skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
To me the article speaks to the frustration of past funding models giving way to new ways of monetizing creative works. The gateways that have been necessary for works to be promoted are changing from an executives sitting in an office somewhere to everyday people who like your work and have the ability to spread word of it throughout their social networks. As the technology is further developed to further empower these everyday people with even greater ability to spread creative content, such as Spotify is doing, this will accelerate even more. It's my feeling that a new way of monetizing creative works is underway. This will be a paradigm change that will allow works to be seen or heard that would have otherwise never been allowed to see the light of day. We all win when we have the greatest number of individuals having more of a say in things rather than just a select few. Authors, musicians & other creators in the future will be more in the driver seat than in the past and will be given new & different options for monetizing their products.
Pretty and handy.
Everything old is new again. Or maybe I'm just old.

It's interesting how 2 years later we're vilifying Zynga (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1041604)

It's interesting how iminlikewithyou after 5 years finally sold out.

It's interesting how gaming of all forms became the big hits big business Hollywood vainly wish it could still be.

Think about what would happen in another 5. Then do it.
My dad's a radiologist and I've never seen anyone get metal detected prior to an MRI. Maybe they have one for unconscious ER patients, but I've never heard of it.
Reverse split doesn't screw employees, it just changes the math (10000 shares at $1/share is no better than 1000 shares at $10/share).
Decrease email bounces with EmailPie: a simple, open source email validator API
We have been using this for support for our app, and we are very happy with it. Started out using a different service, but the GMail integration was key for us.
I've had much, much better results with LDA than LSI. Give that a shot if you have a chance, you'll be blown away. Stop word ratios are important, and make the max number of tokens 500,000.
The caveats in moving state to the client is that it's a huge perceptual shift for developers, with a steep learning curve.

From my perspective we're coming full circle back to client/server desktop apps... only instead of C++, we're doing it with js inside a browser container... I've done ActiveX controls and Flash components... It's not that much of a stretch.
No, go to any mid-sized town or bigger, there is at least one recording studio, making decent or good recordings for bands that never hit the "*AA lottery", but make decent money (either in the form of door fees and schwag, some even enough to live on) giving away CDs at shows to keep people coming to the next show. Even more that do the same thing, but keep a day job and do music for the love of it.

For every band you've heard of and hated, there are several you've never heard of, but probably would enjoy.
> What he's talking about is the fact that it might
> take an artist over a month to create a two-and-
> a-half-minute song.

I covered that music innovation happens without requiring us to relinquish our rights in my original post.

But let's expand, because I can raise Jade Ewen now.

The only musicians who benefit from copyright in a significant way are a few that get hand-picked as front-men by the gansters who run the music industry. These are the ones they can point to.

Consider Ms Ewen. Successful artist, national treasure who performed well in Eurovision for the UK, one of the handful of music artists from the billion around the world who probably makes something a sliver over minimum wage from leveraging copyright. Her record label (who make the real money) tell her to move her life to Los Angeles without telling her what she'll be doing there. http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?id=4373&_t=jade_had_n...

Her company would have had a choice of twenty girls with excellent looks and high quality vocals when they decided to pick her as their next star. They have some brand invested in her, but they can replace her when they like. They already started the process when they pushed her into the sugarbabes.

She is cattle to them.

But she puts a smile on it in the end, because she has no options.

All those kids who sign on to those talent shows are. They have to sign away their rights to the sponsoring organisations just to get in.

I'm on the lookout for a news story to demonstrate a culture of mates agreements between studios and compliant "managers". It will reveal itself in time.

Copyright law creates structures suitable for a ganster class of copyright interests. It does not serve artists.
Smells are currently being sold -- as advertisement for products held within stores (big box stores are known to pipe in smells of baked goods at the front etc...)

What if consumers don't pay for music? There have been many suggestions about how this will play out, but maybe it will be that Pepsi and McDonalds will decide the music that is best suited for selling their products. Brittany Spears will stick around for sure (love her), but I'm not sure where this leaves us.
I have no idea how the fine art world works, but when I saw the HN headline I thought of places that let individuals sell T-Shirts with their designs. So on that note, would it make sense to have a free-for-all section of the site, or a separate sister site, where anyone can join, then have them earn reputation points and those that become reputable there are candidates for you to invite to your fine-art section? That could bring a source of small revenue and source of cheap art to the bottom end of the market, as well as create a way to discover artists who are ready to move up.
Goat Cheese, Bacon, Asparagus, Onion Soufflé
"And they do, whenever they perform those skills for an audience. "

The overwhelming majority of musical work -writing, recording, practicing etc - is done in private with no audience present. Many musicians perform very little in public.
Sure, but we're talking about smells in the context described in the original PG essay and the response to it that this thread is attached to.
Within 60 million years isn't it conceivable that the moon would be hit by asteroids/etc enough to wipe out our evidence of ever setting foot there?
Well, from my perspective as a consumer, yes, it's a convenience charge. I would be happier if some of it went to the artist. I don't actually know how much of it does.

