algorithmic feeds
We need to find, capture, try, execute, and then piss on the grave of whoever decided that the word "algorithm" was the best word for what they didn't like about Facebook. Their hasty decision, combined the word's apparent mainstream sexiness (who knew?!) is going to result in the word's loss.
The summary makes the article sound a lot dumber than it really is. But it is dumb, and the core dumbness from which the rest of the article derives is here:
I thought about setting up a self-hosted media server to stream everything to my phone. But ultimately, I got lazy
He knew real the solution to all his problems, but like he says, "I got lazy," and so he went to his comical Plan B. Despite weird statements like this..
Many folks are sick of streaming in general. They’re sick of giant corporations, algorithmic playlists, and an internet infested with AI slop.
..he actually doesn't appear to have any problem with streaming at all. It's just that he had been using a proprietary streaming service called Spotify, which does things very differently than a user-oriented approach (e.g. self-hosted subsonic API server) would do. Navidrome isn't a giant corporation, the algorithm of its playlist is "play what the user told me to play" and whatever AI Slop you play depends completely on what AI Slop you decided to add to your collection.
But by conflating streaming tech with proprietary streaming services, he gets to make up a lot of non-existent problems with streaming and sneak by the core premise of his entire article: "I got lazy."
So he decided against the obvious, and instead, went with a less convenient alternative. I particularly liked the part where he called cassettes "compact and super-portable" by comparing them to vinyl, instead of the actual media competition: flash memory, remote spinning-rust, etc.
Does Android even have a music store anymore?
Hopefully not and never. OS-specific music (?!) stores are a very silly idea.
As a [reluctant, but what else is there?] Android user, my music comes from the same sources it would come from if I owned no phone at all.
As a nomad traveling around with a phone and ancient Surface
Ugh, I think no matters what happens, you lose. If your car has a CD player and is the main place where you usually listen to music, then it seems you would need to keep your CD collection in the car too, and that puts an upper limit on its size. Between the back seats and trunk, I could maybe fit a dozen or two beer-cases-repurposed-as-CD-boxes, but it would completely take over those spaces. And keeping even that small of a subset of the collection organized enough to be binary-searchable sure sounds annoying.
That was always the problem with CDs as a playback medium instead of just a long-term storage medium: inserting the CD back into the collection after playback. It's not terrible when you have shelving [and enough of it, since it keeps growing] but as soon as you have to pack things in boxes, it gets pretty hard to work with. I remember for a time there, before I had all my music ripped, where we were just listening to same 30 or 40 CDs sitting out in a loose unboxed pile that I jokingly called the "L1 music cache," over and over again.
Elsewhere you mention that you live in the car and simply don't have anywhere else to store things, so I guess this general kind of problem is going to be recurring. (Where do you keep your air fryer and microwave and coffee maker and stove and your wife's decorative bathroom hand towels that you're supposed to never use, the cat litter box, and the air mattress you put out when you have company staying over at your car for the weekend?) j/k but my point is that the cars have never been really CD friendly but if the car is your house and storage shed too, then
Music can't be the only thing where the market isn't catering to you. I might even go as far as suggesting the housing market as the number one mis-cater!
do you see how
.. the decision to take [CD players] away seems much more to do with power and selling subscriptions than practical engineering capability?
Oh, sure! I didn't know that you couldn't get car CDs players anymore (I'm admittedly very out of touch with the new car market), but it doesn't surprise me that they're no longer something you can just take for granted by default. No doubt pushing subscription services played a later role in de-emphasizing CD players in cars, but you should keep in mind that real consumer demand had been doing that too, ever since around the turn of the century when HD-based MP3 players started to get popular. Subscriptions to proprietary streaming services are a bit of a late-comer to the CD funeral.
Even if there were no such thing as music streaming subscriptions, a lot of people today would be using their phones even in CD-ready cars. They would just party like it's 2001, playing files ripped from CDs. I don't know if that would be enough to remove CD players from cars, but I bet at least some manufacturers would have.
If you don't have a CD drive, then you don't get to rip CDs. You'll have to acquire your files some other way. And/or buy a CD drive.
How can I rip CDs to a phone?
You don't. You rip them to your fileserver at home, and run a subsonic-API server on that. The phone connects to it over a VPN, and a subsonic API player plays it to the car with bluetooth.
seats packed to remind your knees that they are trying to maximize the headcount per square foot(see also, seats in blatantly undesirable positions relative to the screen); dickheads making noise or fucking around on their phones, some asshole who decided to bring a screaming-age child, the works.
