|
I recently learned that Netflix on web browsers is limited to 720p. You might pay for 1080p or 4k, you might select them, but it'll still be 720p. Unless you use Edge. This is mentioned nowhere when you buy it. It has something to do with unnecessary DRM mechanisms that only hurt the paying customer. Similarly, if you pay for content on YouTube it'll apparently be 480p on PCs. HD is a feature for mobile devices and "select smart TVs" (no, we won't tell you which ones). So specifically the stuff you pay for is poo poo quality. I don't pay for any streaming stuff anymore. I just don't watch shows. I kinda miss out, but they've made it suck too much.
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 10:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 11:37 |
|
|
Pirated media: I don’t have such weaknesses.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 10:38
|
|
|
Elukka posted:I don't pay for any streaming stuff anymore. I just don't watch shows. I kinda miss out, but they've made it suck too much. Same except I don't feel I am missing out either anymore.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 10:49
|
|
|
If pirating is better, I'm going to keep doing it. I pay for Spotify and Steam games because they work how I want them to.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 11:35
|
|
|
Yeah Spotify is a nightmare to work with as an artist, but as a consumer the user experience is fantastic. I can never get Spotify Wrapped to work though, I use the service so little is probably the main problem.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 13:33
|
|
|
My experience with Spotify has been that the generated playlists/recommendations etc have been utter loving poo poo. Listened to some noise? You'll love the deftones! Industrial? How about 5000 new darkwave/postpunk bands, or loving rob zombie.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 13:58
|
|
|
I buy the record or DVD or blu-ray if I can or pay a visit to my sources. I have Amazon Prime and sometimes I can watch a movie available on it, but I'm at the mercy of the same rotation of films as I was with Netflix.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 15:35
|
|
|
W424 posted:My experience with Spotify has been that the generated playlists/recommendations etc have been utter loving poo poo. Listened to some noise? You'll love the deftones! Most algorithms are poo poo in this way. Watch a history video? Enjoy the next 6 months of guns and cops and military worship videos!
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 15:38
|
|
|
Spotify's Discover Weekly used to rule with how simple it was - songs you didn't play on the platform before, liked by users who also enjoyed the majority of your likes - but they apparently changed it in 2019 to include machine learning for audio feature recognition 
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 16:17
|
|
|
Google wants a picture of my passport to allow me the privilege of continuing to pay them for things like I have for the past decade. Haha yes I'm definitely going to do that
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 16:23
|
|
|
I've been reading about the tech nightmare of being accused of or arrested for theft from self-checkout systems. I'm not talking about people who intentionally steal from self-checkout systems; I'm talking about shoppers who accidentally forget to scan something and face criminal charges for it. This is a 2022 story about Tuscon, Arizona Walmart shoppers who have been sent to court over self-checkout mistakes. The story also mentions that there were 62 police cite-and-releases at a single Walmart from January 2021 to April 2022. https://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/tucson-walmart-self-checkout-shoppers-cited-and-sent-to-court-for-mistakes This is the 2022 story of a woman who claims she faced charges because she forgot to scan one Lunchable, worth $1.98 at the time. https://www.dailydot.com/irl/forgot-to-scan-lunchable-self-checkout-charged-banned-walmart/ This article describes a bizarre edge case where the self-checkout scanner was flagging the customer's wallet (which was tucked under her arm) as unscanned merchandise. Walmart didn't even sell that type of wallet. