When we were looking at homes, I was surprised how many had TVs mounted (and angled downward) from above the fireplace. I get not wanting to take out the fireplace, and I get wanting to have a TV in a communal room. But boy would it be much nicer if you could unroll a screen at an appropriate height (e.g., not all the way down from the ceiling) on a temporary basis.

Yeah it's terrible. I would just drywall over that fireplace if that was my only option.

Eventually it will just be wallpaper.

Obligatory:

> The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.

> The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.

- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949

Prescient, but the one thing Orwell missed was that in some cases, people will wait overnight in the cold and rain just to be able to purchase the latest model telescreen. Would probably have been too unbelievable for the book.

Doesn't seem like it addresses the problem of awkward wall spaces at all, vs a stow-away screen of some type.