Imogen Heap releases single on Ethereum-based Mycelia | Hacker News Reader

Imogen Heap releases single on Ethereum-based Mycelia

theguardian.com

100 pointspajop43 comments

Went to alpha.ujomusic.com, greated with:

>The UJO MUSIC Prototype is optimized for Chrome on the Desktop.

People says that Safari is the new IE, but I have come across too many Chrome-only sites to think otherwise.

I thought that claim was because Safari is not keeping up with web standards in the way the FF, Chrome and even IE/Edge are.

Supporting Safari is not quite at the same hell level as supporting IE6 became though (unless you're supporting Safari for Windows)

This was not intentional. We had a very short time to get a prototype out the door & couldn't optimise the best we can.

Oh, come on - getting a site to work across more than one browser isn't 'optimising to the best you can', it's just sloppy from the off.

- ed

Although it does say 'prototype', to be fair.

Still... 'grr!'

To be honest, we were frustrated that it slipped through. As in exactly as you say: it's sloppy and should've really not let this happen. Completely our fault.

Thanks for the response - I'm just keen to see 'how this all works' having read that Guardian article last month.

Will keep an eye out..!

I can see how you would naively assume that it's something to do with some CSS issue, but it's nothing to do with CSS. We're trying to use a brand new technology for the first time using libraries that have just been written, and newsflash not all browsers behave the same way.

The browser block is up while we figure out where the cracks are during _this prototype_.

Not sure I specified, but what exactly does 'optimise' imply to you?

Also note that "is optimized for ~" is now a euphemism for "content is only available for ~".

I'm not quite sure to like that semantic shift.

Well, in my days I read "is optimized for Mozilla 1024x603" as "I am not savvy enough to make IE align my stuff correctly but I am an armchair open standard freedom fighter condescending enough to stick my W3C-validate logo in the face".

Singer Imogen Heap releases single on Ethereum (blockchain-based) service Mycelia

Thanks for this. It's a continuing problem with HN that submitters assume everyone knows the same things they do, and leave out vital context.

It's been a continuing problem with tech sites since the beginning of tech sites, not just HN.

But yeah, this is really frustrating.

What I don't understand is: Is the music in the blockchain? Is the music on everyone's computer but only accessible for whose with a key? Does this not make a blockchain too big? Can you have subsets of the blockchain locally? When you buy this album can you stream from these subsets of blockchains like with Popcorn time? Its' not really explained in this article...

Exactly, good questions, that's what I was wondering as well!

After looking around, I think this is complete bullshit. I mean, it's a normal website with a normal HTTP download. The only difference is that the payment method is Ether.

So I think calling this "blockchain-based" is sensationalist.

Wait, this is the first iteration. Look forward in the next release.

This definitely is blockchain-based. Specifically, this project is using an ethereum smart contract to record the release of a piece of creative content along with a list of contributors to the realisation of that content. These contributors will be automatically and transparently paid a portion of the revenue each time someone purchases that content. My understanding is that currently the content is hosted on amazon s3, but future plans would use something like ipfs.

Some data on the ethereum contract including stored values and transactions: http://frontier.ether.camp/account/c7696b27830dd8aa4823a1cba...

How to actually get the song: http://blog.ujomusic.com/2015/09/get-ether/

I use Bitcoin every day, and these steps will rule out 99.999% of users from being able to get any etherium (and hence buy this music)

The biggest problem with bitcoin is getting "normal" people to acquire even small amounts without going thru too many hoops, Coinbase and Circle are doing a good job there

We realise this is a problem and plan to add functionality for both Bitcoin & credit cards in the future.

Another issue, the guide linked says to skip to step 4c if you already have bitcoin, but then step 4c tells you to use the account you created in 4a.

I think this would be a lot clearer if you split this up into three guides: "How to buy bitcoin", "How to buy ether" and "How to buy the product".

EDIT: Also, the TLS certificate for alpha.ujomusic.com does not validate in firefox for me, as the certificate chain is not correctly installed on the server.

Thanks for the feedback! We appreciate it.

No problem, this is very interesting and I suspect I'll buy the song just as an excuse to play with ethereum. Haven't had a chance to look at it before.

How is coinbase/circle solving the hoops?

The only steps I want to go through are

1) Register an account (email/password)

2) Choose amount of bitcoin and destination

3) Pay

Chat with your local legislator. Anti-money-laundering laws exist.

I used shapeshift.io to convert some satoshis to Ether :)

This article really buries the lead.

please do be more specific

You have to scan through about ten garbage paragraphs describing the current state of the music industry before it starts talking about the story in the headline.

I second that. God awful read.

*buries the lede

On the other hand, it did just enough to get me hooked to read all the way through the background content to get to the meat.

Long term fan - if you ever get to see her live, it's well worth going along. Her gloves are amazing. Allows her to combine something akin to composing while she's also playing instruments. Fascinating to watch.

musicians do this all the time

She does it well. Just saying ;)

"Imogen Heap invents a really complicated way to pay for 1 song."

I'll pass.

My favorite song by her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAKh26bfkpw

Beautiful usage of a vocoder.

Yes, I know it's OT…

Since we're already OT, I'll add that she was actually using something more like a harmonizer than a vocoder[0].

A vocoder takes the formants from a singer/speaker and applies them to a carrier signal which provides the pitch. So you could for example use a piano as the carrier signal, resulting in a sound that is still very recognizably piano-like but "sings" whatever you do, ignoring the pitch of your voice.

A harmonizer is really one or more pitch shifters that take the original singing and move the pitch up or down a certain number of steps while retaining (more or less) the timbre or texture of the voice. The altered pitch(es) can track the original or be fixed to certain notes. The altered pitches are mixed with the original signal to create harmonies. (AutoTune is in fact a pitch shifter married to pitch recognition algos that nudge the pitch back to where it should be.)

Some harmonizers let you use a MIDI keyboard to determine the pitches that will play. With this kind of setup it's often referred to as a voice synth: you can play chords on a keyboard that result in copies of your own voice re-pitched and played back simultaneously. This is basically what she used to create that song.

None of this (hopefully interesting) aside changes the gist of the original statement: Hide and Seek is a beautiful song, and Heap's voice is a perfect match for the instrument because of her range and tonal flexibility.

[0]http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=288785 (forum link because the original article 404s)

I got all excited that IH had released some music Eduardo Kac style by encoding it with CRISPR in mycelium or something. From 8-bit to RNA-bit.

Silly me, it's some block-chain thing. Drat.

>When was the last time you bought a CD or a record?

August 2015. Is that a trick question?

Doesn't the song being on YouTube defeat the purpose?

This article is begging for a TL;DR summary. 18 paragraphs before they get to the first mention of Ethereum or blockchain.

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10335389.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com