I'm with you there. It's the same for shooting still photos.

...but that doesn't stop people from shooting portrait video and then constantly panning back and forth because the whole (crowd, landscape, giant sea monster, whatever) doesn't fit in the frame.

Theoretically it could add up to a passable paycheck for retail, but they had it set up so that only a few senior staff ever got enough hours/good shifts where you could conceivably hit the addon percentages needed to qualify for commissions. So the only way to make any money was to sell cell plans, phones, and accessories. The whole store was totally focused on hawking cell plans.

Then we had to go to monthly meetings an hour out of town on our own dime. That's where they talked at us about the company and how cool and great it was. Such a shitty place to work. IIRC there was a dedicated web forum called "RadioShackSucks" or something like that where staff complained to each other.

In the end, a helpful discord member was already at the store, purchased a GPU for me, and held it until I could get there and buy it off him. Due to the shortage there was no risk of him stuck holding the "bag" but it was a huge favor from my end. Wasn't scalping but I still threw in an extra $20 just for helping out.

And that's when they're not just "pirated" themselves?

Seems at that point you might as well just skip paying whatever questionable middleman in involved if you're not concerned about abiding by TOS or license.

In 2020/21 I was working from home like many people. I'd been lucky enough to get an RTX3080 for my new computer build and decided to experiment with mining ETH during downtime - it was winter and the office was cold anyway...

"Made" a few hundred bucks over the course of a couple of months and had it in Coinbase. They had a setup where you could sell for USD and deposit in a Paypal account, so I logged into mine - which I hadn't used in a few years - and deposited the funds.

Shortly after, my account was frozen for suspicious activity. I was told that there was no way to reverse this or obtain any further info or explanation. The funds were not returned to my Coinbase account.

In the end I just said screw it and chalked it up as a learning experience. I hadn't really created anything of value so I didn't feel as angry as if I'd been cheated out of actual work. Still, it pissed me off that as far as I can tell, Paypal essentially stole a few hundred dollars from me and there was nothing I could do about it.

I had figured that by using "legit" services and following along with all of their KYC/tax policies I would be safe. In retrospect I probably would've been better off cashing out via some questionable crypto exchange. Haven't messed with any of it since.

If anything, the Switch was a way to sell a boatload of existing chips. They've had plenty of opportunity to put out a Shield 2 in the meantime, but instead have backed off their focus on game streaming and other main features of a set-top-box.

I'd love to see it happen, but I feel like the Shield is just not a big enough seller for them to put many resources behind an update. Prove me wrong, nVidia! TVs have only gotten worse in terms of embedded systems and software, and I don't have (or plan on) buying into the Apple ecosystem enough to make AppleTV compelling.

I'd heard the song so many times that I found I could recall the low, then high E at the start and that's really all you need to get the rest in tune.

Seriously, even on a modern Pixel (mine) and iPhone (gf's), I'm often disappointed in the level of detail you find once you want to crop an image or zoom in on something distant/small.

The software has come a long way and does incredible things within the limitations of such tiny lenses and sensors. But I've got much lower resolution images from point and shoot cameras in the mid/late 2000's that show more detail and none of the weird software sharpening artifacts of a 20-40+ megapixel phone pic.

I remember wanting one of those so badly as a kid and they didn't even do much.

That said, I've no idea where the numbers come from, but it covers some of the possibilities.

I'm usually mixed. I pay for access to some things. I download copies of some things without paying for them. Some of the latter category are things I just want to check out (software that doesn't offer a demo/that I might mess around with once). Some are things I ostensibly pay for already (ex: movies or shows I get as part of an Amazon Prime subscription but are now frequently interrupted by advertisements). Occasionally I'm just lazy, I'll admit. Sometimes it's just quicker to torrent a movie than to hunt down the best/only place to rent it.

The one thing I won't do is pay (actual) pirates like these for access. I figure it's on me if I watch a movie I didn't pay to rent/stream/whatever. But I'm not supporting god-knows-what sketchy organization with actual money. When I spend money it'll be going to the legit rights owner.

*(Caveat, haven't been to one in the last 5 or 6 years so things may have changed. As always, "it was better next year!")

It's the repetitive, bored-sounding "Christmas comes this time each year..."

Like, no shit! That's how holidays work.