so, i took a google walk up randolph and gratiot to trinosophes, and it just looks like downtown-anywhere to me. any downtown area is a little creepy; this doesn't seem bad. caveats and smart behaviour obviously apply, as they would in any downtown anywhere, but i'm not really worried.

google claims it's a 25 minute walk. my experience is that that usually means it's more like 15, because i'm fit and i walk fast. walking there while the sun is up isn't going to be a concern, but i am going to have to walk back around 11:00. well, i'm going to have to figure things out by experimenting, anyways. if i walk by a mugging, i may think twice about it next time.

i think by foot is actually the safest approach, given that detroit has a high incidence of car vandalism and buses really just get you stuck in a corner you can't get out of it. a brisk walker is less of a target than a bus passenger.

i'm going to go down early to pick up some tickets for boris on the 9th. i've avoided listening to the new record...

tomorrow, i'm going to finally start building the rest of the furniture i need in this place: several large bookshelves and a few tables. i simply can't find anything i could substitute in the way i want it on kijiji.

i've been waiting for a year to do this, so i'm a little excited about it. i've got a lot of measuring to do...

i was initially counting on a small but regular sum coming from my stepmother to deal with the extra furniture. well, i say that without a lot of seriousness. it was something my father had indicated was important to him, and there was a verbal agreement reached on his instigation, but i really knew better than to take it seriously. he'd indicated to me a few times that she wasn't listening to him and his wishes weren't likely to be carried out, and i knew it was more than the morphine talking. he tried, but the truth is he knew as well as i did that she wasn’t going to honour anything she didn't sign and she wasn't going to sign anything...

i probably wouldn't have moved here in the first place if i was taking that seriously. i think i *did* think she'd give it a few months, at least. either way, it never materialized.

so, then i was waiting for the tax return to come in. but they're splitting it up on a monthly basis. so, instead of getting $650 in one chunk that i could spend on furniture amongst other things, i get bit a more than $50 a month, starting last month. which means i'd have to go to the hardware store and buy some wood every month for the next three or four months, or save it up until next spring. annoying...

it turns out the landlord doesn't want to pay me interest on my rent deposit, so he's giving it back to me this month. that is, i don't pay rent this month. he knows i'm not going anywhere, so the last month scenario is pretty unlikely. and, he's not going to immediately evict me for missing a month, either. three, probably...

so, that gives me some extra disposable income, and the cash i need to get the stuff built.

i actually don't have a clue what this is going to cost. i'm just going to measure what i need and go down and find out. but i figure there's not more than $20 worth of wood in any single thing i want to build, so i'm guessing $150 absolute max and probably something more like $75. the question is going to arise as to how much is going to end up as waste. but i'll figure out something to do with any extra pieces i get.

i'm also going to have to get a drill. i could screw through particle board, but i can't screw through heavier wood. and i'm mostly going to be making the stuff ikea style, which means drilling holes into the wood and then screwing it together with dowels and stuff.

i mean, i don't otherwise know how to make furniture. shelves are pretty intuitive; the key is just making sure everything's orthogonal. i've put together enough ikea stuff, though, that i can reverse engineer the idea and apply it to the rest of it.

objects do exist independently of our perception of them. i know there's some experiments in physics that seem to question this, but getting to the conclusion that there isn't an independent, objective reality is just a bad interpretation, relying more on assumptions than observation.

however, objects also exist in our minds in subjective ways that differ from that objective interpretation. and, depending on the subject, the objective interpretation may be so poorly defined that only the subjective interpretation is meaningful in any definable context.

abstractly, there's no contradiction in this. the confusion arises from the misunderstanding that things can only exist subjectively or objectively. that merely reduces to human arrogance. the way we interpret things in our minds has no effect on the reality that exists beyond us. but, we're likewise simply not able to grapple with many things beyond what we can subjectively interpret them as, due to the sum of our experience and knowledge. so, there arises what seems like a functional contradiction, but it is really only the result of incomplete knowledge.

this seeming contradiction defines most of the relationships we have, in every context. the person in front of you has an objective existence, but you're only able to comprehend that person through the lens of your subjective experience with that person, thereby making your interpretation of them incomplete at best and just flat out wrong at worst (which, unless you know somebody very well, is usually going to be the case). and, we will absolutely place people into boxes in order to categorize them and make sense of them, in ways that only partially conform to the evidence we have in front of us - because we are not perfect logical machines, but imperfect biological creatures.

even more muddying is that our perceptions of ourselves go through the same filters. you can only understand yourself through the same subjective process. you can not know yourself objectively.

so, what is the objective object, then? it exists, but it's not possible to measure it. maybe a trafalmadorian could figure it out by observing it from a fourth dimension. but none of us ever can.

but we should be aware that it exists, so as to not become too confused by the imperfect lenses we have to experience objects with.

in my view, that's a really final conclusion to this problem.

in that sense, i am absolutely a creation of your imagination - an idea.

but i am also a creation of everybody else's imagination, including my own imagination.

and you are a figment of my imagination, as you are a figment of everybody else's imagination, including your own imagination.

but we all also exist objectively and independently of anybody's imagination. it's just that none of us can ever measure that without breaking the rules and limitations of consciousness.

yeah, this is what i was worried about: i've seen a few baby roaches (a few mm in length) this morning. the eggs must have been underneath the counter or something - somewhere i can't get to. but they're all dead. the residues seem to have got 'em.

they usually hatch in the fall, so this is actually a bit early. maybe it's the weather. the fucking polar vortex is back and it's getting us some cool nights in the low teens.

the fact that i'm not seeing any adults suggests to me that any oothecae that were left have been stranded, in terms of a nesting population. and the fact that they're coming out for food and getting poisoned suggests that they have to. something i noticed before the centipedes left is that they were moving back to the kitchen, indicating they sensed food (ie roaches) there. a few of them were also killed by the poison (although i've seen several in the back room so the population there is doing fine).

if anything, the early hatch is probably beneficial to me as it gets rid of them while the residues are still there. i think i'm still winning. i was never certain if they were coming in from out of the apartment or coming up from under the floors; i was fairly sure of the former, but it meant i had to stop them before they started leaving eggs under the cabinets. i do think they were mostly coming in from outside, but i didn't get to them before at least a few eggs got laid.

now, i simply don't know how many eggs are under there....and have to hope the poison holds out long enough to get them before they breed another time....

if i start noticing a larger population, the next step will be finding out what hole in the floor they're coming up and steel wooling it.

i can't hope to bait them because the truth is that the whole neighbourhood is infested. they'll come back. i just have to block entry.

i'm not happy about spraying again, either. the pesticide i'm using is supposed to have extremely low mammal toxicity, i did the research and it's supposed to be safe for humans in non-ridiculous direct dosages (meaning don't drink it), but i'm a little concerned that it might have something to do with my sore neck.

chomsky is normally an excellent source of information, and i like the general idea underlying the lecture, but the part about corporations being people is just simply wrong.

anybody who has taken an introductory course in tort law knows that you will study, within the first two weeks of lectures, that corporate personhood arose out of a difficulty assigning fault in cases where the corporation as a whole is liable, rather than an individual. otherwise, no entity would have legal standing, and no court procedure could occur. this really comes right out engels - no one person can say "this product is mine" type of thing. further, it's beneficial to workers because it collectivizes the liability.

the logic used in the case is not hegelian but kantian; the judge tried to dumb it down by arguing in terms of christian ethics, but if you break it down properly you'll see it's a deontological argument built on a social contract, but proudhon's more so than rousseau's. the foundations of this tort law are actually just about the most perfectly anarchist thing you could possibly imagine arising out of the british legal tradition.