I'm not sure it's possible to actually curate a comprehensive MP3 catalog without active cooperation from the musicians, at some level. But, if the Pirate Bay surprised me and made a fast way to search and download music that was as easy as iTunes or Amazon MP3, and they had a library of songs that was at least as comprehensive as the for-pay versions, then I might decide that the hassle of keeping my billing info up to date in the other databases was more trouble than changing to the Pirate App. I'm not sure. The actual 99cent charge is so close to free that it doesn't factor into my decision.

But that's theoretical. Right now, the musicians get a few cents, Apple and Amazon get legitimacy and a little bit more of my money.

My few cents per mp3 doesn't add up to much. When I actually want to support an artist, I use Kickstarter, or I buy some merch, or click a donate button.
I'm still not convinced. It still seems like a hoax. It's just too... funny. But really, if censorship becomes ridiculous, this sort of system might be able to circumvent it for the internet as a whole.. well, for the free internet as a whole
vi is an alias for vim in most modern systems
OpenWorm: combining geeky things (worms, WebGL) into AWESOME GEEKY things since 2011!
Another art-related idea I would like to see: take a picture of the signature on a piece of art to look up the artist. I have 3 original pieces I really like. The artists are probably complete unknowns. If such a DB could grow to world-wide that would be a great boon for art lovers and artists. I think it would shift the balance of power held by powerful art critics, making what is recognized as fine art more democratic and making it easier for talented artists to attract a following.
Building responsive, mobile‑friendly email
Market value is determined by scarcity and demand, right? Scarcity is finished for digital items. Sorry, but that train has left.

This very much follows economics.

(and stop conflating utility with market value...argh....)
Is it just me, or has the article a polemic undertone?
Well done. I've got this running on my Chrome.
What shop are you talking about? It's the #1 paid app, the #1 free app, and is king of the top grossing list, too.
Every band I've ever gone to see sells CDs at their shows, and they're mostly the kinds of bands you describe.

> keep a day job

"Producing less of it" because they can't earn enough to do it full time. There would be more people in that boat if, in my thought experiment, they earned absolutely nothing from their content. I don't think we'd actually ever reach that point, but just think about it as a 'what if'.
I can't comment on their mobile offerings, but OMGPOP has been running a fairly unique web-based online gaming platform for years. They certainly had a fairly large userbase when I was using the site a couple of years ago, but I guess the facebook and mobile apps were the ones that really brought users.

The web platform has made a number of moves to monetise in recent years, putting more and more features behind payment-based tokens. It'd be interesting to know what proportion of their income comes from the web gaming platform.
Anywhere But Here: Imagining Facebook's IPO Roadshow
The question is not whether there is a right to make a profit but whether there is a right to pursue a profit.

Free, instantaneous distribution of all music as soon as it is produced (an exaggeration of torrents, but not by much) seems to take away the right to pursue a profit, at least profit by distribution of recordings.

Or perhaps there is no right to pursue profit by distribution. Perhaps there is only a right to pursue profit by live performance. But what happens if that becomes copyable? We already have at least one instance of a holographic singer (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsune_Miku). What if holographic recorders and projectors become as cheap as cameras and microphones and screens and speakers? Live performance could be copied about as effectively as live sound is now (recorded music is not a perfect reproduction of what was played in studio or on stage). What then?

Is there no right to pursue profit by live performance either? Decreasing costs of production seem likely to make copying merchandise reasonably possible (you can already just draw a design and have someone print a T-shirt or such for you). So is there no right to pursue profit by merchandise either?

If there is no right to pursue profit by distribution, live performance, or merchandise, I think it is safe to say there is no right to pursue profit at all. But is that really fair? Musicians don't even deserve the right to try to get people to buy their product out of anything other than sympathy?

Frankly, I think pay-what-you-want is great. But I don't think it can provide the same level of economic activity and technological development we are used to. The most advanced personal computing company in the world is also the most closed or near it. The iPhone, iPad, corresponding retina displays, the Macbook Air... all produced under tight control and for direct profit only. Why isn't an open, pay-what-you-will hardware company beating Apple? We all like our i-things, so why aren't we paying people to develop them? Why is Apple's cheapest product $129, and the cheapest Kickstarter level usually $1? Why won't we pay $129 for Kickstarter projects that sound interesting to us if pay-what-you-will really works?

Similarly, the most advanced synthesizers, digital mixers, even music software are all produced to be sold. Why is there no open, pay-what-you-will synthesizer to match Kurzweil?

