Imo it wasn’t a single mistake, but many compounding ones:

• As you said they should have let it sit a bit longer and imo also slowly build back up with some smaller scale movies.

• They added series in the mix. Imo this is one of the biggest factors. They used shows like Wanda vision to help launch their streaming service and Loki to introduce the next major plot point. Thats a big issue as not everyone will want to commit to watch a full series, but those who don’t will feel like missing something when watching the movie (no matter if this is true or not).

• Just straight up subpar movies quality wise. Unrelated to other problems they just had a bunch of weak films.

• They got unlucky with casting Jonathan Majors as the cornerstone of their next phase and him subsequently being convicted of assualt and harassment.

“an analyst says” has to be the “random twitter user x says” of financial reporting. I bet you find an analyst confirming any random claim, if you just look long enough. And he even goes as far as making the claim zero chance, rather than “unlikely”. But I guess that wouldn’t have made for a good quote.

My counter argument to any such claims: Netflix and their presumably competent and informed army of lawyers and financial advisors felt comfortable including a $5.8b breakup fee as part of the deal.

Somehow I don’t think rich people are in the business of betting such amounts on zero chance deals.

Is it? Paramount+Larry Ellison+the Saudis was not a particular great alternative either. I guess only time will tell, how this turns out.

With Paramount I think there would have been the risk of WB remaining in a similar form, but being ideologically twisted.

With Netflix or course there is a larger risk towards theatrical and physical releases as it goes against their primary business model. And the biggest threat to creativity is not ideology, but in a way the opposite. Lack thereof and instead focus on just metrics like short term viewership numbers.

The best option out of the bad ones would have probably been something like Comcast. Or in my dreams wb would have just stayed independent, splitting of linear assets. They have a ton of debt, but imo eventually they’d have been strong enough to survive. Bur I guess sadly this wasn’t the most lucrative path.

I don’t watch them much anymore, but imo LTT was always best when they did stuff similar to Top Gear.

For actual reviews others like Gamers nexus, hardware unboxed, rtings and others imo were always better. What I found frustrating in this regard is that LTT seemingly made a big push into the more serious review space with their labs, but at least from what I can tell that so far hasn’t materialized.

With iPhones i think it’s less about durability (and especially in the software department they were always great in terms of longevity), but more about repairability in case something does happen.

As far as lightbulbs go the issue with potential planned obsolescence doesn’t go way just because of the swap to LEDs. First there are a type of bulb even today that use some form of filament and second the part that gets damaged is usually some kind of capacitor or other electronic part that gets run with too much voltage and too hot. Don’t have time to watch it again, but i remember finding this video from a few years ago interesting.

I was reasonmably entertained during my watch and initially suprised by the low letterboxd rating (atm 2.9 out of 5), but the more i think about it, the more i agree with the low score.

For people who haven’t seen it i’d recommend Fail Safe (1964) over this one.

I do agree with the notion that phones in todays society are hugely important and spending money on what for most people might be their most important computing device is valid.

But the thing is that you really don’t need to spend this kind of money to get all the performance 95% of people need. Unless you want a foldable phone or NEED the telefoto-lense that is often reserved for higher end models (but I assume even then there are cheap options),

As an example here in Germany you can get a pixel 9 for under 500€, if you get a cheap mobile contract even cheaper (I pay 15€/month over 2 years and got a free pixel 9 with the mobile plan). All the performance you need and makes great photos. And for anyone who wants lots of storage there are still phones with sd card readers

Since I just saw this in the self-host weekly post:

Do not upgrade to 13.0.0

Seems like there is a bug and one should use 13.0.1

See here

John Oliver (or alternatively other talkshow hosts like John Steward, Stephen Colbert, or Conan) could be another interesting choice.

I’d assume he is probably more intelligent than me and has already spent a lot of time presenting problems and thinking about solutions. He’d also have the right energy to get things done.

That said, I think without changes to the capabilities of the office, I actually don’t think they’d get that much done. Despite what it sometimes may look like, Trump can only do most of the things because others support it. This isn’t a one man show.

Count me in on those who found it great, but it really isn’t unexpected. The article puts it quite well:

Though the global haul of $140 million is impressive for a film that’s original, R rated and nearly three hours long, “One Battle” requires roughly $300 million to break even. That’s because Warner Bros. spent more than $130 million on production and $70 million on promotional efforts, and ticket sales are typically split 50-50 between studios and theater operators. Meanwhile DiCaprio typically gets first-dollar gross on his movies, meaning he gets a percentage of box office revenues before the studio recoups any costs.

