Technology

We are in a golden era for buying and selling digital LPs. While I’ll use Bandcamp, sleek alternatives like Ampwall, Subvert, and Mirlo are equally great options. These online markets inherently incentivize artists to avoid filler or risk losing a sale, while the subscription streaming model requires artists to pad their catalog for pay per play. Streaming has revived the worst trope of the old music industry: the album that is just "two hits and a bunch of crap."

Spotify’s business model demands album filler because the platform pays out royalties based on "stream share" which trigger a payout the second a track hits the 30 second mark, incentivizing artists to maximize volume over value. This has fundamentally warped modern songwriting: albums are aggressively padded with short, two minute tracks and repetitive hooks designed specifically to feed the algorithm and inflate stream counts. On Spotify, a deep, cohesive artistic statement takes a back seat to sheer data output, turning what should be a focused LP into a bloated playlist of algorithmic bait.

Accidental hits happen way more often than you’d think. As it turns out, artists are notoriously bad at predicting their own success. When you buy a digital LP on a platform like Bandcamp, you are investing in a complete and curated piece of art where even the tracks the artist never expected to blow up exist naturally as part of a cohesive story. On subscription services like Spotify, those same happy accidents are treated like lottery tickets while surrounded by cynical, algorithm optimized filler designed just to farm streams. Buying the album ensures you are experiencing those unexpected gems as genuine creative discoveries, rather than digging through algorithmic bloat to find them.

Bandcamp serves the genre; streaming serves the algorithm. When producers target platforms like Spotify, artistic nuances like tempo variations and volume dynamics are sacrificed to strict LUFS loudness standards and predictable, club friendly danceability. This algorithmic pressure strips electronic and club music of its experimental edge, forcing tracks into a uniform, compressed sonic mold just to survive on a playlist. On Bandcamp, however, the music is freed from these rigid streaming constraints, allowing producers to prioritize raw genre authenticity and dynamic storytelling over sanitized, playlist ready optimization. Soundtrack and orchestral music have become major casualties of this shift, as their essential cinematic highs and quiet, emotional lows are flattened into a lifeless wall of sound just to meet streaming's volume requirements.

Just so we're clear, I'm not here to sell you my album. Go ahead and enjoy the whole thing ad free on my website. https://thejoyo.com/#more

LoRa Communication

Image: en.wikipedia.org - LoRa

LoRa (long range) is a proprietary radio modulation technique based on Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS), which encodes data on radio waves using frequency-sweeping chirp pulses. It operates on license-free sub-gigahertz bands: 868 MHz in Europe, 915 MHz in North America and Australia, 433 MHz globally.

The core tradeoff is range vs. data rate. Spreading factors (SF5–SF12) let you tune this: higher SF means longer range and better sensitivity, but slower throughput and more battery drain. Data rates run from 0.3 to 27 kbit/s, per Wikipedia. Typical range is 2–5 km urban, 5–15 km rural, and beyond 15 km line-of-sight, according to readthedocs.io.

LoRa is the physical radio layer only. LoRaWAN sits on top as the network protocol (MAC layer), defining how devices connect to gateways and the internet. The Things Network describes LoRaWAN devices as capable of running up to 10 years on a single coin cell battery.

Semtech owns the LoRa IP and makes the chipsets. The LoRa Alliance, a 500-member non-profit, maintains the LoRaWAN standard, which the ITU formally recognized in December 2021.

Common applications include smart agriculture, asset tracking, water leak detection, cold chain monitoring, and mesh networks like Meshtastic.

For a thorough technical grounding, The Things Network's LoRaWAN guide is the most practical starting point.

Sources: Wikipedia, The Things Network, Semtech, readthedocs.io

Google's reCAPTCHA Now Requires Play Services on Android

Google has tied its next-generation reCAPTCHA system to Google Play Services, meaning users running GrapheneOS or any custom ROM without Google's software automatically fail verification challenges, per Reclaim The Net.

When reCAPTCHA flags suspicious activity, it skips the old image puzzles and instead demands a QR code scan. That scan requires Play Services version 25.41.30 or higher running in the background. No Play Services, no access.

Google announced the broader system, called Google Cloud Fraud Defense, at Cloud Next on April 23, framing it as a platform to handle AI agents and bots. The Play Services dependency was not highlighted. An Internet Archive snapshot from October 2025 shows the same requirement was already listed at version 25.39.30, meaning Google built this in quietly at least seven months before a Reddit user on r/degoogle flagged it, with PiunikaWeb and Android Authority picking it up.

The iOS comparison is telling: Apple devices on iOS 16.4 or later pass the same verification without any additional software. Only Android users without Play Services are locked out.

Image: Reclaim The Net - Google Broke reCAPTCHA for De-Googled Android Users

An Ars Technica forum user noted the practical problem bluntly: "I'm betting some sites or services that do use it are unavoidable." Commenters on LinkedIn have suggested hCaptcha as an alternative for web developers who don't want to exclude privacy-conscious users.

Sources: Reclaim The Net, Ars Technica OpenForum, PiunikaWeb