just gave me a flashback to when we bought mine one of those digital photo frames, and loaded lots of family pictures to it for it to display as a slideshow.
She picked her favourite picture and made us disable the slideshow and set it to only show that one.
Next time we visited it was no longer on the mantel.
Amateur. The real solution is to take the remote apart, wrap the entire buttons area of the pcb and only scratch/cut free the buttons she needs. That way it still looks the same but she actually can’t hit a button she should keep her fingers off, bc the buttons are disabled.
Been there, done that. Pro tip: Don’t try to provide written or printed directions. They just get lost or destroyed and it won’t help.
But then grandma is gonna remove the tape, mess up all the settings, put the tape back on, and suddenly she never touched the remote ever, so it’s clearly not her fault that this happened.
Whenever I hear “I’m not good with computers,” I think “WTF have you been doing for the last quarter-century?”
Look at the modern internet and how it is shaping societies. Billions of people are actively contributing to that dumpster fire every day. I think it’s pretty safe to say that the vast majority of people is not good with computers.
“I’m not good with computers” is a weird way of saying “I stopped living in the present time 25 years ago”.
Notice that these are remotes for a TV and stuff, not computers. This should give you some insight into how people might remain not good at something ubiquitous!
My grandma at 78 years old is perfectly capable of using her smartphone and laptop to look up prices at local supermarkets and the newest episodes of her TV shows via voice search (she can’t type very well because of arthritis). It’s never too late to learn.
Protip: You can get remotes made for grandmas for a few bucks.
All fun and games until source gets switched for some reason
Heck with grandma I want one of those
This is the better idea. Make sure they keep up with the old remote though just in case you need a button the basic one doesn’t have.
Yeah, keep the original remote somewhere safe. You will need it anyway because the channel order changes or some bullshit by its own. Also even with a remote like that my gramps managed to fuck everything up but it happened way less often.
You also need to use the real remote to block GB News (or FOX, etc).
It’s a photo of a magazine.
This doesn’t work. I tried it. They sit on it or something and hit the wrong button by accident. Then when they call you for help, you can’t talk them through anything because they can’t see the buttons. Then when you take the tape off, the remote is all sticky.
the remote is all sticky
Grandpa, stop jizzing on the fucking remote
If not meant for jizz, why is it a “fucking” remote?
Yes, I’m aware of the xkcd strip.
All these grandmothers sound like they should probably be in a decent home.
Lol even in a halfway decent home the workers there are outnumbered heavily and busy all time
At least at their own home they are comfortable and not disoriented
Even assisted living facilities don’t always have people around the clock to come help you with little things like that. Most facilities don’t offer much beyond health-specific care, and intermittent cleanings. You don’t get tech support.
No, grandma. I’m not going to be an enabler for your Fox News addiction.
There’s an interesting documentary, The Brainwashing of My Dad.
Basically rightwing media turns a normal person into a mindless hate zombie. Plenty of y’all have seen it.
It has a happy ending. Mom and dad move to Florida, and the kids just program Fox out of the available channels, and block Facebook on the computer. “Weird. Must be some problem in the new house.” After a while dad returns back into being a normal person, and even chuckles about what an asshole he was for a while.
Time for parental controls! Don’t tell grandma the password.
This is what parental controls was made for.
Obviously. That’s why they’re called parental controls.
If she asks, tell her Fox News went out of business. Very sad.
I do this for all the buttons permanently assigned to certain streaming services that will remain unnamed.
Open the remote up and put a little kapton tape over the contacts for those buttons. It’ll still feel the same but they won’t do anything and it’s less messy to reverse.
You’d still have the advertisement right on your remote.
I did it the angry and frustrated caveman way with decent needle nose pliers: Ripped the button right out of the remote.
And when she has a newer system that navigates primarily by d-pad? :)
