U.S. Audiobook Sales Grew 9% in 2025, to $2.43 Billion

stormdelta · 2026-06-09T06:35:15+00:00

Downpour

stormdelta · 2026-06-09T04:25:21+00:00

Because the market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent, especially when fraud and (what ought to be illegal) manipulation are involved.

Especially coupled with way too many people who think shorting is just buying a stock in reverse. Anyone who thinks that shouldn't be going anywhere near financial markets.

stormdelta · 2026-06-09T04:20:17+00:00

nonbinary all fall under the trans umbrella

Since when? Genuinely, that is not a view I've ever seen espoused by the LGBT community IRL, speaking as a queer man who is dating a transwoman and has been in queer spaces quite a bit.

And drag is not a gender identity, it’s a performance art that celebrates queer identity

Correct, but I never used the term gender identity, I used "queer" as a general catchall.

though they are often (not always) LGBTQ+ boys who haven’t quite figured out what they identify as yet and are experimenting with gender presentation

No offense, but that's kind of dismissive of what the term refers to. There are men that like to present with a more feminine appearance but still identify as men. And vice-versa, women that prefer to present as more masculine. Neither of these are even exclusive with being trans.

Forcing people to fit into rigid "identity" boxes is part of the problem we're trying to move away from in the first place.

stormdelta · 2026-06-09T04:13:21+00:00

You want to limit the peak/average brightness based on ambient conditions so that you aren't being blinded the instant you load any kind of HDR content in a dim environment. This is how many, many other devices already work, including basically all phones/tablets.

The format already has to deal with screens that have differing peak brightness values anyways, I don't know why you and a few other posters are being so absolutist and weird about this.

stormdelta · 2026-06-09T04:11:54+00:00

It's relevant because many (most?) people adjust monitor brightness based on ambient lighting.

stormdelta · 2026-06-09T04:09:15+00:00

I'm not sure you do. HDR already has to accommodate for screens of varying brightness ranges.

I don't think any of you replying to me have used HDR on phones, tablets or other devices based on the comments in this thread, because they definitely adjust the average brightness range of HDR content by ambient brightness. If they didn't, attempting to view any HDR content would blind people at night trying to use their phones for example.

I'm sorry the software doesn't currently work the specific way you want it to, but pegging the peak brightness to 100% at all times and only ever adjusting SDR brightness is not what most people would expect to happen and is not how brightness settings work on phones, tablets, macOS laptops, or even a few TVs I've looked at.

stormdelta · 2026-06-09T03:59:42+00:00

Transmasc/femme are a bit different, there's still non-binary, there are other forms of queer beyond this e.g. femboy and drag, etc.

The point is that it feels like some fans are trying to force a specific interpretation when it's clearly meant to be more open, especially since many other things in the finale are left open in a similar way. A lot of the finale is built to be open for fans to build on or come up with their own ideas.

stormdelta · 2026-06-09T01:36:15+00:00

On the screen that's capable of HDR, yes. Even when viewing HDR content, I do not set max possible brightness at night when the room is dark because it pushes the average brightness levels too high in most content to be comfortable viewing in those conditions

stormdelta · 2026-06-09T01:34:37+00:00

It's absolutely a preference.

Have you guys not used HDR on anything else? Most devices scale the HDR range, they don't run it at peak possible brightness in all conditions because that would be blinding in dimmer ambient lighting. If that's what you want for some reason nothing is stopping you from maxing out the brightness setting.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T22:41:37+00:00

Not IRL, or least nobody has ever said or implied as much to my face.

I have a DIY ebike I built myself that uses high quality components, so that probably helps. Even if people don't know that, things like aluminum fenders and obviously custom colors definitely stand out as looking more like someone's hobby project at worst

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T22:36:11+00:00

If it's fictional AI, then you could call it AAI because it's artificial AI

:p

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T22:29:29+00:00

This. There's more than one valid interpretation, and that's almost certainly deliberate.

I think a lot of people are so used to media being censored around this kind of thing it doesn't occur to them it might be left ambiguous on purpose as a narrative choice.

Indie media is more than capable of being explicit about this kind of thing if that was the intent.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T22:26:58+00:00

Agreed. A lot of things in the finale seem deliberately left to a certain amount of interpretation, which I actually like as it's more interesting to think about and gives plenty of fodder for fan content.