elsewhere, i've heard chomsky talk about how we give corporations rights but not responsibilities. that gets to the more serious problem. personally, i'd rather see limited liability abolished than corporate personhood, as it would reestablish disincentives against investing in environmental devastation & etc. and, if corporations are people, should they not be taxed as people?

but, this history is wrong. corporations are people because it's the only way they can have legal standing, and the courts have determined that they must face consequences for antisocial behaviour due to kantian considerations of a social contract. this is good shit. this is powerful shit. reform is necessary, but it needs to be more complex and subtle than merely abolishing personhood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abdnMJALp7k

my arm works again. yay!

yeah. the pain in my hand has gone away, thankfully. my neck hurts a little (which is why i think "pinched nerve") still, though, so i'm going to wait until midnight.

i seem to have pulled some kind of muscle in my arm from playing punk chords at full speed yesterday.

i'm far too frail.

i think it's a pinched nerve. it's not really stopping me from playing, but i'm going to rest it another 12 hours or so to avoid aggravating it.

the centipedes have migrated out and into the storage area, indicating there is no longer any food for them in the apartment.

i am very close to declaring a final victory.

dude wearing a cure shirt?

i know the propaganda on both sides is very strong, but the rebels simply have no motive to shoot down a passenger jet. i know this is a harsh calculus, but it is the type of logic that overrides in war.

the rebels could not have possibly thought the lives of the people aboard the plane were worth the cost of a wasted missile.

that allows for two legitimate possibilities:

1) the rebels thought the plane was a ukrainian military plane. it was coming in from the direction ukrainian planes would normally follow, and the identification and tracking tools they're using in the fields is not on the level of the tools that the infrastructure provides. to take nothing away from the tragedy of events, the reality is that the plane flew into a war zone. bad things happen when you fly a passenger plane into a warzone. the proper response is to immediately reroute all civilian flights away from the area. they may be trying to prevent an investigation to avoid the optics around it, but that doesn't suggest they did it with intent. nor can we expect them to "be more careful". they need to stop flying over the area while the fighting continues.

2) american and nato forces regularly stage attacks for political reasons, and/or take advantage of errors such as this. it doesn't have to be about actually sending nato troops in (that's not likely to happen until the missile shield is completed). merely  creating a security situation for investigators to take over provides the proper context for the ukrainian state to enter the area.

the most likely possibility is (1), and by a long shot. the situation may end up exploited in the way that (2) suggests, but that doesn't imply they were responsible. yet, if there is a conspiracy - if this was planned, however unlikely - it is the west that is a more likely suspect than the east, both due to motives and to historical precedent.

deathtokoalas
in actuality, weird al is an agent of the nwo and his attempt to distract from the fact merely confirms it. why else would he make a video like this?

think about it: all those years on mtv, mocking the counter-culture. the first hint was his "smells like nirvana" video, which attempted to reduce the cultural changes inherent in alternative culture to a mere joke, thereby neutralizing it's revolutionary potential.

it's a well worn tactic, and a clear indication of who he's really working for.

ReVoLuTioNaRYMiNDeD
Interesting, but I doubt it. I mean he had to get funding from college humour. If he was working for them he would have an unlimited budget

deathtokoalas
well, who funds college humour? and are they not carrying on a similar attack?

if it turns out that college humour is clean - i doubt it - then he must have been sent to infiltrate them.

JonnyXrep 
You are both nuts.

deathtokoalas
it's perfect conspiratorial logic, actually.

when something appears to disprove the conspiracy, it is always evidence of the conspiracy itself.

there is a cabal.

and you're all sheeple.

oldgays
weird al is been in the game since Queen and Dr. Demento. I would like to think he's not in the cabal but i guess anything is possible. You might like this http://imgur.com/a/1IMPV

deathtokoalas
his 80s work had a different flavour. but, your suggestion that he's not in the cabal is just more evidence that he is in the cabal. further, you're also probably in the cabal.

John
PLOT TWIST: You're apart of the secret corporations, and are saying certain things to direct attention to decoy groups :O Duhn Duhn Duuuuuuuuuhn!

Point is; paranoia leads to even more paranoia, until everybody eventualy goes mad. And stop deleting comments, just makes you seem insecure.

deathtokoalas
well, that's what i'm accusing al of, so it can't actually be true. it must be that your claim that i'm providing a distraction is actually an attempt to distract from my claim that al is an agent. which makes you a part of the cabal, as well.

Gus23861
I remember when I used to be like you, anything that had the nwo in it I would assume or think of ways to assume that its an inside job and that they are working for the illuminati, dont get me wrong im not having a go at you or anything, I believe they are real but just sometimes people ARE actuality having a joke about it, like in this instance

deathtokoalas
when they can't get you with logic, they attempt emotional manipulation. another obvious nwo agent.

Wom
Shhh, we can't talk here. They're watching. Speak behind the dumpster at 11 o'clock sharp.

deathtokoalas
you've obviously suggested the dumpster because you're aware of the cameras in the streetlights, thereby making you an nwo agent

it reminds me of the time that the undercover cops in food not bombs tried to get us to serve inside city hall. in the district i lived in, city hall was basically the only place in the entire downtown core where we weren't protected by canadian equivalents of the 4th amendment, due to special anti-terrorist legislation. if we served in the park across the street, we'd retain those rights. and, there were, err, reasons why searching us would cause us legal problems.

you guys are sneaky. but i know your tricks.

Wom
*holds finger to ear* Shit, she's onto me. Advise.

TheSoka999
Everyone is an nwo agent, (I don't even know what the fuck nwo is) I think you should see a psychiatrist because you have a sever case of paranoia which might turn to violent aggression towards other people you accuse of being "involved in the conspiracy", this person here is spreading wide panic with unconfirmed claims, although most people will simply ignore her, other paranoid people might take her seriously which will promote more aggressive behavior. No, I am not from the USA, no I do not believe in "the illuminati" conspiracy, why?, because it's unfunded, idiotic and based on nothing but assumptions and the whole pyramid of belief you have here would fall apart if a single part of it was false.

deathtokoalas
the illuminati is most certainly funded - largely by your tax dollars. that's why it's so important to avoid paying any taxes. that's the best way to fight the illuminati - complete tax avoidance.

only the sheeple will be fooled by your suggestions. we the people know the TRUTH.

all the nwo agents are out today, it appears.

DerBlitzStag
Illuminarti? Last time I checked I worked for the Jesuits... or was it Zionists?

deathtokoalas
it doesn't matter. they all work for the lizard people.

Eli
hes making fun of people like you that think of everything as some kind of conspiracy

deathtokoalas
exactly.

that's why he's nwo.

Ricardo
That doesn't make any sense!

deathtokoalas
please ignore this nwo agent and his confusing psy-ops. if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth. that's what these people are trying to accomplish by repeatedly arguing that i don't make sense, or that i'm crazy, etc.

the thing that REALLY doesn't make sense is why the sheeple are so easily led and confused.

but the people know the truth. and we will eventually stop the illuminati from taxing us and redistributing our wealth back to the people that we stole it from fair and square.

