USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

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Sir Lemming: Jan 27, 2009; It's a piece of JUNK!

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

That would make more sense if people in all 50 states didn't also love their Governors and rank their congressperson 30 points higher than they rank congress as a whole.

I think maybe "all national politicians are crooks" might be more accurate than "all politicians" for that. People have hated "congress" as an entity forever and Presidents have all had periods of low approval ratings, but the trend of basically hating everyone running for president, hating third parties, and hating all potential replacements is a relatively new thing - it started in 2016. Obama and McCain both had positive approval ratings.

By and large people think of "the government" and "politicians" as these totally de-personalized entities who wield power instead of just people whose job happens to be government stuff. I think it's easier for people to see local elected officials as real people just due to proximity. Though I do feel like that's shifting as well. Random local politicians are becoming national figures on a more frequent basis. COVID regulations being just one example.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 14:56

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# ? May 26, 2024 21:48

Judgy Fucker: Mar 24, 2006

Sir Lemming posted:

By and large people think of "the government" and "politicians" as these totally de-personalized entities who wield power instead of just people whose job happens to be government stuff. I think it's easier for people to see local elected officials as real people just due to proximity. Though I do feel like that's shifting as well. Random local politicians are becoming national figures on a more frequent basis. COVID regulations being just one example.

People also have zero clue how the government works or how the different levels of government interact--or that there's even different levels at all. "The government" is just this nebulous boogeyman that takes their hard-earned money and makes them do stuff they don't want to do like wear masks.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 15:14

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Judgy Fucker posted:

People also have zero clue how the government works or how the different levels of government interact--or that there's even different levels at all. "The government" is just this nebulous boogeyman that takes their hard-earned money and makes them do stuff they don't want to do like wear masks.

Doesn't the fact that the approvals for state government vs national government diverge so much sort of imply that people actually do have a sense that there are multiple different levels to government?

# ? Aug 17, 2023 15:21

Judgy Fucker: Mar 24, 2006

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Doesn't the fact that the approvals for state government vs national government diverge so much sort of imply that people actually do have a sense that there are multiple different levels to government?

People have opinions on all kinds of poo poo they don't understand.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 15:23

Morrow: Oct 31, 2010

The majority of voters are not "low information" or "moderate", they're irrational. The go-to is always Kentuckians being unhappy after they elected a governor who ran on getting rid of Kinect, the popular Obamacare exchange in the state, after he campaigned on doing so.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 15:25

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

It is the end of an era: Netflix announced it is killing off its DVD service and will not ship any more DVDs after September.

There are apparently 1.5 million people who still only pay for the Netflix DVD by mail plan.

quote:

Netflix DVD subscribers mourn service's imminent demise

When Colin McEvoy, a father of two from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and a self-described film fanatic, wants to watch a Bollywood film or an obscure independent movie, he often turns to Netflix -- but not its popular streaming service.

McEvoy, 39, said he's been using Netflix's DVD-by-mail service since 2001, just three years after it launched.

"I remember I was in high school when I first signed up for it, and the concept was so novel, I had to really convince my dad that it was a legit service and not some sort of Internet scam," said McEvoy, who uses an old Xbox 360 to play his Netflix DVDs. "Now I have friends who've seen my red Netflix envelopes arrive in the mail, and either didn't remember what they were or couldn't believe that I still got the DVDs in the mail."

Now, McEvoy is one of the DVD-by-mail holdouts mourning the service's imminent demise. On Tuesday, Netflix announced it will send out its final red envelope on September 29, 2023, marking an end to 25 years of mailing DVDs to members. The company will continue to accept returns of customers' remaining DVDs until October 27.

"I'll be sad to see the service go," McEvoy said.

Introduced in 1998 when Netflix first launched, the service promised an easier rental experience than having to drive to the nearest Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. The red envelopes, which have long been synonymous with Netflix itself, littered homes and dorm rooms across the country. But in 2007, Netflix began streaming content online and gradually shifted the focus away from its original DVD business.

Today, the idea of receiving a DVD in the mail may sound almost as outdated as receiving a dial-up CD, but some longtime customers told CNN they continued to find value in the DVD option, including for its selection, pricing and added perks.

Brandon Cordy, a 41-year-old graphic designer from Atlanta, said he stuck with DVDs because many digital rentals don't come with special features or audio commentaries.

