d-RLY?

It really depends on the media and my level of interest in it. I was only bothering to try and get 1080p copies of stuff I liked due to only having a 1080p TV for so long. But I did make efforts to get 1080 where possible (and based on my drives at the time) even before I had a HD TV and the only thing I had to actually watch that resolution on was my laptop. And that was because I wanted to make sure I had (at the time) the best copies of torrented encodes of stuff I really loved and would want to look good later. But I got a 4K HDR TV a few months ago as my 13yo 1080p TV started just giving black screens on all inputs. And while a lot of things are fine, the limitations of the encodes are showing much more.

If I am just checking out something that I have heard about or was told to check out by a friend. I might just grab a 1080 or even 720 copy since they are often the top seeded results. Then go back and find 4k copies if I really get into it. Though my main issue today is similar to back when I was using my laptop. Storage space. I started ripping my Blu-rays and I am the worst about dealing with compression stuff. So I really really need to get on making that media server I have been “meaning to build” for years. Get some 18TB or 20TB drives and RAID the shit out of them for redundancy. lol.

You aren’t wrong, I mean just looking at how it is making just getting a home while those homes are treated like Wall Street stocks. But the longer that the shit gets pushed out, the more it will cost anyway. Especially as private corps are literally buying up everything. So the corps should be just forced out without pay period. And the only people that should get paid anything are actual people and not the fake persons that we allow corps to be legally seen as. Only other exception would be if land is native land, and plans for shit should be forced to not go through it.

Are the ideas above legal? Hell no, but fucking corps aren’t people and they already get their money from fucking over people and from getting all the tax cuts and exemptions for everything anyway. We have already been letting corps own the current rail lines and is a shining example as to why they should be purged for the benefit of the people.

At least it should still work with the hard coded sponsor spots that are actually part of the videos (like the “brought to you by Manscaped” or whatever).

Not surprised, I think a lot of sites tend to start removing things as they are posting about being made to do so. As I imagine that having them still up after posting about the removals would likely cause a surge in downloads. Not sure what kinds of things the sites might have to (or be compelled to if formally sued) provide to lawyers/courts. Would (at least to my non-understanding of processes) be that many more “infractions” to add to a “damages” total. Even if none of my assumptions are an issue. It is just like any other data issue. The worst time to try and get copies for a backup is after shit happens/fails. Though I imagine that at least for 8-bit and 16-bit games, there are plenty of copies on plenty of sites and torrents.

For indi-devs having a “donate” option on their page might be good for both people that maybe pirated but liked it enough to send some amount (even if not the full price). And could be a random source of money to off-set some of the pirated copies from people that just decide they wanted to show additional support for the efforts of the devs.

Lots of fans are willing to leave donations especially if the devs are at risk of shutting down or some other hardships. So long as the donation options only go to the devs/creators or their specific studio/company and not to some larger entity/publisher. Store fronts like itch.io allowing devs to have both an official front to allow safe free copies along with the normal price and “pay what you want” stuff is also nice.

Stuff like YouTube’s system (and will keep getting much worse as every company trips over themselves with AI in everything) is so fucking rigged with major companies getting shit auto-claimed. And then relies on more auto-rejecting the channel’s disputes. And they get to claim that shit must work because most creators can’t afford to risk fighting further. The only times shit gets really reviewed by people is when shit happens to a mega channel. Since those channels/companies have both special tools that 99% of creators don’t have (or maybe know about), AND more crucially they have connections at YT.

I really want to move as much of the stuff I watch to other sites (made sure to add extensions to let me know if a channel/vid is also on Odysee/Lbry). If more services are able to get apps onto devices like Roku/consoles and/or the other boxes/TV OSes then it would be easier. I personally watch most YT stuff on my TV and not my phone or PC. Normies of course default to YT since it has been around so long and because it has apps on everything. Would be dope if services with P2P shared delivery to help reduce server loads (like PeerTube and Lbry) could work on stuff like Roku/consoles but would be more or less impossible due to lack of space and the locked-down nature.

Aside from options like PeerTube being much more complicated given both making accounts and learning curve in how federated instances work. The alts to YT also seem to fall victim to so much of the main page content (currently) being far-right and crypto scam/hype channels. If the services get the label of being “for” that stuff, then it is hard to get more mainstream users/creators. But we really really need something that isn’t YT. The class divide of strikes and bans is beyond fucked.

I flip US flags because fuck imperialism.

They flip US flags because they are babies that bootlick.

We are not the same.

