Almost anything sounds better than TV speakers, but if you’re going to spend the money, it really is better to just go to 5.1.

I’ve had a 5.1 setup for 20 years. Back then I was playing the original Xbox on 720p widescreen and surround speakers, and it was glorious. My first setup was the cheapest all-in-one speaker/receiver set available for a fresh college graduate earning next to nothing and deep in credit card and student debt.

I think I’ve gone through three sets of speakers now, three receivers, and two subwoofers. I like to stay up on technology, but you don’t really have to upgrade very often or at all, if you like. I currently have some pretty nice Pioneer speakers with towers for left and right, and I wired my room for 5.1 outlets when I renovated my basement earlier this year. No more visible wires!

I thought about doing 7.1 or 7.2, but ultimately I didn’t want to cut holes and try to fish wire across and down with how my ceiling is. 4K and 5.1 will probably always be enough for me.

If Craig is the floor I’m really looking forward to the next Bond movie

Not a good fit for Bond (IMO), but that movie looks great!

This is the wrong forum for this post

On your unrelated A Song of Ice and Fire note, dragons would absolutely spur technological innovation in weaponry. Other countries would desperately look for a way to defend against them.

In real life, the ballistae used in the final battle were invented in ancient Greece around 400 BCE, basically about 1,500 to 2,000 years earlier than the technological level of Westeros. Bow to crossbow to ballista is a pretty logical evolution and there are intermediate links between all of them in the historical and archaeological record.

Regarding the religious references, Scott’s intention was evidently that the architects created mankind, Jesus was an Engineer sent to course correct our development, and then when he was crucified, the Engineers decided mankind was a mistake. The script states that they decided to wipe us out about two thousand years ago. He revealed his intention in an interview in 2012 after some people had connected the dots (as I did while watching it in the theater).

The earlier scripts were much more full of religious references, to the point where the Engineer at the beginning is given the black goo in a consecrated ceremony that started with “this is the blood of our Lord.”

Honestly, the movie never really worked in any iteration, and was always a bizarre direction to take a space horror franchise.

But we were asleep at the wheel. My advisors, who frankly no longer are with me, were asleep at the wheel, certainly. And I partly blame myself, except I was busy making other films. And so it was let go and it shouldn’t have been. When you resurrect, you better put your nail into the wall.

Gotcha, Ridley. The directors for 3 and 4 fucked up the sequels, and your advisors are to blame for Prometheus, and there’s a little blame for you except not really of course because you were busy.

Built my first web page with FrontPage back in the mid '90s… but soon stopped using it after I realized the absolutely spaghetti it produced

I watched this on Disney+ tonight but didn’t really care for it. There were a couple good laughs, but the multiverse stuff really ruins just about anything it touches. The movie also just seemed too mean spirited toward the classic characters, which I guess it signaled clearly from the very first scene. Let them be.

Edit: I guess I hurt an MCU fan’s feelings by not loving a movie.

Tom Cruise is a bit like Harrison Ford. They’re both good actors, but most of the time they’re playing themselves. Or maybe they both have such a force of personality that you only see the actor. Harrison Ford has also had films where he does a good job disappearing into the role, like Mosquito Coast and Regarding Henry.

But those were like 1.0.1, 1.0.2… where the Special Editions would be 2.0. I don’t know that anyone really cares about the “mini” version changes. When they talk about the original, they mean 1.0.x.

This is it. Democrats will continue to talk about how they failed at execution so they don’t have to talk about the real problem: their platform. At least with Trump some folks think there’s a chance he shakes apart the whole system.

I voted for Harris, but I knew it was a lost cause from the moment she became the de facto nominee. She was a status quo candidate in a change election.

It’s the most evenly divided district in Oregon in partisan terms and she ran on a “bipartisan” theme. She’d be pretty hard-pressed to make her case.

The Republicans were absolutely inundating the district with the most vile stuff, like how she “voted in favor of rapists.” They dramatically outspent her campaign.

I’m really happy she won.

Are you me? Honestly, just finish it. You’ll forget all about the collectibles a week later. And if you don’t, you can always go back (you won’t).

That’s a great price; I bought my copy for nearly double that. Remember that Bing also has another Christmas movie in 4K, Holiday Inn, although if you only have a handful of movies your collection would suddenly be very Bing Crosby and Christmas heavy, haha.

I’m really ready for the holidays with both of those plus It’s a Wonderful Life and Scrooged.

Gonna try to finish my first-time play through of The Last of Us (PS5) today or tomorrow so I can start on Dragon Age: The Veilguard (Xbox). Excited to jump in after the decade since Inquisition.

It’s the difference between “this story needs to be told” versus “there’s money to be made.” Ironic that one of the most incisive and fiercely anti-capitalist series in recent memory went back to the well purely to make more money.

That “if” is doing a lot of heavy lifting and maybe Poland doesn’t want to yolo World War 3.

To make this a black and white issue is kinda weird when the severity of being wrong is so high. Just because Poland is being a considerate partner to other NATO member states doesn’t mean it’s required to act that way.

Well, they had a single case of attempted voter fraud, so now I guess it’s only fair we award Trump the presidency here and now. I believe those are the rules.