Lit Apropos of Nothing - ACKBAR IN CAPITALS - The Lit Forum Social Thread, v2.0.15

Actually they aren’t, they are about the same length as his forearm from which they also fold out from.

 

Things like the lost Doctor Who episodes are the prime reason why I will never give up hardcopies and DVDs and swap completely to ebooks and digital downloads until they force me to. Don't get me wrong, downloads (my cruddy internet notwithstanding) are cool to a point, but I always prefer the security of having my own copy.

I mean, sure, there's certain digital media that are likely backed up a zillion times, but then there are things like, say, an account on Steam, whose longevity I have absolutely no clue about. Ten years? Sure. But fifty? A hundred? Silly as caring about that far ahead may be, I'm someone who enjoys discovering things in my grandparents' old stuff that I never knew about before, and it saddens me a bit that my grandkids may never have that opportunity if a certain software firm shuts down, or whatever.

True, there are historic parallels that I guess are easy to forget-- like people often keeping old records, but finding a decent player being more difficult-- meaning this isn't entirey a new problem, but has always been around, but it just feels... a lot more omniprevalent (I probably just made that word up) than used to be the case.

 

I have to disagree, to me the blades seems to be as long as his forearms plus his hands and that is not counting the holder

 

I work at a museum and this has been a major problem in recent years. Digital photos in our archives are starting to get weird discolorations (pink lines running down the sides, half a photo's suddenly green, etc), and scans and PDFs of important documents are getting corrupted. We see it more every year. We had a near-miss with a really important PDF about a year ago -- it had corrupted on all the museum servers, and even the backups had missing pages. Luckily someone had the original saved on a CD, which was fine. I imagine part of the "corrupting" comes from routine virus scans and similar processes.

So now I'm really reluctant getting any of my Star Wars stuff electronically. The hard copies won't last forever, but I suspect many might last longer than the electronic files.

 

The bigger threat is not that the files will be unreadable but rather that the tools to read them will be lost or unavailable.

100 years time, someone tries to access a file and is told they need Windows Word 6, it'll be incomprehensible to them.

 

I recommend parchment and clay tables that you burn bake.

EDIT: is burn the right word? I mean for when you heat clay to make it hard.

 

Yeah, like you I accept books aren't eternal, but they just feel like they have more endurance...

I mean, going back to my analogy of what use is a record without a record player, I often wonder how useful a memory stick with a bunch of PDFs and Word files will be if by then Windows is long forgotten? Sure, there'll probably be backups of all the old software in some government archive somewhere, but... at least a book, so long as it's not destroyed, can still be read, whereas a memory stick doesn't just require the device itself to not have been destroyed, but for there to be a second device to read it. I admit, this is one area where I can appreciate how digital downloads on Steam or onto games consoles is providing a way to replay old classics like downloading the original Marios onto a Wii or something, whereas even if I've got a box of old cartridges sitting down in the cellar (I do), I've no longer got a NES, and even though I do still have an N64, I have no clue if it would actually still work, and if I still have the correct power adapter is a whole nother story.

Whereas in contrast, when I was recently unpacking some boxes from when I moved last year, which had in fact been packed the previous time I moved, but had never been looked at, I discovered some truly ancient comics from when my brother-- who is 8 years older-- was a baby, which are still perfectly fine, albeit a bit dusty, and it was rather nice still being able to look back at things like that, unlike my gold N64 Ocarina of Time cartridge which... besides collecting dust, I dunno, might work, but no clue.

And not even 100 years!

Until they re-released TIE Fighter last year, I don't think I'd been able to get that working since, like, Windows 2000 or something, at least not without a LOT of work to make the later versions of Windows accept old DOS games.

 

Bake, not burn.

 

re: Videogames

The old systems use analogue signals, not much use in a digital age!

 

Woh, woh, woh... are you saying that even with a standard SCART lead, an old console just wouldn't work on a modern telly due to the different display frequencies? If so, eugh.

 

One of the gurus at Google actually had a talk about this recently - probably at TED - about the problems of a reliance on electronic documents and pictures, how they have a higher obsolescence rate that physical documents and that hardcopies should be on the rise as a result. (One solution that they've come up with is to package the software required to read and display the file with the file, but even that hits the wall of compatible OS, in addition to being remarkably inefficient).

 

Regarding old games and consoles have anybody seen Spoony's review of Commodore 64 Big Trouble in Little China game

 

Well, I don't know first hand. Couple of years back my Dad tried connecting up my old Megadrive but didn't get very far!

 

hey DC fans

 

Not too bad. Thought Killer Croc would be a little bit bigger. Kitana is a welcome addition rather than Plastique as first rumored. Wonder who will be the first to go in the movie.

Very well said. Not that it matters all that much since it is gone forever, but which version of the destruction of the Library story do you believe is the closest to reality?

 

From left to right, it's Slipknot, Captain Boomerang, The Enchantress, Katana, Rick Flagg, Harley Quinn (obviously), Deadshot, Killer Croc, and El Diablo. I have to admit, the costume design is pretty good on most of them, all Will Smith needs is an eyepiece and he's a spot-on Deadshot, and Katana looks perfect. Killer Croc looks terrible, though, he looks like a Spawn character. And Harley... I don't know. It's not the worst outfit she's worn, but I'm still not a fan. And of course, it's got the dark and gritty DC vibe over everything, it's not nearly as colorful as this group should be.

 

Amen.

 

As a followup to my saying that Deadshot is, well, dead-on, this just dropped on Will Smith's Facebook page:

 

Welcome to Earth... 3. Or is it 4? Which Earth is the DCCU?

 

I'm actually excited about Suicide Squad, which is something compared to BVS which I have 0 excitement for. I am quite tired of the lack of color though, but a darker color palette makes more sense with Suicide Squad than Superman.

 

To paraphrase his line from Men in Black, he does make that look good.

Hopefully a Deathstroke pic next. Just need to know who Common is playing now. John Stewart like he was suppose to do in 2008? or maybe Black Manta as some speculate.

Similar feelings here, saw this a few days ago which reminds me of the DCCU movies:

 

Love Deadshot's look; rest are meh.

 

Man, I've got the Zoloft shakes and my teeth are vibrating and I swear I could phase through some solid matter right about now.

Make that a superhero franchise, DC: Mild-mannered depressive Sarah Toninreuptake pops a pill and becomes THE INHIBITOR.

 

what