Glad to see someone mention OO. I was going to, and saw your comment. I will always be down for LibreOffice, but OnlyOffice might be the “best” option for lots of people that are easily intimidated with change (or more specifically how something looks different). Even if it is lacking on some features, it just matters how the person it is recommended to uses MS Office. Being fair using MS Office or any of the similar suites is overkill for what they do. If smaller programs like Wordpad (RIP) or opensource Rich Text Format editors could handle so many general purpose documents.

Obvious troll is obvious. If the overwhelming number of Cuban people really and truly didn’t support socialism. Then they would have taken over in a new revolution as they did getting rid of the US puppet state the last time. They have stood firm despite the literal attempts of US lead colour revolutions and refuse to be forced to bow to the self-appointed global police state that is the US. They aren’t the ones that should change to serve the rich fucks that steal from nations across the world. It is those rich fucks that should be put in the dirt so that peoples across the world could live their lives without fear.

The US is constantly and historically the ones propping up dictators all over the world. AND we have done it while people of those nations have either legitimately voted for the opposite, and/or were fighting for their freedom from colonial powers/dictators. We actively fund and create false narratives inside nations that we don’t like to start color revolutions. We force other nations into backing brutal sanctions if they don’t want us to go after them and to be allowed to trade with us. Our military is literally installed all over the globe, but we claim nations like China are somehow being “aggressive” for even patrolling their own areas. We create and groom evil and gaslight the world that we are somehow just allowed to police the globe. Fuck yourself.

The headspace of “anyone is better than Putin” also means that people that are worse are praised. Someone that openly calls Muslims “cockroaches” and extreme nationalism isn’t exactly “better” than Putin’s similar stances on the LGBTQIA+ communities. So it is very possible for Navalny to be worse if given the powers Putin currently has. The real point is that it isn’t a good thing to blindly praise/support everyone that openly attacks Putin as some “hero of freedom” or something like that.

Gintama has some of the funnier versions of those notes. Can be annoying if you don’t care as they take it to 11 covering most of the screen to explain a reference to a bank scandal in the 90s or other very specific stuff. Cracks me up with the level of care about making sure you are aware of something used in a quick joke that might not really matter. Such a nice way to see and know random info on Japanese slang words and phrases in the context of a moment.

Even the Ukrainians have been cheering his death. He wasn’t pro-Ukraine, and they weren’t pro-him.

I don’t think that anywhere near as many people that thought Trump was “compromised” would believe Biden has been. If anything Biden constantly demanding more and more money and arms stockpiles from the US to go to Ukraine is kind of a win for Russia. As it means less money and arms are being kept by the US. It weakens us in money and supplies. The constant cheerleading about standing with Ukraine until the end and all territories are returned, kind of makes it hard to save face and cut off the supply line. Trump being much more prone to impulses and thrives on attention is much more likely to change directions even if people scream at him about it. Just as long as he can be the centre of attention and not really care about the situation.

That being said, Putin is definitely fucking with everyone. It helps create chaos for both parties to constantly be too focused on accusing each other of being “compromised.” And the best part is that he doesn’t even have to actually do anything other than exist for this to happen.

He alone wouldn’t have been able to do much. As instead of just having conservatives/Republicans against him, the Democratic party’s members in Congress and in other fed and state level spots would also be against him. Until we get third parties in there to break up the eternal gridlock of never moving forward for real people. We just keep being pulled to the right and the centrists only care about not making the rich happy. Burn them and all of it to the ground.

Facts! If Netanyahu is removed, it will just be like the US where the next guy is still evil but just lesser.

Too bad he was vocally pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian liberation up until now. Ready to blindly believe the lies about the 40 babies, and somehow that Israel is allowed continued support every year with our money. Dude has lost all my support ever since bowing to Dems both times and not fighting. He allowed Dems to get what they wanted and all of us are assholes for not fucking around about withholding votes. Bernie got people excited about real change, and then allowed the very establishment we need removed to bring it to a hard stop (like always). Fuck him and his masters that enabled Israel’s decades and decades of planned genocide started with the colonization of Palestine by Zionists! He is just doing what all the Dems do, good quotes/speeches and nothing changed.

Very hard to convince people to buy things “legitimately” and have any trust in any of the “legit” options when they just go away so fucking easily. Stuff like anime has been a real weird example of both how horrible the corps on the Japanese side just squeeze every single fraction of a penny from stuff (fucking like two eps of a show on a modern DVD or even Blu-ray). But also feel zero reason to expand options in the first place. They were so fucking slow to get digital or streaming options. Same goes for the foreign outlets that get rights outside of J-land, but I am sure they were more likely to want to combat piracy via stuff like streaming. Funny thing about anime piracy is that it is literally the reason so many shows and movies were even seen and is the main reason so many people got into all of it. Back in the early 00’s when I made friends with people that had cable internet and ready to burn as many eps as they could fit on a CD-R and later DVD-/+R.

