Monday, December 05, 2022
Regarding the new label "goflex"
For those of you who are regular readers of this journal (and, frankly, I don't think I have any regular readers), you may have noticed, within the last three to four weeks, a new label in the subject labels section to your left or in the Labels section following my write-up of individual movies, specifically old-old movies: goflex (the name of my external hard drive), with three different iterations, goflexA, goflexB and goflexC (P.S.: the previous 3 green words are not clickable links; I used the color only to ape their appearance in the subject labels section to the left). The reason there are three iterations of this label is because I've labeled 44 movies this way and my journaling software will only display 20 posts per page, so, here's the muddled math: 44/20=3 iterations. There will likely be more iterations as I discover more old-old movies that I enjoy and would like to have "at my beck and call", so to speak.
All the movies with this label are in the public domain. I've downloaded them for free from the internet. That's right, folks, 44 free movies. Most of them are black & white, but a few are experiments in technicolor produced early in the 20th Century. All of them were released in the first half of the 20th Century (or thereabouts), which is why downloading them for free is possible and legal. Most of them are good to very good quality. It may appear that I've downloaded movies of this type indiscriminately. I've actually been very choosy, considering how many of these movies are out there for free download. Once in awhile I'll decide to download a movie that's of middling quality but these movies are significant to my interest in movies and/or the subject tackled in those movies and the "muddy" download is the only one I can locate, so far. At any rate, if the movie's visual (or sound) quality is so bad it takes my mind off the story content and/or the viewing quality, that one doesn't get downloaded.
Why, you might be asking, would I download a movie for any other reason than to just watch the movie more comfortably on my TV screen rather than on my laptop? Exhibit A, the first movie I downloaded, the movie that gave me the idea of pulling public domain movies off the internet, Patterns. When I stumbled across this movie I decided to watch it because it originated with Rod Serling. That, alone, piqued my interest. Once I saw it, I knew it was a movie I'd want to watch and study again and again. Doing that online would add usage "demerits" against my ISP subscription, though. How, I wondered, could I access this movie as much as I want without it affecting my ISP subscription? Answering that question is what led me to figure out my downloading procedure.
If you're budget strapped and you enjoy movies in the public domain no matter what 20th Century decade they're from, there's a way to view them from your TV screen (or your laptop) without affecting your usage tally with your ISP: download them to an external hard drive. The actual procedure for doing this will depend on the mechanics of your downloading software and external hard drive, so it wouldn't be helpful for me to give a step-by-step explanation of my process. When I got the idea and started doing this, in fact, I wasn't even sure that what I wanted to do was possible. But, I figured, if I don't at least try, I'll never know. Now, I know, and, as of this date, I'm 44 movies to the good. At the moment, my free downloading is at a standstill. I've got to catch up on just shy of an overwhelming movie history. But, expect that the 44th downloaded movie will not be the last public domain movie to which I'll be affixing the label "goflex".
Finally, word to the wise. You may be wondering why I've not included the online links to these goflex movies in my write-ups (such as they are, at the moment). During the weeks that I was indulging in this exercise, I discovered that links to old-old movies that are downloadable fairly frequently switch venues. Thus, if I included the link where I got a specific movie, I'd feel obligated to check these links in this journal on a regular basis to keep them up to date. Sorry, Virginia, I don't want to do that. I've got a long enough list of clean-up tasks, many of which are lingering (or "malingering", your choice) about aimlessly, awaiting my attention. I don't need more of those.
All the movies with this label are in the public domain. I've downloaded them for free from the internet. That's right, folks, 44 free movies. Most of them are black & white, but a few are experiments in technicolor produced early in the 20th Century. All of them were released in the first half of the 20th Century (or thereabouts), which is why downloading them for free is possible and legal. Most of them are good to very good quality. It may appear that I've downloaded movies of this type indiscriminately. I've actually been very choosy, considering how many of these movies are out there for free download. Once in awhile I'll decide to download a movie that's of middling quality but these movies are significant to my interest in movies and/or the subject tackled in those movies and the "muddy" download is the only one I can locate, so far. At any rate, if the movie's visual (or sound) quality is so bad it takes my mind off the story content and/or the viewing quality, that one doesn't get downloaded.
Why, you might be asking, would I download a movie for any other reason than to just watch the movie more comfortably on my TV screen rather than on my laptop? Exhibit A, the first movie I downloaded, the movie that gave me the idea of pulling public domain movies off the internet, Patterns. When I stumbled across this movie I decided to watch it because it originated with Rod Serling. That, alone, piqued my interest. Once I saw it, I knew it was a movie I'd want to watch and study again and again. Doing that online would add usage "demerits" against my ISP subscription, though. How, I wondered, could I access this movie as much as I want without it affecting my ISP subscription? Answering that question is what led me to figure out my downloading procedure.
If you're budget strapped and you enjoy movies in the public domain no matter what 20th Century decade they're from, there's a way to view them from your TV screen (or your laptop) without affecting your usage tally with your ISP: download them to an external hard drive. The actual procedure for doing this will depend on the mechanics of your downloading software and external hard drive, so it wouldn't be helpful for me to give a step-by-step explanation of my process. When I got the idea and started doing this, in fact, I wasn't even sure that what I wanted to do was possible. But, I figured, if I don't at least try, I'll never know. Now, I know, and, as of this date, I'm 44 movies to the good. At the moment, my free downloading is at a standstill. I've got to catch up on just shy of an overwhelming movie history. But, expect that the 44th downloaded movie will not be the last public domain movie to which I'll be affixing the label "goflex".
Finally, word to the wise. You may be wondering why I've not included the online links to these goflex movies in my write-ups (such as they are, at the moment). During the weeks that I was indulging in this exercise, I discovered that links to old-old movies that are downloadable fairly frequently switch venues. Thus, if I included the link where I got a specific movie, I'd feel obligated to check these links in this journal on a regular basis to keep them up to date. Sorry, Virginia, I don't want to do that. I've got a long enough list of clean-up tasks, many of which are lingering (or "malingering", your choice) about aimlessly, awaiting my attention. I don't need more of those.
