In 2019 a friend and I got subscriptions to Regal and began going to a movie a week. Most days we’d plan something, but sometimes we’d just show up and pick something. (We blindly picked Underwater, and what a great surprise. Also decided to see the Tom Hanks Mr. Rogers film and proceed to ugly cry all over myself.)

Then COVID.

The last movie I saw in theaters as a subscriber was Bad Boys for Life. I tried to go see Dune 1. I drove 30m, bought popcorn and a slushee, and waited… But the video file was corrupted. They said they had to redownload it before the next show, so they canceled the showing and gave everyone a free ticket. I never bothered using it. I just went home and watched it for free on HBO Max.

I love theaters, both as nostalgia and just to have the experience. But man, “paying extra to go out of your way” is a difficult sell.

It’s incredibly common in the US, especially among younger people. This was just on the first page of my search but I’m sure you can find tons of similar stories over the years: https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/more-americans-prefer-watching-shows-with-subtitles-study-finds/ar-AA1rj48O

Overall, half of respondents said they use subtitles regularly.

Personally I’ve always done it since my youth as well (around '96.) Admittedly that was mostly because I mostly used my TV to watch late at night instead of sleep… But it wasn’t even unheard of then to prefer subtitles. And it was pretty common at the HD switch over, often citing bad speakers (both quality and physical design.)

Wasn’t adding engagement numbers to each tweet one of the first things he added? I remember thinking “who the fuck wants to see that?” But I guess to people like him that was important at the time? Huh.

I’ll probably always think that Tetris is the greatest video game ever. The inherent dramatic arc that comes with watching the blocks stack up is tension directly within you the player, not you watching tension unfold for characters on the screen. It’s different every time, even if the shape of the arc is similar, because you improve as a player. It’s the kind of emergent involvement the most designers could only aspire to create.

That said of course Shadow of the Colossus is also a favorite. That one probably feels a little more obvious, but I’m okay with that.

“War. War never changes.”

“Remember. No Russian.”

“Itchy. Tasty.”

Sure, but with that philosophy, why use a microblogging system at all?

It gives space to do servers based on specific interests if you want. I’m part of a game development server, and my “Local” tab has people on my server often talking about, and showing, things that are related to game development. And I can still follow anyone from any other Mastodon server too.

If you’re into video games, film, maybe a specific genre of music, you can have an instance dedicated to that. (It might already exist.) It’s like a virtual neighborhood, or forum. Remember forums? Those were nice. They cultivated a sense of community which made people a little more responsible in their attitudes, it feels like. Maybe that’s just nostalgia, but I like the server I’m on. It’s got friendly people I can talk to without feeling the need to fill my follows with them.

That’s what led me to this. I quit Audible a few months back, planning to just buy more media outright. But they offered me a “come back and pay $0.99 for the first three months!” and I’m not really saying “no” to basically giving them Amazon’s money. (Though for the holidays they’ve apparently upped the offer to that plus a $20 credit.) So I thought this would be a good general question as I look for more ways to support creators directly, after taking their money runs out.

Good mention of Libby, too. A coworker recommended that to me, so I’ve got it now as well. Sadly my local selection isn’t great for audiobooks. But it does make me want to get an ereader more.

Bandcamp looks to be a good way to buy music though, as someone mentioned. But I can’t find any good way to buy digital copies of movies/TV. It’s all pretty platform locked, it seems.

I love the question! I rarely listen to songs or playlists, and almost never algorithm based streams. Instead I put on albums I like. Even in my 10m-15m drive to work, and do that until I’m tired on an album. So, love the question.

Aesop Rock’s Integrated Tech Solutions. Being a long time fan I thought The Impossible Kid was fantastic. TIK was as creative and ponderous as anything he’d done, but often felt more accessible and personally inviting. While accessibility is not something you generally look for with Aesop, that feeling of being personal really made it pay off. Spirit World Field Guide was good and was interesting, but didn’t work for me as much. Maybe it was a case of enjoying TIK so much, and comparison being the thief of joy? But ITS absolutely feels top notch again. Love it.

