I think the problem is that the algorithms are based on statistical probabilities from other users. I.e users who listen to X also like to listen to Y. So we’ll add Y to the queue. Then Y becomes the new reference point. I mean that is a gross simplification but essentially if your musical taste is outside of 2 standard deviations of the norm all the algorithms are gonna suck. For me they do.
I’ve definitely trained tidal that I prefer some pretty whacky sub genres (this Northern European country, but only metal with strong brass sections, or contemporary accordion, hurdy gurdy, and a dozen other clusters like that).
I’d guess if you created a profile and loaded it up with just black swing bands from the 30-50’s, it’d do OK.
If not, and I understand their algorithm correctly, it would not only be because no current listeners make that distinction (as discussed up thread).
It would also be because the metadata doesn’t give any signal for it. They seem to use information such as record labels, song writers, producers, guest musicians, etc.
If that metadata has no signal, then my guess is that you’re trying to get it to racially segregate music that was produced before the big interracial marriage scare.
People were worried that if their kids listened to the same musicians, then whites and blacks (or worse!) might marry, so they created white radio stations and black radio stations.
Before that, I imagine there was a lot more interracial collaboration, and the metadata wouldn’t find clean clusters along race boundaries.
It could also be that the old metadata was never digitized.
The sad thing is people who should know better will still find excuses to keep using Chrome. And people with ulterior motives will help amplify their excuses.
I read it. I confess I'm largely remembering previous articles that loved highlighting the amount of margin that Audible demands.
For the DRM complaint, I'm mostly sympathetic, but I have a really hard time believing it is not at the insistence of the publishing companies. They literally force library lending to go through similar DRM schemes. And it is largely in their interests to make sure you can't purchase the cheaper Audible version of a book and take it out of their ecosystem.
That last point is ultimately my main gripe here. Audible has incentives for you to buy more from them. Which they largely pursue not by locking your current purchases to them, but by offering better prices and funding better books. To try and "stick it to the man" by bitching about DRM schemes is a hell of a non-sequitur that smacks more of virtue signalling than it does actual concerns.
I find it really hard to deny that platform lock-in is a powerful anti-competitive and anti-consumer force - I think you’re off base in denying its impacts and the merits of addressing it.
I largely agree with this take. But I also largely feel I'm being asked to support, who, exactly?
Note that we aren't pushing for removing the DRM. This is largely about someone wanting you to buy from another place. I can almost believe the DRM angle, but publishing houses have shown they are the far larger driver of that than Audible is. This is why libraries have to have a special license to loan out audio books. They are largely looking to force that in ebooks, even.
As for the last point, that one is not about Audible, so... what are we even discussing here? The article last argument, which is after discussing DRM and monopolies where users are captured into a locked market, is that google and apple has a 30% tax. They don't go into any depth over why a general 30% tax in a third-party market is bad in a duopoly situation, presumably because they don't feel it is necessary.
I've seen complaints on Audible for a few years, at this point? Surprised if this is news to you. Though, I also wouldn't be too shocked if folks skip past audio book news that don't listen to audio books.
What do you mean the point wasn't on Audible, btw? The article is literally about how he is proud he isn't putting his book with Audible because of DRM? This is painted as if it is a choice of Amazon's, but it is hard not to read this as a choice of the Doctorow's. Perhaps you thought I was referencing someone else's last point? I meant that as a reference to my last point in the previous paragraph.
Well, the root article was changed on us. But, yeah, Doctorow and Sanderson both have had pretty high profile critiques of Audible? I don't keep a full index on the official lines, but summary is largely that "DRM bad" and "they give a smaller percentage to authors."
And, at large, I don't care for either of those things. I agree that DRM blows. I also would love it if writers and narrators and SFX crews and everyone got more money. I have grown to not trust a lot of the "big tech company is root of all problems in this old rotting industry" story.
There have only been a few Pixar movies I haven’t liked Cars 2, The Good Dinosaur and Finding Dory and not all of the others have had drawn an emotional response from me. That said anything that draws you in and makes you feel something is by definition good art. Art is completely subjective. This blog post is just another “I don’t like other people having fun” post
“ why would all problematic users congregate on the same server? ”
There’s a simple answer to why server blocking is a feature of mastodon. It was built to handle a real world problem. I.e there was early on a server that was a “free speech absolutist” server that server mods wanted to block at a server level.
Microsoft was never evil, well not any more evil than any other company. Microsoft was a monopoly. Given what they get away with with Windows 10 and 11 one could argue they still are or at least still act like they are.
Microsoft is beyond evil. The stuff they do in third world countries is like cold war CIA lite.
In Argentina, Microsoft bribed their way into having power of police.
If you are a company here, any day you can get a email from Microsoft compelling you to provide them an inventory of your software under the pain of being raided by the police to get audited if you don’t comply, or you just may get raided if they suspect you are using illegitimate copies of their software.
Yes, Microsoft can kick down your door and check your computers.
We are a software shop in a small city in Argentina and at some point we made a blip in their radar because we won a technology exporter award of our city.
Our prize was an email from Microsoft like I described before.
They didn’t get a dime because all our desktops and servers were Linux, but they did try. They had the gall of pitching Microsoft Teams in their threatening emails. It was surreal.
Evil is malintent*capability so a company with monopoly over your entire hobby, profession and/or economy is going to score higher on evil even if a baby has more malintent.
Off-topic note Humanloop might want to redesign their logo. It's been the Australian Broadcasting Corporation logo since 1963. Maybe pick a different Lissajous curve.
If we store credit card information we need to be PCI compliant. Let’s outsource that then.
All stored personal information needs to be PCI compliant.