Given how crappy a lot of "official' upsampling and other AI slop is and other batch-processing errors, aspect ratio changes ruining editing, and IP licensing making the music vanish, pirated media is frequently simply better quality.

But their big problem is reinventing all the cable shenanigans people hate without the natural monopoly to enforce it. When you run a wire to someone's house, there's lock-in. Streaming removes that "loyalty'. Now add in all the constant media swapping that means you can't count on things staying in the catalog, and there's no reason to want to use any of them, other than convenience.

And my storage server is a lot more convenient than any offer I've seen from the streamers.

I would think that DeSantis would personally be handing Altman the key to the state or something.

I can't dissect her shitty character non-arc any better than Matthew Kadish from Medium did in his 8000-word annihilation of a poorly written, poorly conceived, poorly executed Mary Sue.

And...Grogu is literally nothing BUT a toy commercial.

https://medium.com/@matthewkad...

"Since a Mary Sue is partially defined by her ability to upstage all other characters she shares a scene with, regardless of those characters previously established skills and abilities, let us look at how Rey does this to other characters in Star Wars:

        Rey beats up Finn upon first meeting him, despite Finn supposedly being a trained Stormtrooper.
        Rey is able to fly the Millennium Falcon better than Han Solo, who is considered one of the best pilots in the galaxy.
        Rey is able to fix the Millennium Falcon easier and quicker than either Han Solo or Chewbacca, whoâ(TM)ve flown the ship for decades.
        Rey is able to shoot a blaster more accurately than a trained Stormtrooper, despite never having fired a blaster before.
        Rey is able to resist Kylo Renâ(TM)s Force interrogation technique, and even turn it around on him to read his mind, despite Kylo being a trained Force user and Rey never having used the Force before.
        Rey is able to defeat Kylo Ren in a lightsaber duel despite never fighting with a lightsaber before and Kylo Ren being a trained saber user.
        Rey receives condolences for Hanâ(TM)s death from Leia instead of Chewbacca receiving Leiaâ(TM)s condolences, considering Chewbacca had a far closer relationship with both Han and Leia and Leia never having met Rey before.
        Rey is chosen to go retrieve Luke Skywalker, despite the more sensible choice being that of Leia.
        Luke becomes frightened of Rey after seeing her âoeraw powerâ with the Force being equal to that of Kylo Ren.
        Rey defeats Luke Skywalker in one-on-one combat, despite Luke being a trained Jedi capable of defeating Darth Vader, arguably one of the most skilled Force combatants in history.
        Rey defeats numerous Praetorian Guards and helps to save Kylo Ren during the battle, despite having very little experience in fighting multiple opponents at once.
        Rey shows she has mastery over the Force on a level with Kylo Ren when struggling over possession of Lukeâ(TM)s lightsaber despite Kylo having years of training and Rey having weeks worth of training.
        Rey is able to get a âoetriple killâ by destroying three First Order TIE Fighters at the same time in the Battle of Crait, despite never firing the Millennium Falconâ(TM)s guns before.
        Rey is able to move a mountain of rocks from the Resistance base on Crait, despite never having trained for such a feat, and which no Jedi in the Star Wars films has ever before demonstrated. Thus, she upstages Luke in respect to being the one to actually save the survivors of the Resistance."

I don't think building weapons is inherently bad, like some sort of child.
The fact is that nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles have given us the longest period of peace between the great powers in modern history, at least since the 14th century.

You probably believe if we hadn't built them the Soviets would have just showed us with hugs and kisses?

...and which have given us the longest period of great power peace in since what, Charlemagne?

Or did you think that was coincidence?
The goal is NOT to use them.

I am reminded of some source code for a company-specific program that I saw in the late 1990s. I don't remember why I was perusing it, as I was in IT and absolutely not a developer. But I remember being tickled at one of the comments before a block of code. It was something like, "I have no idea why or how the following code works. But every time someone tries to change it, everything breaks, so please don't touch it."

The key to 'surfing the 2nd generation techs' is that you - defacto - can't be at the cutting edge. In fact you have to be a backward society *vastly* behind the curve to avoid having to have that legacy sunk-cost infrastructure.

Nobody "skipped over" early tech, that implies agency. These are LEFT BEHIND economies. I don't think anyone chooses that as a strategy.

So it's externally-developed tech that someone is selling them.

"...the movie isn't finding audiences "beyond an aging group of core fans.""

Aren't these the core fans they basically told to go fuck themselves?

They rebranded the entire Expanded Universe as 'non canonical' so they could re-write and sell their new shit. Churn out committee-designed scripts set up to "maximize marketing opportunities" and expect nobody to notice.

Trivializing genuine criticism as racists, homophobes, alt-right, or some easily-dismissed 'engineered' ingenuous complaints. Even something as simple as fight-choreography has gotten dumber.

Rey as the lead of the series is a stupidly written Mary Sue girlboss. Challenges? None. Character development? None. Dramatic Stakes? None.
Invented powers every other film to conveniently solve incompetent writers ending up in corners.
Finn could have been a REALLY interesting character ... Wasted.
Tell me Rose Tico didn't practically have a "Asian placeholder" card around her neck, with her irrelevant go-nowhere subplot of nothingness?
Genre, beloved characters mainly got shit on before being spun out - dead, depressed, or bitter hermits.

https://www.seanpcarlin.com/st...

Too much democracy going on?

You do know how it became "GOP-controlled", right? By voters actually voting for representatives?

I mean if a colossus like Zig does this, well then ...

Really? If you don't search diligently enough for obfuscated malicious code first before using a tool on it, you deserve what you get?

10% is enough to get what you want? Whelp, seems fair, as long as you are on the correct, boffin-approved side, lol!

Oh lovely. I have a stalker now, lol

Can't argue with that, er, logic ...

I'm stupid because you think this guy is "in my head"? Okay, lol

https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=24004188&cid=66166696