From a boxoffice perspective this battle was lost based on the production cost alone for this type of movie. I guess they were hoping for “The Reveant” numbers, but that was a long shot in todays market.

That said i am glad that it got made and with the success WB had this year they can certainly take the hit and still look back on a great year.

Lets hope it wins some awards, gets a small additional boost from that, and WB sees value in the artistic/prestige side, so movies like this continue to get made. Personally i think movies like this might have a longterm value for the overall content library of a service that is hard to put into numbers.

The Rock always was a movie “star” because peoplee saw him as a relatable dude, he was never a good actor

Is that actually the case? To me he never seemed relatable. If I had to describe him he is/was pretty much the personification of the type of movies he had success with. Over the top, generally positive and lighthearted, and firmly in the pure entertainment not art category. But I wouldn’t call him relatable.

It gives you and the users of your jellyfin instance a nice UI dashboard to search and request movies/series. The requests then get handed off to radarr/sonarr for downloading via your downloader (e.g. Sabnzb)

Instead of having to go into the less polished sonarr/radarr that would also expose some settings that you might not want other users to change, you get a nice dashboard. Similar to how you’d browse on a streaming site.

It shows you currently popular movies/shows and upcoming highly anticipated ones, you can search for a specific movie and when you click on it you get a helpful site. It displays all kinds of info similar to jellyfin, like cast, tags, relevant other movies, links to sites like rotten tomatoes or letterboxd, and so on. You can also search for persons and it’ll show you what they’ve been in/have produced. And when you want something you can easily request a download in your preferred quality setting.

You also may limit what and how requests from different users are handled.

To be honest: I haven’t done a complete switch. I still lurk on reddit from time to time.

What I have done however is switched to only actively engage with Lemmy, which imo is the more important part. I sadly don’t have much original content to offer, but I try to engage in some comments (like just now)

Not everything has to be for everyone, but are people really gonna pay to see a movie about Facebook? I feel like, if you have Facebook, it should be free to watch on that platform at least. Maybe on Instagram/WhatsApp/whatever other Meta services.

First of all who says it wouldn’t be about everything Meta/Zuckerberg have done? Although even focusing on Facebook would give a ton of material.

I think the first one was quite interesting and since then there have been a ton of technological and social shifts, with Facebook being both a driving force behind them and a platform that reflects those changes. I really can’t see how this is at all similar to the “Emoji” or “Angry Birds” movie, which are just niche things.

If anything you could maybe compare it films like “Blackberry”, “Air” or “Tetris” which have come out in recent years and focus on a founder+product. Admittedly i have watched none of those, but especially compared to the later two i feel like there are deeper themes to explore with a Facebook movie compared to the rest. And aditionally the topic would be vastly more relevant to people.

My take:

Is it even worth trying to invest $15K?

Yes and no. What i mean with that is that investing can mean a variety of things from investing in stocks/etfs to investing in yourself, your education and new experiences. Also while $15k is substantial and if put into a broad market fund and not touched until retirement will grow into a substantial sum, if you are on track to getting a good education and wellpaying job you are going to make this many times over during your carreer. To the point where you might enjoy the luxury of being in a position similar to your generous brother-in-law, for whom $15k is “pocket money”.

The goal of investing is not just to put as much money as possible into your retirement account at all cost, but to smooth out your lifetime earnings over your whole life. Since you will earn most of that in your 30-60s that ofc means setting aside a good chunk for retirement after, but it is just as valid to spend some during your teens and 20s, where you equally will have lower income.

Without knowing your specific circumstances, here is what i would do, assuming you are otherwise financially healthy (otherwise paying off debt and stuff is likely more important):

• Take a substantial sum, maybe $5k and put it into a broad market, low fee fund. Depending on your preference that can be one following an index tracking the total market, the developed world or the S&P500. You will have plenty of time accumulating more wealth once you land a good job, but from a psychological pov there is a difference of looking at historical data and coming to the conclusion that investing is worth it, vs having actual skin in the game and seeing the ups and downs affect your own money. If you feel like it, pick 1-3 stocks of companies you believe in long term and buy a few shares, but set yourself a hard limit of maybe 10-20% relative to what you put into the diversified fund. However you should see this as a risky bet and mentally mark it as 0, maybe you’ll get lucky and hit the next nvidia, but likely not. This is an investment with a time horizon of at least 10-15+ years (a time frame which is historically enough to ride out market downturns,) so do so only if you expect to not need the money for at least that long.

