Introduction Post

[Phanx]

Originally Posted by MoonWitch I often just leave my legs as they are in the winter and only epilate once every 6 weeks - it allows for ingrown hairs to be ok again (if you scrub). But because I epilate all the time, I don't have satyr legs though.

I think you mean depilate.

Originally Posted by Icicle Capn Crunch Cereal

The inside of my mouth hurts just thinking about this. Delicious, but so painful.

Originally Posted by Wimpface You make a good point about ebooks, I don't know why I don't like them... It could be because I don't have a Kindle or equivalent to read them on and reading them on a monitor feels so off.

I don't have a Kindle either. When I travel (not often) I use my phone as an ebook reader. At home I spend way too much time (considering I rarely finish reading) converting and reformatting ebooks to HTML so I can load them with my personal stylesheet and read them in my browser with a comfortable layout, but I'd absolutely rather lay in bed with a real book. In fact, that is what I did today after I woke up -- laid in bed for a few hours reading Neal Asher's The Skinner.

Originally Posted by Wimpface Agree on pirating too, I think music labels are going to change a lot in the next 5-10 years from the more archaic stance they currently take to a more open one with more digital distribution. The bandcamp business model is genius, and my friend actually started a record label that strictly uses bandcamp for distribution. I think it's here to stay, and it'll only get bigger.

It's pretty depressing that music labels haven't already changed. I mean, I've been using P2P as my primary source of discovering and obtaining new music for over 15 years. I do go out and buy albums I'm really excited about, but think of how much more money I would have spent on music if it was offered for sale in a format I cared about. Who even owns a CD player anymore?!

iTunes and its ilk are really pretty terrible, too -- even without DRM, they all require you to install and use some clunky annoying software to get the files, and then the quality is worse than a cassette tape that's been replayed 10,000 times. I don't understand how it's so successful. It's certainly not a real contender to piracy, for anyone who has ever tried piracy. Bandcamp, on the other hand, is a very strong contender -- I don't have to install any crappy software, the quality is great, and the downloads are (almost always) faster than torrents, and I'm actually paying the artist for their work. Everyone wins. It's just amazing that the industry is so slow to get with the 21st century.

[Wimpface]

Originally Posted by Phanx It's pretty depressing that music labels haven't already changed. I mean, I've been using P2P as my primary source of discovering and obtaining new music for over 15 years. I do go out and buy albums I'm really excited about, but think of how much more money I would have spent on music if it was offered for sale in a format I cared about. Who even owns a CD player anymore?! iTunes and its ilk are really pretty terrible, too -- even without DRM, they all require you to install and use some clunky annoying software to get the files, and then the quality is worse than a cassette tape that's been replayed 10,000 times. I don't understand how it's so successful. It's certainly not a real contender to piracy, for anyone who has ever tried piracy. Bandcamp, on the other hand, is a very strong contender -- I don't have to install any crappy software, the quality is great, and the downloads are (almost always) faster than torrents, and I'm actually paying the artist for their work. Everyone wins. It's just amazing that the industry is so slow to get with the 21st century.

The movie industry is even worse! Atleast you can buy music online, where's my digital download movies!?

These might exist and I just don't know about them, I reserve my rights to remain ignorant on the subject at hand so I can keep ranting and justify my piracy. Netflix is pretty great though.

[Phanx]

I'm pretty sure they exist somewhere... maybe on iTunes? I don't actually know where they come from, but I've been finding more and more WEB-DL tags on movies, which usually means it was taken from an official digital source.

As for Netflix, maybe I'm just too old (at 29, lol) but I don't really like streaming services. For one, my browser is not a media player. For two, if I like a movie (or show, or album) I want to buy it, and own a copy that I can use whenever I want, however I want, not subscribe to a service that may or may not continue to make that content available to me through a bad UI. Unfortunately it seems like everything is going to a subscription model these days, though.

[Wimpface]

Originally Posted by Phanx I'm pretty sure they exist somewhere... maybe on iTunes? I don't actually know where they come from, but I've been finding more and more WEB-DL tags on movies, which usually means it was taken from an official digital source. As for Netflix, maybe I'm just too old (at 29, lol) but I don't really like streaming services. For one, my browser is not a media player. For two, if I like a movie (or show, or album) I want to buy it, and own a copy that I can use whenever I want, however I want, not subscribe to a service that may or may not continue to make that content available to me through a bad UI. Unfortunately it seems like everything is going to a subscription model these days, though.

I've seen those too, for TV shows they usually come from stuff like HBOGo and BBC iPlayer. I've no idea where they come from for movies though. I've seen a few rent-online sites, but none that allow me to buy a movie, download the file, and own the file. I want to buy it and be able to do what I want with it. If I want to play it on my iPhone, I should be damn able to. Ironic that I demand control and mention iPhone in the same sentence.

I'm not a massive fan of subscription models (Yet I play WoW, more irony, this post is full of it!) but I really enjoyed Netflix. I think it's hard to get into it if you don't have multiple devices to use it though. When I was subscribed a few months ago I used it to play kids movies for my 7 year old sister via the Xbox on the TV, or I watched it on my TV through my PC, or I watched it while on public transportation because I didn't have data caps on my phone.

