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I used to be big into the private tracker/warez scene. Nowadays I find it generally easier to pay for streaming subscriptions (especially since I have less free

I used to be big into the private tracker/warez scene. Nowadays I find it generally easier to pay for streaming subscriptions (especially since I have less free time anyway and need less media to fill it). The things I miss most are foreign films and music- it is very hard to find 90%+ of foreign media for sale in USD!

handrous 5y ago
My main problem at this point is that I'll need to manage some disk & backups, one way or another, to keep hold of a few things that are really hard/impossible to come by[0], or really inconvenient to use[1], if purchased legitimately. So I've gotta either give up on 100% of those things forever, or manage a bunch of files & either local disks or a couple cloud storage providers (and, ugh, that extra expense), plus keep whatever I need to actually use those files working... indefinitely. If I choose the latter option, that's easiest on a Real Computer. I wish someone would hurry up and get us nigh-indestructible, 100+ year lifespan, non-rewritable data crystals or something, so I can stop screwing around with storage and its ongoing costs and constant risk of failure or destruction-by-user-error, for anything that I want to keep long-term. Write two crystals, keep one to use and have a friend store the other in case of a fire. Done. Spend zero time worrying about it or spending more money on it unless one of the crystals (or whatever they are) is destroyed, which may very well never happen. Oh, and then there's family photos and videos. Sure I can stick mine in iCloud and Dropbox easily enough, but what about ones coming in from family? That's a pain to manage all on iOS devices and stick in the same cloud storage as my auto-uploaded phone backups. So I'm back to managing disks or redundant bulk cloud file storage of some kind. Sometimes I think I need to get some more Buddhism in my life and just accept not keeping all this stuff, and never experiencing any of it again. Let it all go. Everything dies, nothing's permanent. [0] Example: Certain TV shows with the original music, that's been replaced in home/streaming releases over rights issues (similar things have happened too some games, too). Cuts/versions of movies that essentially don't exist outside the world of piracy (e.g. anything very close to the original theatrical version of Star Wars) [1] Example: Any older console video game that's only available on used, physical media for the original, rapidly-aging-and-increasingly-annoying/expensive-to-keep-working-and-hooked-up-to-a-TV console. Say, Goldeneye on the N64, to pick a fairly famous example.
- dharmab 5y ago
  That does remind me of another thing I keep locally- fanedits. I've got a waifu2x upscaled version of a very popular Nick cartoon that exceeds the quality available on DVD.
  - scns 5y ago
    Or SNES games that were never released outside of Japan but translated by fans.

handrous 5y ago

My main problem at this point is that I'll need to manage some disk & backups, one way or another, to keep hold of a few things that are really hard/impossible to come by[0], or really inconvenient to use[1], if purchased legitimately. So I've gotta either give up on 100% of those things forever, or manage a bunch of files & either local disks or a couple cloud storage providers (and, ugh, that extra expense), plus keep whatever I need to actually use those files working... indefinitely. If I choose the latter option, that's easiest on a Real Computer. I wish someone would hurry up and get us nigh-indestructible, 100+ year lifespan, non-rewritable data crystals or something, so I can stop screwing around with storage and its ongoing costs and constant risk of failure or destruction-by-user-error, for anything that I want to keep long-term. Write two crystals, keep one to use and have a friend store the other in case of a fire. Done. Spend zero time worrying about it or spending more money on it unless one of the crystals (or whatever they are) is destroyed, which may very well never happen. Oh, and then there's family photos and videos. Sure I can stick mine in iCloud and Dropbox easily enough, but what about ones coming in from family? That's a pain to manage all on iOS devices and stick in the same cloud storage as my auto-uploaded phone backups. So I'm back to managing disks or redundant bulk cloud file storage of some kind. Sometimes I think I need to get some more Buddhism in my life and just accept not keeping all this stuff, and never experiencing any of it again. Let it all go. Everything dies, nothing's permanent. [0] Example: Certain TV shows with the original music, that's been replaced in home/streaming releases over rights issues (similar things have happened too some games, too). Cuts/versions of movies that essentially don't exist outside the world of piracy (e.g. anything very close to the original theatrical version of Star Wars) [1] Example: Any older console video game that's only available on used, physical media for the original, rapidly-aging-and-increasingly-annoying/expensive-to-keep-working-and-hooked-up-to-a-TV console. Say, Goldeneye on the N64, to pick a fairly famous example.

dharmab 5y ago
That does remind me of another thing I keep locally- fanedits. I've got a waifu2x upscaled version of a very popular Nick cartoon that exceeds the quality available on DVD.
- scns 5y ago
  Or SNES games that were never released outside of Japan but translated by fans.