Presale Code Red

“You waited weeks for tickets to become available, only for them to sell out in minutes—and then appear shortly thereafter on reseller websites, at a huge markup. Or you managed to get the tickets into your shopping cart, only to discover while checking out that there’s a hefty ‘processing fee.'” The New Republic: The Ticket Monopoly Is Worse Than Ever (Thanks, Obama).

+ LA Times: Computers crack the code of pop-song success: “After analyzing the attributes of more than half a million songs released over a period of 30 years, a computer algorithm was able to sort the successful songs from also-rans … Successful songs are happier, brighter, more party-like, more danceable and less sad than most songs.” (This is the first time I’ve ever needed to listen to some Radiohead tracks to cheer myself up…)