pegasnow

[pegasnow]

Crazzyyyy that we've turned unemployed into an insult. Especially to disparage women and particularly trans women. Like I feel like maybe you should wonder why there's a large intersection between marginalized women and homelessness. Like this is blatant antifeminism and classism and everyone acts like its normal!

[pegasnow]

Structurally, Heathcliff in its present form is just shitty referential meme humour where 90% of the time the punchline is "laugh because you recognise this reference", except the memes it's referencing exist only in the author's head, which explains basically everything about why Tumblr is into it.

[pegasnow]

YOU are a girl with glasses now.

[pegasnow]

funny how when someone uses the term “gender essentialism” there’s like 1/3 chance they actually mean “bio essentialism” and a 1/3 chance they actually mean “belief in male privilege”

[pegasnow]

Genuinely insane dynamic that most Umamusume have with at least one other Umamusume

[pegasnow]

I went to the library lego contest and it was so good. kids are so funny. I'm gonna try to redact names but I need to include the descriptions they wrote

the 3 legged wolf dragon, seventh grade entrant

titanic, the 2nd scenario, seventh grade entrant (hard to see in the picture but it's being eaten by a sea monster)

the lego duct tape banana, sixth grade entrant

behind the scenes, sixth grade entrant (recreating the image on the event flyers)

the attacks of september 11th 2001 (???!?!), fifth grade entrant

joe, fifth grade entrant

dream treehouse library, fourth and second grade entrants

police robot, first grade entrant. its stats are listed if you can't read them

name: police robot speed: 250/mph weapon: rocket gun food: bad guy drink: oil birthday: 8/26/2025

[pegasnow]

[pegasnow]

Best image

[pegasnow]

Why is does viewing myself as a different person feel as euphoric as putting on a skirt

[pegasnow]

She want Videos, Videos, Videos,

On the Top!

🫧 @vyl3tpwny 🫧

[pegasnow]

[pegasnow]

Hey @lynnsenpai I attacked you on a TUESDAY, not a Monday like the cunning mouse I am. (:< Hope you likey, I did Chiaki and Rain as well. (: Y'all should read Rain or My Impossible Soulmate if you haven't yet, they both slap. Last ever animation I will make on my phone lol.

[pegasnow]

if you make a joke about unemployed trans women as anything other than an unemployed trans woman you are just being transmisogynistic

[pegasnow]

Original tweet: (x)

[pegasnow]

new benefit of having a standup desk that i just discovered while setting up my new office:

if i set it all the way to maximum height especially while im trying to move stuff around on it i feel like i am so so little and small and that’s awesome

[pegasnow]

Been saying "I'm girl" and smiling a lot today :)

[pegasnow]

Introduction to optical discs

Once common, now infrequently used due to not being able to catch up with storage capacity and large physical size (making it infeasible to use in small devices like tablets or phones, and the integrated reader's weight and dimensions inside laptops in times is a problem where getting laptops as thin as ever gets you bragging rights)

Not all is lost, however, as there are external readers that you can connect over USB 3.0 or later.

(you specifically need to connect this one to a USB 3.0 port as USB 2.0 does not provide enough power)

This is intended as a general introduction for someone who might have not used optical discs much and is purposefully not detailed enough (for details you can go to wikipedia), and also does not describe formats I've never used myself.

Why you may want to care

you got a CD player (like, in a car, or a standalone) and you want to play music there for the lulz

you got yourself in a possession of music CDs and want to play them on your phone

you got yourself in a possession of video DVDs or Blu-rays and want to play them on your computer

you want to create a copy for the old discs that gather dust in your home before they rot

you want to satisfy the "2" in the 3-2-1 backup guideline ("Keep the files on 2 different media types to protect against different types of hazards.")

How it works

An optical disc player has a laser inside. An optical disc has a whole bunch of very small holes which the player can detect by shining its laser, and interpret it in form of digital data. The size and layout of the holes, and the wavelength of the laser all determines the storage capacity.

Basic usage

Don't touch the reflective surface of the disc.

Never scratch either side of the disc.

If you use a marker to describe what the disc contains, make sure it's safe for writing on optical discs.

Only write on a non-reflective surface.

Dust or scratches can make it difficult for the device to read the optical disc.

You can wipe the reflective surface with a soft cloth, from inside to outside. Don't do it by circling around the surface.

It is possible to make an "image" out of an optical disc, which is a representation of the disc in a form of a file. You will likely encounter:

.bin/.cue pair of files for Audio CDs

.iso for data CDs/DVDs/Blu-rays

.mdf/.mds pair of files when dealing with copy protected CDs/DVDs.

CD (Compact Disc)

The oldest type of optical discs, dating to 1980s, originally of which the purpose was to store music, but eventually extended to be able to store arbitrary data (to the point you may sometimes see "do not put this disc inside your music player" warnings on some CDs dating from early 90s).

