No, they don't pay very much. The problem is, the revenue isn't very much either (and they're unprofitable). I don't think they're doing a MegaUpload and making millions off other people's content, but compared to CD sales, artists are being undercompensated. My entire post was my thoughts on how to improve that.
I don't believe that the objections come down to the principle of prefabrication itself, but the execution. In Europe and the Anglo-sphere, we've learned the hard way that when we try to regiment human lives to rigid efficient clean modernist boxes... it doesn't work and there are social consequences. Our buildings, our homes and our workspaces must conform to us, and not the other way around.
I have trouble believing that social consequences are relieved through the unique designs of houses that people live in. But even that isn't the point, there is no reason that each house can't be unique and prefabricated.
Agreed. My point was simply that I don't believe it's prefabrication itself that folks are taking issue with. It's the fact that we're talking about a sterile, impractical and dehumanising box.
It's a pity his ambitions don't embrace even a hint of design thinking or aesthetic virtue. Seriously, they're butt ugly. Just phallic boxes that describe an obsession with size and haste that seems to have trumped even the most basic functional considerations for a building.
I can't help but think his promotional material might read suspiciously like the spam in my inbox: 'Big erections, FAST!'
I used to work in a civil engineering company and ran the intranet. The most secure part was the company wiki, which held all of the organisation's collective wealth about how to make things that wouldn't fall down, explode etc. They used this knowledge to help architects make buildings that would be safe, but were equally careful to ensure that none of this knowledge was ever transferred to other civil engineers.
I suppose this made perfect financial sense, but it does mean that there is no "collective knowledge pot" that people can pull against to ensure they don't make the same mistakes.
BTW in the wiki there were countless pages about concrete. Concrete pipes, concrete under water, concrete in a desert, concrete under stress, you name it. Ever tried tuning a search engine results page for concrete pipes?
In my own experience, casual or minimal exercise has done little to affect my mood and since my early twenties depressive periods have been a very real problem, even effecting my employment at one point.
But going hard, and really pushing my body and pushing myself beyond my preconceived limits has done wonders. There have been times when getting that "runner's high" feeling has completely sidelined the depressive state I've been in. When it happens, I'm still astonished at how much that endorphin release can really make a difference to my mental well being. I realise this is all only anecdotal, with a sample size of one! But I believe runner's high is a recognised phenomenon:
There is one technological invention, completely 'unnatural' and born of human artifice, which each and everybody on Hacker News has internalised so deeply that we take it for granted almost as natural thing.
It extends our capacity for information gathering and exchange, and has extended human memory monumentally. I'm talking about writing.
Yeah, I admit it - I've drunk the Marshall McLuhan Kool-Aid. But think about it. You have ancestors for whom writing was an alien and unfamiliar information technology. And yet you can look at a page and suddenly be drawn into the sensations, ideas and experiences of men and women who died generations and continents away. All thanks to a technology that we have so thoroughly integrated with our experience of being alive and human that it's become second nature.
You're a cyborg already.
EDIT: Wow, I'm a little surprised I'm the first person to mention McLuhan? For those that don't know, he's the bloke that coined the term 'cybernetics'.
But does that really equate to different "qualia" or is it more like the cognitive "shorthand" involved in the experience of driving a vehicle? Is there a difference?
Maybe he's not a figurehead, and maybe this whole internet thing isn't a movement, but he sure is taking all the heat for something. Much respect to him for fighting back in the way he knows how to best, eurotrash techno. Oh yeah!
Thanks for the heads up. Our login in system has just crapped its pants for some reason (hasn't happened before) and we are fixing it currently. Thanks for the feedback.
I don't know, market forces can be quite persuasive sometimes. If YouTube keeps up this heavy-handed approach, it's bound to lead to a climate of anxiety and resentment amongst its uploaders. In an environment like that, it wouldn't take that many prominent content producers making the switch to Vimeo to trigger a mass exodus.
It's never a bad thing to vote with your feet and no product or service provider should ever take its market prominence for granted.
False. The notion that Spotify just doesn't pay very much to artists is simply unfounded. The figure's close to 70% of their revenue.
Relevant: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120622/16193319442/myth-...