When I went (15 yrs ago?), there was also the problem of armed locals. I can't remember if they were some guerrilla group or just opportunistic bandits, but we had to caravan to get there with a military escort. So that can't help with the tourism, if it's still going on.
That used to be the case, but the security situation is much better now and escorts are no longer needed.
However, it is only 5.3km from the Guatemalan border and there is quite a lot of illegal encroachment so there is a contingent of armed military guards at Caracol.
Agencies all have their own lawyers, and it’s frequently useful to have them hash out agreements for the same reason that it’s useful for scientists to get peer review. Beyond the basic efficiency argument, it’s good to have multiple people validate your reasoning.
I think the assertion that "eating less usually means eating less meat" is probably false (though I couldn't read the article cuz paywall).
The first article talks plenty about why: people are eating less of the the things that are addictive to them, such as alcohol and cookies, which are a major source of calories.
The article doesn't mention AI at all. We know that the number of books being released has exploded in general due to AI, but are those books also being released in audiobook form? Or is this increase due somehow to the use of AI in audiobook recording?
The article does hint at this - with some of the top authors recording hundreds of books - so maybe these folks have used AI to clone their voices and fast track the process?
Personally, I think AI has great potential here, even if only to fill in the gaps. Older, less loved books aren't recorded.
Additionally, there are several narrators that simply grate on my ears, or who my brain has simply learned to tune out, and it would be nice to have an option to switch to a (lower quality) AI version.
I also wonder that. I'm not an audiobook narrator but if I were I'd need a audio "library" of names/places/etc that I could refer back to before reading a passage with a word I can't remember how to pronounce. The source of that "library" could either be from the author and/or my previous pronunciations. Without that I'd have no idea how I would stay consistent.
I think I'd prefer to have options for each audiobook. I have favorite narrators, and find others unlistenable. There are also thousands and thousands of books that will never otherwise be turned into audio format unless an AI is used.
I think all the streaming providers know adding fees like that is going to lock customers into streaming services, and not necessarily their streaming services. People would be way less likely to subscribe to watch one show if they had to pay fees for either activating or cancelling the subscription.
People won't go back to piracy. Most of the people that subscribe to Netflix weren't really pirates. Maybe they had a friend that would burn them a DVD on request, or got the number of some guy who sold bootleg DVDs. They'd probably use these services for a couple of movies a year. Most peoples direct experience with piracy was downloading Metallica songs on limewire when they were 16. It's been a long time since then. There's a whole generation of adults who largely only know TV as it exists today, that is, streaming services.
The ones that were pirates, I never understood why they left. I have yet to pay for a single streaming service in my entire life, or cable, or any of that. This was always going to happen, I saw it coming for years before Netflix even had a viable competitor. And on top of that, the diminishing quality of the content, I've reached a point now that I don't pirate because I don't watch any of it. To be fair to them, my TV watching was always very minimal, I'm an easy guy to alienate. Still, I can't imagine people who know how to pirate actually paying for what passes for entertainment these days.
I don't get it either, when I experience what you talk about I just laugh and sometimes ask my friends how they feel about it. Remember, it's normal to them. It's also amusing to see how TV advertising has evolved (or devolved to be more accurate) since the last time I saw a commercial.
Because Netflix was more convenient than piracy in the golden era of streaming, especially for non-English speaking folks. I think people tend to forget that piracy isn't that much about media preservation at all. It's in fact extremely common for sites to nuke anything non-English as soon as possible.
* Contains non-English dubs? Oi mate, quite the “redundant audio tracks” you've got there, please remove those.
* Only non-English dub? Bloody hell mate, can't have that. Someone please upload a proper release.
* English dub? Go right ahead mate, can't live without that.
So, unless other native language speakers band together to archive and share media in their own little community, they're shit out of luck. Now, of course, also forget about nice pre-made media automation setups since they'll break down as soon as you leave the language of English.
Lol. They create algorithms that are quick to identify what new users are interested in, and then hamper the same algorithms by deleting watch histories.
I'm okay with having a fresh start. I don't want the algorithms knowing a lot about me anyway.
Not showing you your watch history has exactly zero to do with deleting your watch history. Data like that is never deleted, it might be valuable later.
I switched to the Arc browser this year, and I love it.
The best feature is that it auto-closes tabs. It makes having different spaces for work and personal browsing easy, and they are constantly adding convenience features.
It runs on Chromium. I don't know how that intersects with the ethical and standards issues around Chrome.
What do you mean 28h day? Are you going to bed 4 hours later every day than the day before? How can you do this and keep a job, or even schedule appointments several weeks out?
Left to my own devices, I fall into something like that, yes. My ideal world would be one in which I was allowed to stay up and keep being productive, instead of feeling like I'm hitting my stride right as the external world says it's time to go to sleep.
I donno, it hasn't been a big deal. I've worked for startups and also doing consulting work the past 20 years, I always mentioned my weird schedule when interviewing, maybe it's tech, maybe just my bubble, but it's fine. During that time I didn't tend to schedule many appointments.
Now I'm doing a different thing, trying to see if I can actually adapt to be on a 24h schedule and be a "morning person" and all that.
I was feeling motivated last night at 1am, and it took every inch of my body to NOT whip out VS Code.
Still couldn't sleep until 4am. Woke up today at 1pm.
--
I used to think that growing up would mean that I could go to sleep whenever I wanted, and do what I want.
Turns out that growing up means you learn that you shouldn't do those things.
But why? My mornings are usually clear of meetings, and I could just work PST hours from the east coast, and it would be fine.
Turned out that working every evening is not good for your social life, and having a social life is something I try to prioritise more than hacking all day all night.