Early CDs were produced in dedicated factories at scale, and you couldn't create your own. This has since changed and you can buy "CD-R"s, which are CDs where you can record your own data on, in a process also known as "burning" (it's called burning because the increased intensity of the laser while recording literally burns out a hole which then can be read later). CD-Rs are only recordable once, although mechanisms which allowed you to add more data afterwards were later introduced. There are also CD-RWs which are erasable and rewritable, but these were more expensive, were less compatible and I only bought one of those ever, you will have difficulty finding one, and honestly not worth it, just get a USB drive at this point.

Audio CD

If you go to a store and buy a music CD, it will be in this format. Widest compatibility, but because it stores music uncompressed, it can only store 74 to 99 minutes (depending on the CD, most commonly 80) of music.

Copy protection mechanisms: None. Sony attempted to introduce one in mid-00s but everyone disliked that. Use Exact Audio Copy to rip the CD (extract it and copy it to your computer)

Data CD

During times where average hard drive was 100MB, someone came up with a bright idea to use CDs to store files, and the result was a device which stored truly gigantic amounts in comparison (650-800MB, most commonly 700MB), which immediately prompted people to create all sorts of "virtual encyclopedia" software and FMV games.

Sometimes a music player with a CD drive will be able to read a Data CD with a bunch of MP3s on it, but don't count on it (verify it first). If it can't, you have no choice but to use Audio CD format instead.

Copy protection mechanisms: early video games and software had none due to how expensive CDs and CD writers were. This changed and we got LaserLock, SafeDisc, SecuROM and StarForce. All of them are generally pain in the ass, but the most beloathed is definitely StarForce. "DAEMON Tools" and "Alcohol 52%" are tools for dealing with those.

Eventually the limits of the format were hit, as average game in early to mid 00s required use of multiple CDs (let's all ignore Georg Phantasmagoria from 1995 which used up seven). This leads us to...

DVD (Digital Versatile Disc)

Format created in mid-1990s. Originally "versatile" stood for "video", and from this you can deduce what was the original purpose of it. Similarly as with CD-Rs, "DVD-R"s are recordable once. There also exists "DVD+R"s, the plus vs minus used to be competing formats, but nowadays you can ignore this, as any modern external USB reader can handle both.

DVD-Video

If you buy a DVD with a movie or a show, it will likely be using DVD-Video. Resolution of the video is limited to PAL/NTSC, so no Full HD for you.

Copy protection mechanisms: Content Scramble System. Quoting wikipedia, "This can be brute-forced in about a minute by a Pentium II, or a few seconds by a modern CPU." Also, region coding, where a DVD bought in, say, USA, won't be able to be read in a DVD player bought in, say, Japan. VLC will defeat both of those.

Data DVD

As of 2025, DVD-Rs are cheaper than CD-Rs, while being able to store 4.7GB of data. Dual layer disks are 8.5GB, but last time I checked, DVD-R DL cost four times as much. You will encounter double layer discs a lot when dealing with games, making a straight up DVD-to-DVD copy non-trivial without buying a DVD-R DL. For backup purposes you likely want to create an image of the DVD, creating an archive containing accurate representation of the DVD, so you can burn it if needed.

Copy protection mechanisms: generally similar as with Data CDs.

HD DVD

Old format that lost the format war to...

Blu-ray Disc

The "blu" in the name stands for the blue laser, as opposed to the red laser used in DVDs. The laser of a smaller wavelength means higher density of data, and therefore, higher storage capacities: 25GB for single layer and 50GB for dual layer. Format motivated by digital television with 720p and 1080p displays.

PlayStation 3 while being super expensive at the time, happened to be one of the cheapest Blu-ray players, giving it massive boost in popularity.

As of 2025, Blu-ray players/writers are still more expensive than combined CD/DVD players/writers. And so are the BD-Rs.

The format has been used for video games too, but with the increase of sizes of games and digital stores eventually made it less popular for this purpose. It's mostly kept alive nowadays thanks to people buying video on Blu-ray.

Blu-ray Disc Audio/Visual

Early 2025 I got myself in a possession of a legal Blu-Ray movie (Makoto Shinkai movie collection), and because I'm not gonna buy a separate dedicated player when I could play the movie with an external USB Blu-ray device I bought for recording a backup, I had to learn how to break its DRM.

Copy protection mechanisms: Advanced Access Content System. This time they actually attempted with an actual cryptography instead of post-cold war exports. However, the first player keys leaked less than a year, ending with hilarious results. You can play those discs on your computer with VLC + libaacs + up to date key database. Blu-ray region coding exists, but is trivially bypassable.

Ultra HD Blu-ray

An improvement over regular Blu-ray, motivated by 4K displays, can handle 50GB for single layer and 100GB for dual layer.

UHD Blu-ray is not backwards compatible with Blu-ray, which means your device must specifically support it (so you can't play it with your PS3).

Copy protection mechanisms: Advanced Access Content System 2.0 and 2.1. A new "improvement" over the previous version is that some discs can't be played without the player needing to connect to the internet first to download the key. What if the servers go down? Oh don't worry about it. (you won't be able to play that movie). The libaacs + key database approach supposedly still works but I can't check as I don't have any UHD Blu-rays on hand.