• Take another chunk, maybe 2-3k and spend it on sensible “luxury” purchases that you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford. With that i mean maybe you get a new laptop that you could also use during university (if that is where you are headed) or otherwise a good pc setup, a nice bike, some better quality gear for your hobbies, maybe some good clothes etc. . Still try to get good price/performance, but opt for something that lasts.

• If you have the time, then travel. Taking a few thousand and spending it e.g. traveling a month or more all accross europe, asia or south america might be a once in a lifetime experience worth many times over what you spend. Maybe you end up getting to know new friends or even a partner, maybe you get to know something new about yourself, you’ll learn about different cultures and so on, which might end up changing what you want to become and where you want to live.

• Does your brother-in-law have any interest or hobbies that you know of? Or maybe you yourself have some interesting idea that he might also enjoy. If you can think of something good i might take a few hundred $ and ask him whether he would like to do some unique experience with you for a day or a weekend. If both of you are thrillseekers you could do something like skydiving, as an example. If he’s a car person, maybe there is a opportunity to go to a race track and drive a few rounds in a cool car. If he’s a sports person, go to see a game together.

• Maybe take a few hundred and spend it “irresponsibly” just having fun. Go to concerts, in the cinema, eat a huge pile of ice cream. idk whatever you can think of. Or maybe do something nice to someone else by including them in those things or getting them a way larger gift that you’d overwise have done.

• Whatever is left, which should be a few k into readily accessible saving (if there’s something that also pays a bit of interest even better), because there most certainly will come times that you unexpectedly need some of the money. For example when you need it as deposit for renting a new place.

Honestly, imo they wouldn’t even need to get off Twitter and other platforms completely. Just make their own mastodon instance (or something similar that they control themselves) the primary source of truth and place of interaction. They could still link and reference it on other platforms to increase visibility, but make sure that all primary information is in a freely accessible place and not beholden to unreliable entities.

Or an established player in the market that wants to keep competitors out (but I guess in a way that is someone who dislikes change). While legislation like this can sometimes be great (e.g. the recent changes forcing longer support for mobile phones) there comes a point where it cuts the other way and it becomes an entry barrier.

Imo the better solution would be to legislate what happens after support ends. Like forcing the disclosure of at least some documentation that allows others to continue servicing the product or at least transfer out data and install other software on the device.

I’ve seen all 3, but it’s been a while:

• The Thin Red Line: beautiful movie with outstanding cinematography and I am a huge fan of some of Terrence Malicks work. But I’d say if someone is “In the mood for WW2” it wouldnt necessarily be my first recommendation. Really creates its own mood.

• Fury: if I remember correctly more gritty and you get action straight from the start. Also it’s based in Europe so you get the US vs Germany setting.

• Hacksaw ridge: you get the full arc from training to getting deployed building up to the finale. Also it’s the Pacific war theater so you get the US vs Japan setting.

Really depends on what you are looking for. But ofc there are also plenty of other movie options depending on what you are looking for and haven’t seen yet. There are just so many movies out there with WW2 setting that capture different aspects, locations and events.

Just set this up a few days ago and so far am very happy. Ended up choosing it over other options since I wanted something that saves the downloads in a humanly accessible way by simply putting them into channel folders with the video names as title.

If you want to setup a stack take a look up TRaSH guides. Then it goes roughly like this.

You have software that search and make the download requests: radarr (movies), sonarr (TV shows), lidarr (music), bazaar (subtitles, if you need to add more that don’t already come with the movie/show). But there might be others e.g. for porn or like here for YouTube.

Those forward the request to a downloader like Sabnzb if you are using usenet or qbirtorrent for torrents.

Those above are the main ones and from there you can add things that make your life easier:

• Prowlarr: sonarr/radar need an indexer to search, instead of configuring them in each software this allows you to do it once and then sync across the other apps

• Overseerr/Jellyseerr: if you want a nicer frontend to search and make download requests instead of doing so in radar/sonarr.

• Recycler/Notifier/Configarr (all do roughly the same): sonarr/radarr allow you to configure specific profiles to score the quality of downloads so you can get them in the format you desire (e.g. so you want 1080p or 4k, HDR yes or no). These allow you to sync custom formats with sonarr/radarr that others like trash-guides have developed.

• Tdarr: if you would like to reencode and compress movies to save space this allows you to do so in an automated way. Although you usually I’d imagine it might be easier to just setup a better profile in sonarr/radarr and download the desired version (should you e.g. want x265 encoded versions)