You’re specifically asking about B-Movies here. They’ll grab whoever the heck fills the chair.

If it sounds good enough for the story to be told and trick someone into watching it, the goal was achieved. Time for the next movie!

Most of the time, if the dialog is delivered and actors are on set, that’s really all that matters for tax purposes.

I think the truth of it is, good sound engineering costs money, time, or both. I both ran sound and did sound design for local stage theater and I was shocked at how little the designers knew how to make their transitions seamless and avoid clipping, resonant frequencies, static, and a whole mess of other issues, many of which need fixes during recording rather than post.

It took me about 5 years working with audio software before I was making stuff for other people but a lot of other people have the confidence to learn their skill working with live projects, project result be damned. I go back and listen to my early stuff and I hear all sorts of mistakes I didn’t even know I was making.

Access to good hardware/software can also be a major detriment. I’ve had to sacrifice many design ideas due to available tools. When at the end of the day, it comes down to bad audio vs no audio at all, there’s an obvious winner.

There truly is faith

This was probably a 30-year-old guy who’s been waiting for this moment since the first Oblivion released.

Haha no thanks

I actually paid for this and use it on windows all the time. I generally don’t rip my Blu-Rays just because I have so many and not enough HDD space for it. The only reliable way I’ve found to play them in real-time has been MakeMKV + MPC-HC.

Oh, I have like 4 other computers with Linux. This one is just there until support for 10 ends. Then I’ll let go of those last few things and deal with it when that bridge comes. I’ve been on track to ditching it entirely for a couple years now in preparation for this exact case.

I’m down to one Windows machine and the death of Windows 10 will be the death of Windows for me. I’m holding out just for the games that just won’t work under Linux and some other proprietary software like Blu-Ray playback. What a run. I’ll be glad to see it go.

The first season started off so incredibly well. I recently cancelled Netflix and this just reinforces my decision.

You can say fuck on the internet

On your last point, I moved 5 years ago when I was 28 with no friends or family to speak of outside of online. It’s never too late. My best luck making friends have been in context. In other words, I never went to a place to specifically make friends. I met them all when I was doing other things.

The biggest change for me was joining a kickboxing gym. I’m not an athlete by any stretch, but it allowed me to gain confidence, which I quickly learned is about the most attractive trait you can have.

The only way to get better at meeting new people is to try and fail. Hopefully through some trial and error, you can find an activity you enjoy that happens to involve others rather than trying to go places to meet people.

It’s going to sound dismissive, but I don’t go to others. I’ve found in my times of feeling the most alone, the only thing that allowed me to feel different was introspection.

I do absolutely understand the primal desire to be around others for support, but self-sufficiency and finding satisfaction without the help of others was my only way forward.

It wasn’t so much that I needed to change or that I was doing something wrong, but I forced myself to focus on those feelings and try to understand where they were coming from and learned that other things in my life gave me that satisfaction. For me, I make art when I’m feeling the most alone because it allows me to express that feeling.

Another thing that may come across as harsh is that you’re the only one in charge of your own happiness. If you feel like none of your friends are supporting you, it’s up to you to go out and find new people to fill their space.

Friends that are only there for you when you’re feeling good are not friends.

As much as MM1 is a slower movie, I actually appreciate it as a foundation for the others. It really lets your mind imagine how things went from 1 to 2.

Similarly, my XP install just died and I didn’t have a copy of Windows to reinstall. Gnome 2 taught me computers don’t have to look or feel boring and the terminal taught me they weren’t scary.

Learned a lot that first year.

Mr. Robot is a very accurate depiction of hacking in its era. Everything they use is a real hack available to the public. It does a good job of showing backend corporate structure.

I remember this was the first game I saw on TV that was laughably bad. Pretty sure it was the Xplay episode where they showed it off: https://youtu.be/jG3QLH3DnIo

Simpler times

With the × Unicode character: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplication_sign

Taoism is a practice that doesn’t rely on or reject a higher power. It gives meaning to day to day life and the writers I’ve read who practice it have a very practical view on the world.

As for religion, I fall into agnosticism. I certainly don’t have any hard evidence that there is a higher power, but at the same time, with how insanely complex, terrifying, beautiful, loving, and hurtful the world can feel, I can’t help but feel that there’s something beyond what’s in front of us at play. It may not be a theist’s idea of God, but something else entirely.

I have one of these that’s about 6 or 7 years old at this point and still glowing alright. Pretty neat little things!