Indeed. The minor change for me has been that the slightly annoying question I'm most likely to be asked on any given day has transitioned from "What's that?" to "Oh, you're one of those people?"—which is, at worst, a push.
The major change is that everyone else's favorite fad diet has made my mandatory dietary restrictions so much easier to manage.
I will say that prepared food is still very much a roll of the dice, as those who maintain a gluten-free diet by choice tend not to care a whit about cross-contamination. Hence most businesses catering to them often don't make it a consideration.
There are exceptions though; I can walk into any In'n'Out and order my burger "Protein style, allergy" and whoever makes it will change their gloves, cook everything in an area away from where the buns are toasted, and spread condiments with a clean knife. One of the many reasons why In'n'Out is not merely one of the best fast food restaurants in the world, but simply one of the best things in the world.
How are you curating these images? Which is to say, how are you ensuring that I see a really great photo of the Azure Window[0] (which happened to be posted two weeks ago) rather than whichever random one Ig turns up first?
I had a semi-similar idea (but focused on graffiti) but all the restrictions in their API terms were sort of a turn off.
I told more about this on Cool Hunting [0] but basically I'm manually selecting the best one. So I have a list of ~150 shots, I'm sorting by likes (which most of the time is not relevant at all) and removing all the #selfies using a face recognition algorithm.
Does anyone know of any good resources for approximating more (for want of a better term) analog glitch effects in code? The VHS and slitscan presets in Glitché[0] got me wondering how one might go about producing the kinds of effects/artifacts commonly seen in scanography[1][2] and VHS manipulation[3][4].
>> You're talking about a bunch of white guys creating a rap site and telling me that they're not trying to channel black culture.
Oh, they're trying alright.
Said douchebags are roughly as representative of black culture as Ali G was. Though it would seem they're not in on the joke.
There is no "channelling" going on. You can be a person of any color who appreciates and celebrates hip hop culture without reducing its participants to cardboard cut-outs.
There's a difference between identity and affectation. When your affectation conflates "acting black" (as if that's even a thing one can do) with "acting moronic", your affectation is intrinsically racist. And when you willfully adopt a racist affectation because despite being a Yale/Stanford Law grad you're apparently incapable of understanding how fucking offensive that is, I am not obligated to show you one single iota of respect.
These guys don't represent anyone but themselves, and—of late—they're doing a poor job of it.
(btw — I think Rap Genius is a great product. I hope its founders don't ruin it.)
Stop insinuating that I don't understand you. I understand you, I just disagree with you.
>> There's a difference between identity and affectation. When your affectation conflates "acting black" (as if that's even a thing one can do) with "acting moronic", your affectation is intrinsically racist.
Do you think that they believe they are acting moronically?
Or is this perception of moronic behaviour your own? If it's the latter - which I expect it is - then you are projecting racism onto them. It's not something which is intrinsic - it requires the perceiver to have your value system.
(My perception is that they are not acting like morons. And that it's all just good fun.)
The problem I have with this whole argument is that even if a guy had a popped collar, was wearing dark sunglasses inside and kept saying everything was "baller", I'd prefer him infinitely over the guy that looked at him and declared him to be "moronic" and a "douchebag" because of his style. One is harmless but the other is something which to me signifies a close-minded asshole.
You asserted that the douchebags with popped collars saying stupid shit are "channel[ling] black culture." You further asserted that the primary objection to "'wigger' culture" (wow) is that white people "acting black" makes other white people uncomfortable.
Your assertions are objectively false.
You also suggested that the negative reaction to the objectionable behavior of the Rap Genius founders is in fact not a reaction to specific behavior by specific individuals, but part of an "undercurrent of hatred for baller/rap/black (so-called 'douchebag') culture". I don't even know what to do with that.
>>The problem I have with this whole argument is that even if a guy had a popped collar, was wearing dark sunglasses inside and kept saying everything was "baller", I'd prefer him infinitely over the guy that looked at him and declared him to be "moronic" and a "douchebag"
Good for you. I know plenty of black folks who wouldn't.