DerBlitzStag
WHAT? When I sighed up I specifically wanted to be working for the Zionists. I don't care about no Goy lizard shitzels. Fuck that - I'm gonna leave the CIA now and hit the Youtube interview circuit.

deathtokoalas
yeah, right. never believe an nwo agent when:

1) they say they're not an nwo agent. that just means they are, logically.
2) they say they're quitting the nwo. that's just a ploy to trick you.

shroomy frog
i used to be knee deep in this conspiracy crap its nothing but nonsence. the free masons arent bad their the good guys well the groups orginal message fk the church. second non of this reptlion shit is true if you believe in it youll just end up a socially impaired nut. just live your life

deathtokoalas
the masons are just one of several front groups for the lizard people. and, they didn't have an anti-church message to start - that was the illuminati. it's the reason the pope warned us that associating with illuminati would mean we'd have to go to hell and the reason so many people think the illuminati are communist nazi jewish satanists. it was the church that said that so the sheeple wouldn't become illuminati. but the pope works for the lizard people, and eventually they took over the illuminati and now they're lizard people, too.

the masons actually came from ancient egypt and migrated to scotland through spain.

the end goal is to live life more happily, but how can we be happy when the nwo steals all our taxes?

James D
interesting theory, but as with any that concern conspiracy, the government will keep all whispers of truth out of sight, so we may never know what's right 

deathtokoalas
you're not following the logic. if the government withholds information regarding a claim, that implies the claim is necessarily true. why else would they withhold information?

PsyberSn0w
Fucking lol.

"When something contradicts the conspiracy, it is evidence of the conspiracy. When something does not contradict the conspiracy, it is evidence of the conspiracy. Everything proves my viewpoints and anything that attempts to disprove my viewpoints only furthers the proof of them."

Are you really so fucking dense, so fucking deluded that you can't understand how illogical that is?

deathtokoalas
"psybersn0w", if that is her real name, is one of the sheeple.  beware, people. do not be sheeple.

James D
Weird Al could have made it for the same reasons humans everywhere make videos and post them on YouTube. For the fame, the funny, and the money. Without evidence though, this debate is directionless

deathtokoalas
so, show me the evidence, then.

Rocker1024
and your distraction of his distraction from your distraction is a distraction that is distracting and distracting the real distraction that is the distraction.

deathtokoalas
no. the real distraction is your attempt to distract from my explanation that his claim that i was distracting was a distraction from my claim that al is an agent. yet another member of the cabal...

TonyKnockOff
"WAKE UP SHEEPLE!"

Don't pay attention to the mentally unstable. Take a look at the guy's videos, there's something obviously something fucked about him. He's paranoid and by the looks of it, doesn't sleep well at night.

deathtokoalas
i agree that you should take a closer look at my videos yourself and decide whether i'm really crazy or whether these nwo agents are trying to confuse you into thinking i'm crazy in order to continue their lies while keeping you blind to the truth.

Myrsa
Life is much more boring than the conspiracy theorists want to admit..Of course everyone knows,there will be an elite few who will try to stay at the top..nothing mind blowing about it..however,associating everything in the world to illuminati,freemasons,lucifer and everything occult is where some of you get all looney..It is entertaining yes but most of it is some half-truths mixed with a lot of hogwash

deathtokoalas
the greatest thing about david icke is that it's actually a marxist class analysis. but you sheeple won't accept that.

Sheogorath Unearth
I work for SCP, not the Illuminati. Jesus.

deathtokoalas
the sacred clown posse is just another front for the lizard people

sigh. when will the sheeple learn?

THELONELYCOW
Actually your a psychopath and how do I know your not part of the n.w.o. using confusing us by blaming other people when you are the actual one

deathtokoalas
because that's what i'm saying about al. it's like you're saying that you're rubber and i'm glue and everything i say bounces back and sticks to me. which is fine if you're a snotty child, but it's not advanced enough for conspiratorial logic. anything al or any commenters say that is inconsistent with my claims is necessarily a distraction because of the inconsistency with my claims, which are the truth.

is that more clear? how many times do i need to explain it to you sheeple? 

SSGoku55
Another theory is that he has turned against the nwo.  This video with over 13 million views and over 12,000 comments, and growing, is shedding light on the illuminati.  People are asking questions, providing information, drawing attention to them, which the illuminati don't want.  They love to stay hidden, in the shadows and play on the sheeple of humanity.  More and more channels about them are appearing.  Social media is being replaced by mainstream media, which people don't believe anymore, being controlled by 6 corporations.  If what you say is true, thou, it's having a backlash effect.  People are learning more about them than ever.  The more humanity knows them, the sooner the sleeping giant (Humanity) awakens and that spells the end of the nwo and the illuminati.  THAT IS THE ILLMINATI'S GREATEST FEAR!!!   Keep fighting!

deathtokoalas
that's what they want you to believe, but throughout history our great saviours have all been fronts for the lizard people. the lizard people will engineer fake revolutions every so often to try out stronger means of control.

there is one coming. obama was a dry run. step back from the situation and look at it carefully. he used all the same social media tricks you're suggesting will save us. but did they save us? no. he's just another pawn of wall street, beholden to the military-industrial complex.

you won't lose the few freedoms you have left from a fascist guard knocking on your door. you'll lose it in the fine print of a false revolution, pushed by a marketing campaign over social media.

but you're so controlled that you've confused your chains for your way to break them.

BrawlTheMan
Pretty sure your crazy. That puppy dog look you have on your channel won't change my mind.

deathtokoalas
*you're.

BrawlTheMan
OH SNAP! YOU CORRECTED MY GRAMMAR! I AM INSTANTLY DEFEATED AND YOU ARE NOT CRAZY. Srsly, no big wall of text about how I'm a sheeple or shill, or whatever buzzword you want to call me?

deathtokoalas
no. your grammar indicated to me that you're just one of the poor lost fools. the lizard people are all in the advanced class. proper grammar and upper class accents are ways that they identify themselves to each other. 

Some guy K bish
He made the video because look at the world today every things that is happening is being blamed on the "Illuminati" but the simble for the illuminati means god watches over us all so are they just a religious group that one of the presidents (sorry I don't know what one in English) might have been part of that's why its on the dollar but this is just a theory

deathtokoalas
nonononono, the eye of horus is a deist mason symbol, not an illuminati symbol. the illuminati used to be a group of freethinkers that were opposed to religious fundamentalism, but the church broke them up around the year 1800 and sent adam weishaupt to a convent and made him repent his sins. since then, it's just been another alien lizard people front group. the masons are also a lizard people front group but they're thousands of years old and come from egypt. they brought the eye of horus with them from egypt.

some people say the eye of horus is actually an eye of providence and that it's use on the dollar bill predates it's use in masonry, but this is just obfuscating propaganda for sheeple. 

Nick
Well while you people are worrying about the nwo, I'm gonna worry about the bees. Now you're probably saying to yourself; "what the fuck is he talking about..." Well if you didn't know, bees are going extinct and well that's not good. If the bees go extinct, we go extinct. Bees are one of the main sources of pollination and a vital role in the food chain. At first I was all like; "oh no, no more honey... boo hoo." Then I realized its much mores serious then that. So while you peeps worry about conspiracy I'm gonna worry about a threat to all humanity. It makes me sad to think it could end like this... don't believe me? Look it up yourself (just look up: are the bees going extinct)

deathtokoalas
well, who do you think are eliminating the bees? it's part of the lizards' plan to terraform the earth to the jurrasic period. global warming isn't a hoax so much as it's being done on purpose. they've been planning this for centuries, ever since they crash landed here from their millions year old relativity experiment (it turns out einstein was right, but off by a few factors, which is why they came back millions of years into the future), and found all their lizard brethren had been replaced by hominids. 

