News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by Beltalowda on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:18PM (#33555047)
For a minute there I thought what.cd was back.

I miss that site; it wasn't really a "private torrent tracker", it was a music community. I discovered entire genres of music I never knew existed on what.cd.

Spotify is what.cd's mentally handicapped little brother in comparison.

Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by lwansbrough on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:31PM (#33555174)
Spotify is definitely not tuned for discovery. Thankfully, https://everynoise.com exists, which is what I use when I'm trying to find something different.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by sph on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:39PM (#33555273)
Every few years I rediscover this website. Thanks, it was about time for me to try something new.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by RugnirViking on Friday November 11, 2022 @05:07AM (#33558901)
interesting. Has some flaws when I search for certain artists (nekrogoblikon definitely isn't folk metal or viking metal etc) but overall pretty fun to explore.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by TheAceOfHearts on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:29PM (#33555158)
I discovered a ton of great music thanks to Staff Picks.

Spotify recommendations are good sometimes but it really lacks the strong sense of community. There's no personal touch to Spotify recommendations.

Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by z3c0 on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:32PM (#33555194)
Spotify is a fantastic service hidden behind an increasingly unusable interface.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by frenchie4111 on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:30PM (#33555164)
Staff picks still make up a huge % of my personal listening
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by kyo3 on Thursday November 10, 2022 @09:41PM (#33556721)
Same here, most of my musical taste stems from their picks in some form or another.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by Beltalowda on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:51PM (#33555387)
The problem with recommendation systems is that they're overwhelmingly based on what you already know. I'm not really interested in that much of the time; there's lots of music that I "should" like based on liking similar things but that just doesn't "jibe" with me, and vice versa.

And for entire new things it tends to gravitate towards the more popular "classic $genre" stuff within a genre. That doesn't mean it's bad music, but a jazz playlist with John Coltrane and Louis Armstrong isn't really very interesting, nor is a metal playlist with Metallica and Iron Maiden. The thing that what.cd offered was that you could discover things beyond that.

And all of this is so subjective in the first place. I recently watched all of the Alien films, and I felt the third Alien film is the second-best (after the original), but the "rating sites" have it listed as the lowest-rated of all of them. I'm probably not the only one who likes the film more than the ratings would suggest, and this kind of stuff gets lost in these algorithmic recommendation systems.

Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by vonseel on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:58PM (#33555467)
I feel Spotify recommendations are pretty good for my account, but homogenous. They tend to stick the same type of music I’ve been listening to recently and it gets bland after a while.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by 2OEH8eoCRo0 on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:59PM (#33555473)
Trevor Something - Death Dream
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by shric on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:19PM (#33555063)
redacted.ch
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by capableweb on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:39PM (#33555269)
Anyone friendly enough on HN to invite a fellow HN nerd?
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by scrlk on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:49PM (#33555372)
Redacted is probably the easiest "quality" private tracker to get in to - just take the interview: https://interviewfor.red/en/index.html
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by Beltalowda on Thursday November 10, 2022 @07:01PM (#33555496)
I took the interview in the early days, and I "failed" because I didn't rote memorize whether 192 VBR MP3 would trump a MP3 V2 or something like that; "you look it up in the site rules" wasn't an acceptable answer. I get they want to exclude clueless humps, but at some point you're not testing for cluelessness but memorisation skills. That kind of turned me off.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by bubblethink on Thursday November 10, 2022 @07:10PM (#33555591)
They're selecting for the effort you'll put in to get in as a proxy for the effort you'll put in once you are in. Same way tech companies do leetcode. Has little to no bearing on skill. Only whether you are cut out for this sort of grind.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by Beltalowda on Thursday November 10, 2022 @07:48PM (#33555962)
Yes, I understand it. In spite of uploading hundreds of torrents to what.cd I never remembered the exact rules/flowcharts of things as I just have a poor memory for these kind of things. To this day I can't even recite the full alphabet.

It's their site, they can do what they want with it. And I can have my opinions on the petty bureaucraticness.

Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by cosentiyes on Thursday November 10, 2022 @07:12PM (#33555612)
they're not testing for memorization skills but for "desire to join the community"
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by popcalc on Thursday November 10, 2022 @07:09PM (#33555580)
https://pubkey.pm/

Maybe try this :)

Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by stavros on Thursday November 10, 2022 @07:21PM (#33555718)
I don't have one, but I can send you one if you don't mind paying their fee.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by XiS on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:26PM (#33555123)
Pale in comparison
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by some-guy on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:33PM (#33555199)
It did pale in comparison at first, but it has become a large and dedicated community on its own. Torrents, staff picks, collages, are all there and plentiful.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by rOOb85 on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:52PM (#33555400)
The people are great too. I went on their irc and mentioned how shocked I was I couldn't find a certain album by a random band. A user there asked which one it was and it took 90 seconds from the time I said the band/album to the user posting the torrent link. I had looked everywhere online and I didn't find the album. I'm a salty pirate who's been at sea for decades and I couldn't find this album.

Then this user not only finds it in flac, but is able to create a torrent, upload it and shared it in under 90 seconds. It still boggles my mind how he pulled it off.

I don't believe in magic, but this was magical lol

Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by vonseel on Thursday November 10, 2022 @07:00PM (#33555488)
I wish I could meet that guy and befriend him or her :). These are the people I would love to chat with. Sadly, I’m not a member of redacted. Maybe I should try to get in.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by throwaway0x7E6 on Friday November 11, 2022 @08:50PM (#33569192)
are you on there? there's an album I couldn't find anywhere, I'm curious if that tracker has it
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by xoac on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:51PM (#33555388)
People don't participate as much, but we can change that... with participation.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by cutler on Thursday November 10, 2022 @07:28PM (#33555781)
What's the deal? Login but no Sign Up.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by drexlspivey on Friday November 11, 2022 @07:59AM (#33560279)
It’s a private tracker. You gain access if you pass an online interview in IRC https://interviewfor.red/en/prepare.html
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by suslik on Friday November 11, 2022 @02:36AM (#33558194)
I’d rather not listen to music for the rest of my life than do an interview to join a tracker. Not sure why, but I find the whole idea repulsively elitist; I suspect I’m not the only one.
Re:what.cd: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by escalt on Friday November 11, 2022 @10:35AM (#33562079)
You either do an interview or a member sends you an invite. It's a private tracker just like what.cd was. It's less elitist than most other trackers which are invite only and sometimes lock registrations completely. Unfortunately they have to keep a low profile and pick their members to avoid copyright trolls or being shut down entirely. The test isn't very difficult and there is a public page explaining everything one needs to know. It's more about showing some effort and making sure that you know how to act accordingly on a private tracker