I’m more than willing to pay for content, and frequently do whenever there’s DRM-free media available as an option. I’ll happily pay even more than the other options if there’s a DRM-free version (Baldurs Gate on GOG for example). But that’s so rarely possible. I’m not willing to risk losing access to a favorite old show or some super-obscure thing I love for a corporate tax technicality.
And call me old fashioned, but I like the option of watching a tv show or movie straight off my own hard drive. No internet to rely on, instant 4K playback no matter what. Streaming just isn’t how I want to consume my media. I get that a lot of people love it, and that’s totally fine, no judgement. But for me, if companies can’t make guarantees about resolution and content availability then there’s no reason for me to buy in when I can get by perfectly well without their blessing. I’ll continue to support local artists and larger media companies whenever they give me a fair way to do it.
That was a fun watch. My friends give me shit when I complain that Netflix looks terrible on their huge expensive TV, and yet my pirated content looks perfect every time. I will never pay for a service that delivers a lower quality product than what I can get for free. And like this guy says, I’m a grown-ass man that can afford a Netflix subscription. But why the hell would I pay for a subpar product, when sailing the high seas has always allowed me to watch super-high quality content whenever I want?
I hear you. West is inspirational, and Biden is far too old and not exciting in the least. I don’t like Biden one bit. But unfortunately even if a vote for West is not necessarily a vote for Trump, it’s still a vote against Biden, which makes it more likely that Trump will win. Almost none of us get to vote for a person we actually like, so I’m genuinely begging you to reconsider and vote for someone who has a chance of winning. Unfortunately unless something radical happens in the next few months, that’s only Biden and Trump. If you’re trying to send a message with your vote for West, I don’t think the people that matter will hear it. I wish things were different, but unfortunately this election is between a boring old institutional politician and a racist, fascist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, insurrectionist rapist.
Yeah, not ideal, but he does link to Seymour Hersh’s investigation, which I read when it came out a while back, and found it to be comprehensive and pretty convincing. Unfortunately it looks like Hersh’s article is behind a paywall now, which really sucks.
At the time (last February) I was genuinely surprised that it wasn’t being covered in the mainstream media with any substance, and then I started seeing the more recent reports this article mentions, that just uncritically parrot the US government’s official line. Something is very clearly out of place, and it seems like the major players are just hoping the world forgets and moves on, which it basically has.
I thought blindly publishing the Bush administration’s lies about the Iraq war was supposed to have taught the mainstream media a lesson about accepting convenient messaging without doing a proper independent investigation.
Not only does the functionality seem almost completely unnecessary except for a limited use case here and there, but this thing is truly ugly. Who designed this travesty? How would you even store this bumpy hunk of plastic?
Sony used to have some of the most elegant and clean hardware aesthetics. Their designs were genuinely beautiful, simple, and practical. They used to ooze premium luxury. Now we get a screen with a sawed off controller stuck to the sides? Disappointing.
You know what? I take it back. The PS5 is shaped like a modem from 1999, it deserves this ugly step-cousin.
I just always imagined an awkward conversation between Janeway and some new species she had just beamed on board: “so uh, Captain, why do some of your crew have different rank pins?”
“Oh, you mean the terrorists? Don’t worry about it, they’re fine.”
Yeah unfortunately I totally agree. He was really careful not to take any actual positions. He’s articulate, and obviously very intelligent, with a somewhat unique identity. But that’s pretty much it. The first time I saw him speak, I remember being really impressed with his overall demeanor and the fact that he’s comfortable talking about complex topics, but I went back and rewatched it shortly after and realized he didn’t actually say anything at all, it just seemed like he did. He’s a master talker, but very little substance.
Keep in mind these companies pooled their resources in California to spend $90 million to defeat the proposition that would have classified drivers as employees, when I’m pretty sure just paying their drivers a fair wage would have cost less. Now this??? How the fuck can these companies think it’s in their best interest to waste all this money on settlements and ballot measures, when they could make the issue disappear for less money, by just being decent humans and paying their employees a fair living wage? Not only would they save money, but they’d potentially end up with a happy and loyal staff. Oh the humanity!
She once balanced a phaser between two random shuttle components to rig up an ad-hoc force field that saved her and the shuttle crew from being blown out into space. And she managed to save the shuttle, a shuttle she had just finished to help design and build in a matter of weeks. The best chief engineer in starfleet.
I’m deep into a long overdue Voyager rewatch, and forgot how awesome she was.
This is legitimately something I fantasize about. All I want is a small standalone structure to myself, nothing too big or fancy. I’m so damn sick of being held hostage by my neighbors ridiculously odd sleep schedule and lack of basic human decency.
Even though I’m single with a decent job, it’s never gonna happen. But I can dream. Well actually I can’t dream, because my neighbors don’t let me stay asleep long enough to reach a REM state.
I’ve got a slightly older Sceptre 43 inch 4K, and tbh I’ve been trying to find a replacement for a while. The form factor of the TV itself is great, but the picture is pretty crappy. There’s a ton of light bleed around the edges, the HDR functionality is insanely frustrating and looks terrible, and the upscaling is crap. I got it on a ridiculous sale towards the beginning of the pandemic when local shops were clearing their inventories, so I can’t really complain. But I would not buy it again.
I also have two of their PC monitors, and they have the same problems as the TV. No more Sceptre for me in the future.
Why not send some of that sweet sweet surplus Japanese fish over here to the mainland US? Afraid of lowering food prices in general? Screw that. Groceries are still absurdly expensive for us plebs, but sure, send all this food to the military. $800 billion a year clearly isn’t enough to satiate them. Don’t worry about all the civilians who can’t afford their meals.
There are so many to choose from, I'd search around a bit on your own to find one that meets your needs. As much as I hate diverting traffic to the place that should not be named, r/usenet has an extensive wiki of providers and is a good place to start.
If you don't care about any of that and just want a single answer, I use Newsgroup Ninja. It's one of the cheapest options even when it's not on sale. But wait a couple weeks, they usually have a significant Black Friday sale.
That makes sense, and I totally understand the utility of having municipal graves for unclaimed remains. I guess I would just call them that: unclaimed or unrepresented remains. I’m not saying “pauper” is inherently bigoted or anything, it just took me by surprise and struck me as a dehumanizing label that fits better in Medieval England. I don’t think we would call someone a pauper to their face in 2023, so I’m not sure why we’d use it to refer to their remains.
This behavior is cowardly and disgusting. There’s no excuse.
Also, I didn’t realize we still had “pauper’s fields.” The repeated use of the word “pauper” in this article makes me really uncomfortable. I’m not from the south, so maybe it’s a regional thing? But that term strikes me as antiquated and dehumanizing.
This is appalling. Swap out the word police in the article and you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a story about an organized crime protection racket.
I’m more than willing to pay for content, and frequently do whenever there’s DRM-free media available as an option. I’ll happily pay even more than the other options if there’s a DRM-free version (Baldurs Gate on GOG for example). But that’s so rarely possible. I’m not willing to risk losing access to a favorite old show or some super-obscure thing I love for a corporate tax technicality.
And call me old fashioned, but I like the option of watching a tv show or movie straight off my own hard drive. No internet to rely on, instant 4K playback no matter what. Streaming just isn’t how I want to consume my media. I get that a lot of people love it, and that’s totally fine, no judgement. But for me, if companies can’t make guarantees about resolution and content availability then there’s no reason for me to buy in when I can get by perfectly well without their blessing. I’ll continue to support local artists and larger media companies whenever they give me a fair way to do it.