Your proposed solution might work because it makes sure the high profits go the venue/artist, not the scalpers, but it only works if you can design such a system that can keep out/identify the scalpers. These technical hurdles is what caused the problem in the first place: if Ticketwhatever made a system with all security features working as intended, then there would be much less of a problem. The same technical hurdles would need to be taken for your proposed auction system.
But the reason scalpers can make a living is because they can manipulate the market. By buying up all tickets, they create an artificial scarecity which enables them to ask what the mark will bear. Selling at a lower than facevalue price is just the cost of obtaining market dominance.
Undercover agents with a licence to kill scalpers would be a good solution, but just realising that intervening in a free market is contrary to the US' capitalist ideals, would be an even better solution. Then the only problem is for the venues that don't get all the profits.
The proposed solution has nothing to do with identifying scalpers. Scalpers take advantage of market timing; they attempt to buy up as much of the ticket supply as quickly as possible and sell tickets at higher prices later. In a Dutch auction it's assumed everyone who wanted to buy a ticket has an opportunity to place a bid, and the price point is optimized based on all of the bids. Resellers wouldn't be able to win a majority of the tickets in the auction and resell them at higher prices (above what consumers were willing to bear), they could only sell to people who missed the auction or mis-judged their bids or have more disposable income later on.
The idea that resellers would sell at lower then face value price to obtain market dominance doesn't make any sense... there is an infinite supply of future events and the distribution costs for tickets is extremely low. Are you suggesting that Ticketmaster would be put out of business by resellers that originally bought the tickets from Ticketmaster? The "US capitalist ideals" you talk about are making the market efficient in the best way possible by optimizing profit, and if that means using a different market style like a Dutch auction then that more power to them. It is not intervening in any definition of the word.
Disclaimer: I'm not saying a Dutch auction is definitely the best answer, there are a lot of open questions there. I don't think your reply had any valid rebuttals though.
Open source, as you mentioned, is another great way. Working on OSS I've gained experience in a niche software market and Indian firms are actually outsourcing projects to me in the states. Software engineering is very much a growing field in the U.S., the ability to outsource for programmers is accelerating the industry and creating more of these positions.
That's not true at all. There are two full time employees at Linden Labs that are responsible for maintaining the GPL licensed releases and they are kept in sync with the production releases within a few days. Right now, April 19th 2007 @ 1:40PM, the GPL releases are in sync with both the production grid and beta preview grid.
OpenSim is a great project, I work with those guys frequently, but contrary to popular belief it is not a child project of libsecondlife. It is an independent project that happens to use libsecondlife. It's also an important project because the simulator code will likely be released as GPL, while OpenSim is a BSD licensed project. I'm not a big Croquet fan, but I'll have to check out Ogoglio.com and Verse.
In 2003? They increase the amount of land all the time. Every time someone buys a new island the amount of real estate in-world is increased, and the Linden-owned mainland continent grows all the time as well. Around a month ago over 100 new sims were added, and these sims the Coldwell Bankers bought were auctioned off meaning it was fresh mainland additions.
It's like when a company sells more shares, and all those idiot investors lose their shirts. You should probably get on the phone and tell Coldwell why they are idiots, and how if you were in charge you could save the company. They'll probably hire you on the spot.
I think you missed the OP point entirely. What if there was a community website for HR departments, managers, and project leaders to post about their employees and what they are doing "in the trenches"? Joe Coder showed up 30 minutes late today, Jim Engineer is consistently missing deadlines, Bob Soandso did a great job delivering for our latest product launch, etc.
While we are talking about related projects, we (the libsecondlife project) are working on a C# importer and exporter for xml prim data. The.prims format that prim.blender uses now has an XSD and primimport and primexport are both in early testing. A screenshot is up here. Sometime in the next couple months we hope to have a completely open design chain for Second Life where you can model and texture in any combination of Second Life, SketchUp, prim.blender, or whatever comes up.
Have you ever tried to mix using CDJs? It's a horrible experience in general and considered a novelty to most DJs; something you can play your own tracks or samples on without having to get a dubplate cut or bring more equipment along for. In my opinion digital music is really the next step for artists, with a timecoded vinyl interface and a computer backend. No one has found a better interface to control music with yet, a vinyl record and needle gives you slight time correction and seeking with pitch faders or the outside edge of the record and fast seeking by moving the needle horizontally across the record. Cut and transition points can be marked on the vinyl with a marker.
Facebook has an API you can plug in to that allows you to do all of that. Per account there is also a privacy setting to turn off access to your profile from third party web apps, but it's fairly obscure in the privacy settings and I don't think many people have turned it off.
So society would be no different if a big banner was hung on your porch saying "this resident has just been convicted of a DUI!"? After all, the court records are publically available information.
Also with routing and account numbers on checks, they are printed with magnetic ink. Even if you did completely black out the number, a bank or someone with MICR hardware could still pick up the numbers.
The parent comment was only trying to state there is no reason to believe China wouldn't spy on the U.S., not that every government in the world is completely trustworthy except for China. And I don't think the Iran-Contra affair disproves this point.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that there's even a Webmail plugin for Firefox that would allow you to check it automatically through your browser.
I hear people complain about needing all these extensions to make Firefox really useful, but you need an extension just to login to Hotmail? That must be how they got the browser so lean.
