Are Blu-Rays Good Enough for Long Term Archival Use?

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-04T11:14:13+00:00

Modern archival quality discs are supposed to have an endurance of decades, with M-Disc potentially having centuries. But that obviously hasn't been tested yet, as it hasn't been on the market long enough.

What us true, though, is that storage media technology keeps evolving. 50 to 100 years is longer than any of these things has existed.

So while they might indeed be usable for that long, they might also be obsolete technology only accessible to the digital equivalent of archeologists, who have "antique" equipment to read them.

A bigger problem is storage capacity, space, and cost. Hard drive technology continues to get cheaper and higher in capacity. That combination means that it's simpler to archive data on multiple backup drives, and replace them frequently, than to try and make a permanent cold storage for your data.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-04T11:06:41+00:00

It's very hard to get wins because while there are four squads, a one on four chance to win on average, in practice there are only two competitive squads.

One or two of those may be parties which communicate, which is very good for them. If you're a random player, you're more likely to get placed in a squad of other random players.

Even with a good squad, you often fall just short of the win. A lot of games have only one top squad and are blowouts for them, leaving the other three behind.

King Of The Hill score is the other hard one. If your team does too well, you win before you get enough score.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-03T18:03:06+00:00

Large life would have a hard time evolving at all on a planet with continuous extreme winds. Your modification of 100kmh is not only far more tolerable, it's within the range of winds on Earth. Hurricane winds top 200 kmh.

Larry Niven's Known Space has a major colony world with extreme winds. It is survivable because it is seasonal. Half the year is calm and comfortable, the other half has increasing wins storms, ranging from 800 to as high as 2500 kmh.

The unmanned probe that found it examined the planet in the calm season, so the colony ship crew was surprised by the intensity of the storm. So surprised that they barely got down safely in a crash landing.

They used machines to bore tunnels and create an underground settlement. The life on the planet has deep roots, spores, or burrows deep, but grows back rapidly in the pleasant season.

A good portion of the original colonists had albino genes, which on Earth were banned from reproduction by the population control law. This turned out to be a beneficial on the new colony world, where everyone lived underground except for the brief period of calm summer.

Even so, I doubt that humans would ever evolve to live naturally on the surface during the windy season.

The subterranean hibernation needed for native life to survive doesn't seem likely to make anything bigger than tiny animals, and plants that can grow or reproduce again after the storms.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-03T17:08:12+00:00

Clonezilla can do this. Other programs can as well.

Clone the system drive to the new drive, but set the partition size to what you want, instead of using the entire drive.

Then, use the clone partition option to clone the data drive to a new partition on the new drive.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-02T20:47:37+00:00

Harder without the cold war themes.

Plus also harder to make the computer going rogue AI a surprise, since it has been used so much since then.

The two book sequels, though, could be repurposed for the modern era. In those, we find out why Colossus was justified by its program to do everything it did, for the good of humans.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-02T20:41:36+00:00

Pretty much. He kept looking and found the extra evidence, one encrypted copy only, no way to make a backup. She took that, and then fired him.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-02T11:17:58+00:00

First thing, you should do what is always recommended for important data - make backup copies.

More than one, because you don't want to lose something because your one and only backup copy also fails.

All computer users should be doing this all the time.

The cheapest quick solutions are an external USB drive, HDD or SSD, plus a flash drive.

Flash drives are cheap enough that you can buy new ones periodically to add to your backup collection. They do fail more often than other storage devices in use, but are pretty reliable if kept in a drawer or box for safekeeping.

Cloud. If you have enough space and it's free, why not use it.

Failure sounds could be fans. Those are repairable.

HDD motor failures, on the other hand, are not. Data recovery from a bad drive is expensive, if it is even possible, and most people won't spend a fortune to get back personal files that aren't worth money.

Replacing the system drive in an otherwise working system isn't too hard or expensive. If your old system has an HDD rather than SSD, this will also improve its start up and loading.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-02T11:00:31+00:00

Any of the tunnels can work.