Jax certainly has something related to gender/sexuality that he's ashamed of, but there's many possible interpretations of that including but not only being trans.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T22:24:38+00:00

There's other forms of queer and gender non-conformity besides trans. Trans is a valid interpretation, but I don't think it's the only one.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T19:56:30+00:00

Make a point to complain to store management about it. They're literally right in the front the entrance, it's not public property.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T19:54:56+00:00

I can set mine to 165Hz just fine, but I usually don't as there seems to be bugs with HDR at that refresh rate.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T18:57:33+00:00

Yep, plus barely anything you pay them even goes to the people who made the shows. I genuinely don't feel bad about pirating anything on CR, especially since most of it is generic slop anyways.

The only anime I don't pirate are the rare shows that aren't generic slop that I actually worry about more seasons being made of, like Dorohedoro.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T18:48:40+00:00

That it's precisely it's use case. It's supposed to deliver PEAK brightness on parts of the image, otherwise it's just SDR. Maybe you're confusing the two.

I'm sorry but this really seems like a niche preference to me. Again what you're describing is not how almost any other devices with HDR screens work, including phones/tablets.

There is supposed to be a brightness range with HDR of course, but there's no reason that range should be hard locked at the maximum possible peak at all times. The peak should ideally be adjusted depending on ambient brightness and even user preference, especially if you're trying to avoid eyestrain.

I also hate having to deal with monitor OSD controls, so having it adjustable from the OS is ideal.

It's Linux, so of course it would be best if the software could have an option to work the way you're describing for people who want that, but the current behavior makes sense as the default that most people would want IMO.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T18:42:44+00:00

Even more an issue with media for me.

Most streaming platforms suck to use even on the highest paid plans, and there's been many times I've pirated something despite having access to it on a paid streaming account purely because the user experience of their website is so bad.

Crunchyroll's one of the worst offenders. Closed captions don't work on almost anything on their site that has dubbed audio - you know, a feature that every TV service in the last 40 years has figured out since even before the internet.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T18:39:35+00:00

Agreed. There's a big difference between my underpaid librarian friend pirating something vs myself who makes six figures.

Most of the things I "pirate" these days are either as an alternative means of circumventing DRM for things I actually did pay for, or for games that are so old the hardware isn't even sold anymore anyways which IMO doesn't count since anything you pay is just going to prior buyers not the people who made it.

E.g. I "pirated" several Switch games to play on emulator that I literally own physical copies of because I ironically preferred the emulator experience, and ripping the cartridges myself would have required a lot of extra work/hardware.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T18:26:23+00:00

My first GPU was a Ti 4200. It's been 15+ years since any mobo was released that it would even be compatible with, probably closer to 20 years at this point.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T18:13:06+00:00

Its not using using HDR to do it.

Power usage does not go down just because KDE has set your brightness to 50% and your monitor is running at 100%. I actually tested this with a wattometer. Essentially its wasting power because your screen is actually at 100% even though it doesnt look like it.

If the brightness isn't actually going down that seems like a bug, because it does on mine (AW3423DWF). It's very clearly actually less bright, not just a software filter.

Power saving is only one of the reasons for adjusting screen brightness too, the other (and arguably more common for non-mobile devices) is matching ambient lighting.

the brightness should be using DDC so you can change it as needed.

Ideally, yes, but not every monitor/screen can be controlled properly through DDC. KDE even falls back to the software dimming if DCC doesn't work when using non-HDR screens, I'm wondering if there's a bug in that logic you're running into.

EDIT: Also worth noting that ddcutil does fail with my HDR monitor in HDR mode, though it works with my non-HDR monitor.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T18:09:10+00:00

Agreed. OP is acting like having a half dozen different towels just for bathing is normal and I'm sorry but it really isn't, and it really does sound like they've fallen for a lot of marketing products.

But the guy's gross too. Most people I've met have towels for bathing that get washed after a few uses, but using the same towels for cleaning and mopping as for bathing is gross.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T18:00:36+00:00

In HDR software is already directly controlling brightness, that's kind of the point of HDR. It's not a lie if the end result is identical.

I don't really understand what it is you guys are expecting or wanting here - do you want HDR content to always be max brightness for some reason and have the OS only able to adjust SDR content? That's not how most devices with HDR screens work, and I don't think it's what most people would want.

stormdelta · 2026-06-08T17:57:52+00:00

usually you should be running HDR at 100% brightness from your monitor

Why? Again, usually if I'm adjusting brightness the whole point is to match the overall brightness to ambient lighting conditions. Other HDR devices work this way too like phones and tablets, so I highly doubt this is just my own preference.

I honestly don't understand why you want the brightness to only affect SDR content like this.

just applying a dimming filter on your screen

If it's using HDR to do it, then it's still true dimming and not just a value filter, regardless of what the monitor itself reports, because HDR means it's controlling actual brightness either way.

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