TheTobiasVaughn
there hasn't been an honest, real, revolutionary movement in America since the 70s, perhaps surviving into the very early 80s at absolute latest. I left America ten years ago, and have had a massive detox from the constant stream of mindless propaganda I was subjected to every damn day of my life living there. Everyone in America has been pretty blatantly brainwashed by corporate and national institutions to having a very skewed world view. I had to totally leave America for 5 or 6 years before seeing how strong it was. After 10 years, well, now I understand why the rest of the world thinks Americans are a bit nuts.

deathtokoalas
do you think it's a coincidence that weird al's rise is correlated with the collapse of revolutionary politics in america?

do i need to plot you sheeple a graph, or what?

TheTobiasVaughn
well just like the guy who I berated for using the word "bitch" repeatedly as ultimately unhelpful in his arguments - with you it's sheeple. It is not a word which will assist in getting across your thesis. Present your case clearly with evidence and example and anyone awake enough will follow. But saying sheeple puts you in a hostile position against those you hope to wake up.

deathtokoalas
if i wake up the sheeple, who will i have to berate?

Allura Ambrose
Yo Deathtokoalas, you're being paranoid, i can suggest you one thing, learn Danish and Greenlandic, and move to nuuk, if ww3 happens, you be safe there, they got enough reserves to last out that war.

deathtokoalas
there's no concerts there, though. sounds boring. life without concerts isn't worth living...

...but i'm not worried about wwIII. it's just an excuse for the lizard people to steal your taxes and give them to their lizard people buddies in the defence industry.

superpotatoes1989
How do I know you aren't in the cabal, and Weird Al is actually a freedom fighter.  For all we know, you could be trying to confuse and distract us from a real message.

deathtokoalas
i already provided this logic: that would contradict the truth i'm spreading, and is therefore necessarily false.

faarsight
That's right, punk. We're watching you right now.

deathtokoalas
you don't how true that really is....

Nikki
Really? Weird al is a really sweet guy, and a parody genius. Lets just be happy for him instead of turning a form of entertainment into a confirmation of a conspiracy.

deathtokoalas
keep talking nwo agents, it just further confirms my suspicions.

Nuff Said
This song was made for people like you.

deathtokoalas
hardly. the song was made for (lizard) people like al.

Nikki
nwo agents? Do you even know what a smile is? Your face isn't indicating you do. Neither are your words. Lighten up. You take life way too seriously.

deathtokoalas
that's exactly how the nwo wants you to think.

ben
Jesus Christ. He did it because the whole Illuminati thing has become mainstream knowledge now, everyone has heard of it through movies, books, music, etc. And Al always jokes on stuff that's popular. He didn't parody Nirvana to destroy some "alternative culture" he did it because they were becoming popular and he almost ALWAYS focuses on stuff that's becoming big. Same deal here.

I'm not saying I don't believe there are conspiracies and secret cabals and all that kind of thing, at least to some degree, but Weird Al jokes on whatever is big at the time, and nowadays everybody is an armchair conspiracy theorist because the information is so much more prevalent and easily-accessible now. What was once found in rare book shops is now at Barnes and Noble and Amazon and made into a YouTube video and a PDF.

To follow all that with two specific questions, how did Nirvana offer some great cultural change, and how did Weird Al lampooning them affect their influence? They loved the song and their popularity remained strong until Cobain's death. To this day they're seen as legends, but never brought any amazing cultural change. So how did one person's (hilarious) parody effect anything at all?

deathtokoalas
nirvana had a few different social messages, but they were legitimately on the cusp of converting high adrenaline, popular rock music from something that is inherently misogynist and homophobic to something that promotes equality across gender and orientation. it's not like kurt cobain was the first rock start to wear a dress on stage or make out with his bassist on live tv (well, maybe he was the first to do the latter), but it was different when somebody like david bowie did it because he wasn't appealing to the same kids that listened to skid row and slayer. nor was he the only person articulating this in the 90s, but he was definitely leading the way. unfortunately, this had all collapsed by about the year 2000 and homophobic and misogynistic rock music made a huge comeback with the next generation of nu metal and *core offshoots.

weird al's influence on this was not direct. but, by converting that social message into a joke, he helped neutralize it.

James C
what do you think about Korn? They speak out against the coming onslaught of evil! Spike in my viens!

deathtokoalas
i can't criticize korn the same way i'll criticize limp bizkit or kid rock. korn really came out of a merger of hardcore punk and hip-hop, and i'm still not entirely sure why the name "nu metal" got attached to them. i'll say the same thing about tool. tool's primary influences were rollins-era black flag, soundgarden and swans. how does that produce something called metal?

my criticisms of korn are more related to how adolescent the music is. i had their first three records, but i grew out of it by the time i was about 17. and, you have to realize that the domain of korn fandom in the 90s was very different than it was in the 00s as well - it was really freaky music that social outcasts listened to, not this popular phenomenon for jerkish frat boys.

i honestly haven't heard much of anything they've done since follow the leader. and, i've tried to listen to their earlier stuff since and just can't...

mr irenic
Well, that was 3 paragraphs of crazy.

deathtokoalas
i see the nwo agents are back at it....

mr irenic
No, I'm an Atheist. I don't believe in any of this dumb-ass Religion scifi mix bullshit. No, our politicians are not humanoid lizards who have a plan to take over the World and turn it into a one world Goverment where they'll kill off 75% of the worlds population. No, the RFID chip is not the mark of the beast. Satan does not exist. This is just tin-foil hat wearing bullshit.

deathtokoalas
these attempts at persuading me to accept your nwo lies are pointless.

0okamino
"it's perfect conspiratorial logic" The food in my refrigerator spoiled because the cooling system was so perfectly broken. And the kitchen was conspiring against me.

deathtokoalas
it's all designed by the refrigerator companies in co-ordination with the food growing unions.

0okamino
Those sneaky bastards. The other kitchen appliances must be in on it, too.

deathtokoalas
they can talk to each other via their wiring, you know. you have to be very careful what you say when you're around them. and tinfoil doesn't help.

0okamino
That's why I always cover my face with clingwrap any time I'm in there now.

deathtokoalas
clingwrap doesn't work, either.  the only solution is to use the cone of silence.

0okamino
It seems to have worked so far. I'll try wrapping it around the cone of silence, just to be safe.

deathtokoalas
no, it has not worked, and i've had enough of your nwo obfuscation!

0okamino
Well, I said it seems to work. But maybe that's just them lulling me into a false sense of security. I'll start using the cone of silence.

Mirage9475
Damn A-10 Thunderbolt flies over Are the Rice Crispies in my cupboard NWO agents too?

deathtokoalas
snap, crackle and pop are definitely on the payroll.

Mirage9475
Good job I ate them.

TheManWithTheFlan
You realize, Kurt Cobain thought "Smells Like Nirvana" was hilarious, right? That he literally (like, Grammar Nazi literally) "LOL'd" at it?

deathtokoalas
he seems to not have realized the consequences of it, or maybe didn't care. it seems to be a common level of naivete or apathy with people he parodies.

menacinggesture
I think you may have given this one entirely too much thought, or Weird Al's social influence entirely too much credit.

deathtokoalas
you cia plants and nwo agents just won't give it up, will you?

menacingggesture
LMAO!  I'm just some random asshole spoofing shit on the internet.  I'm not working to undermine anything, except maybe myself, but I mostly do that on dating sites.  lmao.

deathtokoalas
once again: i will not be swayed with your obfuscation.

publishing the intersection of two identical particles moving in completely opposite directions (inri047)

ok...

so, to understand this piece, it's necessary to go back to 1998.

i was working out primitive sequencer parts for the first inri demo and it just sort of crossed my mind that there was really nothing stopping me from composing symphonies except for a lot of music theory. well, if i could write electronic music without training, why couldn't i write symphonies without training? i mean, the score writing program exists in front of me. it was just a question of experimenting with it. i could do it myself...

