DrBones
Ian Smith
CockneyLaurie@IanDSmith
Resist, buy phones with storage, and CDs and DVDS... Rip into MP3s if you want to have digital copys etc etc
Fluffgar ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ@IanDSmith Same tactic the powerful have been using on the rest of us for thousands of years. See the Enclosure of the Commons in England for a good example.
Essentially, fencing off stuff that the public owns. Claiming it as their own. Then charging for the thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
Grumble ๐บ๐ธ ๐บ๐ฆ ๐ฌ๐ฑ@fluffgar @IanDSmith When people are sufficiently fed up, they find a way to leave.
If the rich assholes make it impossible to walk away peacefully, then people find a different way to sever the relationship. Sometimes it's a one-off like Mr. Mangione, and other times its more systemic like the end of the French or Russian ruling classes.
Every ruling class thinks it can push things just that little bit further until the people being screwed decide they've had enough.
CyclesBecauseSummerIsComing๐@IanDSmith and they call me crazy when I buy cd's in a charity shop.๐
Marianne@CyclesSmiles @IanDSmith I'm well into this now!
Do you have a USB disc drive recommendation? I'd like to add to my old ripped-CDs library again...
Do you have a USB disc drive recommendation? I'd like to add to my old ripped-CDs library again...
JoelBarr@noodlemaz @CyclesSmiles @IanDSmith you can get a solid state 2Tb external drive for about 60 bucks. SanDisk I like. It's about half the size of my phone and holds every CD I've ever owned plus a bunch I've ripped from friends and family. I've transferred albums to an old ipod, my phone, even my watch.
@noodlemaz @CyclesSmiles @IanDSmith oh, a usb optical drive to rip. Sorry! Those are cheap, too. I have one at school to show dvds to classes. Most streaming services are blocked by the school network. Is that what you meant?
@JoelBarr @CyclesSmiles @IanDSmith I meant a CD ROM drive i can use to rip CDs and listen to them on the laptop etc or in the car via SD card - since computers don't come with disc drives anymore (sad)
MidgePhoto@noodlemaz @JoelBarr @CyclesSmiles @IanDSmith
Nowadays it is the network that needs one.
I have a USB floppy drive.
Only 3.5 inch though.
Nowadays it is the network that needs one.
I have a USB floppy drive.
Only 3.5 inch though.
Howard Chu @ Symas@IanDSmith
I'm not seeing how they made CDs and DVDs harder to use. You shove them into a drive, same as always.
Nobody forced you to subscribe to a streaming service. All of my music is still on local storage. A copy of everything sits on a USB stick plugged into my car radio, a copy sits on microSD in my phone.
Nobody made you give up phones with removable storage - you stopped buying them.
Don't blame industry for selling you what you asked for.
@hyc @IanDSmith what drive? Laptops don't have them as standard anymore. Most cars don't (happily ours does). People rarely add them to desktop builds.
They aren't a default inclusion now and most people lack access.
And who is 'you'? Ffs.
@noodlemaz @IanDSmith It really doesn't matter that they're not built into laptop or desktop PCs any more. USB DVD drives are dirt cheap and you can move them freely between laptop and desktop. https://www.amazon.co.uk/External-CD-Drive-Portable-Optical/dp/B0F9KF47H2
Using optical discs in cars just gets them scratched. Far better to copy the discs to a USB flash drive, that's impervious to shock or vibration.
External CD DVD Drive for Laptop USB 3.0 Type-C Slim Portable Player CD DVD RW Writer Reader Burner, Low Noise Optical External Disk Drive for Desktop, PC, Mac OS,Windows 11/10/8/7/XP/2003/Vista/Linux : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
Shop External CD DVD Drive for Laptop USB 3.0 Type-C Slim Portable Player CD DVD RW Writer Reader Burner, Low Noise Optical External Disk Drive for Desktop, PC, Mac OS,Windows 11/10/8/7/XP/2003/Vista/Linux. Free delivery and returns on eligible orders.
the drive I linked above costs less than 1 month of a spotify subscription. It's a no-brainer.
Raptor 
@hyc @noodlemaz @IanDSmith portable CD players with USB out can actually plug into the dash of any modern car and just work, you can pick them up off the shelf a lot of places still, most shops with car parts will have them as well, they only cost a few $ more than a normal external drive but they also are made to play back while moving so they won't scratch up the disk.
@hyc @noodlemaz @IanDSmith (also radio still exists and works just fine for free, local radio stations tend to still play plenty of new music and frankly they seem to have LESS ads than the streaming services do these days)
@raptor85 @noodlemaz @IanDSmith radio's ok in an urban area I guess. Out here reception is spotty, hills and mountains block coverage, etc...
