Interesting Links for 24-01-2025

[andrewducker]

1. Couples wed in a riot of colour as Thailand legalises same-sex marriage

(tags:wedding law Thailand LGBT GoodNews )

2. Massive study shows the results of GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic

(tags:medicine health )

3. Leith's "Pride Bridge" to be centrepiece of new public open space as regeneration plan approved

(tags:Edinburgh LGBT )

4. After 18 years, Sony's Blu-ray media production draws to a close — shuts its last factory in Feb

(tags:BluRay Sony )

5. Am I expected to work during Storm Éowyn? Your rights

(tags:work weather UK rights )

6. Twister spotted in Kerry : r/ireland

(tags:funny video weather )

7. 40m tall iceberg twice the size of Greater London will hit British island! (Near Antarctica)

(tags:iceberg antarctic )

8. Pixelfed & Loops are the Federated equivalents of Instagram and TikTok. And they're running a Kickstarter right now.

(tags:socialnetworking kickstarter )

Comments

7 Iceberg

[danieldwilliam]

Scientists think the iceberg might, or might not, hit the island.

Re: 7 Iceberg

[andrewducker]

Definitely one or the other

2

[channelpenguin]

Does 2 mean that in the very near future, there's ONLY going to be streaming? Or just that we'll only have 4K discs?

Because the former would suck so hard I don't want to believe it. It would mean the age of home film collections would be born, blossom and die all well within my lifetime.

Re: 2

[andrewducker]

I think some others are still making them, but that does seem to be the direction of travel.

Re: 2

[channelpenguin]

This makes me ultra unhappy. I haven't got a solution. I don't like streaming as the only option.

I'm also very unhappy with the fact that I don't own my books bought on Amazon. I used to have a way round, but it's a lot lot harder now, I've given up.

Re: 2

[channelpenguin]

For books, unlike films, I would actually happily pay for a subscription that was

a) TRULY unlimited. I read far far too fast and too much for the ridiculous opaque rules at Scribd (now Everand).
b) Had pretty much "everything", at least from actual real publishers.
c) Was books in English even though I'm in Germany.

I'd pay a lot for that, even if I didn't own the books. But I suspect I'm too niche a market. I don't tick there are many bookwormish readers with 1000wpm+ reading speed...

Re: 2

[andrewducker]

I have a NAS with about 16TB of storage. That's doing pretty well for long-term storage.

I haven't looked into cracking Kindle book encryption.

Re: 2

[channelpenguin]

Yeah, I've got space and I rip off much all my films. Just if they aren't available as discs any more, that all falls apart.

For books I used to easily go via Calibre, but that got a lot harder a few years ago.

The Chrome plugin for O'Reilly subscriptions that let you download for proper, and properly formatted offline work geek reading stopped working just before Xmas. The O'Reilly app is PANTS. (I have a ridiculous Onyx Book colour e-ink Android reader/ tablet so I can use anything that has an app). I guess I'll have to see if they maybe made it better...

Re: 2

[andrewducker]

Even if you don't have the original disks, you can still obtain the movie and store a backup...

Re: 2

[channelpenguin]

Hmm. Germany is different... Bacz in the UK, I had many ways to get both films and books. Not so easy here.

Re: 2

[andrewducker]

Interesting. Do they block VPNs?

Re: 2

[channelpenguin]

Not in general. E.g. I use one for work. But they do block a lot of things at ISP level and also Telekom is pretty much the only supplier (at root I guess they ARE the only one). Streaming is utterly legal for films, music etc. Downloads NO (well, legal downloads for music from Amazon, Apple etc are ok. Not sure for film as they aren't usually supplied download).

I haven't been keeping up with "The Shipping Forecast", so I'm not even sure I'd know the right steps to take over here. Most people are quite nervy about it all.

Re: 2

[bens_dad]

What do you use for backup ?

Re: 2

[andrewducker]

Documents and photos go to Dropbox.

Larger things which would be a pain to get new copies of are on Backblaze B2.($6/TB/Month)