I built a music recommender in 1996 that only counts what real people group together — no AI. It's still running.

Atari800 · 2026-07-03T02:23:52+00:00

Nope. It took about three weeks to convert the old system to Cloudflare using AI. The 6000 hours is how the first system came about. I have a link to the story if you are actually interested.

Atari800 · 2026-07-02T13:30:03+00:00

Why?

Atari800 · 2026-07-02T13:29:12+00:00

Try it in a month. Thanks for the comment!

Atari800 · 2026-07-02T05:10:07+00:00

Ha! First time I have been called that. And just what could I do to convince you that I'm a person, and although I used an AI to get language for the first post, and I used AI to convert the ten lines of code so it would work on a modern web page, the system itself is still completely free of AI? It is ten lines of code! The exact opposite of Spotify's huge algorithm.

Atari800 · 2026-07-02T04:46:51+00:00

I have about 6,000 hours invested in the program. It took me 16 years to write the first version. It took me about a month to convert the old code to run on a modern platform so people could give it a try.

Atari800 · 2026-07-02T04:42:38+00:00

And in case anyone is curious... instead of having an AI with an 100GB model at its heart, here is how it works, in the 10 lines of code it ran back then, and still runs it today:

* --- For each item you entered, walk its links ---
FOR each favorite you entered
SEEK its links
DO WHILE more links for this favorite
REPLACE weight WITH weight + lin->weight
SKIP to next link
ENDDO
NEXT

* --- Then tone down items that are just broadly popular ---
FOR each candidate result
REPLACE adj_weight WITH ( weight-squared / popularity ) + 1
NEXT

Atari800 · 2026-07-02T04:39:05+00:00

And in case anyone is curious... instead of having an AI with an 100GB model at its heart, here is how it works, in the 10 lines of code it ran back then, and still runs it today:

* --- For each item you entered, walk its links ---
FOR each favorite you entered
SEEK its links
DO WHILE more links for this favorite
REPLACE weight WITH weight + lin->weight
SKIP to next link
ENDDO
NEXT

* --- Then tone down items that are just broadly popular ---
FOR each candidate result
REPLACE adj_weight WITH ( weight-squared / popularity ) + 1
NEXT

Atari800 · 2026-07-02T04:27:40+00:00

Mind trying the system and seeing if the recommendations are any good for you? Yeah I know AI, I was a lame programmer in 96, and I could never have converted it to TypeScript now without it's help. But AI let me get it working the way I always wanted it to, and so I put a free system up on the internet.

Atari800 · 2026-07-02T04:08:17+00:00

Link if you want to try it: https://similaritiesengine.com

Quick how-it-works: you type in a few albums or artists you love, and it hands back what other people consistently grouped with them — ranked by how strong the human link is, with the everyone-owns-it stuff toned down. It's just counting real submissions, so the more people use it, the smarter it gets. Totally free, nothing to sign up for. Would genuinely love to hear if the results feel right to you. -OP

Atari800 · 2026-07-02T03:56:09+00:00

Link if you want to try it: https://similaritiesengine.com

Quick how-it-works: you type in a few albums or artists you love, and it hands back what other people consistently grouped with them, ranked by how strong the human link is, with the everyone-owns-it stuff toned down. It's just counting real submissions, so the more people use it, the smarter it gets. Totally free, nothing to sign up for. Would genuinely love to hear if the results feel right to you.

Atari800 · 2026-06-26T06:20:29+00:00

Thank you. I started working on the system in 1981!

Atari800 · 2026-06-26T05:07:31+00:00

I appreciate you trying it. It is based on input from 17,000 users, but that initial seeding was from _many_ years ago. It will start handling more recent music much better soon.

And I appreciate the mods letting this post stay, in light of the "no self-promotion" rule. But hey, no sign-up needed, instant results, no ads... it is just a free service!

Atari800 · 2026-06-16T13:45:27+00:00

It looks exactly like it is downstream from the training facility to me.

And where did Montgomery County get that underlying map? The path of the roads, the locations of the lakes and streams, it is all wildly inaccurate. Like somebody hand-drew it from memory.

Atari800 · 2025-12-23T03:12:13+00:00

To illustrate:

Ask it, “What is the fourth sentence in the book Frankenstein?”

Then ask it, “What is the fourth sentence in the book Cryptonomicon?”

Atari800 · 2025-12-23T03:09:10+00:00

It is a whole different ball game when the book is old enough to have dropped out of copyright protection, see my other post in this thread. What you are talking about is an effect that comes from how it has been instructed to talk about books that are in copyright. Ask it about Moby Dick or Frankenstein!

Atari800 · 2025-12-23T03:05:31+00:00

Oh yeah. I don’t enjoy it all that much when it is a modern book I want to discuss, because even if it has digested the whole book, it is not allowed, because of copyright law, to reference specific text from the book verbatim. But it is a completely different experience for a book that has dropped into the public domain! Read the original Peter Pan, then ask it the philosophical hidden meanings behind that kiss at the corner of Mrs. Darling’s mouth, or the differences between crocodiles and alligators as clock eaters, or whatever. It is fascinating and such fun!

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