[deleted]
Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam
151–160 of 332 posts
Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam
#152[deleted]
Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why can't I delete comments in HN? If from the responses to my comment I learned that I add nothing to do conversation, I want to be able to delete my comments. Am I missing something?
For what it's worth, I think it's neat that you shared that the knowledge necessary to build a Shazam-like thing is something an undergraduate might do as a homework assignment. I had thought it would be a lot more complicated. :)
If you're interested, you can search Berkeley EE16A and if you're lucky you'll find the homework assignment (Berkeley's class materials are always open to public). It was like a Jupyter notebook and the "song" was I think random 5 seconds of Universal Declarations of Human Rights, or something like that. I'm writing this in case it helps your search, I'm at work so I don't have time to search it myself. I took this class a while ago and am alumni so my memory is fuzzy about the details of this assignment.
Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam
#154Mmm, Price? :-)
Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam
#155Shazam is the closest thing we have to witchcraft. I'm sure plenty of HNers will chime in with "well acktually..." type comments about how they could write it in their basement in a weekend, but to do what it does, as quickly as it does, on the ridiculously enormous library of music that it does is really something special.
My data point: I often go to parties where they play African and world music. Shazam fails more often than not ... The interesting thing is: most of these songs are on YouTube, so in theory Google could build a better Shazam.
Exactly! Maybe if you listen to the billboard hits you'll always find a match, but IME it rarely matches the songs I actually don't know and can't find details on.
Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pedant baited.
Why can't I delete comments in HN? If from the responses to my comment I learned that I add nothing to do conversation, I want to be able to delete my comments. Am I missing something?
I think you have a few minutes to delete comments, but as soon as someone replies to you that link goes away.
I think it's a good thing, because often there are good comments in response to downvoted comments. Letting people delete comments would make the discussion hard to follow.
Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam
#157Shazam is the closest thing we have to witchcraft. I'm sure plenty of HNers will chime in with "well acktually..." type comments about how they could write it in their basement in a weekend, but to do what it does, as quickly as it does, on the ridiculously enormous library of music that it does is really something special.
I agree with you, and I work in music audio signal processing. Shazam was founded in 1999-2000 ish and was live by 2002, longer ago than many people realise. The fingerprinting method they used was a novel one, and they successfully deployed it in a couple of years, with a database of two million tracks, in a system that could be used by dialling a number from any phone. It's an extraordinary and rare example of taki…
THAT is the kind of startup I wish I could work for.
Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam
#158I remember feeling that way the first time I used Uber (in SF where getting a taxi was difficult and unreliable). A few taps on my phone and a car shows up to my exact location in 2 minutes?! And that's it? No calling dispatch and hoping they'd show up eventually (sometimes they didn't). No fumbling with cash or tip or anything. It was like magic.
A shame that uber and the whole gig economy is so shit, circumventing basic employment rights and both minimum and living wages. I mean I like the basic idea and I agree that the taxi business needed the disruption, but it's opened the gates to people working well below a living wage because there's nothing else. That is, there's plenty of people that are willing to work below minimum wage because it's the only thing…
Could someone conceivably build a reference implementation FOSS client and server so that anybody could start their own Uber / Lyft. It would eliminate the friction to get going.
Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
A shame that uber and the whole gig economy is so shit, circumventing basic employment rights and both minimum and living wages. I mean I like the basic idea and I agree that the taxi business needed the disruption, but it's opened the gates to people working well below a living wage because there's nothing else. That is, there's plenty of people that are willing to work below minimum wage because it's the only thing…
I don't understand this logic generally and in this case it makes even less sense. 10 years ago, Uber literally didn't exist. How, in any way, is Uber forcefully underpaying it's employees/contractors? People flocked to drive for Uber; where is the oppression here? This is the same "Walmart doesn't pay its workers and destroys local businesses argument". People work there, and people shop there. Walmart didn't make a…
That's assuming there's an infinite supply of jobs.
When you're in financial difficulty - say your 0 hour contract doesn't bring enough money to pay the bills - you'll take whatever terms and conditions Uber is giving to you. Because you need to fulfill your basic needs.
I don't think that many Uber drivers are doing it by choice, they just don't talk about it to avoid bumming clients and getting a poor rating.
I'd like the slickness of the Uber app with a bit more ethics and I would be a good client.
Re: Apple has completed its acquisition of Shazam
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I know these sort of situations are rare for the average HN user. A generalization if I ever saw one.
Have you ever heard about the concept of the "joke?" Novelty thing, I tell you. Admittedly, it might be a bit too recent of a concept for the average person to be aware of, especially with how radical it is. Here's a recent book of them, to help you get "in" on the "hip slang" of tomorrow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philogelos
Have you heard of Poe’s law?