The Matrix. Blew my fucking mind the first time I saw it. It's awesome on repeat viewings, but that first watch is magical.

Everything in this thread so far is normal stuff I could have guessed. Guns, metric, tipping, etc. Most of it has large groups of people in the country that agree, or at least know.

What are some non-obvious things? Culture shock isn't about major political issues. It's about universal things that turn out to not be universal.

For example, US people have a strong culture of how standing in line works. It's basically a moral sin to butt in line unless you have someone holding your place. This is universal in the country. My understanding is that other countries differ. Is that true?

In what way did he qualify as a Master Thief? He stole stuff from an assembly line then posted video about it under his own name. Sounds very non-masterly to me.

Git is something that is very comfortable to use after a year or two, but when you initially start using it, it is just so easy to mess things up in ways that are unrecoverable. I remember the silly days when I'd back up all my changes first before using git since I would so regularly lose everything through a combination of git commands.

It's easy for me now, but the initial stages punish mistakes severely. It's the dark souls of source control, except it's not really fun. It's just a very beginner unfriendly tool.

More hobbits are always welcome at: !hobbit_art@hobbit.world

I think that would fit the xkcd criteria for a positive unpopular opinion. I haven't checked rotten tomatoes though.

Personally, the only modern Star Wars movie that blew my socks off was Rogue One. All the rest were either ok, or, not that great. But RO was absolutely amazing.

If it worked like torrenting where you have seeds, etc, it'd scale almost infinitely. I don't think we should change to fit the algorithm. We should change the algorithm to make it scale.

We actually do own the airspace over our houses. Not as high as planes or space, but a drone probably would from my skimming of this article.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/aviation.uslegal.com/ownership-of-airspace-over-property/%3famp

These are the philosophical questions that every traveler must answer for themselves. I am but a hobbit. I didn't even remember to bring a handkerchief!

You're right, although if you ever get the chance to browse a real physical encyclopedia, it's a unique experience.

Not practical, but it's a bit like playing a record or playing a game on a real NES. It's a unique experience.

I have a full 2007 set of Encyclopedia Brittanica in the same room as my vintage computer collection. I browse it occasionally.

Projector beating is a bold claim! I doubt I'll ever get a big TV again. The idea of trying to move a 98" TV up the stairs seems crazy. I've got my 120" retractable projection screen and I'm happy.

This is a concern, but luckily this isn't required. I set up hobbit.world to host my Tolkien related communities. It only costs $6 a month plus the $35/yr for the domain name to host a tiny instance like this. I don't need to depend on anyone but my hosting provider.

To be safe I should download backups once a month or so.

But the point is that for big communities that people put a lot of time into, there should be an instance for each one owned by one of the mods.