>> You asserted that the douchebags with popped collars saying stupid shit are "channel[ling] black culture."
I didn't say anything about people saying stupid shit. A negative statement like that would be inconsistent with the rest of my argument.
I also didn't say that they were douchebags. I said "(so-called "douchebag")" which is a british word to show that you believe a term is unsuitable and not correct [0] also I said: "I think that people recognise the style as douchebag because it's uncomfortable for them to see white people "acting black"." I was implying that it was just a term which people use to describe a behaviour that they do not like for classist/racist reasons but which allows them to dodge allegations as such.
>> You further asserted that the primary objection to "'wigger' culture" (wow) is that white people "acting black" makes other white people uncomfortable.
Yes. I believe there is a heck of a lot of underlying racism there - and that we're seeing the same thing here.
>> Good for you. I know plenty of black folks who wouldn't.
Who am I to take away somebody's right to be a dick or offended?
I don't want to continue arguing anyway - my core point was that we shouldn't judge books by their covers: there are plenty of people that speak differently and wear very different clothes from both you and me and we should allow them to be and (in the case of the OP, instead of RapGenius) actively include them in our own culture.
Links at the very bottom of the page reveal a launch post[0] and their deck[1].
There's definitely an app, and it's definitely a social network—though perhaps if this or something like it catches on we'll require new terminology, as this model where every user gets categorized 'artist', 'curator', 'listener', 'tastemaker', 'consumer', etc. doesn't map very well to the one-size-fits-all peer networks we're used to.
As far as the sales channel is concerned, it's difficult to say. Somewhere between "we'll figure it out as we go" and "as long as we're taking down Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, Soundcloud, Tumblr, G+/YouTube, Vimeo and Myspace, we might as well also go after iTunes, Ticketmaster, Goldenvoice, Behance, content licensing, booking, event management…"
Ryan, there are no specific categories of users on August. There is one user account for everyone. However, if you are invited as an artist, you receive an additional distribution channel reserved for the quality content of true artists.
The view of August is that the world of media will change when an artist is able to sale 100 million copies of their work, all by themselves. This is the future, and we are building the platform that will make it happen.
"This is the future, and we are building the platform that will make it happen."
Yeah, keep telling yourself that. I know investors like to see confidence, but if you seriously believe your own hype, you'll be unprepared for failure. Chances are, you'll fail. Nothing to do with talent or how good your product is. Just luck. Learn humility. It will keep you from letting your guard down, and getting trampled on. And it will come in handy in case you fail.
A statement on one or the other of the linked pages (I don't recall if it was your blog post or the deck) referenced a sort of "leveling up" from voluntary curator-user to (for want of a better term) verified "tastemaker." That seemed, to me, to imply a certain granularity of user classes. You may want to clean up that language if that's not the case.
No salivating VCs, no cutesy avatars, the redesigned site is nice but nothing exceptional, and for some reason I doubt they even consider themselves a "technology company"—but they nail all the important bits. Great acts, frequent events, live audiences provide effective WoM and a sense of exclusivity for those who attend, and perhaps most importantly, everything's available on YouTube[0] and Soundcloud[1] in perpetuity.
Wake me up when anyone else is doing anything half as compelling.
The major change is that everyone else's favorite fad diet has made my mandatory dietary restrictions so much easier to manage.
I will say that prepared food is still very much a roll of the dice, as those who maintain a gluten-free diet by choice tend not to care a whit about cross-contamination. Hence most businesses catering to them often don't make it a consideration.
There are exceptions though; I can walk into any In'n'Out and order my burger "Protein style, allergy" and whoever makes it will change their gloves, cook everything in an area away from where the buns are toasted, and spread condiments with a clean knife. One of the many reasons why In'n'Out is not merely one of the best fast food restaurants in the world, but simply one of the best things in the world.