...but i actually already had a pretty hefty disdain for music theory by the age of 17. i'd managed to come across a music history textbook that traced the deconstruction of western theory from beethoven through to schoenberg and this, combined with my experiences as a guitarist, was enough to prevent me from taking it seriously. the perception i had was of modern composers viewing music theory sort of like how biologists viewed creationism. i use that analogy fairly frequently. it just didn't strike me as relevant.

now, i've softened a bit over time to a view that music theory is best understood in terms of the underlying physics. this renders the theory useless, but upholds the basic relationships between tones as physical, mathematical realities. the thing is the next step of abstraction is understanding that these mathematical objects can be arranged and analyzed in any arbitrary way, and the conventional theory really *is* a fallacy akin to creationism. so, i still hold to the general thesis. this is actually the first serious example of me putting that disdain for the idea that music should have a theory into real action. i remain adamantly of the view that art is not a realm where theories should exist or be viewed with anything other than scorn. theories are rigid, formal things; art is informal, chaotic.

so, it's 1998. i have a scorewriter and a very basic soundcard and i want to bullshit a symphony out of it. i did this by composing a single brief melody by randomly mashing notes into a scorewriter. i then took that melody and pasted it over top of itself at differing speeds (64th, 32nd, 16th, 8th, quarter, half, whole notes). i then took that, cut it off near the end of the half notes and pasted it over itself, backwards.

that might sound like it's going to sound awful, but it actually sounds quite lovely. one could analyze it quite easily, but it's creation is beyond the realm of any rules of construction.

which is where art belongs.

...excepting the algorithm i used, of course. i suppose it's more reich than schoenberg, but kind of more xenakis than either.

the initial version ended up subsumed underneath a messy noise collage that i created independently and have lost the source material for. that messy noise collage was eliminated from the track for the 1999 version, which was reconstructed by reproducing the algorithm. these are tracks 19 and 20 on this systematic exploration of the theme.

in 2001, i ran the midi file through my soundblaster live!, which as primitive as it is, has a much nicer wavetable in it than the primitive soundcard i used in 1998 and 1999 (i don't remember what it was). this is track 21. i also slowed it down by about 20 bpm and allowed the full file to "intersect", which let it breathe more. i've previously not done anything with this mix other than append it to some mix cds. the guitars on the soundblaster are notoriously bad, so there wasn't a lot to do with it....

why? well, i was writing a lot with scorewriters at the time and was just experimenting with the old file, really. but i was also finishing up what would be the only year i would spend in the math-physics department, and thought it sounded like i would imagine intersecting particles *should* sound like. i was generally interested in finding ways to combine science with music then - an interest that is present in older tracks as well and that has stuck with me. i may explore these themes further in time. one of the ideas i really wanted to accomplish was a physical modelling of the universe, to actually simulate the music of the spheres, as pythagoras imagined it. i think i underestimated the complexity of such a task....

of course, i never expected the music of the spheres to be tonal. and i wouldn't expect the sound of particles intersecting to be musical, either. but, we can take some artistic license. if intersecting particles are to make a sound, it OUGHT to be something like this!

now, the place to work out the actual intersection is rather arbitrary. i had initially cut off the entire section of pure whole notes, back in '98. what i wanted to do in '01 was create a sequence where it's cut off incrementally, creating shorter and shorter pieces. i didn't actually do that then, but i have now.

as for the piece, i haven't changed it much. i've doubled the guitar with a pizzicato string section, and put it through a better guitar synthesizer (and amp simulator, and effects). the sound fonts are otherwise identical, just updated mildly to a better synthesizer.

i've included the midi files of the original composition, if you'd like to mess with it on your own.

written june, 1998. reimagined june, 2001. slightly rearranged and re-rendered at the end of july, 2014. the renders here are from june 1998, june 1999, june 2001 and july 2014. as always, please headphones.

credits:
j - programming, digital effects & treatments, digital wave editing, composition.

the rendered electronic orchestras variously include piano, electric guitar, orchestra hit, synth pads, pizzicato strings and pc card.

released june 18, 2001

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-intersection-of-two-identical-particles-moving-in-completely-opposite-directions

nexus card arrived in the mail today.

first show over will be the seminal kraut-noise act, oneida.

i'm learning that detroit has a show i'd spend $10 on pretty much every day. i don't have $10 to spend every day. if i were to somehow find a job, i'd not be able to go to a lot of the shows, so it's a catch-22. worse, it costs $9 (maybe $7, i'll find out) in tolls to get back and forth. that's going to mean i'm going to not buy very much beer when i'm over. going across 4 or 5 times a month (which is roughly the current plan) is going to add up to substantial border tolls, unfortunately. i mean, the cost of a $5 show is actually $15. that's a big difference. i can't resolve that, i just have to eat it.

so, that means i'm going to be picky. but, the flip side is that i have a huge array of options. as i'll be keeping a close eye on things, i'll also point out here shows that i nearly attended but didn't. unfortunately, these are probably going to be a lot of the up and coming acts i'd otherwise take a chance on. and i will miss some things in person.

for the next few months, i have an increased amount of disposable income. i will be over quite often.

oneida is a good first show. first update on the first of august.

deathtokoalas
i refuse to follow the rules that exist in conventional english grammar regarding its/it's, as it demonstrates rather clearly how grammar is in fact a form of mind control. it clearly follows that weird al is an nwo pawn, btw.

but, let us analyze this carefully. we have three things to take into account.

1) contractions. it's can clearly be used as a contraction for "it is". no argument.
2) plural. generally, when used without an apostrophe, an s at the end of a word means that the idea expressed is one of plurality.
3) possessive. generally, we use apostrophes to indicate possessives.

it follows that, to be consistent across the language, its should mean plural and it's should be used for both the contraction and the possessive. yet, for absolutely no discernible reason other than the arbitrary dictate of some centralized grammar authority somewhere, this convention is shattered for it's/its. i don't know the history, but it almost certainly reduces to somebody's arbitrary opinion on the matter.

i reject all of this as inconsistent with the principles of natural justice, which demand that laws be on a firm, rational basis rather than at the arbitrary dictate of some authoritarian body. with enough push back, we can take back our language as a democratic, dynamic entity and have this changed to something more rational.

so, please join in me in ignoring the irrationality of this particular rule of modern english - and any others you may find.

Luke
What do you have against koalas?

deathtokoalas
it's the cuteness. puts me into a rage just thinking about it...

Mario
whether or not you're being a troll, you make a rather interesting claim. You must be the life of the party, too. Haha take care.

deathtokoalas
well, in some sense, i'm drawing from orwell. but, you don't really need to draw on fiction. you can look at the development of french. the history of repression that has gone into french is very deep and well documented. most people that today speak "proper french" previously spoke a different dialect of latin, such as occitan. these dialects have been viciously repressed through forced schooling in a manner that is every bit as heavy-handed as the forced anglicization of natives in australia and canada. the development of france as a nation-state is inherently connected to the standardization of french as a language.

if you analyze french, you'll immediately realize how ridiculously constructed it is. the gendering is really quite ridiculous, and consider how much deference it provides to authority (specifying between the tu and the vous seems entirely arbitrary, until you realize it's meant to enforce a hierarchy).

linguists will tell you that language is really at the core of how we think. how many philosophical debates reduce to the meaning of a term? and, there's good reason for this, as it's at the core of how we grasp concepts. if the centralized grammar authorities (dare i say grammar nazis) can get you to think in a way that upholds hierarchy and defers you to authority, they're a good ways towards getting you to behave in the way they want.

it's/its may be trivial in that context, and english is not nearly as controlled as french is. but, it's a good place to start in deconstructing the conditioning and questioning the ideas underlying the grammatical rules.

a better example in english is capitalization.

stop and think about what they teach kids in schools. whenever you capitalize a proper name, you're enforcing a hierarchical relationship between people. when a child writes "the president", it's marked as incorrect. it must be The President. for the rest of your life, you will write The President, The Prime Minister, The CEO, etc.

this is so engrained it's not even thought about. but it's a means of enforcing a social order.

