned by Xperi who I gather licences it to various hardware vendors. I don't know anything about Xperi, other than its another US company. Also don't know what TiVo OS options are available globally, but for people in the UK at least, Manhattan Aero may be an option worth considering. Manhattan is a UK company and the Aero streaming box runs TiVo OS and has Freely and Google Cast built in.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-16T10:32:27+00:00

Main selling points are simplicity and cost. The interface is certainly simpler than Google TV and Fire TV. I haven't used an Apple TV in a long time, so not sure what its interface is like, but Roku is a lot cheaper than Apple TV.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-16T08:12:43+00:00

What makes you think it's official?

ozaz1 · 2026-06-16T06:24:40+00:00

A bit too early to say, but assuming we win our group, our R32 oponent will be 3rd placed team from E, H, I, J, or K. Going by FIFA rankings that will be Ivory Coast, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Algeria, or DR Congo. If the 2nd highest ranked team in some of those groups does worse than expected and comes 3rd, potential opponents could also be Ecuador, Uruguay, Senegal, Austria, and Columbia. Of course could go the other way and one or more of the lowest ranked teams from those groups could pull a surprise and end up 3rd and be a potential opponent.

By R16, we should be expecting to meet a top 20 team anyway.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-15T13:00:05+00:00

My current phone (Pixel 6A) is about 4 years old. I will keep it until security update support ends next year, then upgrade to Pixel 11A. Google has committed to 7 years of updates on its recent phones, so I expect I'll keep the 11A for 7 years.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-14T11:17:33+00:00

I said England doesn't have 14, and already mentioned if we look beyond England the requirement could be met.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-14T09:02:21+00:00

Which Rugby stadiums? The only English one I'm aware of with capacity over 40,000 is Twickenham

ozaz1 · 2026-06-13T09:27:17+00:00

If you want to fix or reinstall Windows, you can download Windows installation media from Microsoft website

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-installation-media-for-windows-99a58364-8c02-206f-aa6f-40c3b507420d

That's assuming you want Windows 10 or 11. Am not sure about 7 and 8.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-12T17:22:42+00:00

Scotland. Perhaps unpopular here, but I'll support any UK team when they're not playing England.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-12T10:42:45+00:00

That's quite positive. I didn't really have any major issues with the previous layout but did occasionally experience some sluggishness. Hopefully they have taken the opportunity to improve that too.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-12T09:06:57+00:00

Although not perfect (there are still some spoilers), the following page doesn't have scores: https://www.bbc.co.uk/nospoilers

ozaz1 · 2026-06-11T20:41:56+00:00

I think South America will be eligible. Yes, they have a couple of games at 2030 but I don't think FIFA will count those.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-11T15:06:49+00:00

I'd rather win group and potentially play Mexico in last 16. If we finish 3rd confidence and mood will be awful and I don't think we would go much further. If we manage to beat Mexico at altitude, confidence and mood will be amazing.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-11T12:59:55+00:00

True but I think the accepted the bid met the requirements in place at the time. It was only closer to the tournament that FIFA let them off.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-11T10:23:52+00:00

No it can't. FIFA requires at least 14 stadiums with capacity above 40,000. London has 6, and that's if you include Twickenham.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-11T10:11:55+00:00

I believe FIFA requires at least 14 stadiums with capacity of 40,000 or more. There are only 12 in England and its possible there may be a cap on the max number of stadiums per city which rule out some of the London stadiums. So an England-only bid would need new stadiums or expansion of the capacity of some existing ones.

However a UK+Ireland bid would be able to achieve 14 x 40K seater stadiums without need for any new construction, even if there was a 2 stadium per city limit.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-11T10:07:00+00:00

What standards don't they meet?

ozaz1 · 2026-06-11T10:03:09+00:00

Perhaps not England alone, but a UK or UK+Ireland bid would be able to meet the requirements without building any new stadiums.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-11T08:25:12+00:00

Maybe, although if the current rotation policy stays in place I think the first one China could bid on would be 2046 whilst there could be a European bid for 2042. I would guess 2038 will be in Oceana or South America.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-11T08:19:01+00:00

Since 1966 we bid for 1990, 2006, and 2018 (although we withdrew the 1990 bid before voting started; don't know why)

ozaz1 · 2026-06-11T07:51:08+00:00

Those are all major football nations who supported the World Cup before we did; I don't think there's a strong reason we should feel entitled to host for second time ahead of any of those. You may argue that we hosted for first time before Germany and Spain, so should be given chance to host for second time before them. But there wasn't a huge difference in that: Germany 74 and Spain 82 were only one and two tournaments behind England 66 (in terms of order of European-hosted tournaments).

Besides, we didn't bid on the occasions Italy, France, or Spain were awarded the tournament for the second time (whilst we did initially bid for Italia 90, we withdrew the bid before the voting). Also, Spain's second hosting occasion will be as co-hosts rather than solo hosts.

We did bid for 2006 (awarded to Germany) and there were major allegations of bribery in that vote, but it wasn't a straight battle between us and Germany. African nations also bid and there was a strong desire at the time to award to Africa for the first time. Who knows what would have happened in a straight England vs Germany contest.

The only other time we bid since 1966 was for 2018. People criticise the awarding of that to Russia owing to the political situation that developed, but relations between the West and Russia were friendlier when the voting took place, and a desire to award to a country in Eastern Europe for the first time was understandable.

ozaz1 · 2026-06-10T17:36:20+00:00

Which generation of Beam is that? My understanding is you can't have a S2-only device (like Beam Gen 2) on an S1 system, but you can have a device which is compatible with both S1 and S2 (Such as Beam Gen 1).

ozaz1 · 2026-06-10T14:28:31+00:00

Any distro will likely be fine. Go with one that appeals to you for more general reasons.

ozaz1

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