
For What It’s Worth: A Review of Wu-Tang Clan’s “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” - tintinnabula
http://www.dancohen.org/2016/01/04/for-what-its-worth-a-review-of-the-wu-tang-clans-once-upon-a-time-in-shaolin/
======
roywiggins
> This is like someone having the scepter of an Egyptian king

The point of a scepter is that you can wave it around in front of your
subjects, not leave it in a vault somewhere all the time. It's more like the
actual grave goods the Egyptian kings were buried with, maybe.

> Sol LeWitt is an unusual artist in that he rarely painted, drew, or sculpted
> the art you see by him. Instead, he wrote out instructions for artwork, and
> then left it to “constructors”—often art students, museum curators, or
> others, to do the actual work of fabrication. LeWitt liked to be a recipe
> writer, not a chef.

So. Algorithmic art, except executed by humans instead of the traditional
computer. "calculate z_{n+1} = z_n²+1 for each point repeatedly; color it
black if it converges..."

~~~
dagw
What makes LeWitt interesting is the ambiguity in his instructions. Give the
instructions to 100 different groups and you'll get 100 different works with
no way of knowing which, if any, match what LeWitt had in mind. "calculate
z_{n+1} = z_n²+1..." on the other hand will always give the same result no
matter who implements it.

------
blaze33
In France we have a legal definition of what constitutes an original work of
art. For instance you can produce up to 8 original copies of a sculpture,
that's art. Wanna sell 9 copies, you're no longer an artist but an artisan.
That also applies to furniture, I couldn't track down what the actual law
says, there are many exemptions and edge cases but basically that's the idea.

Here, this album fits the criteria for being numbered 1/1.

~~~
Grue3
So, music or film aren't considered art in France?

~~~
blaze33
Well, the actual disk you buy in the store, no, that's mass production.
Nonetheless music, movies, books are still covered by intellectual property
laws and considered as intellectual works, but yeah that's not legally art.

The laws I was referencing in my first comment are more concerned about what
is sold in an art gallery. A limited edition album would have its place there
(even if it's a terrible one), not an album from Prince that sold millions of
copies even if the later is socially recognised as a piece of art.

------
keypusher
Of all the people that could have bought this album, the fact that it was
Martin Shkreli continues to amaze me.

~~~
kamilszybalski
What amazes me is the number of people who dislike Martin Shkreli...most of
who can't even tell me why.

~~~
ZenoArrow
If you're trying to troll on the sly you'll need to be a bit more subtle than
that. I'd suggest most people who dislike Shkreli know that he massively
jacked up the price of a drug that there were no legal alternatives to, even
if they don't know or can't remember the exact details. For those that want to
learn more, search online for daraprim.

EDIT: alex95, your comment is flagged as dead, many people reading this won't
see it. I know the excuses Skreli gave, about using the revenue to fund new
drugs, but I don't buy it, and the reason I don't buy it is because he jacked
up the price so much he was putting the life of some people in danger. That
doesn't strike me as a move someone who cared about improving healthcare would
make.

~~~
mtobi
AFAIK the drug was free for everyone without insurance, so the only ones who
felt the actual price increase were the insurance companies. Am I wrong or
there really is some merit to Shkrelis explanations?

~~~
gizmo
The that only insurance companies felt the price is an audacious lie by
Shkreli and his people. Documents that were subpoenaed for the congress
hearing revealed that people _with insurance_ got stuck with 30%-50% co-pays.
At 75.000 a bottle a 40% co-pay is still a 30.000 out of pocket expense.
Regular people have to remortgage their house to come up with this kind of
money.

Shkreli basically lied about everything. He lied about his business model. He
lied about the availability of the drugs. He lied about his programs that
supposedly made the drug available to people who could not otherwise afford
it. The guy is a real piece of work.

Watch the hearing on C-SPAN if you don't believe me.

[http://www.c-span.org/video/?404183-1/hearing-
prescription-d...](http://www.c-span.org/video/?404183-1/hearing-prescription-
drug-market) [http://www.c-span.org/video/?406885-1/sudden-price-spikes-
de...](http://www.c-span.org/video/?406885-1/sudden-price-spikes-decadesold-
rx-drugs-inside-monopoly-business-model)

Found the timestamp, starts at 00:41:00 (second hearing) where victims of
Martin Shkreli talks about their attempts to mortgage their house in order to
pay for the drug for their sick child.

~~~
koolba
So who's the real crook?

Is it the sleazebag who legally takes advantage of the terrible system that we
refer to as the US health insurance system?

Or is it the 435 representatives and 100 senators who are in the pockets of
the insurance companies and pharma companies that perpetuate our current
system?