There are other factors, too. Michael Inouye, an analyst at ABI Research, said some consumers may still not have access to reliable or fast enough broadband connections, or simply prefer physical media to digital, much in the way that some audio enthusiasts still purchase and collect CDs and records. Other households may also own cars that still have DVD players inside.

For Netflix, however, the offering has made less sense in recent years. "Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members, but as the DVD business continues to shrink, that's going to become increasingly difficult," co-CEO Ted Sarandos wrote in a blog post this week.

Shutting down its DVD business could help Netflix better focus resources as it expands into new markets such as gaming, as well as live and interactive content. Its DVD business has also declined significantly in recent years. In 2021, Netflix's non-streaming revenue -- mostly attributable to DVDs -- amounted to 0.6% of its revenue, or just over $182 million.

The cost to operate its DVD business may also be a factor, especially as Netflix rethinks expenses broadly amid heightened streaming competition and broader economic uncertainty. "Moving plastic discs around costs far more money than streaming digital bits," said Eric Schmitt, senior director analyst at Gartner Research. "Removing and replacing damaged and lost inventory are also cost considerations."

Even before Netflix announced the news this week, some longtime subscribers said they could see the writing on the wall.

"The inventory of available titles, while still vast, had been contracting some over the years with some movies that were once available no longer being so," Cordy said. "Turnaround times to get a new movie or movies also started to take longer, so I knew it was only a matter of time. But I didn't want it to end if I could help it."

Other DVD subscribers are hoping there may still be a happy ending.

On Wednesday, Bill Rouhana, the CEO of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment -- which owns DVD rental service Redbox -- told The Hollywood Reporter he hopes to purchase Netflix's DVD business. "I'd like to buy it... I wish Netflix would sell me that business instead of shutting it down," he said. Redbox remains popular despite the shift in streaming but took a hit during the pandemic because of the lack of new movies and TV shows to fill the boxes.

A Netflix spokesperson told CNN it has no plans to sell the DVD business and declined to share how it plans to dispose of the discs. But Nick Maggio, a 43-year-old elementary school teacher from Valley Stream, New York, said he hopes the company will sell their individual titles. "I know there are several titles I'd like to get my hands on," he said.

For now, at least, some DVD subscribers plan to focus on watching as many DVDs as they can before the service goes away.

McEvoy, who also subscribes to Disney+, Hulu, the Criterion channel and Mubi, said he's determined to finish seeing every film listed in the book "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" with the help of Netflix.

"I absolutely would not have been able to find all of those movies if not for the Netflix DVD service," he said. "I only have four movies left to go."

https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/netflix-dvd-by-mail-service-ending/

# ? Aug 17, 2023 15:30

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

It is the end of an era: Netflix announced it is killing off its DVD service and will not ship any more DVDs after September.

There are apparently 1.5 million people who still only pay for the Netflix DVD by mail plan.

https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/netflix-dvd-by-mail-service-ending/

It's always wild to me that you can be so loving financially massive that you can look at 1.5 million people giving you money and say "Yeah, that's not worth the hassle."

# ? Aug 17, 2023 15:33

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

If each of them individually is giving you less money than you're spending on them, it's not worth the hassle. 1.5 million subscriptions must be below the fixed costs of the DVD warehouses. For comparison Netflix has 238 million streaming users

I thought it was weirdly abrupt that Netflix would only give a month and a half warning, but the "Tuesday" announcement and that article are both from April so it's more like 5 months warning. Still weirdly abrupt but I guess when you're losing money on an obviously doomed business you have to balance politeness with staunching the bleeding. Maybe their hand was forced by the general turmoil in the streaming market plus the anticipated hit from the WGA strike

# ? Aug 17, 2023 15:39

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

the_steve posted:

It's always wild to me that you can be so loving financially massive that you can look at 1.5 million people giving you money and say "Yeah, that's not worth the hassle."

It was $9 and they had to manage all the physical media, replace lost or broken copies, and pay for all of the postage. According to the article, they were still making money from it, but it was just 0.6% of their income and they thought they could use the staff and money more efficiently.

Netflix was technically still the largest physical media subscription service in the U.S. I legitimately can't even think of another physical media subscription service that would be #2.

Physical media is really dying off. It's basically just Redbox and direct to customer retail sales now, but retail sales have also collapsed because nobody wants to go buy every season of their TV shows when they can watch it all online.

Netflix is apparently just sending everyone still subscribed 10 random DVDs that are supposed to return on the honor system, so they aren't even confident it is worth it to try and sell their DVD inventory.

