Author: Seth Werkheiser

SPOTIFY IS HORRIBLE

Hearing Things is done with Spotify; “we will no longer be making playlists on Spotify or linking to the platform.”

Also, “Don’t publish your podcast only on Spotify“

“Spotify uses dark patterns to make it difficult to distribute podcasts hosted on its platform to rival apps.”

Just because streaming music is convenient doesn’t mean it’s great.

The idea that it helps bands get discovered is one thing, sure, but is handing over music discovery to computer algorithms a good idea? And then what? The band gets a zillion listens and makes $12?

STOP PRAYING TO ALGORITHMS

I see this so much on Substack Notes: “I wish the algorithm…”

STOP! Stop wishing a computer in the cloud is going to deliver your new favorite band, some cool new writer – the algorithim can only process 1s and 0s, and by doing so turns all “content” into 1s and 0s, so just stop with this belief that if only the algorithm were better you’d be able to know about better stuff.

It’s all bullshit. Don’t rely on computers to discern editorial quality, or help you discover.

Don’t let AI take these jobs of editors, curators, DJs, writers, and various other conveyors of taste and fine art.

Via Stephen Moore’s Trend Mill:

“A lot of people seem to actually enjoy AI-generated content, and are ready to eat up more. We should have seen that coming. There’s a simple explanation — too many people have become so lost in platforms, so dictated to by algorithms, ‘for you’ feeds and suggested content, that we’re collectively losing our taste.”

Everything has been reduced to bits. Cleaned up, covered with a vanilla scent, and optimized to keep you tied into whatever platform you think is somehow “good.”

Friends are filters. People are guides. Pick up something in print that still requires some editorial discernment, or find your local college radio station. Email the writers of the newsletters you like. Go find some blogs again.

Moore is right, we’re collectively losing our taste, and we’re become helpless babies being spoon fed whatever media someone else wants us to consume.

FAT WRECK CHORDS SELLS CATALOG, WIPE OUT BAND DEBT

I’m not much of a punk rock guy, but I know this is pretty cool.

As part of the sale, all bands on Fat that are “in debt” to the label, will have their debt wiped out. That is, if a band had an advance that was not yet recouped, that balanced owed is zeroed, so that if the band sells a single royalty at Hopeless, they will begin earning royalties immediately. (Often when a band signs with an independent label, the expense of record production is granted as an “advance.” When the band’s music earns money, the money earned is first counted against the advance. So, a band usually does not earn any money until the advance is paid back through royalties earned on record sales).

Even more interesting is that Erin and Mike essentially paid off the debts themselves. That is, say the cost of Hopeless buying Fat was valued at $100. In this sale, Hopeless only paid $80 to Erin and Mike, due to the fact that Erin and Mike required that band debt be wiped out upon the sale. As far as record label sales, this is a rather monumental and magnanimous move on the part of Erin and Mike. In fact, the debt forgiveness cost Erin and Mike about $3.5 million.

via Punk News

THERE’S ANOTHER WAY

“But what if there’s another way? We’re clearly starving for something different online. A 19-minute ambient song with a static image of a whale has 3.1M views on YouTube – people choosing to spend nearly 20 minutes with literally nothing happening while the rest of the platform optimises for peak stimulation. This is evidence of a deep hunger for ‘digital quiet’. Online spaces that offer contemplation instead of consumption.”

This from “The Restaurant with No Music” by Simon James French.

He also linked to this Google Doc called ‘Ambient-ish music to do work to,’ with all sorts of links to playlists and albums and.. Plants.fm??

That’s right – there’s a device you can buy called Plant Wave.

“PlantWave measures biological changes within plants, graphs them as a wave and translates the wave into pitch.

With PlantWave, every single note you hear is a real-time expression of a shift in a plant. The more active a plant is at any particular moment, the more notes you’ll hear. When a plant is less active, it will often drone or even stop producing notes.”

I literally just want to hook one of these up to a plant next to a creek, set up my camera, and take a nap for an hour.