It was just so amazing to see all these shows that weren’t just completely altered by lazy US companies or ever likely to be translated. No US companies thought that Americans would ever understand or get into this weird Japanese stuff and not put money into it. But they sure started caring when torrents got going and the numbers were growing. One thing that has really pissed me off with legal digital copies of anime comes down to how it is still behind on basic shit. We have had multi-audio/subtitles on pirate copies and even on legitimate physical discs. But the legal versions of digital copies still have to be either bought in sub or dub. It is a slap in the face of fans to have to buy two different copies just to have multi-audio in Japanese and English. I thought that shit would have been left behind with VHS.

All of these companies demand our money and often charge prices that are just too high for their target audiences (especially teens that don’t have jobs like so many of us have lived through). And yet they seem to do everything possible to make the options for purchase so much less usable compared to pirate versions. I would take a fansub that might be a bit off but has actual passion for community and accessibility over legit copies every single time. But I am also more than happy to pay for things if I don’t keep being treated like I already stole it and should be grateful for being “allowed” to pay for it. I would love to pay for these things and know that the actual workers are able to live, and not just so overworked and not able to afford rent. But the entire media industry treats both the workers and the customers so fucking bad. They are making things worse for themselves by showing how we can’t trust our purchases to even be around from one day to another. So why shouldn’t we just take it and know that we will have it?

Given how lots of smaller shows and other things will never get re-prints or re-masters on modern media. It is also our jobs to preserve these things that the companies feel aren’t worth the money to do so if they aren’t. If I ever have kids, I would like to be able to know I can show them my favorites. Looks like I will also need to show them how to sail the digital seas and that “legit” options should always be treated as liars that steal your money AND take away what you paid for.

🏴‍☠️

They really went hard on VCRs before all of that for the same reasons. Fortunately the time shifting argument was able to be backed by the courts. Otherwise TiVo and so many other formats would’ve basically been banned from the general public being able to have anything nice. Was especially important rulings for forcing most content providers and/or studios into using new ideas and technologies. They are the ones that hold back on everything that could actually make it easier to legally enjoy content.

They make things require so many hoops to go through and like a punishment for wanting to enjoy anything legally. While also making it cost more on their end overall. If these companies were to embrace stuff like torrenting tech, then it would mean less overall costs needed to always be running. We have so many ways of getting stuff from here to there and making sure media is not lost. Copyrights should at best last like 10 years imo. These companies still can’t even be bothered to allow me to buy movies and shows digitally that maybe got a DVD release. So if they won’t give options, then they forfeit the right to claim any “damages” or “lost sales.”

I did fail to mention it is US only (my bad in that). Though it could get expanded if it is popular enough and it can be pointed to as “reducing piracy.” But international laws being complicated from nation to nation is also an issue, or at least something they might say. I haven’t been out of the country since setting it up, so I am curious if I would need a VPN to access my licensed stuff. Maybe would work for folks that have made accounts in the past with VPN? Idk.

It does work with some very limited sets of shows. But like I said, they aren’t really about that and the shows tend to be from studios like HBO. But not helpful for most anything other than movies.

It is a unified interface, but if I buy a MA labeled movie from say Vudu. It will also show-up in my iTunes, Microsoft, YouTube/Google Movies, Amazon, and of course MA. They have some additional connected services via Direct TV and Verizon, but I don’t use those. But the point is that if I get it on one of the services I connected, they become available on all of them. Even when the UltraViolet service went down, I didn’t lose the things I had bought. Though I think that Disney must have bought their connections and the UV stuff was migrated. Though I am not sure of those details. Either way it didn’t lead to me losing anything.

It also does require that you periodically sign back into their site to re-connect each provider similar to how you have to sign back into other sites. But again, I at no point have lost access to what was in my account if I haven’t signed in to re-verify. It isn’t as cut and dry as having the physical discs or a torrented copy on a NAS. But it is still worth knowing about if you have “legit” copies. I really wish that there were a way to link my Plex account and be able to watch them in the same front-end as my local stuff though. But no way that is going to happen unless Plex completely stops supporting the Plex Server and works out deals to use APIs of stuff like Vudu, Amazon, iTunes, etc…