Mario Venegas
holy shit. I wish I had that much time on my hands. Well, TIL. Thanks for that wall of awesome information. That's pretty rad stuff. What do you do for a living, if I may ask? You seem very knowledgeable. I apologize in advance, English isn't my first language.

deathtokoalas
let's just say i'm a musician. you can hear my music by clicking my name.

lsm234
You rage against the machine, bro!

deathtokoalas
i'd advise building parallel structures, instead. far more productive.

(evil laugh)

J.D.
Look out we have a rebel here! Mwahaha that was a fragment! that will show the establishment!

deathtokoalas
nonono, rebels necessarily acknowledge the existence of the state and flail hopelessly against it. post-leftists are trying not to do that any more, because there's a recognition that it's just a waste of time. it's a bit elitist, but it's really more realistic. one of the problems is that we don't breed in the first place, so this whole idea of building for future generations is really just empty liberal rhetoric. the focus needs to be on the now. and that's actually getting back to roots; it's a forgotten central aspect of marxism that workers can only live for the present if they stop living for the afterlife. so, the new anti-establishmentarianism rejects rebellion in favour of creative building. there's not much hope that it's going to create systemic change, but it at least allows us to get a feeling of freedom while we're actually still alive. leave the rebellion for the terrorists. gimme an art commune in the mountains, and put your guns away...

Amy 
I think you lost 80% of your audience when you started using multi-syllabic words. Great diatribe, though :)

Chris
Have you heard of Weird Al's parody of "Royals" by Lorde called "Foil". He actually talks about the illuminati and consperacies and what not. Weird Al is not a mastermind of evil, he is a mastermind of parody. And I started to listen to your so called "music" before I had to turn in off because of the LITERAL irritaion it brings to my brain. If you want to become a successful muscian, try less scratching on the chalkboard and more actual musical instruments, like say a piano. I would abadon your music career and go into writing. You are obviusly a better writer than a muscian.

deathtokoalas
there's plenty of pianos in there, but i'm actually a guitarist. there's a few poems, too. i mean, there's 70 some songs up. try the "recent" playlist a few lines down.

that song i have up is a bit of a joke, but it's necessary for another week because i'm putting the songs up in the same order and length as i wrote them, meaning they'll consistently be staggered by about 18.5 years. i'll have you know i was 15 when i jammed that out in 1996. it was my first demo tape....

....and if you appreciate it for what it is, it pulls it off well. but it's not for everyone, admittedly.

Monotremata
the subterranean tremor that being currently engineered is language mash-up : spanglish, frenglish, sprench, germalian, bulgarese, etc. Cityspeak and Newspeak will merge with these into an 'idiomatic singularity' - the corridors of power speaking in code, separating the rulers from the ruled. Doubleplusgut! \m/

rejectfairytales
While I share your view that there is much in thoughtlessly  spoken language that ought to be opposed I think you've made a poor choice in railing against non-use of the apostrophe in this case. If anything I think we should use apostrophes less. I agree with the trend toward using a lone s or es for plurals, eliminating nonstandard plurals eg: plural of squid should be squids not squid ; plural of octopus should be octopuses not octipodes. Just this would make English a lot simpler, which I think is important because as +jnrclerk  points out, language is NOT the be all and end all. Meaning is so much more important so the more we can eliminate arbitrary rules the better.

In terms of improving society I think encouraging brevity would be the best cause. Just think of all the empty verbiage floating around especially in legislative documents, legal documents, and the procedural documents of many companies. I find that most people who use too many words have a similar thing to hide - they are talking bullshit! Of course that isn't always the case but it often is. Leave the koalas alone - I'm just sayin!

deathtokoalas
yeah, the meaning > procedure thing is really the crux of a lot of my grammar anti-authoritarianism. language is spoken first and foremost. writing is important, it's importance cannot be understated, but the purpose of writing something down is to get a meaning across.

i've put it down to focus purely on recording right now, but i've been reading a bit of archaic political literature lately by the likes of richard price and thomas hobbes (the aim is to get in between the historical debate over the french revolution that happened between thomas paine and edmund burke). it's impossible not to notice that the spelling and grammar used in texts before 1900, and especially before 1800, is dramatically different than spelling and grammar used today. yet, when i'm having trouble following something, it has more to do with attitudes that have changed than the difference in writing conventions. that's to say nothing of shakespeare or chaucer who were legitimately writing in a different language. yet, if you let a grammar authoritarian loose on these texts, the result would be ugly. with hobbes, it's just missing the point that language is constantly evolving; with shakespeare, it actually diminishes the artistic expression.

and, it's worthwhile to wonder what somebody will think of reading this very youtube comment in the year 2200, if youtube is still online that far into the future. i'd normally say something like "if we avoid blowing ourselves up", but i suspect that if we do blow ourselves up the internet will keep running without us for quite some time into the future. web pages written in archaic language could be an interesting phenomenon in the not so distant future.

somebody pointed out that this whole thread is sort of funny because my grammar is actually almost spotless. well, most of the rules make sense. i want to go back to the idea of reason being the guiding force, rather than convention. language will shift, but reason will stay mostly static. if we focus on reason rather than convention, we will provide future generations the ability to disassemble our archaic writing; if we focus on convention over reason, we run the risk of becoming incoherent to future audiences.

akkinex
It's is the conjugated form of both 'it is' and 'it has.' FYI

Oh, and this might help to explain why the apostrophe for the possessive 'its' was dropped a couple hundred years ago. From http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/apostro.asp

From what we understand, the possessive was also written it’s until a couple of hundred years ago. While we don’t know for certain, it is possible that the apostrophe was dropped in order to parallel possessive personal pronouns like hers, theirs, yours, ours, etc.”

deathtokoalas
hrmmmn. thanks for that.

i've deleted about a dozen posts explaining that the rule applies because "it" is a  "personal pronoun". the people posting thought they were smart, but it's actually a really dumb response that i didn't want to get into. i didn't know that it's was an Officially Correct possessive in the past; in light of that information, your post has made me reconsider.

rather than focus on pronouns, let's look at a concept called a "possessive determiner". consider the following:

this is our house / the house is ours.
that is their house / the house is theirs.
this is your house / the house is yours.
that is her house / the house is hers.
this is it's house / the house is it's.

(it may be a cat, for example)

in each case, the first phrase is using what you may mistake as a pronoun as a "possessive determiner". the second phrase is the possessive pronoun. the s in each case is not due to possession, but due to it being a pronoun rather than an adjective.

wikipedia (i don't have time to go to the library, sorry) lists possessive determiners in english as:

1) my, your, his, her, its, our, their, whose
2) the saxon genitives formed from other nouns, pronouns and noun phrases (one's, everybody's, Mary's, a boy's, the man we saw yesterday's).

you can clearly see from this that its is used in exactly the same way as a general noun possessive is. yet, it inconceivably isn't written that way.

ok.

i had to triple check that and rewrote it a few times, not being somebody that cares a lot about grammar. the only reason my grammar doesn't suck is because i spent my entire childhood in my room reading and i picked it all up through intuition. it's just about what looks right.

but i'm done now. the personal pronoun thing is not correct. so, please stop posting it. i will block you!

