What I Learned from Ripping a DVD For the First Time

• More software developers should be like the ones behind MakeMKV. Giving out product keys every month? Ironically, that's the kind of behavior that makes me want to buy a license!
• As long as we're praising software, the people behind VLC Media Player are probably going to Heaven. Free, open source, feature-rich, and supports basically every video format ever conceived by man. Ridiculously impressive.
• Nothing like breaking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to make you realize how dumb the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is.
• I never realized how much legwork my Blu-Ray player is doing in terms of making my DVDs look good. It doesn't look bad by any means, but the difference between a raw DVD and an upscaled one is noticeable. Here's hoping my TV has a built-in upscaler that won't artificially sharpen anything.
• A ripped DVD (movie only, of course) surprisingly doesn't take up a ton of space. Even before removing a few unnecessary audio and subtitle tracks, my rip of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was only about six gigabytes. Ten copies of that movie could fit on a cheap USB drive.
  
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is an awesome movie. Like, seriously, you should go watch it right now.
• Ripping a DVD takes a long time to do, but something about it feels almost exciting, and that makes it worth it
• If you rip a DVD, you now not only have the benefits that DVD provides (like owning your media), but you also get increased portability and physical space. It's the next level of sticking it to people who want you to own nothing and be happy. While I'm still going to keep my case full of DVDs, this is a very good choice for the ones that don't fit. I highly recommend doing this.
  

Super Mario 1993

I really want to watch the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie. Not because I think it will be a worthwhile film to spend 104 minutes of my life watching, but because I want to see the greatest misunderstanding of the assignment in cinematic history. Seriously, you were asked to make a Super Mario Bros. movie and you decided that was the perfect opportunity to make a cyberpunk comedy with corporate satire and scantily-clad lizard dancers? Remarkable that ever got approved.

Clarification

After the previous post, I feel the need to clarify my thoughts on the current situation. No one's asked, but it's good to have it on record.

I think Joe Hawley's behavior is indefensible, and has been for some time. Now, I think his behavior is more attributable to his mental illness than actual malice, but that is a reason, not an excuse. I am not defending him in the slightest, and I think the criticism and condemnation he has recieved is entirely deserved.

I also would not immediately rush to assume the Doc is truthful. It is all incredibly plausible, yes, but the writer is known to have spread misinformation regarding Joe before using accounts that impersonated real people, and is known to have unsuccessfully attempted to gaslight people into believing they were victims of Joe. The writer has cried wolf many a time in the past, and has not necessarily earned the benefit of the doubt.

That said, the claims in the Doc seem very authentic, and I personally lean toward them being true, at least partially. If they are true, I am genuinely sorry for what the writer had to experience at the hands of Joe Hawley.

I also feel that there is an argument that the release of the Doc could have been handled with more care. The release of the previous Doc led to an enormous amount of doxxing, hacking, stalking, and harassment towards Joe. The situation surrounding him is volatile, and releasing this Doc is just opening the floodgates for another Soleil Lovelace to come out of the woodworks. I think the writer should have seriously considered the potential consequences of releasing these claims, especially if they want Joe to get help as much as they claim.

Joe Hawley, as much as he has screwed up and needs help with his mental health, is a human being. There is something about the fact that the Tally Hall members aren't just abstract concepts that the fandom simply cannot grasp. Therefore, when they are given reasons to attack him, the worst side of them comes out. For a group that generally consists of left-wing types who claim to be morally upright and sensitive to the mental health of others, some of them sure did think that telling a man with schizophrenia to kill himself was a good thing. I seriously worry about what the worse sides of the fanbase could do in light of this.

Once again, I am not a "Joe defender." I think there is at least some truth to the allegations, and I want the writer to be okay after what they experienced. However, I will not endorse the behavior of some self-styled teenage cybervigilantes who think this kind of behavior justifies harassment and doxxing. It doesn't. I have a great respect for Joe Hawley's work, and my appreciation combined with general human decency compels me to wish him well, and say that I, as well as all of the true fans, want him to be okay. Simple as that.

