United States sells Wu-Tang album forfeited by Martin Shkreli • Hacker News Board

Re: United States sells Wu-Tang album forfeited by Martin Shkreli

#111

Post by isthisreality » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 6:03 AM UTC

grapehut wrote: post #79

rchaud wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no automatic mechanism that operates independently. The prosecution, defense and judiciary are not GPT-3 robots that can mine through centuries of case law in 2 seconds to achieve a perfectly balanced decision. If you want regular prosecution of white-collar crimes, you may want to support better funding for these agencies, so they can actually put resources behind investigating and trying cases where crimin…

The issue isn't funding, it's structurally dysfunctional organizations. But that's a much harder problem to solve than blaming lack of funding. I was involved with a certain tax collection agency's project that was a never-ending trainwreck that spent decades complaining about being underfunded. When they finally got the 10s of millions of dollars they said they needed, they used it to hire and train college grads RP…

I wonder which countries do a better job with managing technical debt, both in digital and bureaucratic systems.

How much research and experimentation is being done in those areas?

Re: United States sells Wu-Tang album forfeited by Martin Shkreli

#112

Post by pixxel » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 8:29 AM UTC

ggrelet wrote: post #87

Y_Y wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss What and Oink. I didn't even bother finding out what the next incarnation was and trying to get an invite, I just gave up and got Spotify. There's still tons of good music that I only ever found on those trackers. The quality of recommendations was also peerless. Have any of the successors rebuilt that?

There’s RED: https://interviewfor.red/

My gosh. I've just been reading the interview requirements. I need to study spectral analysis, amongst other things. Then sit through a "1-2 hour" interview. To take the interview I MUST be on my home network, I must have my VPN etc. disabled. I must use a laptop/PC, not a mobile device. Can't use CLI for IRC. Other requirements as well.

I've never seen anything like this. I understand that raising the bar to entry is good for a community. What ever happened to having a seedbox and provable good ratios elsewhere.

Is the community/content exceptional?

Re: United States sells Wu-Tang album forfeited by Martin Shkreli

#113

Post by Y_Y » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 9:27 AM UTC

pixxel wrote: post #112

ggrelet wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s RED: https://interviewfor.red/

My gosh. I've just been reading the interview requirements. I need to study spectral analysis, amongst other things. Then sit through a "1-2 hour" interview. To take the interview I MUST be on my home network, I must have my VPN etc. disabled. I must use a laptop/PC, not a mobile device. Can't use CLI for IRC. Other requirements as well. I've never seen anything like this. I understand that raising the bar to entry i…

I had a similar reaction. Even though I have some familiarity with the required topics I really didn't like the look of the interview. It seems like getting invited skips all that, but I don't know anyone in that world any more. To be fair there must be a barrier to entry, and having it very high should be good for community quality.

Might be easier to try to find an acquaintance with invites though.

Re: United States sells Wu-Tang album forfeited by Martin Shkreli

#114

Post by pixxel » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 10:04 AM UTC

Y_Y wrote: post #113

pixxel wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My gosh. I've just been reading the interview requirements. I need to study spectral analysis, amongst other things. Then sit through a "1-2 hour" interview. To take the interview I MUST be on my home network, I must have my VPN etc. disabled. I must use a laptop/PC, not a mobile device. Can't use CLI for IRC. Other requirements as well. I've never seen anything like this. I understand that raising the bar to entry i…

I had a similar reaction. Even though I have some familiarity with the required topics I really didn't like the look of the interview. It seems like getting invited skips all that, but I don't know anyone in that world any more. To be fair there must be a barrier to entry, and having it very high should be good for community quality. Might be easier to try to find an acquaintance with invites though.

>Might be easier to try to find an acquaintance with invites though

I wish that was the case; we all moved on to streaming services. Now though I want to return and backup everything I've paid for over the decades, as well as hunt down some rarities.

Re: United States sells Wu-Tang album forfeited by Martin Shkreli

#115

Post by ValentineC » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 2:21 PM UTC

pixxel wrote: post #112

ggrelet wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s RED: https://interviewfor.red/

My gosh. I've just been reading the interview requirements. I need to study spectral analysis, amongst other things. Then sit through a "1-2 hour" interview. To take the interview I MUST be on my home network, I must have my VPN etc. disabled. I must use a laptop/PC, not a mobile device. Can't use CLI for IRC. Other requirements as well. I've never seen anything like this. I understand that raising the bar to entry i…

> I've just been reading the interview requirements. I need to study spectral analysis, amongst other things. Then sit through a "1-2 hour" interview. To take the interview I MUST be on my home network, I must have my VPN etc. disabled. I must use a laptop/PC, not a mobile device. Can't use CLI for IRC. Other requirements as well.

The content was probably taken wholesale from the original What.CD interview. I think What.CD wanted to ensure that people uploading new content (a core part of a private tracker) were able to distinguish obvious FLAC>MP3>FLAC conversions, since most lossy codecs have a lowpass filter which would be quite obvious with spectral analysis.

Turning off VPN etc is probably to allow the tracker to fingerprint you, and make sure that rule-breakers aren't blatantly attempting to register for a new account.

> Is the community/content exceptional?

I think many people treated What.CD's interview and progression as a stepping stone into other private trackers, since their invite forums (available once you upload enough content) were exceptional.

What's successors (RED and Orpheus) are carrying on in the same fashion.

Re: United States sells Wu-Tang album forfeited by Martin Shkreli

#116

Post by sitkack » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 4:39 AM UTC

Evidlo wrote: post #54

sitkack wrote: post #38

Was this sold in a fair auction? How much was it sold for? The memo says > his payment of the forfeiture is now complete for the 7.4m owed, so was it sold for more? Or was it the first buyer to show up with that amount?

> The contract of sale contains a confidentiality provision that protects information relating to the buyer and price.

Yeah, but how can the US government just sell it to an arbitrary seller? Was it auctioned off?

Re: United States sells Wu-Tang album forfeited by Martin Shkreli

#117

Post by pydry » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

wcarron wrote: post #91

pydry wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was prosecuted because his ego meant he alienated the fuck out of everybody, including what should have been his allies. If he'd been just a bit less outspoken theyd probably have left him alone.

Same reason Lance Armstrong eventually went down.

Interesting i didnt realize that.