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Scown

52 karma · joined February 16, 2015

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Scown··on Facial expression software confirms bronze medalists happier than silver
It's one of the Formula 1 teams
Scown··on History of Techno
Cheers for this... Hadn't heard of Soundshelter, great site! Techno thursday it is then.
Scown··on A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song
Think the killer point is making "synch managers" responsible for far fewer songs than traditional publishers.

They're effectively treating each song as an artist with its own manager, so naturally that manager is gonna be much better able to see how and where to place "their" songs.

Scown··on A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)
This isn't really the case anymore. Can't remember when but he was thoroughly reined in a little while ago. All the shock troll PR about standing seats and paid toilets worked for a while til it didn't. They're just a cheap, no-frills airline now.
Scown··on Dear Bureaucrat, my job wants me to lie
Complying with payment card industry (PCI DSS) requirements is an absolutely insane process, even if you're vaguely technically literate.

Obviously not saying payment processing isn't an incredibly important area to enforce good security practice. But it's a lonely place to be when you're attesting to hundreds of ridiculous requirements relating to your overpriced, off-the-shelf POS system and anything/anyone that touches it.

"Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely, yes." Cross fingers. Repeat annually.

Scown··on Handbrewing Coffee
Big fan too!

They're still around, really popular in Europe at least (Bialetti is probably the best-known brand).

Quite hard not to over-extract the coffee, but still my go to when I need an industrial-scale caffeine hit...

Scown··on New logo
Classic agency tactic, pitch two good ideas and eight bad ones... Client gets the illusion of choice and the agency gets creative control.
Scown··on Ask HN: Resources for introverted devs to learn workplace politics?
Also - remember at least one thing from each of those interactions that you can use again.

E.g. when you ask Sarah what she's up to on the weekend, remember she said "canoeing" so you can ask the following week how it went.

I find that helps so much when you're feeling confident enough to move past the "hi how are you?" stage.

Scown··on Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord
What if people know they're not getting the fastest/biggest/best but pay a premium anyway? It might be a trope but "it just works" is a heck of a value proposition for most people.
Scown··on Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market
But the initial intent still has to be there. If I sell shampoo noone's gonna see my shampoo PPC ad just because they email a friend to say they've got dry hair. They have to search for a shampoo-related keyword I'm targeting.
Scown··on Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market
All true, but as a potential advertiser you don't really get to use all that targeting when placing ads. Although to be fair that's mostly based on my experience with AdWords.

On Facebook I can advertise to people in a well-defined geographical area, who are interested in a scarily well-defined set of things.

On Google it's more of a just-in-time approach; catching people who are searching for something in a certain place etc.

My business doesn't lend itself to Amazon ads, but I can totally see how it'd generate an ROI far exceeding Google or Facebook for product businesses that sell on Amazon.

Scown··on Elon Musk Deletes Own, SpaceX and Tesla Facebook Pages After #deletefacebook
An early Twitter user suggested using hashtags, think he's generally credited with it:

http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2007/08/25/groups-for-twitter-or-...

Scown··on The clock is ticking for Spotify
They do this, albeit on a smaller scale, with the Spotify Sessions stuff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify_Sessions)
Scown··on Ask HN: Does anyone here have an art degree?
We charge per person for a four-hour session (£4), plus the margins on food/booze/retail. Only 8 months in but so far, so good!
Scown··on Ask HN: Does anyone here have an art degree?
I did a BA Music, which was very traditional for the first two years (analysis, criticism, composition) but concluded with some amazing modules and projects in Max/MSP/Jitter/Processing.

Followed it up with an MSc in Computer Science, looked into careers as a developer but lacked the experience/aptitude for a coalface coding job and was hesitant to go into IT consultancy. Ended up opening a board game café with some friends instead so all's well really.

I'll definitely go back to coding / making, but as a hobby not a career. The skills definitely translate in some sense, but for me the most beneficial aspect is just having more ideas for cool projects. And maybe a greater willingness to spend time doing silly stuff because I enjoy it - not always for a lofty intellectual/societal purpose.

Scown··on Meme pages plan mass revolt against alleged Facebook bias
(citation needed)