John
The current iteration of it's versus its has a very simple explanation to it: The form it's is always a replacement for either it is, or it has. Perhaps this is the whole point. If we used the apostrophe in possessive situations, wouldn't that remove the need for its to exist? That would also mean that it's would not always be a contraction of it is or it has. That could be the very reason for this rule, to keep the two meanings visually, and identifiably separate. For the record, I have no idea how many times I confused myself trying to write this comment. I sincerely hope that this is an acceptable means of emphasis, or at least acceptable in the absence of access to italics? Knowing my luck though, my grammatical discussion is grammatically incorrect somewhere. Blimey, I should have ceased this comment sooner.

Oh come on! Why did that have to be a short cut for strikethrough?! -_-

deathtokoalas
you can get italics by surrounding the word with _. you can bold by surrounding the word with *.

_ italic _ . without the spaces: italic.

i've always understood the difference as being an attempt to separate the meanings in the way you've provided. but, there's virtually no chance anybody is going to get confused. with all the homonyms out there, confusing the contraction with the possessive should be the least of anybody's concerns...

Unofficial winner
It makes us look professional.

deathtokoalas
please. most professionals can barely spell their own names.

it makes you look like a social outcast, or an english professor that can't find a real job.

i was in school a long time. math. physics. programming. law. music. a few other things. i'll admit it was very surprising to me the first time i realized the guy in front of me, who has a phd in an incredibly abstract topic and dozens of published papers, was not able to get his homophones straight. it was just like...

"did he just write there on the board when he meant their? i thought this was a university. give me my money back..."

....but it's so overwhelmingly common in the university classroom that you eventually get used to it.

professionals are interested in the thing(s) that they're studying. you'll run across the odd one that is particular about the grammar, but for the most part they simply don't care.

you've just been lied to by your high school teachers. the truth is nobody cares about your grammar or is going to judge you based on it.

it's not the only thing they lied to you about, either.

"i know she just built a usable prototype for a quantum computer, but she didn't capitalize her proper place names, so how can we hire her?"

it doesn't happen.

people will judge you on your work.

wasps (and hornets) are such insane creatures.

it's trying to kill a venomous spider in order to lay an egg inside of it, which will eat the spider as it matures.

the result presented here makes the behaviour seem like such wantonly pointless violence. ok, ok - maybe it's going after a competitor. but, surely there are less dangerous ways to lay some eggs...

it's stuff like this that makes you realize there's no way this shit was designed. this defies all reason. and there's thousands of similar examples.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg7XGTiNis0

publishing the symphony of psilocybin induced madness (inri046)

so, that means i need to record here that today is the day that inri027 was compiled as a four track ep.

==

the core of this was written in my parent's basement in the spring of 2001. planning on going to a rave that weekend, i had previously purchased a large amount of drugs; i was, however, forced to stay in due to having a calculus test that sunday (the rave was out of town). well, my parents were gone for the weekend, most of my friends were out of town and i had a massive stash of drugs...

it is quite literally a symphony of psilocybin induced madness and was written directly into an ancient, hacked score-writing program. while it has been labelled as a symphony of drunken confusion in certain contexts to get around certain social stigmas, this is inaccurate.

around 2006 or so, i took a course in electronic music design that had a recorded component and pulled the score off of my hard drive with the intent of finally recording it properly. the dx7 i had available to me greatly improved the synth patches, enough that i'm willing to let the track rest that way.

i've included midi files of the original composition, if you'd like to mess with it on your own.

i consider this my second symphony.

written early 2001. reconstructed in the first quarter of 2006, especially over march.  as always, please use headphones.

credits:

j - electric guitars, programming, digital effects & treatments, composition, production.

the rendered electronic orchestras variously include synthesizers, clavinet, kalimba, nylon guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass guitar, piano, banjo, electronic drums, pc card, violin, cello, bamboo flute, flute, viola, soprano saxophone, tuba, trumpet, organ and music box.

released may 15, 2001

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-symphony-of-psilocybin-induced-madness

so, i've already explored this composition in much more depth; i just pulled these four mixes off my hard drive - and that is the totality of inri027.

1) carleton mix, for music 3604 (2006). includes ambient guitar into/outro, entirely live guitars and the symphony partly played through a dx7 and partly through the soundblaster.

written early 2001. reconstructed in the first quarter of 2006, especially over march. this version was finalized on march 30, 2006.



2) divine amoebas mix. in 2004, i lifted the piano part to form the end of an anti-war protest piece i was putting together. it's slowed down to half speed and combined with an 808 going haywire, beethoven samples and backwards guitars.

piano part written in early 2001. this construction is from january, 2004.



4) alt mix. this is also from 2001, but it's a bit mysterious. i don't have a date, just an mp3 from 2007. i'll have to briefly explain.

this is a process piece, like most of the things i worked out through 2001. i initially composed it to repeat in patterns of 9, where each pattern had an extra bar of silence at the end of it. this created a twenty minute piece that spiralled down into nothingness, and became rather sparse at the end. for the final, published version i ended up modifying the patterns of 9 to decrease as the length of the pattern increases. so, if the initial section that repeats in a pattern of 9 had 8 bars of rest then the next pattern with 12 bars of rest would repeat in patterns of 8, and so on down to 3. this had the effect of shortening up the piece by about 50%. beyond that, i then added a piano part and a ridiculous crescendo.

so, this early mix is the initial cycling of 9s across the score. i don't remember why i cut it to 5:30 back in 2007, but i do think it's the perfect cut off point and will stick to it.

written early 2001. this render is from july, 2007.



5) initial soundcard mix. as with all the pieces from 2001 that i'm finishing, this was written in a scorewriter and monitored using the ol' soundblaster. i've got these mixes up because it's interesting to hear what this actually sounded like as i was composing it.

written early 2001. this render is actually from may 13, 2001.
 

that's almost an hour of difficult listening. good luck...

3) is a forthcoming vst mix. i'm not sure if i'm going to try and reintegrate the guitars from the carleton mix into the new vst mix or leave it as is as the final render.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-symphony-of-psilocybin-induced-madness

the symphony of psilocybin induced madness (final mix)

the core of this was written in my parent's basement in the spring of 2001. planning on going to a rave that weekend, i had previously purchased a large amount of drugs; i was, however, forced to stay in due to having a calculus test that sunday (the rave was out of town). well, my parents were gone for the weekend, most of my friends were out of town and i had a massive stash of drugs...

it is quite literally a symphony of psilocybin induced madness and was written directly into an ancient, hacked score-writing program. while it has been labelled as a symphony of drunken confusion in certain contexts to get around certain social stigmas, this is inaccurate.

around 2006 or so, i took a course in electronic music design that had a recorded component and pulled the score off of my hard drive with the intent of finally recording it properly. the dx7 i had available to me greatly improved the synth patches.

written early 2001. reconstructed in the first quarter of 2006, especially over march.

publishing the time machine (inri044)

and there it is. inri025.

inri026 is the adventures in guitarland, already completed.

inri027 is my symphony of psilocybin induced madness and is actually finished in it's fully complete form with live guitars. i'm going to construct a vst mix out of it, which will make this a little different than the other tracks as the synths in the full section are from the dx7 in the closet in the music department at carleton university. but, i shouldn't have to actually play any parts, so it should be relatively fast to run through.

