Ask Paul: January 18 (Premium)

Happy Friday. Here’s another round of Q’s and A’s for Thurrott Premium members.
My music playlist(s)
helix2301 asks:
Wondering what Paul's playlist looks like on Google Music.
Hm. I need to think about this one. As a middle-aged white guy, I do have some predictable musical tastes. But I also listen to music with my wife a lot, and I’ve been making playlists for her/us for the past few years that are more diverse, with more female musicians and more pop/dance-type music that I don’t normally listen to on my own.

I don’t normally listen to music when I write or work, as I find it distracting. That said, I’ve be curating this set of music that I do listen to when I write/work when traveling, like when I’m flying. I’m a big fan of U2’s two most recent albums---Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience---and have a playlist that’s just the deluxe versions of both of those albums. I like Dave Gilmore-era Pink Floyd, and their most recent (last) album, The Endless River, is great for this purpose too, as it’s mostly just instrumental. I’m also a big fan of a French artist, Yann Tiersen, that most know from the Amelie soundtrack. In fact, we’re going to see him live, finally, this year.

But when I’m driving, flying, working out, or whatever, and just want to zone out, it’s pretty much the traditional diet of Van Halen, Def Leppard, Collective Soul, and bands of that ilk. I’m a really big fan of live music, and when I can find live versions of songs, I usually prefer those. There is an on-again/off-again bad called Rock Sugar that makes incredible mashups that I like more than I should: Don’t Stop the Sandman is an incredible combination of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ and Metallica’s Enter Sandman that somehow manages to be better than the originals. (Check out the video.) And Shook Me Like a Prayer (AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long plus Madonna’s Like a Prayer; check out the video) and Roll You in a Hurricane (Rock You Like a Hurricane by The Scorpions plus Adele’s Rolling in the Deep) are pretty amazing too. This stuff shouldn’t be so good.

As for the music I listen to with my wife, it’s a lot more diverse. I used to make a new playlist every 2 or 3 months, and then after we’d been in Pennsylvania for a year, I combined all the playlists I had made since the move into a single “Year One” playlist. And have been making new playlists since then, with a bit of overlap. Between the Year One and Year playlists, it’s about 400 songs I guess. Most recent additions are There You Are by Zayn, Do You Love Me by Mass (an 80’s song; I knew the lead singer), Rescue You by Chicago (a non-single from 16), Cheap Thrills by Sia, and the live version of ATYA by Collective Soul.

I guess I’ll look into sharing these somehow if that makes sense.
Hardware compatibility database
hrlngrv asks:
Microsoft must have developed a comprehensive database of compatibility issues between...