A 2230 from Ali Express is very affordable. I’d definitely recommend that over any modifications.

archive.ph will get you around the paywall too, if that’s more your style.

NYT cooking tends to have recipes with short descriptions and very little narrative.

Looks like an Intel NUC supports CEC. That would be a more powerful option I suppose.

What about a Raspberry Pi or other SFF PC flashed with libreelec to run Kodi.

Can it run Doom?

I have an LG and it functions just fine without being connected to Wi-Fi. You can also monitor and block any attempts to phone home at the DNS level with something like pihole.