#Storage media

[fallensapphires]

Media: Floppy Disks

Not born to be rich, by 1981 I had nonetheless begun to use a PC that required for its operation the absorption of several hundred pages of protocols and the placement of very large floppy disks in the freezer to fix frequent crashes.

[thejazzywaffles]

angry about the degradation rate of physical media at 3 AM

Does film degrade under poor storage conditions? Yes. But on the other hand, in OPTIMAL storage conditions, I have 15-year-old DVDs with disc rot. And unlike film degradation, disc rot means the disc is worthless. It either won't play at all or will hang once it reaches the missing data. Completely fucking worthless storage medium. It would literally last longer if it were a fucking CARTRIDGE. Yeah, that's right. The shit you shove into an NES. Movies would last longer in THAT old tech than new-fangled discs... oh? And did I mention? Discs have only been getting worse. CDs last longer than DVDs. DVDs last longer than Blu-rays. I'm a proponent of physical media but holy fuck why did we think this was the storage medium of the future? And why are we still using it??? I'd buy an SD card that's 50% content and 50% security shit to stop most people from copying the content if it meant I could have a physical medium of game/movie/music storage that doesn't degrade in a decade or two.

oh and also books are based as hell I love books you can treat a book like dogshit and your grandkids will probably still be able to read it as long as it doesn't catch on fire or whatever, we got media storage right the first time actually

[roguetoo]

[wjbs-aus]

[abby-howard]

A Christmas gift from Tony.....

(original comic circa Feb 2019)

[t-eyla]

“streaming services are untrustworthy now”

THEY ALWAYS HAVE BEEN

THEY. ALWAYS. HAVE. BEEN.

You want to own your media. The music you love, the TV you love, the shows you love, the fic and podcasts and fanworks and books you love, DOWNLOAD THEM. I don’t care if you pirate or buy them (though the smaller the creator, the more I’d suggest you buy, or at least donate to them through whatever means available), but if you want to be sure that you’ll always have access, you need to physically own this stuff. Yes, even if it’s all digital.

The thing that streaming services offer is called SVOD. That means “subscription video on demand”. You’re subscribing to a provider, and you do not get a choice what the selection of content is this provider offers. Think of them like a TV channel. You can watch what’s on at any given time, but there is no guarantee that what you’ve seen will ever be shown again.

Back in the day, people started to use VHS to record television content and keep it. Tons and tons of academic writing has been produced on how much changed when people could finally OWN THEIR MEDIA. Do not give that up. Make sure you have this stuff. Turn off your wifi and mobile data and figure out how much media you’ve still got access to. If there’s something you’re dearly missing, go and make it accessible to you offline right now.

Here’s what happened at HBO Max (as far as I understand): they spent money on the merger with Discovery, and then figured out that they’d acquired shows, or now had shows in their catalogue, that they didn’t expect to make money off of, because the shows either didn’t fit their brand or their desired target audience or whatever else stupid reason they had. There’s this tax thing you can do where you can declare an expense a loss, essentially, if you can be sure that you won’t be making money off of whatever you acquired with that money. If it’s declared a loss, you don’t pay taxes on it. Now that they’ve declared the money they spent on these shows a loss, they cannot be found out to be making money off of them. This is why those shows are getting purged. And because nobody ever produced any physical media of these shows, or offered them for paid download where you got to keep the files, they’re just GONE. (And this is why art and capitalism don’t mix, sigh.)

This will happen again. We’ve got so many streaming services now that the smaller ones are starting to get bought by the bigger ones. A streaming platform isn’t a particularly profitable business, and since we have a few big names bouncing around the market, these big names are each going to have to develop their own specific brand in order to be unique enough to warrant a subscription (if they haven’t yet). So we’ve got mergers in an industry that’s struggling to stay out of the red and whose big players are desperately trying to develop individual, distinct profiles. Shows that don’t fit into this silo structure will be dropped and purged. Just like it used to be on TV, anything that doesn’t bring in subscribers (i.e. that doesn’t have broad mass appeal) will not find a place anymore.

