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Audiblegate

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Re: Audiblegate

#201

Post by bitcharmer »

bawolff wrote: post #173
bitcharmer wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, the quote is quite limited in terms of conveying the idea. It never says anything about verification or trust. It basically says: "never assume malice if it's possible that incompetence took place". That's pretty naïve way to see the world, especially in this day and age.

> never assume malice if it's possible that incompetence took place". Reading the quote literally i disagree. There is miles of difference between "adequately explained" and "possible" > That's pretty naïve way to see the world, especially in this day and age. I would actually argue the other way is naive. Assuming that all bad things that happen in the world are because of an evil person is what happens in movies an…

Your sentiment is quite common among people raised in comfy, western parts of the world.

I now live here and am astonished by the amount of adult, supposedly life-experienced people going into full shock that always comes with comments like: "I would never expect our government to do such thing!".

It's time to grow up. I bet you think billionaires are good people and real justice takes place in the courts of law. Also, rich people face the same consequences as the rest of us. No?

Re: Audiblegate

#202

Post by kkjjkgjjgg »

Why wouldn't royalities be based in "net sales"? I didn't finish reading the linked article to the end, because it is so long without much substance. Does it actually describe any of the alleged manipulation of the "net sales" numbers?

In the first half or so, all they mention is that "returned" or "exchanged" books don't count, which seems reasonable.

Re: Audiblegate

#203

Post by cassiogo »

conor_f wrote: post #197

Can everyone please just stop using Amazon products already? I'm sick of hearing people complain about them and still say "but they're too convenient" or "I've no other option!". You do. Stop using Amazon and related products. Tell everyone you can to stop using Amazon and related products.

Do you have any audible alternatives to suggest?

Re: Audiblegate

#204

Post by germanier »

iqanq wrote: post #160
eru wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VAT is baked into retail prices in Germany. And retail prices are typically either something round or end in .99 or so; ie not arbitrary. So it's unlikely their German prices would just take the same input as eg Dutch prices and changed the VAT around.

I know how VAT works. If the government changes the VAT overnight then prices won't round to .99 until merchants (or Amazon themselves) change the base price again. I don't see the issue.

Usually in B2C prices are quoted and agreed upon as gross price (including tax). If the tax rate is lowered, this then raises the base price.

Re: Audiblegate

#205

Post by [deleted] »

makeitdouble wrote: post #51
ALittleLight wrote: post #27

I worked on a tool at Amazon once that incorrectly calculated royalties, not because Amazon was greedily trying to steal from publishers, but just because of general incompetence (or, lack of sufficient competence maybe). Basically, of the people who wrote the tool, tested the tool, and used the tool, none of them knew exactly how royalties should be calculated and none of them could tell whether or not they were bei…

I think it happens a lot more than people want to acknowledge. I worked on a discount calculating service with no prior knowledge.It was supposed to replicate an existing system, so we went through the oroginal specs and general litterature to get a sense of what we were supposed to make. First day of test with a employee in the field, and it appears that they have specific calculation rules that are so obvious to th…

[deleted]

Re: Audiblegate

#206

Post by alexcosan »

bitcharmer wrote: post #111
tjbiddle wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Never assume malice for that which can be better explained by incompetence"

I don't like this saying because it generalises too much. For example, if you follow this line of thought you'd never investigate murderous cops simply because their cameras where turned off due to their incompetence rather than purposeful, malicious action.

I see this more as "do not assume until there's evidence of malice". Not that you should not look for evidence - basically, innocent until proven guilty. There's a tendency to judge every ignorant act as malice when, a lot of times, it's just that - ignorance/incompetence.

Not talking specifically about this case, although it may apply, we just read a twitter thread.

Re: Audiblegate

#207

Post by salamandersauce »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #182
playpause wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My housemate is an audiobook recording engineer. I just asked him about it. He says in the best case, with a skilled narrator, an hour of audiobook can take only 1 hour 10 minutes to record. In the worst case it can take up to three hours. I asked him if it could ever take up to five hours and he said no way, never.

Your housemate doesn't re-listen the recorded book, doesn't make edits, doesn't clear up passages, cut and rearrange unwanted silences? He is either wildly underestimating it by only taking the "talk into a microphone" part in consideration, or I feel terribly sorry for anyone listening to his audiobooks.

Does the narrator need to be involved in making edits, re-listen to recorded book, cutting and rearranging unwanted silences? Other than the occasional line redo if something is flubbed or off I don't see how that involves the narrator?

Re: Audiblegate

#208

Post by breakfastduck »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #182
playpause wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My housemate is an audiobook recording engineer. I just asked him about it. He says in the best case, with a skilled narrator, an hour of audiobook can take only 1 hour 10 minutes to record. In the worst case it can take up to three hours. I asked him if it could ever take up to five hours and he said no way, never.

Your housemate doesn't re-listen the recorded book, doesn't make edits, doesn't clear up passages, cut and rearrange unwanted silences? He is either wildly underestimating it by only taking the "talk into a microphone" part in consideration, or I feel terribly sorry for anyone listening to his audiobooks.

That's not the narrators job though, is it? And the comment was about the narrators input.

Re: Audiblegate

#209

Post by conor_f »

cassiogo wrote: post #203
conor_f wrote: post #197

Can everyone please just stop using Amazon products already? I'm sick of hearing people complain about them and still say "but they're too convenient" or "I've no other option!". You do. Stop using Amazon and related products. Tell everyone you can to stop using Amazon and related products.

Do you have any audible alternatives to suggest?

I don't personally listen to audio books, so hopefully someone can chime in with some helpful alternatives?

From a quick search though, it looks like https://libro.fm/ is where I would start looking with an Audible alternative as it seems to align with my ideals and has a decent selection. There does seem to be a good few options though so have a look yourself if nobody has further suggestions :)

Re: Audiblegate

#210

Post by withinboredom »

makeitdouble wrote: post #158
radicalbyte wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a universal problem, it's so universal that there's even a field of development which solves the problem - Domain-Driven Design. It's not exactly rocket-science either - you basically involve domain experts in the development proces directly, and codify their knowledge in a form that they can understand (be that very explicit models, or focussed domain-specific languages).

You're right, but I think the hard part is still to find people to bridge the gap between the system experts and domain experts. An extreme example would be if you're trying to introduce a logistics management system in a shop that was exclusively using pen and paper. You'll need someone with a foot in both world to even get to the point where they can look at your models and/or documentation and say "yes, it matches…

As someone who has done this a few times from pen/paper/excel to actual DDD software, it's really not that hard to shoulder surf and ask lots of questions about edge cases. At least initially. Though my favorite answer to those questions is: "never happens." Thus you end up with `BobSaidNeverHappensException` just to be cute.

But really, the software is there to solve a problem, so you end up shoulder surfing while the "expert" uses both systems simultaneously, and they're asking you questions and you're thinking about how you may rearrange the UI from their feedback. It's extremely iterative. The "domain expert" also becomes an expert with the software as they learn about all the things you implement.

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