nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

Key word being public. People from the industries he operates in were screaming from the rooftops about him for years. Tech people chose to actively ignore their colleagues in automotive and space. I remember the circumstances that led to the creation of /r/realtesla.

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

Too early to write closing arguments on this. A vengeful future administration might make us realize that the entire transaction was a huge mistake.

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

Wish we had the level of renewables in the West that China has. Their pricing is supposedly now 7-11 cents per kwH (as opposed to 20-30 cents kwh average in the states). This would further enable usage of all computing instead of tossing it into eWaste. Who cares how much power old equipment uses, host something on it until the chips literally burn out. Every Wii and other console that has homebrew should be running something....anything.

The US is not lacking of space to store this stuff but is tossing so much precious resources into the trash because they are not economically justifiable power wise.

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

Spirit Airlines has had a perfect safety record with no passenger fatalities and every plane that ever took off from its 34 year history landed safely. I'd trust them more than other airlines.

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

Seems like Canvas instances of schools not listed are also down (at least my alma mater is)

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

I can understand this for Nvalny given I think CNN help with the production...but Knock Down the House was an indie producer and just happened to choose AOC as one of four candidates she was covering. When it was filmed I don't think the producer would anticipate her explosive popularity after the election so its hard to concede that it was a puff piece. The premise of the film was the massive wave of females deciding to run for office in 2018 after Trump's win in 2016. There was the collective awakening that despite females making up 50% of the population they in no way had anywhere near the representation that they should have. Due to AOC's popularity the film took on a new meaning as a historical record of her campaign.

If you apply your logic to all political documentaries then you're just going to end up not watching anything.

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

That is such a wonderful story! Thank you for sharing!

I was able to experience the movie in a very special way. In New York BAM Rose Cinemas was running a special 35mm press of the film one week before its official debut. Edgar Wright did a red eye run debuting the film in London and then getting on a plane to rush to New York where he arrived just in time for the credits. Having him walk down the steps and sitting right in front of me for Q&A was a amazing experience. Its really a shame the movie flopped even with the extra slack it was given due to debuting during COVID. His most recent film did pretty bad as well. I'm bummed as he is my favorite director. :/

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

Sure, im fine with either and at 3AM I'll write one or the other.

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

Well $27.99 is for IMAX/Dolby/other premium format. Thats the hook I guess. People do shell out but only for the big blockbuster. The other movies are like the stuff you can watch using your Netflix account so a lot of non franchise movies have shifted direct to Netflix.

This is partly explained by Matt Damon here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF6K2IxC9O8

>I know you say it's the studios setting the price. Why do they seem indifferent to the impending bankruptcy of theaters?

They are pushing their streaming platforms and using the content as just a hook for other more lucrative sources of revenue(ie. Disney and theme parks). Do they really need the theaters now that people are hooked on streaming?

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

Toyota's philosophy is polishing mature technology and small gradual iteration that supports that goal. That is not "skating to where the puck is going to be". With that philosophy Apple would never have developed the iPhone. Instead just iterating the iPod until someone else put them out of business.

It was famously explained in the original iPhone unveiling. They talked about developing new paradigms in computing and jumping towards those new paradigms with both feet.

Also, Steve Jobs once argued with Woz early on that users don't have a say in the product. The author creates a piece of work and does not stop to ask the audience what the next paragraph should be. At the end either the audience likes it or they don't and they go somewhere else. All the "toyotas" of the tech world are competing to 0 margins and will eventually die off. When Apple tried this in the 90s they ended up nearly bankrupt.

Here is Steve Jobs explaining this philosophy when users asked for cheaper machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U37Ds3RvyoM

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

Sounds like you should be visiting Alamo Drafthouse. They take these things extremely seriously and are for the real fans. Here is their ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L3eeC2lJZs

Unfortunately since they already filed for bankruptcy a few years back they have had to cut costs and so their system for ordering food replaced (from pen and paper collected and an usher quietly brings you your food to QR code with...a cellphone) people are recently concerned that this has reduced their legendary quality. They still take audio and picture quality very seriously in my experience.

Also where are you located? LA and NYC have legendary theaters that are truly a special treat. Its harder to replicate that in various states but there are still some states trying (ex. NJ being the actual birthplace of the American film industry has a few excellent theaters scattered throughout that dont tolerate poor quality/talkers)

If your story is from AMC theaters just know that you are visiting the Mcdonalds of movie theaters.

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

I think you are seeing a slice of the full picture. This app is not accurately showing all empty screens. While all of those are ideas that are increasing viewership there is still so much dead weight. Whether these things offset the dead weight I dont know. All I know is AMC is trading at $1.45 today so it does not look great.

