Sony is really anti consumer.
Throwback to when Sony intentionally packaged literal rootkits on their music CDs, so anyone who used the CD to play music had the rootkit automatically installed. And then when they were forced to make a rootkit remover, they simply installed more malware to hide any file names that matched the rootkit’s name. Which introduced an easy way for hackers to hide their own malware, by simply naming it the same as the rootkit.
Yeah, I guess I should have been more clear. Hardlinks also work for things like RAID drives. But if your PC has a C:/ and D:/ drive, you can’t hardlink across the two.
Plex is a lot better at grabbing a pack of loosely organized files and understanding episode structure without renaming or moving files, which is great for continuing to seed files that are in the library.
You may want to look into the *arr suite. Sonarr for managing TV show downloads, Radarr for managing movie downloads, Jellyseerr for managing media requests, Prowlarr for managing torrent/usenet indexers (search engines), Cleanuparr for automatic download management, and Huntarr for automatic downloads.
I haven’t seen anyone discuss this, so maybe I’m doing something wrong?
The go-to these days is to use hardlinks, which will allow you to have the files show up in two places at once. Sort of like a shortcut, but it actually shows the true file instead of simply pointing to a different file location. One stays in your torrent’s location for seeding, and a second hardlink is created in your media folder, with proper naming structure for Plex/Jellyfin to find. The *arr suite automates that process. It tracks your downloads, and automatically creates Plex/Jellyfin file names in the corresponding library folders when the download is completed.
It’s the best in every sense:
The big downside to hardlinks is that they can’t be used across drives or partitions. The hardlink can only point to a file on the same drive. So if your torrent download folder is on a different drive than your library folders, you can’t use hardlinks.
Yeah, it was called Can’t Help Myself.
What you aren’t arguing for anywhere in this comment is that every artist be required to do these things. Somehow game developers are exempt from this grace? Why are all games required to accommodate people, but other art isn’t? Why is that where your line is drawn?
Quite the opposite. I fully believe that if art can be accessible, it should be. That’s why I listed things like 3D scans for oils, descriptive services, or textiles and sculptures that people can feel.
And things like ASL interpreters are legally required by law, and we as the venue can be sued if we refuse to make reasonable efforts to accommodate them. We can’t even charge those patrons extra for tickets, despite the fact that the ASL interpreter is more expensive than the entire price of their ticket. If they request it within a reasonable timeframe, we are legally obligated to hire an interpreter for the show that the patron will be at, even though we know we will lose money on it. We can’t even ask for proof that the person is deaf, because that would put an undue burden on the person with the disability; We just have to take them at their word, and hire the ASL interpreter on blind faith that they’re not forcing us to spend money extraneously.
We also have hearing assist devices integrated into our sound system, for the HoH patrons who just need a private audio feed. We can provide either wireless headphones, or a magnetic loop which hearing aids can tune into. So they have the option of controlling the volume directly with headphones, or using the hearing aids they already have and like. That cost is taken on entirely by the venue, because it allows those HoH patrons to get a similar experience as the rest of the audience. Because (again) the law requires that we make reasonable accommodations to ensure every patron (including those with disabilities) gets an equivalent experience.
As someone who regularly has to do extra work to accommodate people with disabilities: People with disabilities shouldn’t be excluded from art simply because it is extra effort to accommodate them. Accessibility isn’t something that should be optional, because it helps everyone eventually. Would you argue against accessibility ramps for building entrances, because it would ruin the architect’s artistic vision for a grand staircase? Would you argue against subtitles for a movie, because it would take up screen space that the director had intentionally used for action? Would you argue against Velcro or bungie-lace shoes, because the fashion designers had flat laces in mind when they designed it? Would you argue against audiobooks for blind people, because the author is dead and couldn’t collaborate to choose a narrator that fit their artistic vision? No? So why is other art required to take reasonable steps to provide accommodations, but video games aren’t? Why is that where your line is drawn?