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/walmart-shoppers-say-they-feel-treated-like-thieves-when-self-checkout-mistakes-happen/ar-AA1iDYBp This is a lawyer's blog advice about what to do when accused of self-checkout theft (do not leave the store, remain calm, stay in a public part of the store if you feel unsafe, assert your right to remain silent in the face of any police questions). https://www.coreycohen.com/blog/2021/12/how-to-respond-to-false-accusations-of-self-checkout-theft/ This is an article about a lawyer on Tiktok who strongly advises against using self-checkout at all (that's how I started reading about this, I saw her Tiktok video on Youtube). https://www.dailydot.com/irl/self-checkout-stores-prosecution/ This lawyer, Arkansas-based Carrie Jernigan, goes on to describe an even more tech-nightmarish situation. I haven't found anything else online about this happening, so I'm not sure how credible the possibility is; maybe someone here has the knowledge to better evaluate Jernigan's claim? Jernigan says that some shoppers are targeted for theft allegations long after the day of their shopping trip. Carrie Jernigan posted:It is something that, say, asset protection is doing a quality control check or inventory weeks, days, months later comes up short, so they will begin watching hours of video to see the last person who checked out with the Mario Lego set because they’re too short, or an Xbox game, and for some reason, they pinpoint that they think you did it. Allegedly shoppers who pay with cash at self-checkouts are especially vulnerable to this. TLDR - Don't use self-checkouts, you could be falsely accused of theft and sent to court or prison.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 17:01
|
|
|
I actually just had this happen last weekend. I took my daughter to the store to grab a few things, and went through SCO. It flagged my purchase at the end and had a harried-looking SCO monitor come over and scan her badge, then run off. I had put my daughter's coat in the shopping basket, and the camera over the checkout thought it was unscanned merch and made a worker come over and approve my transaction. Not that the worker even looked at anything, just scanned, approved, and ran off to the next checkout that was flagging something. Being the Saturday before New Year's made the store a zoo, and I'm sure the machine flagging winter coats in carts, in Minnesota, in December, wasn't making her job any easier.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 17:13
|
|
|
Tuxedo Gin posted:Most algorithms are poo poo in this way. Watch a history video? Enjoy the next 6 months of guns and cops and military worship videos! Yeah because they don't, or at least don't anymore, operate on the basis of trying to figure out what kind of content you'll "like", their goal is to create a pipeline towards known categories of content that will statistically keep you watching the longest and most consistently. Everyone is being compared to some "Spiders George" amalgamation of users who never stop watching and the algorithm's job is to make you into one. The only variation is in what particular version of Spiders George you fit closest to, and eventually once it has you there it wants to push you towards the right-wing, hate-watch, politi-drama sphere where you're binging Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, and Prager U all day every day along with brief breaks for rage bait clips of traffic accidents and "people behaving badly in public that is basically just RaHoWa rage bait but skirts by without explicitly saying that, but the comments are full of racists throwing the mask away". Algorithms can't not push in that direction, no matter how much tweaking the platforms profess they do, because the main command is only ever "Don't Stop Watching", and that basically means content that creates and feeds into "Angry, Scared, and Hateful" loops. Well, not 100% exclusively anymore. We have seen people finding better ways to abuse the algorithm now that the concept of "Everything is Content" is maturing and short form content platforms are taking up more mental real estate. So the other option is an endless scroll of content sludge with 5+ different videos smashed into one with an AI voice reading off the Hot list of reddit posts from top subreddits. So your final evolution is either Rage-Monster MAGA chud or Dopamine-Fried Sludge puddle if you don't take a lot of effort to avoid the rabbit hole and police your recommendations.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 17:48
|
|
|
Or you can just get really into vtubers. Their long form video content and constant uploads are candy for the algorithm and once you go deep enough in the vtuber hole you can't get back out.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 20:01
|
|
|
Kwyndig posted:Or you can just get really into vtubers. Their long form video content and constant uploads are candy for the algorithm and once you go deep enough in the vtuber hole you can't get back out. Ah yes, the Tom Scott effect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-IEVMwBEfo My recommended list is filled with "deep lore" videos, amateur documentaries, let's plays, and so much other vaguely interesting stuff that I can put on without having to think or keep track of what's happening, and I'm actually quite here for it. Background TV noise, except it's about why <40k thing here>, or some guy with an extremely deep voice narrating a 4chan poo poo post. Volmarias fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Jan 2, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 20:37
