Last September, I asked the SoylentNews community for help in choosing an UHD (Ultra High Definition) 4K television to use as a computer monitor. I was amazed at all the helpful and informative replies! I'm please to report that I got a TCL Roku 43S515 on sale at Best Buy and it has been working great! I so enjoy having more pixels to arrange even more info on my screen.
But something funny happened a couple days ago. I powered up the TV using the remote as I would normally do. Then I selected the input coming from my laptop, again as I usually do. And then, for a few moments, I saw a message displayed at the bottom of my screen:
Hamster wheel engaged
After I stopped laughing, I wondered if I had inadvertently stumbled upon an Easter Egg. What other messages, if any, lurked in my TV?
It seems the developers at Roku have a sense of humor. Some searching around the web (Roku's forum (all 4 pages) as well as on Amazon forum) revealed quite a few messages. I've gathered them here in alphabetical order:
Aligning Solar Panels
Boosting entertainment channels
Engaging warp drive
Hamster wheel engaged
Installing solar panels
Maximizing Fun Factor
Opening the gateway
Opening Stream Gates
Releasing the stream
Supercharging your system
Tuning Hyperdrive
What strange, silly, or whimsical messages have you seen?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday March 30 2019, @09:04AM (2 children)
If memory serves me well, this species used to be widespread in N Africa, but it seems that they have been part of the illegal wild hamster trade and are now nearing extinction. Apparently, they are much in demand by software developers.....
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Sunday March 31 2019, @07:42AM (1 child)
They aren't even native to there, originally they were Siberian Hamsters that were introduced by Russian settlers fleeing persecution during Stalin's Borscht Purge in the 1930s.
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Monday April 01 2019, @03:34AM
Well, let's have a little Basil hunt, shall we? And then we'll deal with the sackings later on.