That’s a pretty ignorant take. I work in a music venue and art gallery as an event planner and curator, so it’s pretty funny that you listed those two things specifically. I personally know three blind artists who consistently blow me away with what they are able to produce.
One has tunnel vision, and can see an area about the size of a quarter held at arms’ length. He tends to work with textiles and wood carvings, which he can feel.
The second can see shades of brightness, but very little color; she primarily works in shades of grey or sepia. She has a bright light over her workbench, so she can see the contrast as she lays down darker material that soaks up the light.
The third went fully blind in his 20’s due to a degenerative condition. He grew up with full vision, then he had to adapt later in life as his vision degenerated. He uses paint thinner to thin out the various colors to different consistencies, so he can feel which colors are where. I have one of his prints hanging on my office wall right now, and it is absolutely breathtaking even before you learn he’s fucking blind.
Art galleries have taken steps to make things like paintings accessible to blind patrons. Unless it’s something like watercolor that soaks into the canvas and lays flat, paint has depth and texture. Especially thicker paints like oils. 3D scans of paintings allow people to feel the paint layers on printed busts. Artists like Van Gogh used paint texture as an inherent part of their piece, and galleries have attempted to turn that into a tactile experience. You haven’t truly seen Starry Night until you have seen it in person, (or at least seen a 3D scan of it). Flat prints simply don’t do it justice. And for other mediums, guided tours have descriptive service options for blind patrons.
And we get deaf/HoH patrons at concerts all the time. They enjoy the crowd experience, and they can feel the beat via vibration. Hell, I just organized a concert for next week, where we have an ASL interpreter. Deaf/HoH people regularly have music fucking blaring on kick ass sound systems. They may be able to hear certain parts of it if it’s loud enough, or maybe they just enjoy the beat. But regardless of the reason, they absolutely can enjoy music.
Video games are the only art medium where people find it acceptable to gate-keep the art from the unskilled or the disabled.
Imagine buying a movie ticket, then the theater goes “no you aren’t good enough at watching movies to watch this movie. You only get to see the first 10 minutes. It just isn’t for you.” Imagine paying to go to a museum, and they tell you “sorry, you are only allowed to look at the art in the foyer because you aren’t good enough to enter the rest of the museum.”
Difficulty settings are, first and foremost, accessibility settings. Don’t want the game to be too easy? Don’t fucking turn down the difficulty. Saying “I don’t want the game to be easier” is really just saying “I know I don’t have any self-control, and would inevitably turn down the difficulty when I hit a roadblock.”
Take it a step further, and require optional direction indicators. Not only do you get click on screen. You also have an option to get a little arrow pointing to which direction it came from. I have several friends with a bad ear. They can hear fine out of one ear, but not the other. That direction indicator allows them to track sound cues that would otherwise be useless to them.
The newer God of War games were pretty good about this, for instance. There were collectable ravens, which were usually found via sound cues; they would loudly caw for you to be able to track them down before you saw them. But if you only have one good ear, you can’t tell which direction the sound is coming from. The direction indicator bridges that gap, by adding a little arrow next to the raven cawing sound alert. For a more straightforward example, if an NPC says something, you get an arrow pointing to the NPC. Handy for when random NPCs have off-screen chatter.
Allow me to turn off the stupid pre-launch splash titles.
I can guarantee that those splash titles are included because of contractual obligations. The same way a movie lists the publishing companies in the intro. Including a “skip after first launch” option would violate their contract. If it were up to a game’s director, they would almost universally prefer to drop you straight at the title screen. But they legally aren’t allowed to do so.
Oh, you want us to publish your game? We can require the game designer to show our logo for {x} seconds when the game launches. Oh, you want your game to be G-Sync compatible? Nvidia can require that you show their logo for at least {x} seconds when the game launches. Oh, you want to use our game engine to build your game? Unreal can require that you show their logo for {x} seconds when the game launches. Et cetera…
Yeah, you should be able to pick a specific version number for single player games. I’m fine with it defaulting to “latest”, but at least give me the option to stick to a specific version.