@hyc @noodlemaz @IanDSmith you should be able to get reasonable coverage in suburban and rural areas (within reason, ~50 miles or less from the tower broadcasting), if you're experiencing less it unfortunately may just mean your car has a crap antenna. (you can get cheap aftermarket ones)
And true, as you get farther out and have hills/mountains that will affect it, but that's a tiny portion of the population, 95% of people live and commute within the easily covered zones.
@hyc @noodlemaz @IanDSmith (plus in context of this discussion if you're so far out you can't receive broadcast radio you're also likely not getting a steady enough 4g/5g signal for streaming)
@raptor85 @noodlemaz @IanDSmith true! Even more reason to just carry my own music library around with me on flash.
@hyc @IanDSmith any you'd recommend not on amazon? I am in the market for this one as I'm looking to put CDs on an SD.
@noodlemaz @IanDSmith these days I'm sure they're all good enough, but review sites like this might help you https://www.guru99.com/best-external-dvd-drive.html
@hyc @IanDSmith so many of them are AI slop these days, which is why I ask people for personal recs. If you don't have one, that's fine!
Jen@hyc @noodlemaz @IanDSmith yeah, that's *more difficult*.
Embedded drive:
1. Shove the disc in, press a button
External drive:
1. Wade through the various possible external drives, working out what exists
2. Figure out what various specs mean so to work out if they're important
3. Work out which connector(s) the laptop has
4. Place an order
5. Unpackage the drive
6. Do the physical setup, which includes having the physical space for the drive to sit
7. Do any software setup (it *might* just work, it might need a driver)
8. Shove the disc in and press a button
To you, that might be trivial. To the average user? It's friction that they may not be able to get past. It doesn't have to be a lot more difficult to make a difference to people's choices.
Embedded drive:
1. Shove the disc in, press a button
External drive:
1. Wade through the various possible external drives, working out what exists
2. Figure out what various specs mean so to work out if they're important
3. Work out which connector(s) the laptop has
4. Place an order
5. Unpackage the drive
6. Do the physical setup, which includes having the physical space for the drive to sit
7. Do any software setup (it *might* just work, it might need a driver)
8. Shove the disc in and press a button
To you, that might be trivial. To the average user? It's friction that they may not be able to get past. It doesn't have to be a lot more difficult to make a difference to people's choices.
@jetlagjen @noodlemaz @IanDSmith my post said quite explicitly "USB external". Your post is nonsense.
@hyc @noodlemaz @IanDSmith I can't help if you haven't the imagination or empathy to understand ๐คทโโ๏ธ
@jetlagjen @noodlemaz @IanDSmith anyone who's willing to pay $144/year for the rest of their life, to never own any music, vs paying $12 once, to actually own their music, has made their choice already.
@hyc @jetlagjen @IanDSmith it's not either or
I have a streaming service (not Spotify) and a bunch of CDs.
I have a streaming service (not Spotify) and a bunch of CDs.
Chu ๆฑI haven't been able to get a computer with a dvd drive in ages.
I did get a dvd player a few years ago. Movie nights are DVDs we get from the library. No streaming here.
@chu @IanDSmith I've had the same USB DVD drive for probably a dozen years now. Used it with my last 4 laptops. These days it mostly sits on a shelf gathering dust, but when I get new CDs I fire it up again. Since my friends around here are almost exclusively musicians, I tend to go to a lot of CD launches throughout the year, so it still gets used periodically.
su_liam
JWarner@IanDSmith @pluralistic has a good blog on this. Blame Clinton. https://locusmag.com/feature/commentary-cory-doctorow-not-normal/
@Jeanniewarner @IanDSmith @pluralistic I was in Douglas Adamsโ phase 2 when DMCA came out. Doctorow is a little younger than me. While weโre both old men NOW, this is an innovation from the, โYay! New shit!,โ phase. I donโt think heโs wrong that, โYou will own nothing. You will rent everything, and like it(or else),โ is terrible law. At least for a society that purports to be โfree.โ
Old Hippie โ Resistance!@IanDSmith If you (as in anyone) have the resources (as in money,room, and time) you could build a simple Linux media server using free and open source software. The most expensive thing unfortunately nowadays will be the drives.
Lance (Thank you for 11 Views)@IanDSmith Push back. Buy physical media. External optical drives are cheap and readily available.
We don't have to accept this future as inevitable. I just pre-ordered the latest release of an artist on CD.
Julianoรซ@IanDSmith @David have you never heard of our lord and savior The Pirate Bay? ๐ดโโ ๏ธ
Nazo@IanDSmith Nah, this is two-sided and I think it's very important not to forget that.
We stopped buying optical drives or spending extra to get them because we just weren't using them. Yes it's an active choice we made. They stopped putting them in devices because too few were buying them.
