Came here to say exactly this, but you beat me to it.

That's part of the problem, but not the whole problem. Even *with* a properly configured and tuned surround-sound system there are an infuriating number of movies and TV shows that sometimes present nearly inaudible dialog for various reasons: actors "whispering" and mumbling is one very real issue, though that *could* be at least mostly corrected by the sound engineer responsible for the final audio mix-down. I think there are directors that are literally doing this on purpose to "enhance realism" or some bullshit like that, and hey, I'm all for "Cinema verite" when done well, but if people with reasonably normal hearing need subtitles to HEAR THE DIALOG then the director and sound production crew have COMPLETELY FAILED! I also get that if I'm watching an action movie, I might need to turn the sound system up quite loud to hear all the dialog, and that's fine, but I've experienced many instances where a regular tv show or movie that is literally just people talking, with no explosions or any real background sound, needs to be turned up to an unreasonably loud level for the dialog to be audible, and at least a few cases where even maxing out the sound system's capabilities (stopping short of distortion) still results in barely-audible dialog.

As far as dumbing down movies for people who stare at their phone instead of actually watching the show: sure, go ahead. As someone who watches things because I WANT TO SEE THEM, I just won't watch those shows and movies designed for people who won't actually watch them; the same way I already don't watch TV shows and movies that I don't want to see, which is most of them. Don't get me wrong, that leaves a lot of things that I do want to watch, but it's probably something on the order of 5% or less of the available content. If this knocks it down to 1% of what's out there, so be it.

Blazing Saddles!

"What happens when they molt?!?"

Huh. I didn't know that was disputed, though it looks like the dispute is still unresolved, with at least one source saying that it should be more like the 2nd power of the axle weight for *some* kinds of road damage, though everything I'm reading would seem to indicate that the general principle still holds that heavily loaded trucks are causing more road damage than lighter vehicles, though I guess it is a complex problem with no easy way to characterize the exact ratio under varying real-world conditions, though it does look like "all of them far more relevant than axel weight" may not be exactly right either.

Almost all the damage is being done by tractor trailers

This! Road damage = 4th power of the axle weight. Heavy load operators should be paying the vast majority of the costs for roads. The way it is now is *gasp* socialism benefiting trucking companies.

Exactly! Who watches TV in a brightly-lit room? I watch TV in a dark or dimly lit room, 8 feet away from my 10+ year old 50" 1080p tv, with the brightness turned down to 50%. Even on my old, inexpensive LED backlit LCD panel TV, setting the brightness at 100% is way too bright in a dark room, and I doubt very much that that's anything near 2000 nits. Probably more like 200.

Totally this. I enjoy good, clean, very loud audio in a movie, but at most "regular" movie theaters, it's very loud, but not clean or good. Like WTF! Why!?!? I'd be a *much* better experience if they simply turned down the volume until the sound stops effing clipping!

The exception to this is iMAX theaters, which have enormous screens and crystal clear (and very loud) audio. I'll probably never go to a "regular" movie theater ever again, unless the trend changes, but iMAX is worth it for a special screening. For everything else there's my 50" tv and decent sound system on my couch.

I don't care about snacks at all though. I'll bring my own water bottle and go out to a nice restaurant afterward.

Totally, even though for the most part I don't actually use any of the new features, I get it, but it is a little frustrating when software that I depend on and use all day, every day, takes a nosedive in quality, so I really do hope this new thing helps them bring the quality back up to where it was a few years ago, rather than adding even more features...

I've been a Thunderbird user since forever ago, and I've only had two big issues in all that time, and both instances I think were due to changes in the mailbox/account format on disk, and they were fixed fairly quickly, so major kudos to the devs for that.

I've noticed a drop in the overall quality of the software in the past couple years, so hopefully this gives them an infusion of cash to get things back on track. I guess there's always Betterbird. I was just looking at switching yesterday, since I currently have an annoying issue with emails correctly tagged and filed as spam causing system new mail notifications, which is something I've never experienced. I suspect it has something to do with the switch to native system notifications on linux... I've went looking to see if there's a bug report about it, and so far, nothing. I guess I'll have to file one myself.

I pay $2.50/month for about 25MB of data per month ($10 prepaid card every 120 days) from PagePlus (a verizon mvno), which doesn't sound like much, but is sufficient for quick calls, texting, text-only email and even live traffic mapping, since the balance carries over, taking care of occasional heavier usage. I do have to be careful using my phone when not on wifi, but it's a no-brainer when even the lowest cost "unlimited" plan costs 20 times that.

Unfortunately, it's often difficult to get them to take my money (their website sucks) and they're probably going to go away relatively soon, so I'll probably have to switch to US Mobile or something else for ~$20/month, which still isn't bad I guess, but adds up quickly when you're paying tor 6 phones...

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition... (Or a well designed industrial/commercial center...)

My thoughts exactly! I have a few (very old) copies of Wikipedia hanging around somewhere. I should go torrent a fresh copy. Way back when, I used to keep a text-only copy on my phone (Kiwix, which appears to still be a thing) for when I didn't have data. I bet I still have that SD card somewhere. I think it was about 10GB uncompressed back then.

I guess it goes to show how stupid and greedy these AI companies are. I'm sure that a lot of the primary training data for most models *is* Wikipedia. So letting all these AI bots go nuts hitting the public servers over and over again for slightly updated content is just plain lazy. Grabbing diffs from a mirror every month and updating a local copy isn't even hard, or maybe just spend an infinitesimal amount of that VC money on a Wikipedia API subscription. Sheesh.

I sincerely hope you're right about that, though it seems to me that stupidity itself isn't the problem we face, that would be greed combined with irrational fear along with the societal delusion that all of us are temporarily embarrassed billionaires, just waiting for our "big break". Spoiler alert: the big break isn't coming for *any* of us that aren't already billionaires.

My last phone was a moto G (2017) and it was the perfect size at 5.2". I just recently had to replace it with a (second hand) pixel device, not because I wanted one (I wanted another Moto G, but they're 7" now) but because it's (just) pocketable at 6.1". "Small" smartphones seem to not exist anymore. I don't care at all about "thin" phones either. I just want an android phone that fits comfortably in my front pocket and has 2+ days of battery. The Zenfone would have worked, but is expensive and att & tmobile only.