MAKE THE HEART MOVE

“What does it mean to have a positive impact on a life? How intimate does that connection need to be? Understanding your scale — the scale that moves you — is critical to understanding with whom and how you should work, how you should live.”

Earlier in this piece, Craig Mod talks about working at Flipboard and hitting a million users, saying, “I didn’t feel my heart move.”

So then searching for the things that make your heart move, whether it’s one person a day or a 100 or a 1000. Helping add light to the world, add joy to the darkness, somehow, someway.

DO HARD THINGS

There’s a “mountain” here. I call it Leaser Lake Mountain, since the lake is at the base of the dirt road that goes up and over. The Appalaciahan Trail runs along the top, too. It’s magical.

Last April I got back to running, but decided I’m gonna go for elevation instead of mileage. How many feet can I climb in a year? By the end of 2024 I had climbed 83,000′ of elevation. This year I’m already at 78,000′, getting comfortable with 5000′ per week lately.

Since it’s been so hot here in Northeast PA, I didn’t get much running in. Finally on Saturday there was a break, so I went up and down my Leaser Lake Mountain three times, something I’ve never done before. That’s 11.3 miles, and 2,605′ of climbing,

The fantasy was to do that again today, Sunday, so I could hit my 5,000′ goal, but that absolutely didn’t happen. I still hit 3,229′ which is still solid, and finally got back to another 30 mile week. Happy with both of those numbers.

THE HEAT BROKE

We had a thunderstorm and then the temp dropped 20 degrees. We could finally turn off the AC units and open the windows. Breath the slightly less hot air. We got a nice sunset, too. Some nice clouds out there, being soft and calm.

CHROME OS FLEX ON A 2008 IMAC

I bought my parents this iMac back in 2008. They’ve both passed, and now it’s mine. I was able to retrieve most of the old photos and such from it, but without the iCloud password I wasn’t able to update anything, or even allow some location service settings.

I tried to reinstall OS X Leopard, but even finding the right file was difficult. Then trying to set up a “bootable USB drive” became a nightmare. Formatting, terminal stuff, nothing worked out.

Then I got curious and started to look to see if I could install another OS, and well, turns out installing ChromeOS Flex on the iMac was super easy.

Setting up the boot disk was easy. Then rebooting the iMac to the thumb drive was a snap, installation was a breeze, and now I have a machine where I can update it and make it secure as needed – at least for a Google OS machine.

I’m mostly going to use it to display Weather Star 4000 while working. It’s just so soothing having that going in the background. I may also use it for notes and such for Zoom calls. Something that’s not tied directly to the machine that I use for my growing Zoom call meetings.

PLAY THE PLATFORM GAME AT YOUR PERIL

It all comes back to the web:

“The web platform … offers the grain of a medium — book, movie, album — rather than the seduction of a casino. The web platform makes no demands because it offers nothing beyond the opportunity to do good work. Certainly it offers no attention — that, you have to find on your own. Here is your printing press.”

In this piece Robin Sloan also speaks of choosing to pay to send his newsletter, rather than doing it for free via Substack. Ahem.

That last part, though… how the web “offers no attention — that, you have to find on your own. Here is your printing press.”

That’s where we hear the biggest whining. Oh, how it’s so difficult to be found, to be discovered. To do so, you must play the game. You must be a part of the casino, and the house always wins. And even if they lose, so do you (unless you built an email list in the process).

Now, if you just want to send a tiny newsletter, blog a bit, sure… have at it. Just know that there are forces at play consolidating and monetizing every pixel and every button. You won’t get bit today, but there’s no promise you won’t get bit tomorrow.

I’m on Substack long enough to move my original posts to my own WordPress site. I export my email list near daily at this point. My paid membership is now handled by Memberful. Someday my email list will be moved to Buttondown.

Yes, my website could go down. So could Buttondown. The power could go out. The sun will someday expand to engulf planet earth, too. This isn’t about perfect systems, it’s about creating a system I can live with, and feel okay about. Capitalism is rotten, and I wish I didn’t need to make all these moves and pay all this money, but this is reality, and groceries ain’t getting any cheaper.

Link via Brad Barrish