Why is there no open, pay-what-you-will library to match O'Reilly's? Why no open, pay-what-you-will coffee to match Starbucks? Why no open, pay-what-you-will transportation system to match the U.S. interstates and European and Japanese light and high-speed rail?

I would argue it's because accepting only the payment you can convince people to offer voluntarily doesn't work in most cases at an advanced level.

And either way, it doesn't seem to right to force people into a pay-what-you-will model.
Why do you think Zynga is a despicable company?
Binder was merged. But yes, both of the above are true.
I was using my mouse scrollwheel though... :(
You might find these demoes of Flask with pjax interesting then:

http://flaskpjax.herokuapp.com/automobiles

https://bitbucket.org/a2c/pjax_flask/overview
> It's interesting that this sort of thing rarely happens with race in tech (not never, but it's uncommon).

In many (most?) cultures, sexist comments are still _far_ more socially acceptable than racist comments. Look at dumb blonde jokes; distasteful and offensive, but many people are willing to make them in public; substitute an ethnic minority for the 'dumb blonde' and you'd find that far, far fewer people would be willing to make them.

You see the same with casual homophobia; it's not socially acceptable, but it's far, far less shocking than racism.
I have no official standing on this site, but reading the guidelines:

> Please don't do things to make titles stand out, ...
> You can make up a new title if you want, but if you
> put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may
> rewrite it.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Implementing BYOD-centric Systems
I have found that people who announce things the along the lines of "now it's serious business, the fun is over" are a) the least creative people who are only comfortable in a predictable, well organized world and are quietly praying for the "fun" to be over, and b) almost always wrong.
My point isn't that IBM etc. make money from open-source software. My point is that they are all charged money by people writing open-source software.
It informs the debate in the sense that it confirms music does have value. It's sophistic to claim that music has no value because people can avoid paying for it, which is I think the point your parent was trying to make.
It's not particularly alive :(
If/when stealing cars becomes easy and without consequence (ie, I can copy yours and have my own), I suspect the auto industry would be in the exact same boat as the record industry is now.

I look forward to that day so we can all have awesome hybrid vehicles that run on garbage. I suspect people will also be able to make awesome mashups so I can get an EV Jeep pickup or a 2012 convertible beetle.
The only case in which the person who originally wrote this could fall into category three is if they were a sociopath.
Looks like a pretty simple device. Now, when can we start seeing more improvements (particularly use/assembly related) on open source EEGs? I'm far more interested in monitoring my brain activity outside of my psychologist's office. Odd signal activity and all that...
All this says to me is that YC does not directly fund Googles and Facebooks. This is still very good for the founders. They can take their exit money and self-fund whatever they want.
> He says the opposite of this. Redthrowaway on free vs. paid content:

That's a tired and no longer relevant point. His point is that people will pay for the convenience of acquiring media, and then presents an example of when it was convenient to him (purchasing an ebook when the pirated version was sub par quality). However, as I showed in my video example, iTunes (and many other companies) have already addressed this issue, they have solved the convenience part and people still pirate, which shows (to me at least and I would hope everyone else) the issue is NOT acquisition of content or convenience, it's saving money.

Also no I don't think people should be punished more harshly for media piracy, I don't ever want to try and comment on the proper legal approach because I don't understand enough about the law to do it properly, but my basic thoughts on media piracy have been previously outlined here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3694764

Piracy happens in most cases because it's FREE, this is the #1 reason, the fact that Spotify etc. are finding success should be the absolute proof: Spotify is free (or cheaper, if you pay for a subscription) than purchasing music, that's why people use it. Convenience is not a valid or relevant reason for (most) media piracy any more. There are some cases (such as acquiring the entire discography of an artist or group, which can't be done easily through any pre-existing product) which makes piracy more convenient, but the common use case of media acquisition (a single song or an artists latest album) is not part of the convenience.
Has there ever even been a "talent acquisition" in the (say) mid-8 digits? Since, say, 2006? Definition of a talent acquisition: you buy a company, and none of its offerings are available 18 months later under any brand.

(The true definition would be "and all the members of the team are reassigned to a different project", but that's hard to know from the outside).
Facebook rejecting buyout offers from larger companies not currently in the (at the time rather small) social space is not the same as OMGPOP rejecting a lucrative offer from a major player in a saturated market.
I was inspired by the post yesterday. So I made this at http://hackcomo.com/ and learned me some Flask & gevent.

Happy to answer any questions.
> Are people upset with the objectification of women, or the assumption that women wouldn't be participants and aren't the audience of that flyer?

I'd imagine a little from column A, a little from column B. Both are offensive, especially in the context of the ongoing issues with sexism in tech.
> People pirate music because it's free, consequence free (the reason they don't steal cars is consequence) and everyone spends all day every day justifying it.