Also, fuck the “Would you like to share all data with the publisher, or only limited data” bullshit. It’s a single player game with no multiplayer whatsoever. I shouldn’t need to share any data with the publisher. If I see this shit, the game immediately gets blacklisted in my firewall.
Cutscenes especially. The pause button should pause cutscenes, with an option to skip the cutscene on the pause menu. The pause button should never just outright skip the cutscene. It should always pause the cutscene.
So many times as a kid that my mom would walk in and start talking right as a cutscene started. And when I’d go to pause it, it would just skip the entire fucking cutscene instead.
Yup. Not only are the materials entirely unregulated… So are the labels. A company can stick a “Made with 100% pure medical-grade silicone” on the box, even if they know it’s not true.
That’s why there are independent toy reviewers. The companies send a few toys to the reviewer, who does destructive testing on them. IIRC, most testers require at least three of the same toy for a full test. They’ll do things like light the toy on fire, (the presence/color of smoke and if/how it melts tells the tester if it’s pure silicone, or if there are harmful additives), attempt to break/rip/crush it (to confirm tensile/compressive strength is adequate), etc… And yes, they’ll also use the toy to review how well it works.
It’s an art installation. The idea is that the machine slowly leaks hydraulic fluid. So it works to squeegee it back up towards its base, so it can remain operational.
At first, it was a cute little art installation. The machine worked well and barely leaked. It would take time in between scoops to dance for the crowd or rest. But over time, as the machine aged and the leaks got worse, it had to shift more and more towards scooping up the hydraulic fluid. It changed from a cute dancing robot to a haunting metaphor. It desperately worked to keep the fluid contained, all the way up to the point that it broke down.
When it finally broke down, it was revealed that it ran on electric stepper motors, and didn’t even need the hydraulic fluid.
Yeah, the primary reason people end up exposing things to the internet is because of friends and family. I can call my tech-illiterate “anything more difficult than logging into Facebook has her throwing up her hands in defeat, saying it is too hard, and tech is just too complicated these days” mother-in-law and walk her through setting up Plex… But that only works because Plex is exposed to the internet. If I had to walk her through setting up Tailscale on her living room TV before she could connect, it would be a non-starter.
That’s just DDNS. There are different ways to do it, and some routers come with a DDNS service ready to go. DuckDNS is commonly recommended. There are even images like Cloudflare-DDNS, which allow you to run it in a container.
Yup, good notes are really the difference between beginner and expert self-hosters. Write the notes as if they’re documentation to be read by someone who has never seen them before. Don’t tell yourself that you’ll remember things; that is the devil talking. You will forget in 6 months when you’re looking at it again.
Yeah, I did a few of those tests for my ADHD diagnosis last year. I’m in the 99th percentile for spatial reasoning. I’m also a 5 on this scale. I can see a puzzle piece and know where it fits in the puzzle. I can see a bunch of weirdly shaped blocks, and figure out how to put them into the shape I want. I was really good at those “you have a bunch of geometric shapes, make them look like a dog” types of things as a kid. My shrink was visibly shocked at how quickly I flew through that section of the test, because the primary limiting factor was how quickly I could rearrange the pieces.
But I can’t fucking picture any of it in my mind. If I have a sketch pad, I can draw a scaled floor plan of my house. But I can’t picture what my furniture looks like. I can describe it. I know what it looks like. But I can’t picture it. Part of my current job involves making scaled drawings. I’m sure that’s not related at all \s
Memories are more like the feelings and senses associated with the memory, alongside a narration of what happened. Like if I had a fight and had to recount it to police, I’d think of how I moved, where I was hit, what kinds of sounds and smells there were, etc. alongside a sort of fight announcer narrating the fight like a boxing match.
I’m a 5. Dreams are fine. As realistic as I want them to be.
No, you have it backwards. Fossil fuels were only cheaper because the government was heavily subsidizing it.