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1691959542001672330

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Aug 17, 2023

# ? Aug 17, 2023 15:40

Zwabu: Aug 7, 2006

Mellow Seas posted:

It's gotta sting for Tucker that after all that time thinking people loved him, it was just the little animated network logo in the corner of the screen* that they loved, and he was just another replaceable cog in the machine.

()

It is amazing how quickly Tucker has completely vanished from the national consciousness.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 15:46

MixMasterMalaria: Jul 26, 2007

The dvd streaming selection absolutely made the streaming selection look pathetic so I completely understand getting rid of it. That said, they could have kept it going and even grown it substantially. It's not like they even tried low hanging fruit moves like: letting users browse and order through the TV app, integrating with letterboxd/IMDb for impulse/list based ordering, letting prospective customers browse the catalogue before signing up, etc.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 15:54

yronic heroism: Oct 31, 2008

Zwabu posted:

It is amazing how quickly Tucker has completely vanished from the national consciousness.

I don�t know, Fox made him so it stands to reason they could unmake him. It�s still their audience.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:16

Fister Roboto: Feb 21, 2008

The death of physical media should be really worrying, because if you get everything through a streaming service it means that you don't actually own anything that you pay for.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:23

shoeberto: Jun 13, 2020; which way to the MACHINES?

MixMasterMalaria posted:

The dvd streaming selection absolutely made the streaming selection look pathetic so I completely understand getting rid of it. That said, they could have kept it going and even grown it substantially. It's not like they even tried low hanging fruit moves like: letting users browse and order through the TV app, integrating with letterboxd/IMDb for impulse/list based ordering, letting prospective customers browse the catalogue before signing up, etc.

This makes a big assumption about how many people still have DVD or blu ray players hooked up. I haven't had a way to watch physical media in my living room in a decade.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:28

Rappaport: Oct 2, 2013

Fister Roboto posted:

The death of physical media should be really worrying, because if you get everything through a streaming service it means that you don't actually own anything that you pay for.

Which, unsurprisingly, translates to piracy coming back on the menu. The article is very much corporate abloo-bloo, but presumably they try to measure this stuff even as streaming services keep getting shittier from the end consumer's perspective.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:29

shoeberto: Jun 13, 2020; which way to the MACHINES?

Fister Roboto posted:

The death of physical media should be really worrying, because if you get everything through a streaming service it means that you don't actually own anything that you pay for.

This does bother me though and I don't know what the solution is. Everyone has called this out ever since Steam took off, but Valve has mostly acted in good faith on it in a way that streaming services aren't. I would have never dreamed something like Westworld would just disappear from streaming entirely for Reasons.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:30

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

Rappaport posted:

Which, unsurprisingly, translates to piracy coming back on the menu. The article is very much corporate abloo-bloo, but presumably they try to measure this stuff even as streaming services keep getting shittier from the end consumer's perspective.

It would definitely help if they would stop taking content off of streaming and throwing it in a vault for tax purposes

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:31

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Fister Roboto posted:

The death of physical media should be really worrying, because if you get everything through a streaming service it means that you don't actually own anything that you pay for.

I miss DVD commentary too. The Ben Affleck DVD commentary on Armageddon is still one of the funniest things I have ever heard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ahtp0sjA5U

It's kind of a double-edged sword. I miss aspects of physical media, but I also (like basically everyone else) am not going out to buy DVDs of all the shows and movies I want to watch or put up shelves to store all of them.

With the disappearance of physical media, there will definitely be some big changes. But, part of the reason it is happening is that people were tired of it.

Movie studios desperately wish DVDs could come back or they could find a way to get people to shell out more money for streaming. So far, streaming is a financial loser for most of them. The entire movie industry is down about 60% in total revenue from the height it reached in the late 90's and early 2000's and the lack of huge DVD sales (which basically allowed a movie to double their theatrical revenue) is one of the big reasons why. That is generally good for consumers because people have significantly more content for significantly lower costs, but it also comes with all the new problems of not directly controlling it.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:33

Fister Roboto: Feb 21, 2008

shoeberto posted:

This does bother me though and I don't know what the solution is. Everyone has called this out ever since Steam took off, but Valve has mostly acted in good faith on it in a way that streaming services aren't. I would have never dreamed something like Westworld would just disappear from streaming entirely for Reasons.