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

On the one hand Its fun to watch movies alone on a big screen. My area of NJ apparently could care less about movies like Knock Down The House(Biography of AOC and other house candidates), Navalny (Movie about the murdered politician opposing Putin), The Imitation Machine: Movie about Alan Turing or Last Night in Soho (A wonderful Edgar Wright thriller)

On the other hand, I feel sad that no one in my region seems to care enough about these topics. Instead the latest superhero movie is next door packed to the brim and is so loud it rattles the walls to the room playing my quiet documentary with only me sitting inside watching it. :/

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

Studio contracts: The movies are delivered digitally on encrypted hard disks and when playing there is a ton of telemetry sent back to the studios. They are watching the theaters like its 1984. Studios have contracts indicating the play will play X times no more and probably no less(else studios might hold back the good movies). AMC keeps it simple. Play the movie even if no one shows up. AMC in particular uses laser projectors now so who cares. They ain't burning out any projector bulb.

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

I don't disagree with you at all. Ads suck. But that ship sailed a long time ago. Just to provide some more context to AMC.

They are a US national chain and they don't run "commercials" just lots of trailers. They have recently announced that they have extended the trailer runtime from 20-25 mins to 35-40 mins. While this is frustrating they always indicate in the app which movies have the trailers (most do) and the approx length. As a result, patron who want to skip the trailers use the app for guidance and just arrive +35 mins after the showtime. Example: https://i.imgur.com/bsVf6AE.png

Given this system, I dont think AMC has really lost patrons because of the ads since everyone who hates them know exactly how long to delay their entrance to the movie room. It really is the other factor I mentioned (they are not compelling enough most of the time vs other entertainment).

One more aspect I forgot to mention is concession prices. Small popcorn is ~10$, small drink is ~7$ so ~17$ for basic concessions and that does not include ticket price ranging between 5$ on Tuesday special deals for standard definition all the way to $27.99+ for premium screen. If you are going to the movies you might as well watch it on their best screen. It gets expensive if you are bringing family. The reason for this pricing is the studio. They actually take a majority of the ticket revenue and they refuse to lower their percentage of ticket prices on the marquee titles (and also require 2 week minimum contracts in the premium screens even if the movie is a stinker)

The theaters are essentially just popcorn/soda vendors who just happen to show movies on the side.

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

I have been quite a heavy patron of AMC theaters these past few years since COVID ended. I have seen A LOT of movies play to empty theaters. I used to actually peek at many of the rooms when I left my movie and so many were downright empty.

Its the norm and its probably why their stock is trading at $1.45 as of this writing.

Its a dead (not dying, dead) entertainment option. When you are competing for the same 24 hrs in a day with TV, Youtube, Gaming, Streaming, TikTok, Instagram and many others the theater is bottom of the barrel for young people today.

And don't tell me its because people are disrespectful or the commercials are too long. These are a problem but Alamo Drafthouse tried to tackle this and they ended up in bankruptcy. AMC would also be bankrupt today but it's saving grace was the meme stock frenzy they had a few years back. Probably bought them a few more years but that ride might be coming to an end.

Currently they fill the rooms for the pop movies like old established franchises but that only comes along every couple weeks at the most and the rest of the time the place is not really busy. This is a bit different in the big cities but AMC has overextended themselves with too many locations in the rural and suburban US.

...Also this app is not displaying accurate data (I assume they are pulling from AMC's API). My local theater is listing no results and I cross checked and there are movies currently listed that have 0 seats booked so the app is counting incorrectly for at least one theater.

EDIT: After I wrote this, the site auto updated with new data. Now I see some screenings but it is still inaccurate because it is still missing movies from that theater...maybe they are scraping instead of using the API? This is a simple problem if using the API (I wrote my own home cooked app): just iterate through all theater ids, find the ones with 0 bookings and display that list.

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

Liquid Glass makes sense if this is what they are working towards: https://www.macrumors.com/guide/20th-anniversary-iphone/

They have done this before, release something large early in anticipation of a major shift and iron out issues before the shift happens. Liquid Glass started off a little janky but they appear to have been ironing out initial issues with each update.

nebula8804

2 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

Its a trojan horse on the way to make car ownership impossible to a large swath of Americans.

nebula8804

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Well we have cool projects like CollapseOS the problem is that there is so much undocumented silicon out there that cant be used without massive efforts. I know several "gold scrappers" and its such a shame that they trash great classic chips just go get back a bit of metal. So much effort went into making those chips and its just a shame that many can't be reused. While lack of cheap electricity prevents open design from being reused, there is an even bigger world of undocumented chips that are trashed as well.

nebula8804

3 เดือนที่ผ่านมาdiscuss

In one of Dwarkesh's interviews, he mentioned that China is trying to replicate the entire stack. Ironically now that they have mastered all pieces of the stack for older nodes, they actually have an advantage in a collapse scenario. The US does not appear to have the ability to do all steps in the stack for any node. They still rely on other western countries that could go offline. China despite being behind does at least have top to bottom capability for older nodes. Combine that with their rock bottom electricity prices and they have a unique card that they can play.

Just imagine if electricity costs were trending towards 0. Instead of e-waste run all those machines till the chips burn out.

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