Streaming is still better than traditional TV. At least they’re now trying to appeal to the people watching rather than advertisers, and there’s more leeway in regards to the kind of content that can be run. But the creativity is going to narrow. So any show that you love, anything that is exactly the kind of thing that you’ve wanted to see for years but that never got made because it doesn’t have “mass appeal” -- download it. Make sure you own it any way possible. They can take it away at any moment, and they will, because money beats art when you’re running your creative industries for profit.

[so-emo-i-fell-apart]

They hate me for the way I go insane for physical media

[nico-di-genova]

Kili has made it his mission to tweet a daily photo of Tauriel. No one has asked him to do this. He will not stop.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I was just thinking what a cool job this might be.. what if you were just the person who makes little still images of cute animal figurines doing various activities to post on social media...? like.. show up to work and just spend the whole day like "hmm... this table should be placed to the left a little.. let me set this miniature bagel down in this way... this tiny rabbit should be wearing a scarf", setting the backgrounds, the lighting, etc. ... dream job perhaps lol...

[sandybrett]

Here are my completely honest thoughts on a bunch of audio dramas I've checked out. (Don't worry, nothing scathing, they're all reasonably good. But please proceed with caution, or don't proceed, if you're involved in creating any of these shows.)

In the order I first listened:

The Storage Papers: Nine episodes in. A little slow paced, but I've heard it picks up in the later seasons. My only real concern is that it seems like a lot of the horror revolves around "this thing looks sort of like a human but it's Wrong somehow. also it kills people (or cats)." I hope at some point we meet a creature that looks and acts as unsettling as the Grinner but is nice, or at least complicated.

The Cellar Letters: Seven episodes in. I LOVE it. I love the natural-feeling messiness of it, the way Nate and Steve talk in circles and go back and forth on what to believe. It's made me laugh out loud multiple times. I can't wait to learn more about that weird little room full of letters with that one random word written on the wall (I forget what).

400 Words a Horror: Three episodes in. I had to re-listen to the first episode because I hadn't been paying enough attention, but I think that particular episode rewards re-listening anyway. Also it is the only show on this list that genuinely frightens me so I have to pace myself. Very good.

Tin Can Audio Presents: Middle:Below: Two episodes in. I won't say I'm hooked, but I am somewhat interested. It's a lot more relaxing than the other podcasts on this list, so I keep thinking I'll save it for listening closer to bedtime, then not getting around to it.

The Grotto: Six episodes in. Very much enjoying. I was SO proud of myself for correctly guessing the twist in the second episode. I love the characters and am extremely intrigued by the mysteries. My only criticism is that the musical interludes drag on too long. And I'm saying that as a WOE.BEGONE fan.

Soul Operator: Three episodes in. It's good but there isn't any particular element that's drawing me in just yet. There's a lot I don't know about the world yet, though, so there is still plenty of time for me to fall in love with this show. (Irrelevant note: I always get "Smooth Operator" by Sade stuck in my head when I think about this show.)

Shadows at the Door: Listened to half of the first episode. It was somewhat interesting, but I decided I had higher priorities for my listening time than disconnected hour-long episodes that are only *somewhat* interesting.

Archive 81: Five episodes in. Quite possibly going to become a major obsession. It's got everything: playing with point of view; the Power of Storytelling but in a menacing way; vivid character voices; probably a cult. I particularly love the way conversations play out on this show--I don't know exactly how to explain it but there's a certain... friction that happens in real conversations but rarely in fictional ones outside cringe comedy. I don't usually enjoy that sort of thing when it's played for laughs, but for realism or suspense? I eat that up. It does make me a little tense so this is another show I pace myself with and I'm glad the episodes are short.

