Technology

Hi! I'm one of the few people who enjoy YouTube Shorts.

I don't hate the idea of TikTok, I hate the privacy and political implications. I installed it on my Android phone (already a privacy nightmare) and I didn't hate it. Made an account with a burner email. They send 2-3 emails a day. I didn't get into TikTok per se, but I didn't hate using it. I could have done something about the spammy notifications (which I was getting on my iPhone since I used iCloud's Hide My Email feature), but ultimately I didn't like using it.

Even on my TV, I was fine with the vertical videos. Vertical videos shouldn't be a thing because you can/should turn your phone (and some phones used to make you do it to record video!), but I don't hate that they are a thing. I only don't like footage that is cropped to look like vertical video. It's like Pan & Scan (4:3 video format that slides back and forth along the original video frame as needed, popular on VHS) all over again.

What really fucks me off about YouTube is the AI generated shit. I listen to a lot of Japanese music, so AI generated subtitles are not the worst thing in the world. Thing is, I took this song ("Anima" by ReoNa) and I took several translations, including an AI one, and rolled my own subtitles for the video, taking what I assumed to be the artist's intent and going with the words I thought conveyed her meanings as best I could (not knowing Japanese). Like you can say "konnichiwa" means hello/good day, but when you're talking about a philosophical song about the colour of the soul, asking if a person's bravery or hesitation (bordering on cowardice/fear) makes them brave or not... you're not gonna get a very accurate translation, which is why all the translations suck, including mine. But mine is what I chose to go with and it's about as accurate as the others.

The worst part is the ads, but it only affects my Apple TV box. On my Macs I use Firefox with uBlock Origin. I also have Wipr2, but that only affects Safari. On my iPhone, I use Safari with Wipr2 and it gets most of the ads. On my Android phone, I use Firefox with uBlock Origin. The only place I'm not protected is my Apple TV, which is why my next one will be a gently used Mac mini so I don't have to use the derpy tvOS — though, notably, tvOS itself is the best smart TV interface (no ads, just icons). I think I can make macOS into a better smart TV platform, with just a few icons on the dock and maximum magnification on hover, the highest zoom setting, and whatever else — I haven't really begun planning it yet. But, I think, with a wireless keyboard/mouse combo (like a Logitech K400 or similar, or one of those game controller looking keyboards you can get on Amazon from China), a Mac (or Linux PC) could be the best TV interface. (I'm not ruling out a Raspberry Pi, which kinda seems obvious, I just like Apple stuff.)