9point6

Well shit, I didn't think the Jurassic park books would ever end up on my reading list but here we are

Depends on the language, English to any big language and back wasn't too bad, but Babel fish was probably the best in 2001 and it was far from perfect. I remember it being a common joke at the time that the translations were a bit rubbish.

Huh, I'm today learning calligraphy and cursive not synonyms

Though we don't really use the word cursive in the UK, we just call it handwriting or the slightly awkward "joined-up handwriting" if you need to be specific, though that's pretty much only with kids learning to write

I thought he was casually carrying around a PS5 for a second there

They really missed a trick naming that one

Wait, how have you guys fucked up payments this time? I thought the US was finally on board with everyone else after the chip and sign debacle

In the UK (and anywhere I can recall travelling) we pretty much always tap (i.e. move your phone or card within 5cm) above the screen or a bit more in recent years, on the top of the machine for one of those touch screen ones.

I think the only time I don't manage to pay first time is when the terminal or my phone is broken

Oh I'd somehow forgotten this era

That shit was in everything non solid for like 2 years

I'll have to see if hypernormalisation is still on iPlayer

Edit: yes it is, well that's not what I needed to discover at 1am with work tomorrow...

Siren song for those browsing with an internet connection of a geographically British persuasion: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04b183c

There's a reason the more educated you are, the more likely you are to hold left wing views.

You can't learn how the world works and not want to take obvious steps to improve things

...........unless you're a psychopath

I'm pretty sure you could drop a phone-less trump less than even 100m from his home without him being able to find his way back

In answer to the making a good living:

Historically, record labels, then streaming becoming the norm allowing the collision between record labels and streaming services driving down the artist's cut. Now increasingly so more recently, Live Nation/Ticketmaster and similar live event conglomerates taking bigger cuts and liberties from the last line of revenue traditionally successful artists have. And it's at every level, there will be a local event promoter behaving as the live nation of local music in your area.

For new artists, most people discover music via streaming recommendations these days, if the algorithm doesn't smile on a given artist for whatever reason, they won't get played, and therefore they won't get signed (given more and more up and coming artists self publish their earliest stuff these days)