I’ve been a paying member for almost a decade. I’ve been training it that entire time with what I do and don’t like. I’ve also been using their suggested playlists for years and further refining what they recommend. So their algorithm is a huge part of it for me. I am constantly finding songs and artists I wouldn’t have been exposed to otherwise.

That said, I’ve been holding my nose while I renewed the service for the past couple of years. I’m willing to part ways for Tidal if it’s a comparable service with better benefits to the artists.

Doesn’t seem obvious to me…

Be more specific.

Cite your sources.

Elmore Leonard. Dude was a massive influence on popular culture. He was instrumental in teaching Tarantino how to be Tarantino. He wrote the books that SO MANY great movies and television shows were based on.

Hunter Thompson. His gonzo style is often imitated but rarely duplicated. And it’s such a goddamn simple concept, but no one else managed to do it with his flair.

Disney released an animated movie a couple years ago called Strange World. It was a wildly mediocre movie with a plot that had a very obvious pro-environment, message that was subtle as a brick.

But what really ruffled the conservative feathers was son character who had a gay crush. For as preachy ad the rest of the movie was, the gay crush subplot was amazingly well done. They treated it like any other hetero love interest subplot. It wasn’t preachy or hamfisted or campy… it was just a family being happy for the kid.

Also the very heavy and intentional use of pronouns.

Deep Thoughts… by Jack Handy.

That reminds me of The Venture Bros. There’s a villain called White Noise who is basically anthropomorphic television static in a humanoid shape.

He was a white supremacist television repair man before his “accident”.

The writing on that show was so goddamn sharp.

Just one word: plastics.

I agree that moving to digital saved so much time, and I’ll never miss brainwraps or thrown platters… but working booth shifts threading projectors were some of the happiest times I had running theaters.

I’ve gotten bad keys from the studio before, usually when we were doing advanced screenings. It was a relatively quick fix… I think the longest delay was ~15 minutes. I never had to cancel a show because of it, certainly didn’t have to close the entire building.

For as much as I loved the convenience of digital, I really miss the days of 35 film.

WWZ is one of my all time favorite books. They should really make it into a movie. Or, even better, an HBO miniseries.

Lol. Sure sure.

I’ve seen photos someone in Israel with connections has of Palestinians posing as dead with fake blood, with the Al Jazeera photographer standing by to take the photo or video, and afterwards the “dead” children all get up and cleaned up.

Where? Where have you seen that?

Why?

You’re casually blowing off two of the main reasons why I still have to use Windows.

Is there a Linux alternative to Excel that will allow me to reliably write and execute VBA macros that I can then deploy to my windows using co-workers?

Is there a Linux alternative to Photoshop? Doesn’t even need to be the most current version. I’d be happy with something that is functionally comparable to Photoshop 7.

I’m not being glib with those questions either. It’s been probably ten years since I’ve really used Linux. If there are legitimate alternatives I’d absolutely give it another go.

Case in point: a number of years ago I knew a kid who was smart enough to flash Tomato on his router, enable SSH and even install a bunch of Entware packages. But he wasn’t intelligent enough to change the SSH port from 22 or leave the remote access disabled.

Fast forward a month or two and his ISP tells him that they traced some pretty serious botnet shenanigans to his IP.

Just because someone is smart enough to use a device doesn’t necessarily mean they’re intelligent enough to use it safely.

They’re in a tank. They literally do not need protection. They also do not care. The hats fill their microbrain compulsions just fine. They don’t need your absurd “hey, aren’t we all just urchins in hats!?” train of thought.

They’re probably living their best lives. They’re not being raised for food, they’re not living in a wild ocean… they’re wearing dapper hats instead of the dead husks of their seaborn brethren.

You could take a lesson from those urchins.

It must be tiring, constantly worrying about what others are doing and how you can twist the narrative so it directly affects you to the point where you can feel justification for your outrage.

Mind your business.

I haven’t seen anyone jump to a conclusion like that since the guy on Office Space.