Technically I have multiple TV’s only because I wanted multiple large high resolution screens for my computer. I don’t actually use them as TV’s.

Who has Crusades round 2 with special guest Islamic golden age the sequel, on their bingo card for 2026?

Couldn’t find my drink when I was at work, found it…

Also ignore the spring pollen in the south it gets bad.

They changed how they measured loudness a few years back on both the mixing side and the playback side. Back in the 00’s the measurements were based on peak volumes, so brick wall limiting was used to get the most volume that you were allowed to have in playback. This caused the dynamics to be essentially non existent. Filmmakers hated this, movie goers hated it, the only people who liked it were the lawyers because it meant lawsuits didn’t happen.

Laws were changed in the early 10’s that changed how loudness was measured. Now it’s measured as exposure over time. This has had many benefits in the production of both films and music, however the laws, at least in the USA and Canada, were written very broadly, and consider movie theaters and concert halls to both be performance venues. This means movie theaters have the same restrictions as concert halls.

Because the law measures exposure over time it allows the loud areas to be loud as long as there’s quiet areas to offset it. This means when you have someone who doesn’t understand yet how the new laws affect the audio mix, the dialogue will get buried to make the explosions more “impactful”. It has started to get better since the laws have been around for a while and people have gotten used to them.

As dumb as all this sounds the calculations themselves, are very well calculated and you are way less likely to get hearing damage these days from a concert or movie theater than you used to. Your ears get damaged from long term exposure easier than peak volumes, and with measurement stick now measuring long term exposure as opposed to peak volumes, you end up better protected. Because of the regulations you are more likely to get hearing damage from headphones than you are a concert or a movie theater.

I used to tune the speakers in movie theaters.

If it’s a Dolby certified theater there will be a chair that has a placard on it, that’s where the mic was placed to tune the theater. It will always be center, about 2/3rds of the way back. Most other certifications mirror this in some way.

We did THX certification and that was a little bit more broad, we wanted the “sweet spot” to be an area, not a single seat. This is why a THX certified room will look different than most other theater rooms, because it’s designed for maximum coverage. This also means we are sacrificing sound quality for sound consistency, making sure every seat sounds the same. With that being said we completely ignored the margins, they were called quarter margins and anything within 25% of the edge was disqualified from primary readings. We would take secondary readings from the edge, but that was just to verify that there were no glaring problems, not for actual certifications.

In short… central-ish is good for any movie theater.

I actually use ai on a daily basis. Not LLM’s mind you, those tend to be garbage. But where ai actually shines is automating mundane tasks. I trained it on how I like to color grade my photos and videos, and now instead of spending hours, sometimes days, for bigger projects color grading, now it’s 30 minutes to an hour.

So yes the majority of the ai use cases will fizzle out, but it will stick around in areas where it automates workflows.

Relevant XKCD

You are correct that Canon and Brother tend to be the best straight forward printers. Brother is better for laser printing and Canon is better for ink jet printing. If you go ink jet go with individual cartridges instead of the combined cartridges it’s way less fuss.

If you can do laser the basic Brothers just work. We had one in our woodshop for almost a decade. Sawdust spray paint etc. and it just did not care. It didn’t end up dying even, we just swapped it for a color version, and we’re on year 4 with that one.

My SO and I split when we ended up going to university. Our universities were a 7 hour time difference and we both knew, that just wasn’t going to work. Our last date was updating each other’s dating profiles. She found a guy, and I was at their wedding. Super cool dude and I’m extremely happy for her.

The only people who actually have a claim to the argument of “abortion is murder” are biologists.

The no shirt part was a result of the hipster movement in the 1970’s, and that’s originally how it was for over a decade. The no shoes part was because of lawyers and liability, hence why sandals are allowed, but barefoot is not.

The moto I live my life by is “The day you stop learning is the day you become obsolete.”

The one I wish more people took to heart is, “After everything has been said, and everything has been heard, these three remain: faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love.”

Just love each other, that’s all I’m asking for.

I scheduled vaccine appointments with my Dr. My parents were anti-vax and once I was old enough I went and did it myself.

1. Keep your finger off the boom trigger until your ready to fire.
2. know your target and what’s behind it.
3. assume the gun is always loaded, even when you know it isn’t.
4. never point it at something you aren’t willing to completely and utterly destroy.

Star Trek has pushed progressive ideas throughout the years, from your experience on set, how do the people making the show, actors included, still try to carry that banner with the mounting political landscape?

YouTube educator, Cleo Abrams did a video on this as well as the actual options available to us to protect against asteroids, and found a new asteroid on camera

https://youtu.be/LOn-mmezykQ

14, rural communities have different rules I guess. My grandpa at 6 put me behind the wheel of his F350 while pulling a 20’ trailer so he could stand in the trailer and buck hay for all the livestock.

So by the time I got my license I already knew how to control a car and just had to learn the rules of the road.

This is the type of hyper fixation knowledge I’ve come to expect from the ADHD community.

If it sounds like a duck and looks like a duck, I’m calling it a duck.

Once it stops being slop, I’ll stop calling it what it is.

I think it should be percentage based, not fiscally based. That way it can adapt and grow with the times. I also think all income should be taxed, as it stands only certain types of income are taxed, and at different rates. Not surprisingly your W-2 taxes (taxes taken out of your paycheck) are one of the highest tax rates you can have on income. I also think tax breaks shouldn’t be a thing at all either. If the government wants to promote something they can offer a rebate so there’s a cap on how much they promote it, and it’s not an endless give away. Finally, expenses are the cost of doing business, and you shouldn’t be able to hide income because you paid money to make money.

The fact that I can buy a property, get a tax break because I’m paying interest on a mortgage, rent the property out for more than my mortgage, claim that as a business, then claim the mortgage as an expense for said business, and end up not paying any taxes on charging someone else to pay for my mortgage, is insane.

In my ideal world there would be no tax breaks period, you pay what is owed end of story. Anything below the median income (50%) isn’t taxed, anything above the median is taxed at 1.5% for each percentage point above the median. If you are in the top 10% and make more than 90% of the nation, you get taxed at 60% above the median and can take home 40% of that additional income after the median. In the USA this would be ($251,036-$80,610) x .4 + $80,610 or $148,780.4. If you are in the top 1% ($731,492) that would be a take home of $253,093.73. If you’re Elon Musk (est $400,000,000,000 last year alone) that would be “only” $100,000,000,000. Keep in mind in 2024 he didn’t pay any taxes, and in 2021, he was the highest tax paying individual in US history at $11 billion. Yes he would still be ultra rich, but there would be $300 billion going to taxes last year alone, or roughly 7.5% of all tax income.

This means rich people can still enjoy their money, while still paying their fair share, and if you’re just trying to get by, don’t worry about it, we got you.