A NEW SMART TOY: The Amazon Fire TV Stick

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. Should you go to church? Tomorrow I will look into the matter of how the Supreme Court has caused some serious COVID-19 clusters. Hawaii itself has had two incidents during the past few weeks.

The Major League Baseball season started on Thursday, and only one series (Baltimore-Boston) was cancelled because of COVID-19. In my posting that day, I mentioned that in the NCCA Women's Basketball Final Four oddsmakers gave Arizona a 4.76% chance of winning the championship. Well, they beat top-rated Connecticut, and now play Stanford, who got lucky at the end to edge South Carolina, tomorrow at 6PM EDT (noon Hawaii time) on ESPN from the Alamodome, San Antonio. This has to the first ever PAC-12 combination playing each other in the Big Dance final. Today, Houston vs Baylor and Gonzaga vs UCLA, who were given a 3.85% chance of winning it all. The men's finals will be played on Monday Night at 9PM EDT (3PM Hawaii) on CBS from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

In November of last year I wrote about smart speakers, then the next day on smarter displays. Then a couple of months ago I posted...ALEXA IS WONDERFUL. She is the voice of my $60 4th generation Echo Dot, and comes with a clock. 15 Craigside also gave me one with no clock, and this one goes by the name Echo. They're equivalent, and not. Not, because Alexa comes linked to Amazon Primes radio stations and music, while Echo does only i-Heart radio, which is embarrassingly limited. While taking a bath I can ask Alexa to play music from 1962, and she does. Echo, the other smart speaker, cannot.

So, well, anyway, I just purchased an Amazon Fire TV Stick. This is a portable streaming device that more directly accesses stations like Netflix. It costs around $40, except can go down to $20 on days like Black Friday. There is a slightly more expensive 4K version for 4K resolution for $10 more. There is also a Cube at $120 for faster Ethernet and more reliable internet access.

The system comes in two parts:

Plug in the fancy USB flash drive into one of your TV's (or receiver's) video input. This makes your TV smart.
There is a remote control with a built-in microphone for Alexa support. Thus, you can control your doorbell, lights, thermostat, etc., just like an Echo speaker.
Don't get confused here, for I have two Echo speakers, one responds to Alexa, and the other to the name Echo.

Setting the Fire TV stick is a three step process:

Plug the USB drive--this is the fire stick--into one of your HDMI inputs. Note that you need to connect this drive to a wall electrical outlet with a supplied attachment.
Using the remote control, enter the Wi-Fi password to log into your Amazon account. Add other streaming channels like Netflix.
Turn on your TV, using your TV remote to find the correct HDMI channel, or to a receiver at any HDMI input.
After installing batteries into the Fire Stick remote, click on any button.
Follow TV screen instructions to finish the pairing.

That sounds easy, but, oh boy, was this a challenge for me. I did it, but it was with considerable difficulty. If I were you, I'd get someone more knowledgeable to do this for you.

There is one problem. When you talk to your TV with the Fire Stick remote controller, the other Echo Alexa (left) also connects. The Fire Stick hates that and says you can't link to both. I haven't figured out a better to way to handle this cross-talk without turning off the Alexa smart speaker, also known as an Echo. This is a small joke.

In any case, what I can do with Alexa in the bathroom I now can also do in the bedroom, plus watch Netlix, Prime, and other video channels. While the apartment is getting smarter, I'm more and more reaching a state of bewilderment.

Alexa of course comes from a variety of Amazon devices. Here is a video of one in your future car:

Oh, be aware that if you have Alexa in your home, when you play this, you could well trigger her response, as you might have already experience from an Alexa TV commercial.

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

WHY YOU SHOULD CONVERT TO A JAPANESE HIGH TECH TOILET

Did you know that Oktoberfest in Germany is mostly in September? The very first day of Oktoberfest 2021 was supposed to be today, September 18, extending into October 3. Well, as in 2020, Oktoberfest was cancelled. So why is it called by that month when it is held mostly in September? The first celebration in 1810 was in October. Did you also know that Oktoberfest is held only in Munich? These days seven million drink more than a liter ( about three typical cans ) of beer each, costing around $11. Except for my wife and I when we followed the crowd to board the S-Bahn to the fairgrounds near Old Town. It was drizzling a bit. We bought a large pretzel outside of a typical barn where beer is served. We did not know that you needed to get this inside the hall. So no one came to serve us beer. After a while we decided to have lunch, and the restaurant we settled on only served wine. Thus, we might have been the ...

THE FIRST 84 YEARS OF MY LIFE

The first half of my life was spent preparing myself for my final 42 years. This was a mostly trying and stressful period involving a less than ideal youth, then struggles to get through school, my first few jobs and accompanying life, ending two months later on a Sunday with Part 15E , so it was a spiritual conclusion to my final transition. I never did count the number of actual postings, but I suspect it was around 25 parts. The ending had to do with golf, the disappearance and re-appearance of an 8-iron cover. That was the final clue to whether the beyond after death would be eternal gloom or Heaven. Today, I provide only one transition, but hint about a final one, for this, after all, is Sunday. I'm 84 years old, so let me summarize what happened during the first phase, from 0-42, and follow with the years 42-84. As this is 2024, that key transition year was 1982. I can't seem to find this photo, but as a one-year old baby, I was fat....

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