|
|
|
Yeah, as long as you're willing to tell YouTube that you're not interested in a video type or channel, and you're careful about deleting stuff from your watch history that you don't want recommendations from, then you can get a really solid home feed of relevant content. Mine is all documentaries about nature and science and (non-military) history, movie and TV esoterica, retro technology, etc. It's still ridiculous that I can't actually filter by the subject of my choice (unless it happens to pop up on their homepage ribbon of keyword pills that it thinks I might be interested in at any given moment) but it does the job for vaguely-interesting stuff to watch while I'm stoned and looking at stuff on my phone. Certainly better than the recommendations I get on any other streaming video platform. I mean, the larger point still stands that the algorithms push people to extreme political radicalization videos by default, which is in fact, bad. But at least individuals can avoid that if they're willing to put the effort in.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 20:51
|
|
|
feedmyleg posted:Yeah, as long as you're willing to tell YouTube that you're not interested in a video type or channel, and you're careful about deleting stuff from your watch history that you don't want recommendations from, then you can get a really solid home feed of relevant content. Mine is all documentaries about nature and science and (non-military) history, movie and TV esoterica, retro technology, etc. It's still ridiculous that I can't actually filter by the subject of my choice (unless it happens to pop up on their homepage ribbon of keyword pills that it thinks I might be interested in at any given moment) but it does the job for vaguely-interesting stuff to watch while I'm stoned and looking at stuff on my phone. Certainly better than the recommendations I get on any other streaming video platform. Can you recommend any good channels for nature and science stuff? I have a solid feed for houseplants and architecture but good science and nature stuff sounds awesome
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 20:56
|
|
|
Papercut posted:Can you recommend any good channels for nature and science stuff? No, but I can point you to a bunch of "<wildly speculative "science" "journalism"> is coming?! <profession> reacts!" Also, some decent voice actors / actresses singing covers of things, and the "gone metal" guitar guy
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 20:59
|
|
|
Youtube is my primary source of media I watch these days. I just have a handful of car and house DIY channels I watch pretty religiously -- whereas I can barely manage any traditional TV shows / Movies.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 21:08
|
|
|
One thing I recommend on YT is to avoid the "recommended for you" page and panels. Instead always go to your subscriptions and pick a video off of that list to watch. And turn off autoplay. If you want recommendations, use the search bar and look up a topic that interests you and try a few videos off of that.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 21:47
|
|
|
My Subscriptions tab is primarily how I watch YouTube, but I keep up with everything I subscribe to and still want to watch more, so my recommendations are also pretty important.Papercut posted:Can you recommend any good channels for nature and science stuff? Sure thing! Ancient Man: North 02, Stefan Milo Animals: Animalogic, BBC Earth, Bizarre Beasts, Henry the PaleoGuy Ecology and Geography: Atlas Pro Paleontology: Ben G Thomas, Edge Science, Moth Light Media Space: Cool Worlds, V101 Space Various: Kurzgesagt, PBS Eons, History of the Universe, The Royal Institution, Seeker Always looking for recommendations on my end, too.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 21:55
|
|
|
feedmyleg posted:My Subscriptions tab is primarily how I watch YouTube, but I keep up with everything I subscribe to and still want to watch more, so my recommendations are also pretty important. Legal Eagle does great long form videos on the legal aspects of various current events Institute of Human Anatomy if you want to learn more about the gross poo poo you're made of and how to improve it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 22:09
|
|
|
Papercut posted:Can you recommend any good channels for nature and science stuff?
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 22:14
|
|
|
Nervous posted:Legal Eagle does great long form videos on the legal aspects of various current events
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 22:14
|
|
|
feedmyleg posted:My Subscriptions tab is primarily how I watch YouTube, but I keep up with everything I subscribe to and still want to watch more, so my recommendations are also pretty important. Nice thanks!