The removable storage in phones was more active on the corporate side I admit. Apple convinced people they didn't need it and Google saw them getting away with it, so did the same. A lot outside the Pixel line still have it though because it's a more open ecosystem.
People chose streaming subscriptions because they like on demand video watching.
Always online assumed to be normal probably happened 99.9% on our side. We got too used to it I guess.
@IanDSmith The prices are them, but they're because they can do it. We refuse to put our collective foot down. We can always say "too much! I won't buy that!" But as long as we keep buying it, they can keep raising it.
Which goes to all the things. We can actively choose not to go along with those things. Every step of the way we, as a whole, have chosen not to stop it from going the direction it went. Sometimes people went on tirades "if you stop buying physical media it will disappear and you'll have problems accessing the content you paid for." People brushed them aside.
Yes they get half the blame here, but only half...
And we, as a whole, can still reverse all this if we ever actually want to, but we have to want to as a whole. And we don't.
Matt@nazokiyoubinbou @IanDSmith Yeah and TBF, you really don't need it. I used to have an expensive 200GB SD card in my S7, that was a significant memory upgrade but it never filled up anyway. Nowadays I have 128GB built in and they're also not full, despite not having any streaming subscriptions. I don't need to carry my entire music collection in FLAC when listening to it with a lot of ambient noise and a lossy BT headphone (yeah, 3.5mm jack would be nice). A handful of movies is fine. If I want to bring more, there's still USB.
@menos @IanDSmith That's fair enough on the phone storage. It started because Apple realized they could charge an insane amount for more storage even though it doesn't cost them that much more (pure profit nearly โ it cost them something like $5 more per unit but they charged more like $100 more) and Google was envious of that (along with a few OEMs no doubt) but now that we're hitting numbers like 128GB it's starting to just not matter. It meant a whole lot more in the past.
And yeah, as good as phones are, putting FLACs on them would be pointless. (Actually, even to address the audiophiles, a really good lossy encode will pass ABX testing anyway. The benefit of FLAC is just that you can recompress it to what you want without losing anything extra, not that it actually sounds better)
bitterseeds@nazokiyoubinbou @IanDSmith Correct. I got a lot of shit for buying physical media for music, tv show collections and movies. โWhy donโt you just stream?โ I guess folks came back around to the correct answer. ๐
oscarfalconIt was not quiet, it was sort of slowly, but not quiet...
Anne Hulbert@IanDSmith The reality is that storage has become more stable and much cheaper with memory sticks.
Jna๐@IanDSmith charity shops and 2nd hand outlets are a great source of tangible stuff! Cheapish too.
hanktank61@IanDSmith @archeokluit
And it was predicted in the old vanished Canadian forum I visited often from 1999 till 2009.
They were right.
A lot of females there, with knowledge AND the " instinct". Still glad I started there.
And it was predicted in the old vanished Canadian forum I visited often from 1999 till 2009.
They were right.
A lot of females there, with knowledge AND the " instinct". Still glad I started there.
Remco Wessels@IanDSmith It was not they, it was we.
ridicol ๐๐ต๐ธ ๐ณ๏ธโ๐๐@IanDSmith hence why I've just bought an old MP3 player and loaded all my music from my cd collection (and some MP3 bought online).
The power of unlimited ownership offline and without ads
The power of unlimited ownership offline and without ads
Benedikt Neuzweig@ridicol @IanDSmith I bought an old upnp streaming radio and hooked it up to my nas. I use the same technique to connect the foobar android app via vpn to the nas.
MikeStok@IanDSmith someone once said that all property is theft.
@MikeStok @IanDSmith DMCA in a nutshell. You owning property is theft. Only those who have seized the means of production have any rights of ownership.
Stanley Grill, Composer@IanDSmith A word has been coined for exactly what youโve described. Enshitification.
Goose@stanleygrill @IanDSmith also, rent-seeking.
Patrick - SV Apsara@IanDSmith
No, it's not 'them' - it's 'us'.
Alternatives are available.
Question is why so many consumers forego these alternatives in favour of dubious mainstream offerings.
Convenience? Ignorance? Conformity?
tuban_muzuruHumans are creatures of habit, with a particular taste for bad habits, heh. Microsoft Windows, case in point.
Moss da Bard ๐จ๐ฆ๐ง๐ง๐ฒ๐ฝ๐ฌ๐ฑ@IanDSmith
Really? I'm seeing more unlimited services, not fewer. But then I'm on Mint Mobile...
Really? I'm seeing more unlimited services, not fewer. But then I'm on Mint Mobile...
SomeGadgetGuy@IanDSmith Quietly? Tech influencers loudly advocated for removing useful features from gadgets.
@IanDSmith nobody mentioned archive.org so far.
labbatt50Yeah, that's the 21st Century.