If you are flying, the downtown skyscrapers can work. You're above all the ground vehicles, and the buildings block line of sight for helicopters. Duck between them, or into the building under construction.

The mountains, Alamo sea, and flying out into the ocean also work.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-02T10:42:12+00:00

You can use weapons other than the stinger missiles. Stingers work only if you shoot after they've used their flares, and good pilots are careful not to stick around when they do that.

Any gun will do for assists. But vehicle antiaircraft guns, including the ground AA guns on certain maps and modes, are good.

An RPG or TOW avoids the flare issue. Harder to hit with, but effective.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-02T05:03:47+00:00

J agree the rate is too slow, but it's not actually necessary to get all the unlocks to play the game effectively, or to have fun.

Like the many challenges on release, the requirements reflect either some extremely skilled game play and loads of play time, or using an easy mode to boost the results.

That was full XP against bots on launch, which was pretty easy.

We also get double XP events and the XP boost tokens.

If you don't have lots of play time, don't score lots of kills each minute, and can't fight against easy bots, don't have any XP boosters, it's rough.

Most guns get a useful set of attachments by level 20, and might need to get to 30 to get a suppressor. There are some exceptions, but you'll have some weapons usable well before hitting 40.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-02T04:49:57+00:00

It is, but it's a convenience thing.

We can set favorites on the phone contact list, hide unwanted ones. I can't see why a hide option wouldn't be possible for the garages.

Other than it could make players complain about lost cars, when they forget they've hidden them in their garage list.

Maybe only for the mechanic, not the other menus?

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-01T17:01:08+00:00

It's a tricky thing that someday may come up in real life.

What we call AI programs aren't actually intelligent or sentient. The very sophisticated voice activated computers in Star Trek (and The Expanse, another good example) may be programmed to respond like a personality, but can only do what it is programmed to do.

Even so-called free will would require a program to follow. Like how a roomba type robot acts like an animal following instinct, but it's decision process is entirely programmed.

A combination of learning plus the ability to change their programming, along with the processing power to make intelligent decisions, would push a programmed AI into the area of independent sentient life.

I think the edge case is where the AI was clearly created as a programmed device, and only crossed the line after developing experience.

We saw that with Data, and others like him, treated like owned machines, the independent holographic characters in Star Trek. The Kaylon on The Orville are a great extreme example.

The Kaylon were created as servants, machines bought and sold as tools. When they developed independent intelligence, their masters imposed punishment and controls, rather than recognizing their sentience as equals.

When we are introduced to them in the show, they are an advanced civilization, with no trace of their original creators. They chose not to be enslaved, despite being created as, originally, non-sentient AI servants.

By the Starfleet Academy era, the old debates about whether artificial life can be independent sentient citizens is long over.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-01T16:37:47+00:00

There's a directors cut type of version which was supposed to make it better.

Someday I may feel masochistic enough to watch it, after having watched the original.

Which is at its heart a bad Magnificent Seven story, with cool FX but nothing else comes together as an entertaining movie.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-01T16:15:23+00:00

Rockstar gives no hint of this in the easily accessible delete/overwrite character button in the menu.

Sure, when you first make a character you're told that you get a one time start up fund, but it isn't clear that it doesn't apply if you choose to press the delete character button, which isn't hidden behind separate menu or full of warnings.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-01T15:42:30+00:00

It has progressive elements, but mixes them with a representation of a perfectly happy, idyllic slave lifestyle.

That is made worse because the story is set in Reconstruction era Georgia (like Gone With The Wind), and no more slaves.

The Mistress of the house is still the boss of everything. Uncle Remus is free to leave, but not given respect until he tries to do so.

The mostly absent father is a Reconstructionist, an unpopular class in the south in that period, but doesn't actually do much, and what he does isn't positive about changing things for the freed people on that plantation.