Well, Steam also isn't a streaming service, it's a distribution platform. You don't have to pay a subscription for it and you still at least own the software that you download from them. If Steam shuts down you'll still be able to run anything that you've downloaded, aside from games that have an always online component or something like that. But yeah, they could be a lot scummier with it if they wanted to.

I think one possible solution would be something like a national media repository that would provide a public alternative. Like a digital library but on a much larger scale.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:40

Judgy Fucker: Mar 24, 2006

Hawaii governor vows to block land grabs as fire-ravaged Maui rebuilds

Does anyone know how this would actually work, or if it would? The article says nothing about the legal mechanism for this, other than the governor was instructing Hawai'i's AG to "work toward a moratorium on land transactions in Lahaina" and that the governor "acknowledged the move will likely face legal challenges."

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:41

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

I don�t think there is a good way to block that

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:42

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

FlamingLiberal posted:

I don�t think there is a good way to block that

Eminent Domain the entire burned out area and turn it into a public memorial park.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:44

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Judgy Fucker posted:

Hawaii governor vows to block land grabs as fire-ravaged Maui rebuilds

Does anyone know how this would actually work, or if it would? The article says nothing about the legal mechanism for this, other than the governor was instructing Hawai'i's AG to "work toward a moratorium on land transactions in Lahaina" and that the governor "acknowledged the move will likely face legal challenges."

He says he will release the details of the legal argument on Friday. So nobody knows for sure except his legal team right now.

There is nothing I can think of under federal law that would allow him to ban all private real estate transactions. It seems extremely unlikely that there is something under Hawaiian law that allows that, but maybe there is something. I'm not familiar with Hawaiian law, but it would extremely weird and something that exists only in Hawaii if there is.

99% chance this is just a Hail Mary PR move, but leaving that 1% chance because I don't know Hawaii emergency or real estate law by heart. It is possible that the actual legal mechanism is very limited and not actually preventing all private sales.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:44

Judgy Fucker: Mar 24, 2006

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

He says he will release the details of the legal argument on Friday. So nobody knows for sure except his legal team right now.

There is nothing I can think of under federal law that would allow him to ban all private real estate transactions. It seems extremely unlikely that there is something under Hawaiian law that allows that, but maybe there is something. I'm not familiar with Hawaiian law, but it would extremely weird and something that exists only in Hawaii if there is.

I don't know if this really means anything, but I know Hawai'i has a law about all beaches being public property. There are no private beaches in Hawai'i; beachfront property owners get crafty in restricting public access to "their" slice of beach, but every inch of Hawai'ian beach is public property.

So maybe they do have some laws that govern and restrict land ownership?

AtomikKrab posted:

Eminent Domain the entire burned out area and turn it into a public memorial park.

Yeah, this may be real silly but considering Lahaina's historic and cultural significance to Hawai'i, could they just eminent domain the whole town, then ~~sell~~ give it back to the locals?

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:47

Rappaport: Oct 2, 2013

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

It's kind of a double-edged sword. I miss aspects of physical media, but I also (like basically everyone else) am not going out to buy DVDs of all the shows and movies I want to watch or put up shelves to store all of them.

With the disappearance of physical media, there will definitely be some big changes. But, part of the reason it is happening is that people were tired of it.

Movie studios desperately wish DVDs could come back or they could find a way to get people to shell out more money for streaming. So far, streaming is a financial loser for most of them. The entire movie industry is down about 60% in total revenue from the height it reached in the late 90's and early 2000's and the lack of huge DVD sales (which basically allowed a movie to double their theatrical revenue) is one of the big reasons why. That is generally good for consumers because people have significantly more content for significantly lower costs, but it also comes with all the new problems of not directly controlling it.

Right, but this is where the :filez:

aspect comes in. Back at the turn of the century, MP3 was a revolutionary format because one could stuff hundreds of CDs on a single hard drive. With modern video codecs, this is now also true for teevee and movies. I don't own a smart phone myself, but I understand it's possible to set up a home network so you can in fact watch Frasier on the john if you absolutely need to, without utilizing streaming services.

