Captain Aggravated

Handbrake can handle DVDs directly; you’ll need Make MKV for Blu-Rays.

A couple years ago I made a big project to rip all my DVDs.

Out of several hundred movies only 6 were unplayable. There didn’t seem to be a pattern to it either; age of the disc, wear or handling, big budget then current release or old movie slapped onto a disc in one of those cheap cardboard sleeves.

Out of my collection of TV shows on DVD, easily a quarter of the discs failed, and if one disc in a season of a show didn’t work most of them probably wouldn’t. Many had visible blotch marks in them. I figure they probably used a cheaper manufacturing process for TV shows where they were selling 3 to 6 discs rather than one, maybe two discs with a single movie on it.

I did once talk to Ukraine from some woods in North Carolina on 20 meters (~14 MHz) So when you say “long range radio” to me I think in hemispheres.

I’m a ham radio operator; it just feels weird hearing someone call 400 MHz “long range.” Above, say, 60 MHz I wouldn’t count on anything beyond line-of-sight anyway, though I suppose the lower in the UHF band you are the more likely you are to punch through leaves and such.

I have a feeling we’re going to regret a lot of the “From 201x all new cars have to have ibuttfuck.” It’s like paying to be assimilated by the goddamn Borg.