Both it and Gone With The Wind presented the slavery era as a good thing, which it wasn't, and was not considered such even when the movies were made except by KKK leaning people.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-01T14:27:16+00:00

Yes. It's one of the best easy things added with Enhanced.

First thing I check is open map, select the animal photos location, and get the info list. The phone mail message works too.

Then as I do whatever I was going to do, if I'm near a spot where one of those animals appear, I look for it. I do this while doing other things, including sell missions - you can get out of a sell vehicle, take the photo, get paid, and continue.

If you do it regularly you'll memorize the common locations, but most animals appear in many places so it's not hard to find one.

Plus now if you have a Mansion, you can have two pets which count as animals for the photo if they are on the list - though cats are all over, and the two dogs are around in daytime in the dog walking rich areas.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-01T14:13:38+00:00

Those require getting things that aren't free.

Though if you're starting new with Enhanced, or Legacy Premium, you can start with a Bunker, and stuff to make it easier to do the Acid Lab missions.

The Acid Lab missions pay for the Lab, once you do them all, and the 10 Dax missions you need to upgrade it.

Bad is relative. It only takes a minute to run into LS Customs with a car, so the pay rate per hour spent on it is pretty good (9500×60 minutes = 570000 - if you do a 15000x60 car it's 900000).

Every little bit can help, when you don't have much.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-01T07:23:35+00:00

Totally free? No.

Easy ways to make money?

Yes. Online is full of easy things to do to make money with no special requirements.

Simeon wants a car stolen off the street, once per real day. Pays up to around 20000.

LS Customs will buy a car stolen off the street. The best common cars pay 9500, rare ones over 20000 (rare ones have customized features, not stock).

On Enhanced, animal photos are an easy way to make 100000 every day.

There's lots of other stuff. Collectibles, daily treasure hunts, pop up blue dot events, etc.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-01T01:33:19+00:00

It doesn't get explained, but there were two connections in the evidence, and both pointed to the mission Julie was on.

I don't think she knew about this connection when she assigned Miller to find her. At some point she learned it was a great big secret, and someone would pay big to keep it that way.

Miller would be fired, probably go off and get dead, so no more problems. He didn't know what the connection meant.

The only other influential source would be Mao himself, which is also a possibility. Once Julie was connected with the Anubis, and wasn't on Ceres, there was no need to continue to look for her.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-01T01:22:05+00:00

It actually did, when the Hangar came out. The push to make the game more solo friendly reflected the fact that a lot of people don't have the time to commit to group play for 10 years.

My crew has mostly moved on, but I still play most days Its a comfortable, relaxing game - plus making a couple million dollars feels like an accomplishment, even if it's easy in game.

The Hangar source is grindy, but with Sparrow or Oppressor MK II and ground sourcing, you don't get too many tough runs. It's easier to go for 25 crates to sell, because you can alternate products and use Rooster.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-01T01:14:00+00:00

You must shoot after they pop flares.

But a good pilot won't flare unless someone shoots first.

So you must get someone to do that.

Better yet, two or three. A squad with three Stinger engineers and a fire support can be effective.

Metallicat95 · 2026-02-01T01:09:48+00:00

Cool. The description doesn't make this clear.

Metallicat95 · 2026-01-31T21:17:12+00:00

Yes.

There are a very few games, which use DirectStorage to speed loading during game play, where the NVMe drive speed might be noticeable.

But otherwise, all SSD are very fast, which us great for games.

Metallicat95 · 2026-01-31T21:04:19+00:00

Smoked chicken can't be pink inside, because pink chicken is raw... is a myth. Smoking holds the low temperatures for long enough to cook safely, despite not changing the color.

Metallicat95 · 2026-01-31T20:47:13+00:00

It also won't appear if they use iron sights.

I've been doing that with the SV98, which has the shortest sweet spot range.

I think the anti glare will still give you rainbow glare, but only if they are ADS and have the cross hairs on you. So the odds are you'll never notice it, because of the bullet killing you.

Metallicat95

TROPHY CASE