Europe Pub

Different sources report different planned destinations. According to VesselFinder the tanker had its AIS transponder switched off for 17 days.

I didn't think I'd spend hours reading about this today, but some things surprised me:

1. Just using a Playstation sounds like it won't work or will be a huge time sink.
2. Blu ray optical drives are way more expensive than I thought
3. The copy protections on Blu rays are exceptionally annoying, to the extent where there is really only one closed source software -- MakeMKV -- that can work around them. This post goes into some interesting details.
4. Finding a drive that is known to work with MakeMKV is a pain. There's a brand called Pioneer that seems promising but they went out of business last year. I have no idea which model works, and it's common that secondhand sellers will swap enclosures and pass it off as a different model.
5. Sometimes you need to flash the firmware on the drive to make it work with 4K UHD discs.

Anyway I was going to try ripping a Blu-ray that I bought recently, since I couldn't find a quality rip anywhere, but I'm pretty turned off from the whole prospect at this point.

Anyway I'm not really asking for a specific reply, I just thought this topic was interesting and I'm curious what people think about Blu rays and optical media in general. Does the future seem bleak? Are we going to be stuck with shitty WebDLs for most new content? Or is physical media here to stay?

Paris (France) (AFP) – A water leak in late November damaged several hundred works in the Louvre's Egyptian department, the Paris museum told AFP on Sunday, weeks after a brazen jewel theft raised concerns over its infrastructure.

"Between 300 and 400 works" were affected by the leak discovered on November 26, said the museum's deputy administrator Francis Steinbock, describing them as "Egyptology journals" and "scientific documentation" used by researchers.

The damaged items date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and are "extremely useful" but are "by no means unique", Steinbock added.

"No heritage artefacts have been affected by this damage," he said, adding that "at this stage, we have no irreparable and definitive losses in these collections".

The incident follows an October heist in which a four-person gang raided the world's most-visited art museum in broad daylight, stealing jewellery worth an estimated $102 million in just seven minutes before fleeing on scooters, sparking debate over the museum's ageing infrastructure.

The Louvre said there would be an internal investigation into the November leak, which was caused by the accidental opening of a valve in the heating and ventilation system that led to water seeping through the ceiling of the Mollien wing where the books were stored.

The "completely obsolete" system has been shut down for months and is due to be replaced from September 2026, the museum administrator added.

As for the works, they will "be dried, sent to a bookbinder to be restored, and then returned to the shelves," he added.

In late November, the Louvre said it would raise ticket prices for most non-EU visitors, meaning US, British and Chinese tourists among others will have to pay 32 euros ($37) to get in.

The museum told AFP the 45-percent price hike aims to boost annual revenues by up to $23 million to fund structural improvements at the cultural institution.

The Louvre is the world's most-visited museum, welcoming 8.7 million visitors in 2024, 69 percent of them from abroad.

Well, it's going to be a pretty miserable Christmas for me, and I'm sure for others too. I figured it would be a good idea to have some place on Lemmy (I checked the Christmas instance and the last post was 2 years ago...) where those at a loose end could at least have each other for company throughout the Christmas period. Any ideas on how to make this happen appreciated!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/56438780

How UK of you...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/54551509

I noticed Bonfire is getting a lot of positive attention lately, and I wanted to try it out. They don't have a directory of instances yet. Do you have any instances that you recommend.