When I was a kid in the 90s, my dad had a video tuning device that could change the color balance and make other adjustments on live video. It also had the "bonus" feature of stripping the copy protection from live video! He just put that between two VCRs, and we could copy pretty much anything. Being analog, there was still the occasional tape which wouldn't work for some reason. Without stripping the protection, the second tape would just wind up with an unintelligible mess recorded on it. So I wouldn't say it was super common, since most people didn't know these devices were available or where to get them, but I also wouldn't say it was super rare since it wasn't particularly hard to set up or use.
As DVD became common, piracy became a lot easier, since everyone had a computer at that point, and you just needed the right free software to bypass the copy protection. My father in law built a huge movie library by ordering DVDs from Netflix (when they were still a DVD by mail business), ripping, and returning them. As for myself, I had gotten into filesharing by this time, so I never did much DVD ripping since the internet was doing the work for me.
Yeah, I always set up my laptops to not sleep upon closing the screen, and I use hibernate instead of sleep when I need to leave and come back later. Makes moving an active system much better since I can close it without disrupting things, and hibernate uses zero battery, so it lasts indefinitely while inactive. Plus, none of that "modern standby" BS trying to connect to wifi or start the system back up while packed in a bag. That might be more an issue with my Windows work machines though.
I loved Battlezone, it really captured my imagination with its secret cold war space race setting and the battles taking place on real planets in the Solar System. The gameplay was fun too, and incredibly advanced for its time (stealing vehicles in 3d before GTA 3!). Redux is the original game with remade textures and modern system compatibility fixes. They're very faithful to the original style, though I do wish there was a way to load the original textures. Somebody's probably hacked them in, I haven't checked.
Something this article glosses over is the fact that Microsoft knew all of the web URLs he was visiting. I don't know if that's because he was dumb enough to sign into Edge with his Microsoft account or if they were collecting that a different way, but the GDID wouldn't have been nearly as useful without that info.
Privacy issues aside, there have been a lot of instances where a TV manufacturer or other smart device manufacturer loads a whole bunch of anti-features and obnoxious advertising into the interface permanently with a firmware update, with no ability to perform a factory reset to restore it to its original state. That on its own is enough to have convinced me never to connect any expensive device to the internet unless I buy it for that purpose.
When I was a kid in the 90s, my dad had a video tuning device that could change the color balance and make other adjustments on live video. It also had the "bonus" feature of stripping the copy protection from live video! He just put that between two VCRs, and we could copy pretty much anything. Being analog, there was still the occasional tape which wouldn't work for some reason. Without stripping the protection, the second tape would just wind up with an unintelligible mess recorded on it. So I wouldn't say it was super common, since most people didn't know these devices were available or where to get them, but I also wouldn't say it was super rare since it wasn't particularly hard to set up or use.
As DVD became common, piracy became a lot easier, since everyone had a computer at that point, and you just needed the right free software to bypass the copy protection. My father in law built a huge movie library by ordering DVDs from Netflix (when they were still a DVD by mail business), ripping, and returning them. As for myself, I had gotten into filesharing by this time, so I never did much DVD ripping since the internet was doing the work for me.
Help, I have been trolled
hi gongeous
Yeah, I always set up my laptops to not sleep upon closing the screen, and I use hibernate instead of sleep when I need to leave and come back later. Makes moving an active system much better since I can close it without disrupting things, and hibernate uses zero battery, so it lasts indefinitely while inactive. Plus, none of that "modern standby" BS trying to connect to wifi or start the system back up while packed in a bag. That might be more an issue with my Windows work machines though.
I didn't know about that lunar lander! I'll have to see if I can find it whenever I play it again. Very nostalgic game for me.
I loved Battlezone, it really captured my imagination with its secret cold war space race setting and the battles taking place on real planets in the Solar System. The gameplay was fun too, and incredibly advanced for its time (stealing vehicles in 3d before GTA 3!). Redux is the original game with remade textures and modern system compatibility fixes. They're very faithful to the original style, though I do wish there was a way to load the original textures. Somebody's probably hacked them in, I haven't checked.
Chips that are specifically not folded over gang
You broke the Rule!
...rule
But when will you prove out the art of the possible??
This looks like a page from the Futurama comic book series, which has been running since 2000!
ENHANCE
As an American, please don't let this spread, our system is stupid and annoying
Top row, left column for me. I've actually been around since the third party app ban, but lost my first two accounts: VLemmy -> lemm.ee -> lemmy.zip
Sometimes Wario's the only one keeping me going
Something this article glosses over is the fact that Microsoft knew all of the web URLs he was visiting. I don't know if that's because he was dumb enough to sign into Edge with his Microsoft account or if they were collecting that a different way, but the GDID wouldn't have been nearly as useful without that info.
Zack and Miri Make a Corno
I'm talking about literally displaying ads in the TV's UI, which you wind up seeing constantly even if you don't use any smart features at all
I, for one, am still amused by big chungus.
Privacy issues aside, there have been a lot of instances where a TV manufacturer or other smart device manufacturer loads a whole bunch of anti-features and obnoxious advertising into the interface permanently with a firmware update, with no ability to perform a factory reset to restore it to its original state. That on its own is enough to have convinced me never to connect any expensive device to the internet unless I buy it for that purpose.
would