At a moral level, yes the guy is as bad as they come ( _and those youtube
videos of him are just plain weird_ ). But I'd argue he's not the cause of our
problems, he's a product of the system that we've cornered ourselves into.

~~~
gizmo
He's a real crook in a system that's awful. It's not either-or in my book.

So I agree he's not the root cause. He just pushes the existing framework to
its "logical" conclusion. But only if "Logical" means being as ruthlessly
exploitative as possible. Even the other sleazebag drug CEOs don't go this
far, so Shkreli is uniquely contemptible.

But yes, ideally anger should be directed to the pharma industry and health
insurance as a whole, not to Shkreli the individual.

~~~
koolba
> He's a real crook in a system that's awful. It's not either-or in my book.

The "either-or" is figuring out which one to go after and where to change
things. If you only go after the Shkrelis, it's all for show and probably is a
waste of tax payer money as he'll get off the hook for not _legally_ doing
anything wrong. People need to wake up and go after the real problem and
replace the healthcare system and corrupt officials that perpetuate it.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Why do you only have to go after one side? Both sides (the corruptor and the
corrupted) can and should be held accountable. Holding Shkreli accountable is
more than just a token gesture, and no charges would've been brought against
him if no laws were broken.

~~~
koolba
I fail to see what laws he's broken. If you're going to allow a "free market"
healthcare industry, this is the result. Being a dick isn't a crime. Neither
is being a price gouger.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "I fail to see what laws he's broken."

Take a look then...

[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-the-charges-
again...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-the-charges-against-
martin-shkreli-2015-12-17)

~~~
koolba
> Take a look then...

> [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-the-charges-
> again...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-the-charges-again..).

Did you actually read that article?

It has nothing to do with price gouging prescription drugs. That's for an
unrelated securities fraud charge for juggling hedge fund money. I'm not
saying he's not at fault in that situation (honestly not sure) but it's
unrelated.

~~~
ZenoArrow
If you want something closer to daraprim:

[http://www.legalreader.com/distribution-network-for-
daraprim...](http://www.legalreader.com/distribution-network-for-daraprim-may-
violate-antitrust-laws/)

~~~
koolba
That's definitely closer but he hasn't been charged with anything on it. The
only charges are for (unrelated) securities fraud.

------
im3w1l
If I had it, I would use it to entice famous people to have tea with me.

~~~
rboyd
That's basically exactly what happened with Allie Conti in his Vice interview
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PCb9mnrU1g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PCb9mnrU1g)).
Only it was red wine and not tea.

------
beloch
Perhaps this album just wasn't very good, and Wu-Tang (or their managers)
realized they could make more money by boosting their fame with this stunt
release than they would by actually releasing a crappy album.

~~~
IshKebab
That actually makes a lot of sense. At most it must be mediocre. If it was
amazing they'd definitely want to release it and make money.

~~~
michaelt
If they'd just released the album, I don't think it would be on the front page
of HN getting compared to Ai Weiwei, and covered in forbes, the guardian and
the atlantic.

Perhaps they value the publicity (and resulting discussion of their work as
"serious art") more than the extra money a regular release could have brought.

~~~
59nadir
> Perhaps they value the publicity (and resulting discussion of their work as
> "serious art") more than the extra money a regular release could have
> brought.

... which is exactly what the previous posters said: The album isn't good
enough to sell great and would likely hurt them in the long run and so a
gimmick release will at least have positive publicity and wouldn't ruin the
brand. If it was good enough, that publicity would outshine the gimmick
release and would also bring in more money short-term.

~~~
michaelt
No, the previous poster said at most the album must be mediocre. It's possible
the album is really great, but they place an exceptionally high value on the
publicity.

------
BWStearns
I just looked at HN right after pulling up Wu-Tang on Spotify. I realize that
it doesn't fundamentally add much to note that, it was just a fun coincidence
and I thought I'd share.

It is fun to think about the meta-art of manufactured scarcity. It's fun
trying to articulate a rigorous reason for the value difference of Wu-Tang
making an album that only one person will get to hear versus me (a decidedly
untalented non-musician) making one, when they both sound exactly the same to
all of us (unless that dick Shkreli is reading).

That said I would trade all the idle but-what-is-value-really-man musing for
Shaolin monks or an unscrupulous Fed to exfiltrate and share the album
soonish.

~~~
elevenfist
Is it really fun? Or is it just a marketing gimmick to get people talking
about the artist.

~~~
darawk
Honestly it doesn't seem like a marketing gimmick to me. They almost certainly
could have made more money by actually releasing the album, and they've no
real need of increasing their visibility.

Whether or not you agree, it seems pretty clear that they did this because
they thought it was a cool and interesting thing to do.