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 22:25
|
|
|
It's very funny that Youtube arbitrarily turned off the Home page for all users (unless you turn Watch History on) because I used to use the Home page in exactly the way Youtube intended. I'd get bored of/run out of videos on my subscriptions page, and then I'd surf the home page until I found something interesting to watch. This would often promote content to me that I enjoyed, and I would subscribe to these new Youtube channels, and I would pad out my subscriptions page a bit more. Like, the most barebones, easy cookie-cutter example of "this is how we tell people the system works" and then they just took that part away unless I turn on Watch History. It clearly worked just fine before they made the change. This also means that they clearly benefit from the Watch History in a way that both Viewers and Creators on their platform cannot. It could not be a larger red flag to me, the dipshit consumer using their product in the manner that Youtube claims is the "intended way". I don't think it could more clearly be a trap unless it had some of those Looney Tunes arrow-signs pointing to it with a marquee saying "TRAP AHEAD"
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 22:31
|
|
|
Whoever is running YouTube is a drat fool. People are getting sooooooo sick of commercials on TV, streaming issues, etc. and they could vacuum up tons of market share from people who just want vaguely interesting background noise attuned to their interests but instead they're killing the goose that laid the golden egg. I've been a heavy YouTube user for years and pay for premium, but paying to remove ads sucks and id be happier to pay more for the ability to access indexed content directly and bypass / customize algorithms.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 00:04
|
|
|
Kwyndig posted:One thing I recommend on YT is to avoid the "recommended for you" page and panels. Instead always go to your subscriptions and pick a video off of that list to watch. And turn off autoplay. If you want recommendations, use the search bar and look up a topic that interests you and try a few videos off of that. I'm very annoyed they turned off the recommended page because i don't have viewing or search history on, because now I can't blacklist channels. Seriously tempted to turn history on so I can keep telling YouTube to never recommend various channels to me 
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 00:19
|
|
|
I think a more interesting question than how these rabbit-holes come to exist, is why they come to exist. The algorithm is agnostic -- it wants you watching poo poo, we can assume. How does it come to know that certain topics lead into weird poo poo like conspiracy theories, nazism, right-wing lunacy, and that sort of thing? I've definitely seen the effect, and I've noticed that some corners of YouTube are more or less resilient to it. Guitar YouTube takes time and effort to reach the promotion of national socialism, Gaming YouTube.... doesn't! What uncomfortable truths about society are we failing to discuss when we simply blame the algorithms?
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 00:30
|
|
|
PT6A posted:I think a more interesting question than how these rabbit-holes come to exist, is why they come to exist. The algorithm is agnostic -- it wants you watching poo poo, we can assume. How does it come to know that certain topics lead into weird poo poo like conspiracy theories, nazism, right-wing lunacy, and that sort of thing? I've definitely seen the effect, and I've noticed that some corners of YouTube are more or less resilient to it. Guitar YouTube takes time and effort to reach the promotion of national socialism, Gaming YouTube.... doesn't! My suggestions had been totally normal stuff until I noticed yesterday that I was suddenly suggested two Tucker Carlson videos. The only new stuff I had watched was I tuned into some Philly sports postgame stuff to hear tears about the Eagles. I listen to Niners stuff all the time and never got recommended any of that rightwing poo poo, but apparently showing an interest in the Eagles was enough to immediately send me into the Tuckersphere.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 00:45
|
|
|
PT6A posted:The algorithm is agnostic -- it wants you watching poo poo, we can assume. How does it come to know that certain topics lead into weird poo poo like conspiracy theories, nazism, right-wing lunacy, and that sort of thing?