Steam is a sort-of good example in this respect, you get the game yourself and the service is a DRM watchdog. I have no idea how this'd translate to the modern visual media landscape in general, since the studios seem to love their paranoia more than money, but it's probably simultaneously true that no one wants to own 2 000 DVDs, and more and more people are getting disillusioned with streaming services as they jack up prices and remove content seemingly randomly.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:49

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1692200890948608242

Full pdf

Hard to gauge provenance in the post Elon era but since it's hosted on the NYT website I'll assume that the Paper of Record is standing behind it

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:51

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

There are places where you can download and keep digital copies of movies and TV shows, for example Apple still runs one. Like Steam, you can do whatever you want with the file but have to pass a DRM check to view its contents

The audience seems pretty resolute that they prefer a flat fee all-you-can-eat model, though. At least so far, we'll see how the latest round of enshittification shakes out

Judgy Fucker posted:

Yeah, this may be real silly but considering Lahaina's historic and cultural significance to Hawai'i, could they just eminent domain the whole town, then ~~sell~~ give it back to the locals?

Eminent domain isn't outright seizing real estate, it's a sale with fair compensation you just can't decline. It would probably cost more than the local government has access to, especially while dealing with a huge disaster, to buy out literally the entire region

# ? Aug 17, 2023 16:57

Judgy Fucker: Mar 24, 2006

haveblue posted:

Eminent domain isn't outright seizing real estate, it's a sale with fair compensation you just can't decline. It would probably cost more than the local government has access to, especially while dealing with a huge disaster, to buy out literally the entire region

Well, regarding the local government part, there is no "local" government of Lahaina--or anywhere else in Hawai'i. The only levels of government are state and county; all settlements are technically unincorporated. So it'd be Maui County, and really the State of Hawai'i, who would be making the purchases, and (again) considering the cultural and historic significance of Lahaina, they might think it'd be worthwhile? Also acknowledging this is just spitballing and may still be total fantasy.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 17:02

FizFashizzle: Mar 30, 2005

zoux posted:

https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1692200890948608242

Full pdf

Hard to gauge provenance in the post Elon era but since it's hosted on the NYT website I'll assume that the Paper of Record is standing behind it

Looks like some desantis staffer disagrees with another.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 17:02

Twincityhacker: Feb 18, 2011

The difference between Valve and Netflix is that I bought anime on Valve in 2017, and while they no longer *sell* that particular show on Steam and probably haven't for several years, it's still in my Steam library and can still download it from their servers. Netflix has no "download and keep" option, so when they remove something from their streaming service I can no longer access it in any way without pirating it.

I'll check out new stuff on streaming, but if I like something I'll try to buy the physical media. Anime is the hardest to do this with, as the sets can sometimes be $100+ for a single season, or just flat out not existing in my region, but I'll at least *try*.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 17:09

Killer robot: Sep 6, 2010; I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it!; Pillbug

Judgy Fucker posted:

I don't know if this really means anything, but I know Hawai'i has a law about all beaches being public property. There are no private beaches in Hawai'i; beachfront property owners get crafty in restricting public access to "their" slice of beach, but every inch of Hawai'ian beach is public property.

So maybe they do have some laws that govern and restrict land ownership?

Yeah, this may be real silly but considering Lahaina's historic and cultural significance to Hawai'i, could they just eminent domain the whole town, then ~~sell~~ give it back to the locals?

Yeah, that's a law that goes back to the monarchy. I also gather that at least in Oahu it's very difficult to own land and most places and it's more layered things like having a 99 year lease that you in turn might rent out to someone else and so on but I don't know how much is it being hard to sell hand and how much is laws just being that friendly to the long-term landlords.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 17:11

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Fister Roboto posted:

The death of physical media should be really worrying, because if you get everything through a streaming service it means that you don't actually own anything that you pay for.

This is maybe something that we could address with government regulations. Like, if you "buy" a movie on a service, and you cancel it, or if the service goes under, or if it loses the rights, they have to either reimburse you or somehow guarantee you indefinite access to the content. So yeah, you'll always need to have an internet connection but you won't lose the movies you "bought" on xfinity if you cancel your cable, or whatever. (I think we can all agree that if we were without internet connections we would have bigger problems than not being able to watch Tenet or whatever.)

I don't buy movies streaming very often but when I buy them on Apple or Amazon, I'm pretty confident that they'll always be accessible, as it's hard to imagine anything knocking either of those companies off their perch, but yeah, it's a little disconcerting that it's not a guarantee.

That said, I don't have even have anything in my house that plays DVDs, and optical media has an expiration date, so I'm pretty sure that in 30 years nobody's DVD collections are gonna work anyway.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 17:12

Byzantine: Sep 1, 2007

I'm on lovely rural internet so I can't stream even if I wanted to. It kinda sucks watching all the physical media "obsoleting" because people are getting left out, in addition to the completely correct complaints that it's turning everybody into renters so the parasites can extract monthly fees.