Also worth mentioning is Powerman 5000. A year or so ago (while on a kick to my youth) I found out they were still making music and had released an album (The Noble Rot) in 2020. Shortly after I discovered that, they released one in 2024 (Abandon Ship.) They’re not great songs, but they’re all great vibes. The songs feel like they 3/4s to being great to me. Like they kept the dial at a 7 or 8 instead of turning it up to 11. And even when they did turn it up, it was only at the very end. Maybe he’s going for something different, or maybe I’ve changed, but the strength feels off. But damn the vibes are still there.

I’ve often wondered if it was an age or even time thing. I’m 44 and I noticed at some point years ago I was getting more reluctant to click buttons and try to figure things out on my own. That’s how I learned everything as a kid and became the typical family IT guy. I had to relearn that curiosity and the willingness to learn things in that fashion, which I think shrank just from disuse. I’m not in IT, but I’ve seen that reluctance grow in other people too.

I wonder if rising to certain levels (or just gaining support staff to help with things) contributes to not doing small things. Then that can lead to an increased reluctance to do other small things. (Just out of no longer feeling comfortable with them.) I hadn’t thought about it, but it makes sense to me.

I do wonder if they’d garner enough attention to pay for the licenses to add them to Game Pass. I loved the MUA games.

Even if they do repeat 3 (and I kinda feel they will,) it’ll have a cliffhanger too. And I’m okay with that.

Good point. Does anyone know an animator? I’ll write some promotional material.

I will give respect where due: I like the sweep button. It’s handy for me personally, as someone who is on several email lists that are public-facing. That’s about it.

Every attempt to help me automatically is a pain. Like most things in this vein it never learns what you’re trying to do, only what they would do in a given scenario that’s vaguely like ours.

Every little bit counts. And finding ten people (especially out of ten) who agree on anything is pretty impressive. Congratulations. I hope this does well for you.

That WOULD be a fraction of the cost of a new PC. But given my current one is a 2017 build with a 1080 in it, I’m really hoping to make next year the time to free up some money for it regardless. But I do appreciate the thought!

I actually used Mint for about a year a decade ago, and really liked it then. What made me switch back was the gaming. That said, I hear gaming on Linux has just gotten better and better; just like people in this thread are saying. Whenever I get around to putting together a new PC I’ll probably either dump something Linux on this one or dual boot myself. Sadly I don’t expect Activision to really support it. But hey, Lord knows I’ve been wrong before. (And yeah, printers are often kinda universally assholes though; that we all know.)

I’d love to make the move, but there’s a one-two punch of: I play Warzone with family. I think anti-cheat there is only going to get worse. Second? I already get caught with the fiddly bits of errors on Windows sometimes and spend too long searching for answers. Any time I see that on Linux it looks like I’d need years more of active learning new problem solving to reach my current level of comfort.

I’m at that “is it worth planting the apple tree now that I didn’t plant 20 years ago?” thinking.

Anyone knowledgeable about city planning? Why did we never put some type of signal in our roads? (I don’t know. Passive RFID every few feet?) It would only cost what, ten, twenty thousand on top of each million spent paving every mile?

Seems it would be better baseline navigation than self driving cars and occasionally map apps. The cars would still have to do obstacle avoidance, of course.

I’m not particularly knowledgeable about self driving tech or city planning. But if interstates are replaced every 10 years, and highways every 20, and Musk first made these claims in 2013? Then we’d have the base tech for every auto manufacturer to do moderately reliable self driving on interstates and a lot of our highways already.

Or maybe that large view pathfinding is the relatively easy part? That’s why I’m asking. I’m sure there’s something more obvious from an informed viewpoint that I don’t know.

This chart makes me wonder about cigarette smoking specifically. It feels like if you looked back 40 years it would be a “U”.