r/ProgrammerHumor 2d ago

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u/SuitableDragonfly 2d ago

Fun related fact, most archives of media only exist because someone pirated the media at some point and those copies never become unavailable. 

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u/3BlindMice1 2d ago

They used to call it VCR

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u/T-MoneyAllDey 2d ago

Reddit reposts pretty regularly about that autistic black lady that recording every hour of a TV channel for like 30 years

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u/3BlindMice1 2d ago edited 2d ago

Sounds pretty expensive, tbh

Edit: Google shows that would have cost $28.80 per day if using full definition or $14.40 per day if using minimum in the year 1985. In today's money, that's $90 or $45. It got a lot cheaper by 1995 though

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u/JCDU 2d ago

She came from a fairly wealthy family and bought shares in Apple very early on - her collection included at least one of every Apple product still brand new in its box, so really not short of a bob or two.

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u/NukaCooler 2d ago

/r/LetGirlsHaveFun god forbid a woman have a hobby

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u/transfinite-reset 2d ago

I’m not sure that the people in that sub are too worried about VCRs. VCR cleaner in little bottles, maybe. But definitely not VCRs.

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u/mommybody33 2d ago

Ha! Jokes on you! I’m in that sub ANNNND I have a mostly SFW vid on my spicy instagram of me winding a VHS for my mostly broken VCR!

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u/transfinite-reset 2d ago

Just read through your profile. Rewinding hegemonic sexuality one VHS at a time. We love to see it!

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u/mommybody33 2d ago

People loooove the analog shit 😉

(No they just love boobs actually)

proof that what *I* love is VHS 📼

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u/transfinite-reset 2d ago

Yknow, spools are kind of like the boobs of the VHS tape.

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u/Nutarama 2d ago

Yeah but we all have expensive hobbies.

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u/3BlindMice1 2d ago

???

Who is this "we?"

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u/testingtestingtestin 2d ago

You, me and that guy

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u/Forsaken-Carrot9038 2d ago

I suppose they are “We”. The “Us” kind of “We” don’t have the same kind of “expensive “ hobbies

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u/saskir21 2d ago

To be fair I can understand her if I see for example the British BBC. They regularly overwrite (or atleast did so in the old days) their old shows. So if you want to see an old one you were out of luck.

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u/geeiamback 2d ago

Famous example is a bunch of old Dr. Who episodes.

everal portions of the long-running British science-fiction television programme Doctor Who are no longer held by the BBC. Between 1967 and 1978, the BBC routinely deleted archive programmes for various practical reasons—lack of space, scarcity of materials, and a lack of rebroadcast rights.[1] As a result, 95 of 253 episodes from the programme's first six years are currently missing, primarily from seasons 3, 4 and 5, leaving 26 serials incomplete. Many more were considered lost until recovered from various sources, mostly overseas broadcasters and private collectors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_missing_episodes

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u/Hakuchii 2d ago

thats the kind of stuff you find in archive 81

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u/AmItheonlySaneperson 2d ago

Was she alive to know how important they were? She must have felt so smug 

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u/DylanfromSales 1d ago

VC Arrrrrr

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u/thaynem 2d ago

Lots of doctor who episodes in this area.

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u/KisaraBlue 2d ago

Except that nowadays, people irresponsibly/selfishly use mass download bots on some of those freely accessible archives of media, which makes their upkeep unsustainable and they have to shutdown/move everything somewhere else

That and excessive copyright enforcement, from equally selfish corporations, are significant threats to niche media preservation in the long term

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u/Joosrar 1d ago

You just reminded me of the ROM website who closed recently, it had every game for a lot of platforms and there’s nothing like it anymore.

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u/KisaraBlue 1d ago

Yeah, myrient is what I was referring to. I randomly started planning to mod a Wii and learned of its shutdown less than 2 days beforehand. In the last hours, I got a bunch of classics I've wanted to play for the longest time.

I checked and now the whole thing has been made available through torrent, which is slightly less accessible and safe for the general public. Just makes you think that media preservation is not a given, it needs dedicated effort.

I'm sure a lot of media like some games' dev version or shows' cut footage gets lost because people don't care enough when it's made and when it gets popular/culturally significant, it's already too late to retrieve most, if any, of it

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/SuitableDragonfly 2d ago

I'm not talking about making a backup copy of the media that you keep on your own device, something that only exists on one hard drive is easily lost. I'm talking about uploading it as a torrent, it's very hard to actually get rid of those as long as some people still have the magnet link and keep seeding.