But, more cheap dvds for me. I got all of Batman The Animated Series for $5 a season the other day, wrap it up streamailures.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 17:14

Randalor: Sep 4, 2011

I'm a weirdo who keeps buying movies and shows on physical media, but I'm also a :canada:

and shows come and go from the various subscription services at the fickle whims of rights-holders. I just don't want to have to get 3 subscription services to watch one series.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 17:16

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

haveblue posted:

Eminent domain isn't outright seizing real estate, it's a sale with fair compensation you just can't decline. It would probably cost more than the local government has access to, especially while dealing with a huge disaster, to buy out literally the entire region

Related to this, New London, CT is finally getting development on the land they seized that led to the Kelo case! Only took 18 years! Don't bet against the Whaling City getting its poo poo together... eventually!

This is what it's looked like since 2005:

Well, not quite - it took a bit of time for the grass to grow. But this used to be a dense residential neighborhood. Finally there is going to be some mixed-use development coming in, after the city got burned by (or, maybe sometimes, ran a scam with) multiple developers.

Obviously what has happened in NL sucked, but it's interesting - I feel like progressives generally thought of Kelo as one the liberals on the court got wrong, but with the current housing crisis and unyielding NIMBYism maybe it's a good thing it's been established.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 17:18

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Rappaport posted:

I understand it's possible to set up a home network so you can in fact watch Frasier on the john if you absolutely need to, without utilizing streaming services.

Steam is a sort-of good example in this respect, you get the game yourself and the service is a DRM watchdog.

Of course, Google has been trying its best to bring the TV streaming model to games. Good thing US broadband infrastructure isn't nearly good enough to support it! Ya burnt, Google!

# ? Aug 17, 2023 17:25

Rappaport: Oct 2, 2013

Mellow Seas posted:

Of course, Google has been trying its best to bring the TV streaming model to games. Good thing US broadband infrastructure isn't nearly good enough to support it! Ya burnt, Google!

I can't imagine how it'd be technically feasible to stream-game something as old as Doom 2016, let alone *gestures at popular AAA games with hundreds of gigs of installed content*

Even the Internet Archive temporarily downloads an ancient DOS game you want to play onto your computer in some fashion, I think.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 17:31

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Rappaport posted:

I can't imagine how it'd be technically feasible to stream-game something as old as Doom 2016, let alone *gestures at popular AAA games with hundreds of gigs of installed content*

Even the Internet Archive temporarily downloads an ancient DOS game you want to play onto your computer in some fashion, I think.

Well the idea is that it's installed and running on a PC somewhere else and you have an low latency connection that's streaming the display of that PC to you. But yeah, for hardcore gamers we're probably a long way from that latency being low enough. For casual gaming it's pretty much all right on, say, a 100/100 but that kind of upload speed is very rare in this country.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 17:34

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

The Internet Archive downloads DOS games because emulating them is trivial on modern hardware; the real promise of streaming is being able to play a game on a client device with too little hardware to run it locally. Offloading maintaining a gaming PC to a company running a bunch of them in a datacenter could in theory be appealing, if someone can get it right

Related to the current discussion: Microsoft has announced the planned shutdown of the Xbox 360 digital store, on 7/29/2024. At that point purchases will be cut off but downloads of already-purchased content will still be possible.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 17:37

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# ? May 26, 2024 21:48

Kalli: Jun 2, 2001

Rappaport posted:

I can't imagine how it'd be technically feasible to stream-game something as old as Doom 2016, let alone *gestures at popular AAA games with hundreds of gigs of installed content*

Even the Internet Archive temporarily downloads an ancient DOS game you want to play onto your computer in some fashion, I think.

It mostly just works at this point, even rythym games are moderately playable at this point in most parts of at least the US through streaming services like gamepass, playstation's or Nvidia's. Hell a bunch of AAA games were ported to the Switch and are only played through Nintendo's streaming platform (it's not ideal, but it at least works).

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Also, an aside to the show streaming thing, there's so many rights issues with especially music on anything produced before like 2005 that piracy is already the only answer. There's plenty of shows where the dvd / blu-ray releases are drastically inferior copies due to stripping out music for sound-a-likes.

# ? Aug 17, 2023 17:45

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

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