Since then, I decided I don't want to justify the small amount of money it costs, because I don't travel as much anymore, I don't have a TV show I want to catch up on, the movie recommendations are pretty subpar, and on top of that they removed King of the Hill from their service. On top of these things, my sister just wants to watch the same 5 movies she always watches anyway, I don't need Netflix for those.

[Phanx]

Originally Posted by Wimpface If I want to play it on my iPhone, I should be damn able to. Ironic that I demand control and mention iPhone in the same sentence.

I actually had a conversation with several people at work the other day, where I was saying I can't stand iOS devices because they're completely unmoddable, and multiple people were telling me that was actually a positive feature, because it "saved them" from "wasting time" customizing it. Yeah, I'll keep my rooted Android phone with Cyanogenmod, thanks.

Originally Posted by Wimpface I'm not a massive fan of subscription models (Yet I play WoW, more irony, this post is full of it!) but I really enjoyed Netflix. I think it's hard to get into it if you don't have multiple devices to use it though.

That's another point. A lot of these services seemed geared towards people who want to use it on a phone, a tablet, a laptop, and a desktop, or who are sharing it with their family... but I don't have a family, I don't own a tablet or a laptop, and I don't have any interest in watching movies on my phone.

WoW is different though, because the whole point of it is that it's an MMO. I wouldn't pay a subscription fee for a single-player game, and a movie is basically a single-player game.

[10leej]

Originally Posted by Dridzt In the sense that my late night snack is usually leftovers from an earlier meal yea (truthfully I missed the 'late night snack' part )

Its OK man I doubt its required.

Who even owns a CD player anymore?!

/raises hand I do....
Then again when you have a 120 disk CD player full of orchestra music ya kinda just don't get rid of it.

[Phanx]

Originally Posted by 10leej Then again when you have a 120 disk CD player full of orchestra music ya kinda just don't get rid of it.

Hah. I had a friend in high school whose mom owned something like that. I don't know if it held 120 discs, but it was a lot, and I thought it was really cool. Then I found out about MP3s. You should probably just rip all those discs to FLAC and dump the plastic.

[10leej]

Originally Posted by Phanx Hah. I had a friend in high school whose mom owned something like that. I don't know if it held 120 discs, but it was a lot, and I thought it was really cool. Then I found out about MP3s. You should probably just rip all those discs to FLAC and dump the plastic.

Probably but the stereo system doesn't support auxiliary or optical/digital coax so I'd have to buy a new stereo.

[Phanx]

Probably cheaper to buy a new sound card for your computer that can provide the right type of output.

[10leej]

Originally Posted by Phanx Probably cheaper to buy a new sound card for your computer that can provide the right type of output.

I'd have move the computer then and teach my roommates how my linux distribution works.

[Wimpface]

Originally Posted by 10leej teach my roommates how my linux distribution works.

This kills the friendship.

[Phanx]

Originally Posted by 10leej I'd have move the computer then and teach my roommates how my linux distribution works.

You're right, that sounds like way too much work. Also possibly dangerous. Better that they don't know how it works!

Originally Posted by Wimpface This kills the friendship.

[Icicle]

Originally Posted by Phanx The inside of my mouth hurts just thinking about this. Delicious, but so painful.

It helped to eat the Crunchberry type. Rounded edges were easier to eat .

Chiming in on the e-book phenom. When I lived in Arizona I had to abandon my entire collection of books (because it wasn't practical to ship, and I needed money to travel). I don't want to put up a huge cost of books just to sell them again (since its likely I'll move across oceans again at some point in my life), so eBooks ended up being my salvation.

Less cleaning, less organizing, and always have a book light handy.

But I do sometimes miss the feel of a book .

[Nimhfree]

Originally Posted by Icicle But I do sometimes miss the feel of a book .

Libraries can be wonderful places. :-)

[Resike]

Originally Posted by Nimhfree Libraries can be wonderful places. :-)

God i had to read that like 5 times to get it, my mind was so into addon Libraries.

[10leej]

Originally Posted by Resike God i had to read that like 5 times to get it, my mind was so into addon Libraries.

Those are wonderful places to.

[Phanx]

Originally Posted by 10leej Those are wonderful places to.

Wonderful places to what?!

[Resike]

Originally Posted by Phanx Wonderful places to what?!

Those are wonderful places to demolish!

[Phanx]

Originally Posted by Resike Those are wonderful places to demolish!

Well, actually, I would not be too upset if my local library got demolished... it's a beautiful historical building, but (a) it's woefully underfunded and most of the fiction section hails from the 70s or so, and (b) the air is pretty much unbreathable due to the high population of homeless people who are totally fine with spending money on their dogs and cigarettes but apparently can't be bothered to spend $1 on a box of baking soda that will keep them BO-free for at least a month.

[Nimhfree]

I am guessing it was "addon libraries" that are wonderful to demolish based on the thread. If not, thread parsing seems broken. Anyway, I would think addon libraries should not be demolished, but rewritten anew as appropriate.