Slashdot Mirror
The proposed solution has nothing to do with identifying scalpers. Scalpers take advantage of market timing; they attempt to buy up as much of the ticket supply as quickly as possible and sell tickets at higher prices later. In a Dutch auction it's assumed everyone who wanted to buy a ticket has an opportunity to place a bid, and the price point is optimized based on all of the bids. Resellers wouldn't be able to win a majority of the tickets in the auction and resell them at higher prices (above what consumers were willing to bear), they could only sell to people who missed the auction or mis-judged their bids or have more disposable income later on.
The idea that resellers would sell at lower then face value price to obtain market dominance doesn't make any sense... there is an infinite supply of future events and the distribution costs for tickets is extremely low. Are you suggesting that Ticketmaster would be put out of business by resellers that originally bought the tickets from Ticketmaster? The "US capitalist ideals" you talk about are making the market efficient in the best way possible by optimizing profit, and if that means using a different market style like a Dutch auction then that more power to them. It is not intervening in any definition of the word.
Disclaimer: I'm not saying a Dutch auction is definitely the best answer, there are a lot of open questions there. I don't think your reply had any valid rebuttals though.
Open source, as you mentioned, is another great way. Working on OSS I've gained experience in a niche software market and Indian firms are actually outsourcing projects to me in the states. Software engineering is very much a growing field in the U.S., the ability to outsource for programmers is accelerating the industry and creating more of these positions.
Going for a +1 funny mod? I guess I don't get the dry sense of humor.
Actually it will lead to the discovery of tachyon bolts, and eventually the secrets of creation if Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is correct.
The drink may taste horrible, but the cans are crazy. I think they are made out of reinforced steel, have you tried smashing one?
That's not true at all. There are two full time employees at Linden Labs that are responsible for maintaining the GPL licensed releases and they are kept in sync with the production releases within a few days. Right now, April 19th 2007 @ 1:40PM, the GPL releases are in sync with both the production grid and beta preview grid.
OpenSim is a great project, I work with those guys frequently, but contrary to popular belief it is not a child project of libsecondlife. It is an independent project that happens to use libsecondlife. It's also an important project because the simulator code will likely be released as GPL, while OpenSim is a BSD licensed project. I'm not a big Croquet fan, but I'll have to check out Ogoglio.com and Verse.
- John Hurliman, libsecondlife lead developer
If I see you driving around Pullman I'm totally going to cut you off.
In 2003? They increase the amount of land all the time. Every time someone buys a new island the amount of real estate in-world is increased, and the Linden-owned mainland continent grows all the time as well. Around a month ago over 100 new sims were added, and these sims the Coldwell Bankers bought were auctioned off meaning it was fresh mainland additions.
It's like when a company sells more shares, and all those idiot investors lose their shirts. You should probably get on the phone and tell Coldwell why they are idiots, and how if you were in charge you could save the company. They'll probably hire you on the spot.
A way to anonymously break NDAs and leak trade secrets?
I think you missed the OP point entirely. What if there was a community website for HR departments, managers, and project leaders to post about their employees and what they are doing "in the trenches"? Joe Coder showed up 30 minutes late today, Jim Engineer is consistently missing deadlines, Bob Soandso did a great job delivering for our latest product launch, etc.
"They make people like me waste our time trying to figure out how to restrict things"
This is a joke right? Please tell me this was sarcastic.
In my switching theory example, what will happen to microprocessing once we are up against the very laws of physics?
Then you'll need a grad student
The goal of the project is to be as cool as a TV drama series? More proof that life imitates art.
While we are talking about related projects, we (the libsecondlife project) are working on a C# importer and exporter for xml prim data. The .prims format that prim.blender uses now has an XSD and primimport and primexport are both in early testing. A screenshot is up here. Sometime in the next couple months we hope to have a completely open design chain for Second Life where you can model and texture in any combination of Second Life, SketchUp, prim.blender, or whatever comes up.
Have you ever tried to mix using CDJs? It's a horrible experience in general and considered a novelty to most DJs; something you can play your own tracks or samples on without having to get a dubplate cut or bring more equipment along for. In my opinion digital music is really the next step for artists, with a timecoded vinyl interface and a computer backend. No one has found a better interface to control music with yet, a vinyl record and needle gives you slight time correction and seeking with pitch faders or the outside edge of the record and fast seeking by moving the needle horizontally across the record. Cut and transition points can be marked on the vinyl with a marker.
Wikipedia represents the most notorious source of cheating since campus libraries!
So someone else doesn't file the patent and enforce it.
Facebook has an API you can plug in to that allows you to do all of that. Per account there is also a privacy setting to turn off access to your profile from third party web apps, but it's fairly obscure in the privacy settings and I don't think many people have turned it off.
It's not JPEG it's JPEG2000. There's a big difference, try it out here: http://www.kakadusoftware.com/
So society would be no different if a big banner was hung on your porch saying "this resident has just been convicted of a DUI!"? After all, the court records are publically available information.
Also with routing and account numbers on checks, they are printed with magnetic ink. Even if you did completely black out the number, a bank or someone with MICR hardware could still pick up the numbers.
http://www.asapchecks.com/micr/micr.htm
Good Theatre indeed: http://www.eff.org/legal/victories/
I try to make sure information I get via non-compuer channels matches what the computer tells me, and so forth.
Non-computer channels, like the library?
The parent comment was only trying to state there is no reason to believe China wouldn't spy on the U.S., not that every government in the world is completely trustworthy except for China. And I don't think the Iran-Contra affair disproves this point.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that there's even a Webmail plugin for Firefox that would allow you to check it automatically through your browser.
I hear people complain about needing all these extensions to make Firefox really useful, but you need an extension just to login to Hotmail? That must be how they got the browser so lean.
[/end_humor]