Do you know what it means to be raking leaves on a windy day? It's no different than trying to maintain the integrity of my music audio files in my iTunes library. Not a day goes by while I'm sitting at my computer, listening to my entire music library in "Shuffle Mode" whilst I see how much of a thorn in the side of the Internet I can be, that the audio file currently playing ends abruptly, and the sequence simply moves on to the next song. When I load the original audio file of the song that failed into an audio file waveform viewer, I see the visual evidence as to why the failure occurred. For instance, below is an audio waveform of the Jeff Beck song Star Cycle. Notice how the waveform is truncated at the end of the audio file. I.e. the song stops abruptly.
Fortunately for me, most of the music I listen to has long existed in the public domain of the Internet. So, I just download a new version of the same song to replace the corrupted file in my library. For instance, here is the audio waveform of the new version of Star Cycle. Notice how the song waveform tapers down to the proper ending.
The question still remains, however, WHY? What causes the file to get corrupted? I know when I stored the file into my iTunes library, I stored the complete file. Then somehow, magically deliciously, when the file is randomly selected to be played some months or years later, the file is corrupt. Is hard drive reliability that poor? I don't believe it! After browsing through Apple Support, reading all the comments from people with the same "skipping" problem, complete with the numerous and various "fixes" recommended by forum members, I have a sneaking suspicion that there's just something wrong with Apple. It may just be me, but it seems as though for the longest time Apple, and iTunes were such stable platforms. Something changed though. It may just be coincidence, but it seems as though right around the same time Apple released their Christmas commercial featuring the social justice message to "Open Your Heart to Everyone," the reliability problems increased. The more I thought about it however, the less it surprised me. After all, what kind of a company produces a commercial that features its own product FAILING in order to make social commentary?
It features a Frankenstein-like characte using an iPhone to accompany himself while he sings a Christmas Carol to the townspeople. Part way through his presentation something goes wrong with his system, and the music stops. Although the commercial director wants to mitigate the viewers' impression that ultimately it's the iPhone that stops playing the music by focusing the attention of the commercial on a Christmas light that goes out, that's false. All the Christmas lights don't go out. So, it's not the power supply at fault. For whatever reason, the iPhone fails. Wow, if it's so important to Apple to preach social justice causes that they will depict their own products failing in order to do so, I say sell Apple stock!
I didn't know it was the responsibility of corporations to allocate some of their proceeds toward promoting anything other than their product. By aligning a product with any social justice cause, the Corporation risks alienating some percentage of the consumer marketplace who may not agree with the cause, or simply may not appreciate being preached to about
any cause. Today's corporations should perhaps focus on their primary role, that is to fulfill a need of the consumer market, and leave preaching morality and similar social commentary to the organizations who are designed with that purpose as their fundamental raison d'être.
Wow! Not another song skipped during the time it took me to go to gurgitate blather. Maybe I've repaired my last song! Ha! I won't hold my breath!
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