My country allowed foreign cinema “only” with subtitles because most of the population was illiterate and the idea was to keep viewership of such media low without resorting to very harsh censorship, although it existed at the time.

It backfired so bad the general population developed a knack for acquiring foreign languages, through those media. Being a latin language country we score very high on the domain of english as a foreign language. Many of us also speak a bit of french and a large majority knows at least how to curse in spanish to return the love.

It was a common recommendation when I was a kid to expose children to non-dubbed media to develop foreingn language and reading skills.

And I can personally vouch for this, as I started developing basic english domain very early through cartoons and movies and the need to follow the subtitles helped me develop my reading skill and speed.

Regarding the quality of dubbing, I can only say something always gets lost in translation. More recently, I’ve followed a couple of series, both subtitled and dubbed, and the end result is completely different. Subtitled, you can follow the emotions in the original actors voices and postures. No lag, no difference, no adaptation. Dubbed, it often feels like watching a completely different show. And the voice over actors are professionals, obviously. But it is common for the voice over team to take some liberties.

[…] the other choice is better

That’s your choice and point of view.

I enjoy watching a work in it’s most original form, even if I can’t completely or even not at all grasp what is being said, I can still infer emotions from the tone of voice of the actor.

There is a learning curve.

Many brazillians I know have defended that hypothesis. Brazil has a very strong and inwards turned cultural production industry. They cater to themselves and keep 95% of the population satisfied.

I’ve heard a few songs, originally in english, being performed by brazillian artists, with varying degrees of success on the lyrics translation. But most music passes unadultered. Most people only cares about the sound, not the story in a song.

There’s a meme of guy calling a local radio station to request a song. He wanted to hear a song he called “Anteontem fez frio” (literally “yesterday was cold”). No band, no other reference. The DJ asked him to sing a few words, as they did not know such song. He does. It was Queen’s “I want to break free”.

And what is the concern regarding the “th” sound being absent in portuguese?

I can get good quality subtitles for most movies in my language. The best comes from cinema enthusiasts that put in the effort to make superb quality subtitles, even for obscure movies.

Nowadays, if I’m stupid enough to be watching television, it’s easy to spot machine-generated subtitles, due to poor quality. And dubbing is also on the rise. I’ve followed the same series fora few episodes, first in the original language with subtitles, then dubbed, and it was like watching two completely different shows.

Germans and Brazilians are one of a kind, apparently.

Why read a subtitle if you can just dub over the original?

I had to go the extra mile to find “Die Welle” in original format and matching subtitles, to actually get to watch the movie as it was made.

Dubbing is a curse in disguise.

I developed a technique over the years where I run a finger along the urethra after I’m done to push whatever fluid may be left, regardless if I’m standing or sitting down. When no TP is available, it really helps.

There are a few EU alternatives. Why are those not being considered.

LiberaPay is one.

I did and nowhere is Signal mentioned in the article.

You state Whatsapp uses Signal. So, again: how?

To my knowledge, under Signal, the encription keys are locally generated and stored, and the traffic flows between end points as a closed packet.

This does not seem to be the case here, as the keys are generated and stored outside your equipment and, thus, are viable to be used by a third party to access packets.

But I admit I speak heavily burdened by technical ignorance.

How?

Portuguese. And it depends on the day.

I started picking up english even before being formally taught. I can easily follow a film, a podcast or some other media in full english with no need to dedicate the entirety of my attention to it. I can pick up humour and innuendo, along with cultural cues. Even some degree of lingo and slang.

Speaking can sometimes be challenging as I speak very fast in my native language and I tend to try to achieve to same in english, only to sound like a washing machine full of marbles on high speed.

When can I get a bit lost? Very dense accents, like scotish or some from the US. The Louisiana one throws me off completely. The australians are cool, except for their local wording that can be a bit harder to follow. Took me ages to figure what a sheila was and that calling someone a dingo was an insult.

And by the way: why can a kangoroo be a wallabee and just to rub salt on the wound most people will call it a 'roo?

Don’t know. But thank you for the warning.

GOG sent an email the other day warning the game was on discount and after taking another look at hardware the requirements it felt like a good benchmark for the technology of the time.

It was heavy back then.

I moved to a DDR4/AM4 platform when I assembled my current machine because the AM3 platform was being labelled as end of cycle and the FM segment seemed too niche.

The scales tiped when I discovered many AM4 CPUs carried on chip graphic processing capabilities and being in need of a graphics card it was more affordable for me to just buy an APU than buy a CPU and add a GPU on top.

Not being a gamer and a Linux user, throwing money on a graphics card, that by then were heavily price inflated, made little sense, so I opted by the AM4 platform.

Currently, I’m considering building a machine capable of running Wasteland 2, because that game has been under my eye for years.

I’m finding graphic cards with 4GB of memory on the market with very interesting prices. Used CPUs are cheap, unless I aim for the top tier models, with 6 or more cores. I still have the memory chips from the machine I retired (8GB) and getting an additional 8 is nothing out of reach. I just need to find a motherboard that can take 16GB or more of memory.

If I can assemble a machine capable of running that game, I’m fairly confident the system itself will be more than enough to comply with my daily computing needs and then some.

I’m already considering building a maxed out AMD based machine, with DDR3.

The last machine I had with that technology lasted me 12 years. I can vouch for it.

I know they existed but I’m not familiar with their work. So, just listen to what you can and have fun.

Toasted AI! The best kind of AI!

Yet! But should.

Never happened and I seriously doubt it ever will. But! I have a couple of maid outfits laying around if it ever does. I’ll listen if they comply with my request.

Nexus of causality?