Becauae making a good product is not their goal, and never was.

MS exists to monetize their products, or in other words extract maximum profit. When they were an underdog or compwtitor (Win 3.1 era), making a better product was the primary way to beat Apple et al.

But now they rely in integration/lock-in of their ecosystem, and making their products better will not increase their market share. That means improving their products is against their financial interests.

Nah, spotify is like google for streaming: shitty, abusive, monopolistic, evil, and unrepentant.

Canadian here.

Stop it. Stop it stop it STOP IT!

Refuse tips everywhere. If a business gives you the ‘option,’ refuse. Refuse, explain, and stopp going there.

PENALIZE any place that sets up tip options. Hurt them. Drive them out of business.

Break the spine of tipping now. Before it’s too late.

Years ago, a company wantes Tom Waits to do a commercial. He refused, so they hired a voice impersonator to do it instead. He sued, and won.

Not in the US, but here are some ideas.

• citizen’s arrest
• protest local government to have the perps arrested and charged
• doxxing

The last of these will eventually lead to the ultimate and worst response - retaliation and possibly civil war. Frankly, I don’t know if the US can avoid it at this point.

You got part of it. The Swiss get formal training during their military service, and understand that owning a gun is a responsibility and an obligation, not a right. They have a sense of duty around their ownership.

But another big part is that nobody on the planet fetishizes guns like the US. Guns are a symbol of virility, of sexual prowess, of “American Freedom.” Facebook recently showed me a reel by a woman who poses (nude) on OnlyFans with guns and motorcycles. That is a profoundly US mindset. (And of course the guns are assault rifles.)

Only in the US and a few other pockets of rednecks are guns fetishized.

Guy nearing 60 here. Average of 1/day, sometimes a bit more.

Sadly married to someone who has absolutely zero sex drive or desire for me.

Don’t do it.

As a general rule, this is a terrible idea. If there are exceptions, it’s clear from your comments that thus is not one of them.

This entire desire is to boost your ego - to validate that your unrequited ‘love’ (crush) made her life better, because you’re such a great guy.

Lwt it go, and grow up a bit more.

Apparently tabs are tags.

Alberta got rid of them eight years ago or so, but before that they were extremely one-use items. Super-fragile with an incredibly strong glue. You could NOT have remove them with a razor blade and the precision of a master jeweller.

Besides, annual registration is what - 80 bucks? Not worth it.

The presence of a laugh track is irrelevant. The necessity of one for people to find the show funny is a different matter.

This isn’t new.

I stopped watching TV in the mid-90s when Star Trek TNG turned out to be a disaster, and there was nothing else good on.

Most of the shows from that era (Seinfeld, Married with Children, Malcolm in the Middle), are about horrible people being horrible to each other - with a laugh track! - or about unrealistic people behaving in ridiculous ways (Friends, I’m looking at you!).

Sitcoms are rarely funny, but that’s a long-standing tradition. Shitty and/or cringe-inducing behaviour rule the time slots.

Waterfox.

We moved a few weeks ago. Yesterday afternoon, my new neighbour who I had not yet met yelled over the fence at me. We met up out front, introduced ourselves, did the social thing, and then he said “hey, your new house has an air conditioner, and there’s a cover on it. You probably want to take that off.”

He was right. I did. Thanks new neighbour, for being…well, for being a neighbour.

Mostly, seeing my family succeed.

I’m not very happy very often, but I watched my son get award after award last week, and was happy. A year ago, my wife finished her Masters’ degree with a 4.0 GPA, and I was happy.

Personally, this morning I went for the first >100km motorcycle ride of the season. Once I was out of traffic and riding through some of the prettiest scenery on the planet, I was happy.

Try a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

Many factors at work here.

First off, mp3 at 320 kbps (or 256 for that matter) encoded with modern algorithms will be nearly idrntical to the original source. I defy you to reliably tell it apart from a FLAC in an A/B test. Where it usually fails is in stereo imaging, not obvious distortion or frequency limitations.

Secondly, many people have mentioned normalization (actually compression) in streaming services. When applied after the mix, i.e. exactly what they do, it ruins music. If you can turn off every ‘feature’ in these services that modifies the sound, you’ll find improvements.

Thirdly, you’re not necessarily getting great sound from them anyway. Spotify defaults to 96kbps Vorbis which is comparable to 128kbps mp3. And if your network speeds are low or laggy, it may well drop the quality dynamically to keep playing without glitches.

Fourth, there’s the issue of mastering. You may have a differently-mastered release than what is on the streaming site. This can make a HUGE difference in some cases. If you can, try listening to Dark Side of the Moon releases from 2003 (Doug Sax) vs. the 2023 blu-ray.

And those are only the most likely candidates. There could well be other factors at play.

yes.

Theory, economics, etc., all have something to say about it. But at the end of the day, Netflix (and the rest) want to deliver as little as possible for dollar of revenue.

Nope.

The third party isnt the problem. It’s your SO that cheated, and who should suffer.

Pack up. Leave. Take what you can.

No no no fucking NO!

Do NOT accept this! Do NOT normalize this! DO NOT COMPLY!

Did you really need to see that youtube video? If it was that important, then find another way. Lie. Get a downloader. Get creative. Or walk away, since it was probably not that important

DON’T SELL YOUR IDENTITY FOR CONVENIENCE. DON’T WILLINGLY FEED THE SPIES MORE INFORMATION.

An epoch baby!