I went to a couple movies a few months ago, and I didn't see any of that. My fat American ass had plenty of room in the reclining sear, and the next row of seats was a few feet beneath me and seemingly ten feet away. The theaters have become fucking luxurious.
But it's expensive. And I wonder if that's what's keeping the obnoxious screaming kids away.
And you're totally right about the half hour of ads. That's definitely the worst part, these days.
But the seats and space
A Plymouth Voyager. Being rather tall, being able to sit upright comfortably is important, rather than trying to lay in something smaller and less safe for my legs/head.
Animal blood is bad for the clear coat, so tying it down to the outside is bad for the vehicle and gets the animal dirty... a tarp in the back works far better.
What, in your unsupported opinion, makes the F150 Lightning "a piece of garbage"?
That was never my opinion, nor have I used the word "garbage" to describe it.
The claim earlier was "It is an excellent vehicle, all around great", some here disagreed, as did I, based on my experience at a Ford dealership. My only shared criticism here was the limited range in winter... how does that translate to me calling it "a piece of garbage"?
I have experienced zero issues over 50,000 miles. It is not a piece of garbage, it may be the best vehicle I've ever owned. I'm not saying its for you or for everyone, certainly not garbage. I wouldn't use it for towing anything very far.
You keep using the same word, over and over again here which only the OP used, once... either you grossly misread what I said here, or you are accidentally revealing your true feelings about the vehicle and expressing regret.
Given the market reaction to the Lightning, and Ford ending production... maybe not everyone is as happy with them as you are? I used to drive a Pontiac Aztek, and loved it (second best hunting vehicle I've owned), and was very sad when it finally died and had to be sold for scrap. I was a minority in that, and I recognize that, and that's ok.
Hmm, mine has a range over 300 miles, real actual miles.
In what climate?
My v8 2019 F150 doesn't flinch at doing 600 miles on a single tankful, in winter.
I bought mine used with 1100 miles, 20% off sticker.
And? You still probably ended up paying 2-4x what I did for mine.
You talked to a dealer that doesn't want to sell EVs,
In your unsupported opinion.
Why wouldn't a dealer want to sell to someone wanting to buy?
in place where most people don't like EVs.
Plenty of Tesla's in Sioux Falls, which includes at least 3 Cybertrucks... again, you keep giving opinions which don't help, or considering that the views you believe others have may have some basis in reality.
Are you surprised you got a low opinion?
No, I listen to what the opinions are of the dealer and consider it along with what else I know, without seeking to influence what they say.
Seriously, drive one.
What am I going to get from the driving experience? What untold amazement will I have that changes my mind and will compel me to go get one?
It is an excellent vehicle, all around great.
And owning and driving one is enough to convince someone of that?
I'll admit, I've never owned or driven one, though last year when shopping for a new pickup I saw one parked on a Ford dealership I was looking at. It was new so out of my price range, so I got chatting with the salesman (and didn't say my limits) about if it was any good. Turns out it was being driven by the manager, who mostly hated it. Max range he said, in winter was 100-150 miles. Maybe for city driving that's ok, but in South Dakota , a drive down to Sioux Falls for a Costco or Target run is going to give quite a bit of range anxiety.
That's 'all around great'?
Again, this was what I was getting from a Ford dealership!
Look, I know "nuclear device" is correctly generic, so that RTGs and things like them, legitimately count. But let's be serious: right around the very same time this real stuff happened, some really great fake stuff happened too: the movie Goldfinger.
And once you've watched Goldfinger, "nuclear device" is just a euphemism for a bomb. So don't go calling RTGs "nuclear devices," please.
it is pretty clear trump would pardon or vacate any fine against a right winger org.
The president does not yet have pardoning power over civil judgements. Maybe a constitutional amendment to do that is coming, but we haven't had a vote on it yet.
Some good has come from promoting more user speech online, but also a lot of bullying, harassment, echo chambers, doxxing, stochastic terrorism, and so on.
You make it sound as dangerous as a 1775 soap box that people like Sam Adams would stand upon and shout from, or a pamphlet-printing-press that someone like Thomas Paine might use, where in both cases the goal was often to rowse the rabble into protest and action.
But is the internet really that dangerous?
You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of supercomputers. -- Steven Feiner