Just my two cents.

All for Nothing at All

Welp, there's another Joe Hawley Doc.

I hate being in a fandom where all periods of relative quiet are just the calm before the storm.

Amadeus

I really want to watch the original PG-rated cut of Amadeus, which at the moment is only available on an out-of-print, kinda low-quality double-sided DVD from 1997. I want to watch it very much, to the point where I will gladly shell out $10 for it. But then I hear the rumors that we could see a 4K re-release of the original as soon as October and I'm not sure what to do.

The problem is...I don't have a 4K Blu-Ray player, and I want to actually, you know, own the movie. Not sure what to do. Nice that it's getting re-released though.

Tim Walz

Tim Walz seems like a pretty cool guy. Denounced the NRA and passed a bill in Minnesota with universal background checks, sympathetic towards those protesting the war in Gaza without crossing into extreme college leftist territory, in favor of a ceasefire, banned conversion therapy in his state, is not a convicted felon and sexually abusive pervert who incited a riot at the Capitol and wanted his VP hanged...pretty sharp all around.

Harris-Walz 2024. Let's go.

Conspiracy Theorists

Honestly, one of my biggest annoyances with conspiracy theorists is how they keep stealing what would otherwise be great plot ideas. I mean, wouldn't you watch a movie about a presidential candidate who works with a foreign government to manufacture a deadly virus in order to win the election? Of course you would. That's an amazing political thriller right there. But now you can't make that movie without it looking like you agree with a bunch of Facebook crazies. It's a genuine shame.

Dear YouTube: It Won't Work

YouTube's attempts to ban adblockers have failed, and as such, they're now attempting to make them simply useless on their platform. That's right, YouTube is beginning to roll out server-side ads, injected directly into the video stream, theoretically impossible to be blocked. I don't think I need to point out that this is an obvious violation of the right of the user to customize their experience with the platform, or that the difficulty of customizing server-side ads means the chances of YouTube serving skanky (or sometimes borderline pornographic) ads to minors just increased, or that it's being done in the interests of executives and shareholders, not creators. You know all of that already (and if you didn't, you do now). It's a bad move on YouTube's part that will only continue Big Tech's abusive relationship with the American public.

People are already suggesting workarounds for the future. A leading candidate is getting a good VPN and setting your location to Myanmar, where YouTube doesn't serve ads. As good an idea as that is, honestly, I don't think we should give up on adblockers. Mark my words: by the year's end, at least one big-name adblocker will successfully bypass the server-side ads. My money's on uBlock Origin, who are apparently chugging along with the problem already. When they figure it out, I'm saying buh-bye to Ghostery, that's for sure.

Tech companies seem to forget that there is always a Jerry to their proverbial Tom. Just look at Denuvo. When the DRM software was released, the entire video game industry embraced it with smugs on their mugs, thinking they had finally defeated those pirates once and for all. And for a while, it seemed like they did. Denuvo is, after all, an incredibly complex piece of software that requires high-level skills in multiple field in order to break.

Fast forward a few years, and there is now a tiny, elite group of people who are able to crack Denuvo. No matter how small the group is, the fact that it exists means something: no matter what tech companies do to control us, someone is always there to break the chains.

Much like gaming companies underestimated the iron will of people who don't want to pay for video games, I feel YouTube is underestimating the iron will of people who don't want to watch ads. They might be surprised how far adblocker technology has gone solely fueled off of hatred for YouTube's ads. And I think they might be surprised how far it will continue to go off of the same gas. I am not convinced that any piece of corporate crapware can stand up to a group of highly-caffeinated code monkeys that don't want to be sold something everywhere they look.

So my advice to YouTube is this: give up. Remove the adblock detector. Keep the ads client-side. You are only going to get defeated on this path. Either uBlock Origin will catch up with you, or the sales of various VPNs will mysteriously jump. Take the path of least embarrassment. Trust me on this one