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Sam Lavigne
lav.io · Personal blog · on HN since 2014
Sam Lavigne is an artist and programmer who makes satirical and subversive projects, such as Videogrep and a patent-text generator.
What HN saysHN links it for satirical tech art; commenters point to his projects like LazyCoin, Videogrep, and the carbon-offset protest tool.
21HN people shared it
7linked it in comments
22stories submitted
1.8Kstory points
1 year agolast shared
2014people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Transform any text into a patent application5 people · 278 points · first shared 2014 · 33 comments on HN
- 2LazyCoin: A System and Method for Ceasing Normal Work Activities4 people · 4 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 3Show HN: Audiogrep – automatic audio “supercuts” in python3 people · 4 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 4Yelp Prison Review Faxbot2 people · 82 points · first shared 2014 · 32 comments on HN
- 5Show HN: Projects from “Stupid Shit No One Needs and Terrible Ideas” Hackathon1 people · 424 points · first shared 2014 · 96 comments on HN
- 6Automatic supercuts on the command line with Videogrep1 people · 352 points · first shared 2022 · 56 comments on HN
- 7Videogrep: Automatic Supercuts with Python1 people · 352 points · first shared 2014 · 37 comments on HN
- 8Extracting Zooming Shots from 600 Hrs of Police Helicopter Surveillance Footage1 people · 215 points · first shared 2022 · 116 comments on HN
- 9NYPD Coppelgänger: Exploring Cop Data1 people · 62 points · first shared 2024 · 15 comments on HN
- 10Oculus Birth (2014)1 people · 3 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 11Oculus Oedipus (2015)1 people · 3 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 12Online Shopping Center1 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 13FFmpeg Explorer (2023)1 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 14A systematic examination of propaganda videos produced by ICE1 people · 1 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 15Cold Call: Time Theft as Avoided Emissions1 people · 1 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
danso · 2015-12-28
I'm not sure...the author's projects page (http://lav.io/) is full of politically satirical/subversive work, such as "CSPAN-5: autogenerated supercuts of CSPAN videos" and "Big Data Pawn Shop: leaked NSA documents printed on merchandise" and my favorite, "Yelp Prison Review Faxbot"...so it wasn't likely something he investigated.
OTOH I've been fascinated that these are even endorsement categories and of all the subcategories beneath them...not shocked...just surprised because the endorsement tags I always focus on on LinkedIn are things like "Ruby on Rails" or "Front-end development"
BloodOrb2 · 2025-09-26
Check out Sam Lavigne's project where he assigns a carbon credit to climate protest events https://lav.io/projects/offset/
labseven · 2021-05-04
Sam Lavigne did a similar project in 2017, generating targeted video ads on twitter.
https://lav.io/projects/the-infinite-campaign/
CameronNemo · 2021-05-01
This makes me think of LazyCoin.
https://lav.io/2014/05/lazycoin-officially-patented/
transposed · 2017-08-23
Reminds me of this I came across recently: http://lav.io/2014/05/transform-any-text-into-a-patent-application/
Also just noticed http://lav.io/2014/05/lazycoin-officially-patented/
saaaam · 2015-03-06
As an intermediate step of merging this into videogrep, I've been using moviepy/audiogrep to make these somewhat unnerving condensed c-span videos:
http://lav.io/2015/02/c-span-excerpts/
albertzeyer · 2015-03-06
Also check out the examples: http://lav.io/2015/02/audiogrep-automatic-audio-supercuts/
And this related project: https://github.com/antiboredom/videogrep
He already states the obvious idea to integrate audiogrep into videogrep, which at the moment just uses subtitle files.
> All the instances of the phrase "time" in the movie "In Time": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQMzOUeprlk
> All the one to two second silences in "Total Recall": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEtEbXVbYJQ
> The President's former press secretary telling us what he can tell us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7pymdCU5NQ