The Sheep Market: 10,000 Drawings of Sheep Using Amazon Mechanical Turk

Amazon Mechanical Turk is a web marketplace that basically lets you buy labor for tasks particularly suited for humans (i.e. easy for man, but hard for computers).

The Sheep Market is a neat, albeit a little whimsical, application of this concept. For a 2006 art project, Aaron Koblin, then of the Department of Design|Media at UCLA, "bought" 10,000 drawings of a sheep facing to the left from thousands of workers for $0.02 each. The work and the animation process are captured and then displayed as an artwork!

Average time spent drawing each sheep: 105 seconds
Average wage: $0.69/hour
Rejected sheep: 662
Collection Period: 40 days
Collection rate: about 11 sheep/hour
Unique IP addresses: 7599

Links: The Sheep Market [Flash] | Description at UCLA's website (with video)| Aaron's website - Thanks wade7!


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lol Lloyd. I love the intricate details these theives go through just to screw it up. Of I beleive these are the only crimes that get repoted. You never hear the details of the one who got away.
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Wow, I can't believe after all that work and years of planning on the first story, they are dumb enough not to dispose of the evidence properly!

As for the rest, it seems like brute force, large numbers of people involved, and having the ego to spend what you stole on extravagant stuff are always a surefire way to screw things up. I prefer smart heisters. :P
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If you are interested in the 2003 Antwerp diamond heist, a book on the subject is coming out in February called "Flawless: Inside the World's Largest Diamond Heist."
FlawlessBook
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Very interesting stories. Small correction from the THE SECURITAS DEPOT story - In total, investigators have arrested about 30 people in connection with the crime, including drivers, *face* police, a car dealer, a salesman, a roofer, and a hairdresser named Kim Shackleton. Probibly should be *fake*.
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