Alice Isn't Dead: Two episodes in. I'm not going to make it a priority--it's got a similar sort of surrealism to Night Vale, but with higher stakes and less humor, and I had enough trouble getting immersed in Night Vale. I could probably enjoy it if I gave it enough time, but for now I'd rather focus on *gestures at some of the shows above*

The Silt Verses: Listened to the first ten minutes of the first episode and got bored, which I think says as much about me as it does about the show. It does get off to a bit of a slow start and leaves more space between lines of dialogue than most of these shows do, but I could probably get into it with adequate time and sleep. Not prioritizing it, for similar reasons to Alice.

[birdswhoownnothing]

What does storage mean to you?

[netscapenavigator-official]

I saw a post about how good WEBP was, and I thought to myself, "maybe I've been unfair. I should give it a chance," so I translated all the hundreds of photos and GIFs on my Jellyfin server to WEBP to see what would happen. Here are the results:

PNG, JPEG, TIFF, GIF, etc: 2.12 GB

JPEG & GIF: 1.45 GB

WEBP: 1.28 GB

WEBP & GIF: 1.22 GB

For some reason, Shutter Encoder seems to break Animated WEBP files. Not only did it double their size, but it also prevented macOS or Firefox from playing them correctly, so I went back to GIF. It ended up saving more space, anyway

In the end, however, I'm actually really surprised. Using WEBP allows me to preserve a lot of my photos in Lossless compression, all while taking up less space than my current, total JPEG, 100% Lossy setup. WEBP, especially for data storage and server management, actually seems to make a lot of sense, and I'm probably gonna end up using it for the files on my Jellyfin server from now on.

[amalgamasreal]

So in this world of rising streaming costs and license holders unilaterally deciding to pull content from streaming channels I figured I'd compile a few guides for people who want to cut those cords. As a rhetorical exorcise I'm going to list out some guides on how someone might want to create their own local media streaming service and how to automate management and supply of content to it. ALL RHETORICAL

I'm not going to explain how to build a media server, people who go that extensive won't need these guides, but if you have the cash, and don't want to build your own server you can always buy a higher end NAS from synology or QNAP that runs docker engine and you should be good.

Please make sure to follow the instructions for each individual guide in order depending on your choices. RHETORICALLY.

First you install Docker:

https://www.virtualizationhowto.com/2023/02/docker-compose-synology-nas-install-and-configuration/

Then you install your download clients:

Newsgroups (you'll also need an account with a hosting service like Newshosting or Giganews as well as access to an indexer): https://drfrankenstein.co.uk/2021/07/30/setting-up-nzbget-in-docker-on-a-synology-nas/

Torrents (with this you'll need access to either public or private trackers): https://drfrankenstein.co.uk/2021/09/13/deluge-in-docker-on-a-synology-nas/

Then you install Jackett (this'll auto-manage all of your torrent trackers and create feeds for Sonarr and Radarr):

https://www.smarthomebeginner.com/install-jackett-using-docker/

Then you install Sonarr:

https://drfrankenstein.co.uk/2021/05/03/setting-up-sonarr-in-docker-on-a-synology-nas/

Then you install Radarr:

https://drfrankenstein.co.uk/2021/07/30/setting-up-radarr-in-docker-on-a-synology-nas/

Then you install Plex or Jellyfin:

Plex: https://drfrankenstein.co.uk/2021/12/06/plex-in-docker-on-a-synology-nas/

Jellyfin: https://drfrankenstein.co.uk/2022/09/03/jellyfin-in-docker-on-a-synology-nas-no-hardware-transcoding/

Then you install Overseerr or Jellyseerr:

Overseerr: https://drfrankenstein.co.uk/2022/03/19/overseerr-in-docker-on-a-synology-nas/

Jellyseerr (only use if you picked Jellyfin): https://drfrankenstein.co.uk/2022/09/04/jellyseerr-in-docker-on-a-synology-nas/

[houkagokappa]

@ihearasound you managed to catch me during one of those rare occasions it's not pitch black where I live so here are my figures and artbooks! It's a bit messy, I should clean things up but overall I'm happy with what I've got :)

[craycraybluejay]

My portable ssd is a girl, and every time I download something on her or sort files on her, we are having sex.

[schmweed]