boo sega sega

My new and absolutely normal i swear obsession is hand routed, or otherwise free-form, circuit board layouts.

They're preying on insecurities to do it. Yes, you can write an essay - but can you write a good essay, they ask you. Do you not want to improve your output? Do you not want people to think of you as competent and very clever? Why go through the mortifying process of failing and failing and failing until you succeed if you can just skip the "learning" part of doing, and simply generate a ready-made product?

I'm preaching to the choir here obviously but it's a concerning thing to witness nonetheless. My kid is 6 next week and I've been teaching her that failing at things is morally neutral and in fact necessary even before the advent of AI, but it's becoming ever more important that we teach the kids that criticism and failure and discomfort aren't necessarily bad things, but just a part of the growth process.

Tilo Baumgärtel (b.German, 1972)

Channel, 2014

Even buying from Bandcamp in-between Bandcamp Fridays yields more profits to the artist than Spotify. Bandcamp charges artists 10% to 15% to host their music, compared to $0.003 and $0.005 per stream on Spotify.

That's right, you'd have to play the same song 200 times minimum to earn the artist $1, and 30% of that $1 earned goes to Spotify. Worse, Spotify pays the rights holder these royalties, not the artist. So if your band has a contract with a label, the LABEL gets paid, then the artist gets a percentage of that.

This article is from 2020 but illustrates the issue with an example. The spotlighted artist earned $4200 from Bandcamp via 700 customers in two days. The same artist earned $100 from roughly six years of streaming.

Also, while you can stream from Bandcamp, you can keep your music! Download the mp3 and it's yours forever.

Also also, there's no ads!

Also also also, there's no AI!