~~~
dagw
_They almost certainly could have made more money by actually releasing the
album_

The sales of their last album was pretty abysmal all things considered, and
the album before that was hardly top seller. Even if this album did 3-4 times
the numbers their last album did, they probably wouldn't have gotten close
$2million. It basically seems that 'everybody' loves the early Wu-Tang works,
but very few people actually still actively followed them and cared about
their current work.

------
Artoemius
People are infinitely fascinated by scarcity.

~~~
dave2000
It's not as simple as that otherwise they'd just record their own CD, write
their own game etc. This is more like hoarding; either related to grief (can't
let go of a loved one but can keep hold of random shit) or just good old
consumerist "you'll be a great person if you buy this". It's pathetic but hey,
we're in a late capitalist, consumer driven society where owning a small piece
of plastic is more important than saving tens or hundreds of lives.

------
bwilliams18
I had the pleasure of spending a week at MassMoCA a few years ago, it's a
unique institution and is a treat to visit.

------
keithpeter
The OA has a partial quote from Ellsworth Kelly taken from the New York Times
obituary [1]. Below is the full quote, which I found useful.

>> _“I think what we all want from art is a sense of fixity, a sense of
opposing the chaos of daily living,” he said. “This is an illusion, of course.
What I’ve tried to capture is the reality of flux, to keep art an open,
incomplete situation, to get at the rapture of seeing.”_ <<

[Perhaps the GI Bill at the end of the second world war provides us with an
idea of what could happen if we had a basic income.]

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/arts/ellsworth-kelly-
artis...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/arts/ellsworth-kelly-artist-who-
mixed-european-abstraction-into-everyday-life-dies-at-92.html)

------
fluffysquirrel
Which apparently has nothing to do with Xiaolin Wu's algorithm.

------
ComodoHacker
The site is down.

------
recivorecivo
If you had no ego, you would just say Mandelbrot set. If Mandelbrot had no
ego, he would have just called it "calculate z_{n+1} = z_n²+1 for each point
repeatedly; color it black if it converges...".

Ponder this. Without ego, there is no judgement. And no judgement of those who
judge. The cycle breaks.

~~~
johnloeber
I don't think this is about ego -- this is just about naming for convenience.
We say "Mandelbrot Set" rather than "calculate (...) converges" because the
former has four syllables and the latter has thirty-two.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what you're getting at w/r/t/ judgement and cycles.

------
mirimir
> Then, in one of 2015’s greatest moments of schadenfreude, especially for
> those who care about the widespread availability of quality healthcare and
> hip hop, Shkreli was arrested by the FBI for fraud. Alas, the FBI left Once
> Upon a Time in Shaolin in Shkreli’s New York apartment.

So why doesn't the FBI take the bloody thing, and auction it? They sold DPR's
Bitcoin, no?

~~~
amock
Why would the FBI confiscate and sell his property? Just because he was
arrested doesn't mean he's guilty, and even if he his that doesn't give the
FBI the right to confiscate his property.

~~~
mirimir
Well, they sold DPR's Bitcoin before he was convicted. Cops do that. It's
partly how they fund themselves.

I was responding to the precious "maybe we'll never know" aspect of the
article. I'm not saying that civil forfeiture is legitimate. Far from it. But
it's pretty common.

Edit: Also, the article basically suggests burglary as an option. So ...

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
To which DPR agreed.

~~~
mirimir
Really? That I did not know. Why? Plea deal?

~~~
kevinnk
In his pre-trial, Ross denied ownership[1] of the server that the coins were
found on (for obvious reasons - the server also ran the Silk Road). Since no
one claimed ownership, the FBI was free to auction them.

[1] This actually turned out to be a major blunder on the part of the defense.
See [http://www.wired.com/2014/10/silk-road-judge-
technicality/](http://www.wired.com/2014/10/silk-road-judge-technicality/)

~~~
jessaustin
Eh, do we all _really_ believe the judge on that one? Sure, if he had claimed
ownership, then the unreasonable search objection wouldn't have fallen on
_that_ point. Except, she eventually would have found some _other_ reason why
all FBI activities constituted "reasonable" search. Conviction rate in federal
court is over 90%, and for many of those cases only the prosecutor assigned
even gives a shit. _Everybody_ in the federal system, FBI, prosecutors,
judges, etc. wanted this guy's head on their wall, so no legal argument was
going to keep him out of FPMITAP. Ross was fucked from the moment the beast
knew his name.

For future projects like Silk Road, a basic part of the security plan will be
to set up Ross look-alikes to take the fall, because USA-Justice is not
something you can just design around. Once the beast has a scent, it _will_ be
fed, by someone.

