The matrix came out in 1999. At that time the quality of that movie blew my mind. I remember around then you could play movies on pc with powerdvd or similar. It was a bit choppy at times but it worked.

Decss came out the same year which enabled dvd ripping. It was slow as hell back then to rip and encode a dvd. You had to use multiple tools to split the streams (audio/video) encode the audio and video separately and put them back together again. It sucked.

Divx also came out in about 1998-1999 which was a hacked up mpeg 4 codec that enabled higher quality encodes at smaller sizes.

Piracy in the 90s was more focused on audio and sneaker netting copies of stuff with your friends. The tech was just emerging to rip movies.

Funeral potatoes are my favorite.

https://www.tasteandtellblog.com/funeral-potatoes/

Whoop whoop

Working in the trades is probably somewhat safe for a while.

Honestly I’d just go for something that you’re interested in. If AI displaces a ton of white collar workers, the system will probably collapse and we’ll all go mad max. In the meantime have fun!

No thank you.

The boomers are aging and lead poisoned. Education system is spotty. Poor areas have less tax revenue, leading to worse schools, and that creates a cycle.

People are addicted to social media and it’s literally rotting their brains. 15 second video clips with the same background audio playing in a loop.

I think it is a lot of things happening concurrently.