Some stories, either in form of a book or a movie, seem so immersive that I feel as if I've transported directly into its universe. Other stories have some flaw that ruins the entire immersion and makes the story seem like a fictional piece of content. However I'm not able to pinpoint what the reason behind making a story immersive is. What do you think?

Edit: changed title

I once asked what media franchises need to just stop, that have run their time. Now I want to know which ones DID stop, and could be restarted with new content.

To reiterate: if given a summons by the court, in person attendance is mandatory (applies to all 50 states). After voir dire, if either the lawyer or judge has selected you as the juror and being presented with evidence relevant to the case: what types of cases were you assigned whilst being a part of the jury?

Also, what happens if the individual fails to willingly show up (non-excusals) in court on the appointed date when they've been handed a summons in the US? For reference, in my country where Jury Duty also exists: the offense for failing to show up in person incurs the equivalent of an ~800 USD fine.

I’ve been working on a very simple chat site as a small experiment. It’s basically just a live chat room with no sign-up — the idea was to see if people still actually use “talk to strangers” style chat sites anymore. Most platforms I’ve seen either feel empty or heavily moderated, so I wanted to test something lightweight and minimal. Curious what people think — do these kinds of chat rooms still have a place today, or has everything moved to Discord and social apps?

Doing research into online cults has been a bit difficult, with 764 and children of the waning star being the biggest examples that overshadow smaller accounts (the former not being religious at all), as well as spawnism. So, people of Lemmy, what are your experiences with online cults?
Edit for clarification: I am looking for cults in the traditional sense of the word: a closed off community with a distinct power structure and leader that is revered, with some sort of ideology (preferably spiritual but am open to all stories.)

I'm thinking even for cases of like shrinkflation.

I saw an article about potentially cheaper RAM here, so it got me curious if things ever really get better on occasion.

I think it would be really cool, don't you think the same?

Like, using Iroh + INS for a fully descentralized, uncensorable, undeletable, non-redundant, fast, secure, private, efficient, directionable CAS, then binding that to ActivityPub —or even better, ActivityPods—, so you can register to the instances that are archiving what is more interesting to you and subscribe to the archivists and topics you prefer.

Wouldn't be cool? Or do you think it's not as good as it seems to me?

Edit: I mean, archiving the Web, like Wayback Machine (with a similar UX) but descentralized and 100% FLOSS.

Would they always need earth to be habitable?

Because if they somehow managed to terraform and colonise another planet like mars, wouldnt they just make earth so uninhabitable that the rest of us would be forced to go where they are? (Prolly as slaves)

I watched a total of three movies last year and two of them sucked. I don't think I've seen a movie so far this year, and I'm looking for suggestions. What's a movie that you really love?

as an android user, will i still get affected even if i use an older version of google play services?

I have been using gmail/google for a long time now (decade or more). But the systems I have come to rely on have been getting enshitified. With their new AI advertisements popping up like crazy...Im just done.

Anyone have a good alternative to gmail? Im looking for something that will not break the bank.

For a bit there, I was running my own email server, but spam and issues with my internet provider (other email servers kept thinking my domain was spamming others) made it hard to keep up. I just dont have the patience anymore for that.

I was thinking of trying out proton or namecheaps offerings and seeing if I like them.

I am used to working with thunderbird but can use online portals if needed. If they have ac alendar that might be a bonus. Personally, I want minimal or no AI. And I want the company to be trusted and in business for at least 5 years.

Any good recommendations?

I'm aware the premise makes no sense.

Over the years I've been in and out of therapy. In my teens I had a serious enough depression to necessitate medication to somehow level me, a few years after that I went back because I felt I wanted to unpack a few things from my early years, after that I went back to pick up on the work I left behind, after that I went back to try to find a way to cope with the eminent loss of someone very dear to me and very recently I went back because I felt the need to give it another try to unpack a lot of wrongs in my head.

Unfortunately, every single time, as I try to go back and pick on the process - and I feel the need to stress that I've been received by multiple professionals over the years - I'm always directed, more or less openly, not towards what I want to resolve but towards something completely unrelated. And no, I am not a professional in mental health but I think I am minimally qualified to know what I think/understand is bothering me and want to explore and try to find a solution/rationalisation for so I can drop that issue or at least drop it in value in my mind so I can move forward.

Instead, my concerns have constantly been ignored or overlooked and all type of approaches been tried to deviate me, as such:

• hypnosis (went horribly wrong)
• cognitive and behavioural shift (as in "You are acting/feeling/thinking wrong.")
• completely ignoring my concerns
• openly antagonising me
• a very veiled attempt to create in me a notion of "faith in a higher power" (I'm laic)

The last approach is to try to teach me how to meditate.