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 00:49
|
|
|
People like different poo poo so there's going to be an intersection of interests for basically everything.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 00:49
|
|
|
withoutclass posted:People like different poo poo so there's going to be an intersection of interests for basically everything. Right, but what I'm saying is that that there's certain unrelated topics that clearly have distinct intersections, and others that absolutely don't. Like this here: Papercut posted:My suggestions had been totally normal stuff until I noticed yesterday that I was suddenly suggested two Tucker Carlson videos. The only new stuff I had watched was I tuned into some Philly sports postgame stuff to hear tears about the Eagles. I listen to Niners stuff all the time and never got recommended any of that rightwing poo poo, but apparently showing an interest in the Eagles was enough to immediately send me into the Tuckersphere. The algorithm has determined that there's some crossover there, even if it's not clear why. You can either blame the algorithm for feeding on people's worst instincts, or you can say that it's simply revealing something that's already there. And, yeah, I've absolutely seen this sort of thing before, but I've also noticed its absence, which is the thing I find most interesting. There seem to be some topics where the algorithm does not detect a weird and unpleasant intersection of interests, which leads me to believe that it's not simply the malign intent of the algorithm trying to corrupt Eagles fans, or similar. For example, with the well-known gaming-to-alt-right pipeline, perhaps it's more worth examining what makes gamers susceptible to that poo poo specifically, rather than blaming the algorithm for the latent issue.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 01:04
|
|
|
PT6A posted:For example, with the well-known gaming-to-alt-right pipeline, perhaps it's more worth examining what makes gamers susceptible to that poo poo specifically, rather than blaming the algorithm for the latent issue. Yeah I feel like the genesis of the gamer-to-nazi pipeline becoming a feature of several different algorithms points to an earlier cause. Recommendation algorithms basically end up amplifying, accelerating and augmenting trends that are already extant and building in safeguards/off ramps would likely require case by case examinations of "recommendation pipelines" for triage.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 01:42
|
|
|
Kagrenak posted:Yeah I feel like the genesis of the gamer-to-nazi pipeline becoming a feature of several different algorithms points to an earlier cause. Recommendation algorithms basically end up amplifying, accelerating and augmenting trends that are already extant and building in safeguards/off ramps would likely require case by case examinations of "recommendation pipelines" for triage. Precisely. And I've also seen recent fears of the Red Menace (via TikTok) spreading pro-DPRK propaganda, Bin Laden's letter to America, and stuff like that, and seeing some success. Pragmatically, we need to figure out who's getting targeted for some right-wing bullshit and why, and who's getting targeted for some Stalinist bullshit and why, because the algorithms are really successful in identifying who is vulnerable to what message even if you might see a broad demographic overlap of disaffected young people. Ultimately, propaganda is ideologically targeted, and we're all victims in some degree. We see the propaganda that's obvious bullshit, and hateful to us, and we say "my god, it's a disgrace!" and we get captured by that which actually targets us. If you don't think this has happened to you, you're the mark.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 01:59
|
|
|
TACD posted:Can’t remember who said the quote but basically “the algorithm notices that people stop to look at car crashes so it tries to generate more of them” This is how audible suggestions work: you buy a book from genre A, and it assumes that's all you want to buy from then on. They're not programmed to wait until there's a statistically significant history to recommend for.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 02:21
|
|
|
Mister Facetious posted:This is how audible suggestions work: you buy a book from genre A, and it assumes that's all you want to buy from then on. I think you're complaining about two separate systems. One says, "hey, you liked this. Would you like this similar thing?" Wayfair comes to mind. "Hey, you bought a table? How many tables would you like? 6? 20? 100? Here's all the loving tables, rear end in a top hat! You can buy so many goddamn tables you won't have any floor left, you'll just be walking on tables all the time! Tables upon tables! Three layers thick!" Now, that obviously doesn't work for tables. Once I have a table, I don't need to buy another table. But it does work for other poo poo that I like to spend money on, like guitars. "Hey, you bought this guitar. Can I recommend buying: another guitar?" Well, yes; yes you can, and it will probably work. It's not particularly artful, really, which is why the really strong algorithms exist, that try to divine links out of weird datasets. Those also work very well, but we don't like how they work because when they go wrong, it offends us and/or we smell a conspiracy theory.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 02:37
|
|
|
It's possible that there just isn't as much of an organized leftist indoctrination pipeline for the algorithm to funnel people into.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 03:03
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:It's possible that there just isn't as much of an organized leftist indoctrination pipeline for the algorithm to funnel people into. And they're all moving to Curiosity Stream anyway
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 03:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 11:37 |
|
|
You mean Nebula, Curiosity Stream is strictly for documentaries and is a separate (or more expensive) subscription.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 03:12
|
|