Please don't conflate tangible goods with intangible goods. Intangible goods are patterns. You can't steal a pattern, because a pattern can't be "owned" in any sense that a physical object can.

Now, you can have rights to a pattern and that right stops others from exploiting that pattern commercially, but you don't own the pattern. Even our current laws recognize this. After all, your right will expire, but if you own a car, you own it forever and without limits.

So enough with this "theft" bullshit.
Ask HN: Groupon for oil changes?
I currently run a blog that aggregates the latest oil change coupons (http://tinmanoilchange.com).

But I want to do more with it.

As I understand it, oil changes are a loss leader for service/repair shops in the US. And local mom & pop shops would be hard-pressed to compete with the big boys on price. So, I'm thinking the smaller shops can benefit greatly by earning a customer's trust with a cheap oil change and then establishing a relationship with them.

The value for smaller shops:
I'm looking to add value to the smaller shops by bringing in business through their door thereby giving them an opportunity to up-sell and/or create a relationship with these cost-conscious consumers.

The value for cost-conscious consumers:
The more obvious benefit is a discounted price on oil changes in their area. But I also think that customers would benefit from finding a mechanic that they can trust.

I'd like your opinion (yes, yours) on this idea and, more importantly, suggestions on the execution.

Specifically, what would be the most effective way to approach these smaller shops?
I'm more confused about the name of the company. To me, Square was the maker of Final Fantasy and other role playing games in the golden years of 8- and 16-bit video game consoles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_(company)
Video from PyData Workshop: Image Processing in Python with scikits-image
Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of wonderful things in Iceland, just that someplace that cold is not my cup of tea. It could well be the perfect place for others though.
I get most of my ebooks from Amazon. Sometimes, I buy directly from the authors (like 'step by step UI design'). I've also bought a few bundles from Smashing Mag. I read most of my ebooks on Kindle for iPhone and Android. Somtimes I'll read on iPad.
I like how easy it is to buy from Amazon, it's literally one click (on the full website anyway). It's so big, I haven't had the need to look anywhere else for ebooks.
I don't know if Amazon does it, but it would be cool if there was a one-stop marketplace for independent authors like sgdesign.
Looks great. I wish there was a screensaver like this with the current time.
you're totally missing the point. the question is whether the ability to charge money incentivizes programmers to produce code. androsynth argues that the app store shows that it does. there are hundreds if not thousands of apps that would not exist if all apps in the store had to be free.
The question isn't whether music and information are property or not ... the question is whether or not our government is protecting it in a way that makes sense for its citizens.

The examples that PG points to are all examples of massive societal and social change (moving to the moon, changing from hunter gathering, and in a comment he nodded to the abolition of slavery). These were situations where we did have a fundamental shift in what our society believed was property. This simply hasn't happened here. Citizens still believe that an idea is yours, that creative works have value and belong to the person who creates them. We desire to protect that.

Where it has all gone wrong is our laws and the industries. Perhaps the value of this property has decreased and the law still protects the ability of the media giants to price beyond that value. That's not working for citizens. Citizens are being held to licenses and contracts they haven't read and don't understand. They can't trade an ebook from their device to their spouse's. When I switch between android and iphone do I no longer own angry birds? The real problem is that the legislature isn't working for us to protect these property rights in a way that makes sense for us as the citizens who made the property a right in the first place. Could this be keeping the market from adjusting to valid pressures?
Well, for a start, these clubs and bars are presumably targeted at men. I personally, and I believe many people, find that sort of advertising distasteful, but their client base presumably puts up with it.

However, this event was targeted at the tech community. You know, the scary wimminz can program too. The implication of it being an all-male event is perhaps more worrying than the objectification.
(that kind of comment saved HN bandwidth several dozen KB, I wager. But, have it your way.)

Your argument about scarcity is akin to saying "Never mind that we have trees that drop fruit on the ground for everyone into perpetuity--when you consider that we collect some fruit, cart it off to town, polish it, and cart it back, and sell it, of course fruit is a scarce resource!"

If the time/effort would've been expended anyways, yeah, it's effectively free. If the time/effort would've been better spent elsewhere, it shold've been.
I'm both enjoying and cringing at all of these HNers indicating that Linux is the only major exception they can think of(thus open/free source is obviously a novelty), when many of our livelihoods likely depend on these products.
I don't think they're actually charged much - more that they employ some experts who work on the software.

It's pretty difficult to charge for goods that are not scarce.
Yet another great example of how a relatively simple service can take out the middle man and create transparency for the parties that are adding value.

Never fails to amaze me how many of such niches could benefit from the concept of a targeted marketplace for X.