I have always been received by licensed professionals, two of them through my NHS; no spiritual counsellors nor anything in the like.

I've been able to make more breakthroughs by reading philosophy books than by sitting in a chair and talking back and forth with a therapist. But I always get the feeling that I really need some degree of counselling I am not getting.

Am I being paranoid, unlucky or just expecting something that isn't at all aligned with reality?

I recently saw "Rampage" from 2009. Its basically a movie where a spree shooter is portrayed as the good guy/anti-hero. Several parts gave me that pit in your stomach, teeth gritting uncomfortable moment. I really hated it. Although I'm not surprised there are sequals I am disappointed and will not be watching them.

Not like races or nationalities but niche groups or subcultures.

The title says it all. Basically, a truly free alternative to r/SomebodyMakeThis that is not on Reddit (or should I say Reshit? 😎), to basically connect people who have time, and/or money, and/or skills (but no ideas of what to do with them) with people who have ideas and perhaps theoretical knowledge (but not time, and/or money, and/or skills).

I'm very good (I think) at programming theory, as well as broader computer science theory... But in practice I can barely make a (ugly and clunky) "Hello world" program in Python, and I have some pretty interesting and good (or at least I think so) ideas about software that would be really good if made (apps/programs, extensions, plugins and scripts for existing software, frameworks, libraries, algorithms, etc.).

Is there something like this on the Threadiverse? And if so, could you give me the abbreviated identifiers/handles of some of those communities? That is, your [!community@instance.tld](/c/community@instance.tld). I thank you in advance.

It could be an album, movie, tv show, whatever.

The school has already given us a schedule for what we can do. We're going to museums, factory tours, that sort. So no suggestions for any activities to do or places to go to.

I would like some tips on some things I should know about Germany, perhaps some German phrases I should understand, cultural differences, or laws I need to know. Anything important that I should be aware of?

It will be about a weeklong trip

What does open source itself mean?

Does it mean anybody can access information about lemmy like upvotes?

Can any person access lemmy data to know what I upvote?

When I switch the box fan in my kitchen on/off, the stove igniter fires once ("clicks"). The box fan is plugged into a different kitchen outlet than the stove is, though they're probably on the same circuit.

Should I be worried? What the heck would even cause this?

edit: ah beans. guess I'll text the super

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/47692342

Not OC question, but rather copied this from the pragmatic programmer

As a user, would you rather (1) wait for them [the software dev/company] to get all the bugs out, (2) have complex software and accept some bugs, or (3) opt for simpler software with fewer defects?

In a comment I've made a little bit ago, I mentioned that I was tasking myself to discover music that was played on an old radio program that I listened to from the 2000s. And it is looking to be a lot more prolonged and tedious than I had thought. I've been able to find a program that has done an amazing job at removing the host's voices to where, I can't tell where they start or stop talking, I get hints that there were points of voices being there, but it's non-existent.

I've tried before in the past to use Audacity, but being that all recordings were done in Mono and not Stereo, no matter what I tried, the voices would still remain. So now that hurdle is done with, the next task is to go through all 139 episodes and all episodes average 1 hour to 2 hours. That's a long time if you're doing radio or podcasting, it's a lot of talking to do. Then it's a matter of listening back and forth at one points certain songs begin and end, marking times to point them out with.

I might pick out some standout favorites, episodes that contained the most songs that I would have wanted the most from them. Then once all of that is figured, the next course of action is to clean up the sample audio, because most of these episodes were recorded in Mono so there's going to be a lot of distortion and muddiness.

Then once all of that is done, the next challenging task is, actually finding someone who'll be able to identify what is played. I don't know electronic/techno music too well, I'm not entirely familiar with artists outside Daft Punk, Celldweller, 3Teeth and Pendulum to name a few. The only thing that sortof helps narrow things down is that they were all played on DI.FM at the time, so it may or may not help.

From there, it's just hoping I find them out there online.

It's a big project, but I've listened to these episodes for 18 years now and what kept me coming back to them besides nostalgic purposes, was the music played in them that never got identified.

Why do you prefer the Fediverse over other Social Media?

@asklemmy@lemmy.world

#Fediverse #AskFediverse #AskMastodon #AskLemmy #Fedi #SocialMedia #Question

If someone didn't understand, I mean something like this, not quite so bad, well, sorry, I just found this picture:

I must have noise to go along with going to sleep. Usually thats an audio book or long-form video essay type YouTube videos. I wear one earbud to bed if I'm sleeping at night with my girlfriend or just blare it from the TV if I'm sleeping alone during the day (rotating shift). I feel like when I don't have engaging audio and I'm trying to sleep I can't quiet my mind enough to sleep. A fan or random ambient noise isn't enough for me.