===

regarding this piece, my memory is blurry; yet, i have a vivid recollection of playing parts of it for my guitar teacher on a sunny day, where there was still snow on the ground. it's funny how we remember seemingly irrelevant details, but i guess the atmosphere of the performance is important because the performance is. that would date it to roughly march, 2001.

i switched the piece from classical guitar to piano halfway through writing it, and vaguely remember thinking that an impossible interval had something to do with it (a specific c# cannot be hit on a standard classical). yet, that doesn't change the fact that it's guitar music. the counterpoint is very guitar.

to further complicate things, i've long wanted to turn the piece into a jazzy idm romp. it has a kind of a jingly feel to it that belongs in the warp records sphere.

so, what is this? a classical guitar piece? a jazzy piano piece? a techno tune? all of the above! as with other pieces from this period, this is presented here in multiple formats: several rendered midi tracks, live guitar versions, a vst version and a "full band" version.

i have included the original midi file (and sheet music in pdf) as a bonus item in the download, if you want to play with it on your own.

conceptually, the time machine aspect referred simply to the slowed down guitar chords at the beginning of the song. if you play it a certain way, it sounds like time is collapsing in on itself. or, so i thought, anyways. the various versions i have created here have made an attempt to take that idea to it's logical conclusion. it's a mix of the vision i had at the time and a bit of hindsight.

written early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. rendered, arranged and performed over june and july, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

credits:

j - electric guitar, programming, digital effects & treatments, digital wave editing, loops, production, composition.

the various rendered electronic orchestras include acoustic bass, synth bass, electric bass, brass, orchestra hit, drum machine, electronic drum kit, nylon guitar, electric guitar, synthesizers, synthesizer effects, music box, piano, bells and mellotron.

released march 21, 2001

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-time-machine

the time machine (ambient mix)

this slowed down ambient version is the final piece of inri025, which is now complete.

written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. further remixed over july, 2014. this version of the track was completed on july 21, 2014.

the time machine (electric guitar mix)

the track was originally written for classical guitar, and then switched over to piano because there is a high c# that cannot be reached on very many classical guitars. however, the c# can be reached on an electric, so i've chosen to play it that way instead.

played straight through at a steady 180 bpm, the track is rather boring, so i've interpreted it a little differently for playing purposes. i suppose this is the final interpretation of the track as a solo piece.

written in early 2001. reinterpreted in july, 2014; this version of the track was completed on july 21st, 2014 and adjusted for volume on may 27th, 2015.

i'm glad i'm finally awake. i passed out thursday afternoon when i got back from detroit and slept pretty much all of friday, saturday, sunday. it was a compound burnout, the type that is inevitable after so many weeks of 30 hour days. when these burnouts hit, the tiredness is just relentless...

for example: i was able to make it to get groceries on saturday morning, but i was so tired and void of energy that i could barely lift my school bag full of groceries. that's the same school bag of groceries that i normally fill and carry on my back without any effort whatsoever.

i don't think i've been awake more than four hours at a time since. but it's weird because you don't sleep long periods when you burn out like this, either. it's three hours awake, four hours asleep, 2 hours awake, 3 hours asleep, etc.

i'm alert now, though. thankfully. and hopefully for the next 30 hours...

deathtokoalas
see, this is why i gave up on physics. well, not exactly this, but basically this. there's a certain strain of analytic thought going back to descartes that suggests that photons are massless and move in a straight line, but i can't fathom how any atheist could stand on a podium in 2014 and declare a photon massless. the mass may be very, very, very small, but it defies all reason to suggest it doesn't exist at all. and, when the mass is experimentally verified as non-zero, physics is going to face an incredible crisis.

the unfortunate nature of relativity is that it's axiomatic. einstein was operating at precisely the moment that mathematicians were beginning to reject axiomatic systems as facile and naive. ironically, einstein had to reject the most praised axiomatic system of them all - euclid's - in order to get to where he got to. it's bizarre that he upheld the process, given what he knew. and, one has to wonder how different relativity would have been had godel got his ideas out before einstein did.

in the end, the religious have an absolutely valid point in claiming science is another religion. it's not because that's what science always is, or what science should be, or what science wants to be, it's just because it's all science can be once we get beyond the basic abstraction of what we can see and feel and otherwise experience directly. axiomatic systems are axiomatic systems, whether they're labeled with an S or an R.

i was skeptical about the lhc, too. but, i think it should be stressed a bit more loudly that it didn't provide that missing link the way the popular press has suggested. nor would it matter much if it did because we already know the standard theory is wrong, anyways. but, if you want to talk simple naivete? it doesn't get more simple or naive (or quasi-theological) than symmetry. and the lhc results have finally thrown symmetry in the trash can where it belongs....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGhUDByWdPQ

monkone
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sahilmalhotra17
Present a hypothesis that backs up your claims. how does a photon with rest mass = 0 cause calamities for physics.? Photons are light quanta which travel at speed of light. A stationary photon does not exist. A lot of things may be feel wrong but until you present the mathematics backing up your feeling, we have to work with the theoretical framework that predicts the greatest number of things with the highest accuracy. You have a different opinion? Bring out the mathematics. You can be skeptical about the lhc and as for what they did find, how about you read the scientific publications instead of the media to find out what you are being skeptical about...

deathtokoalas
+monkone
"It always travels at the maximum velocity it can irrespective of how much energy it is carrying, which is a clear as day indication that a photon has... how much mass?"

that's an empirical question. however, modern physics treats it as an assumption. that is, there is no empirical evidence that what you're saying about light is actually true.

you kind of have to get into the philosophy of it. kant had this idea that "synthetic a priori" systems (he used euclidean geometry as his sacred example) are the most pristine type of knowledge. but, as kant was writing his epistemological treatises, various mathematicians were realizing that a geometry that negates the third postulate is potentially consistent with itself. the whole idea that space may be curved actually comes from that realization in geometry, which more or less throws kant's epistemology out the window. yet, einstein based his theory on a "synthetic a priori" axiomatic system, nonetheless, potentially carrying in the same kinds of problems that make euclidean geometry obsolete in all but the historical sense (or in a practical engineering sense).

the thing about light not having a mass (and moving in a straight line) actually comes from the history on the philosophical side of physics. and, if you follow the argument, it's actually theological.

now, i'm not saying that light must have mass. i'm saying it's an empirical question. currently, the best we can do is provide a bound for it. however, there would be a very simple test to demonstrate that light does indeed have mass: find a tachyon.

i don't pretend to understand the nature of light perfectly. i don't think anybody claiming such a thing would be speaking honestly. but, we know that light displays both particle and wave behaviour. that particle behaviour, in my opinion, provides strong evidence for a non-zero rest mass. it's not a scientific proof, but if it really had no mass then how could it actually display particle behaviour? see, this is where the thing defies reason at a really basic, intuitive level. we hold the massless photon as such a basic assumption  due to so many years and such tradition in doing so that we don't really think that through carefully. high school teachers laugh at the student that suggests otherwise. but, that was exactly the case with the parallel postulate, as well.

it's not an assumption i was able to take seriously, and i had a hard time taking the theories built on it seriously as a result of it.

"As for the standard model being wrong. Uhm."
relativity and quantum theory are incompatible with each other (they can't both be right; it depends on the nature of space, another empirical question that is very difficult to understand how to experiment for), and the general way to dealing with this is in fact to contemplate physics "beyond the standard model". the lhc was supposed to help in sorting this out. i haven't heard anybody come out and say it yet, it's maybe a little too unsettling, but the fact that the lhc results agree so perfectly with the standard model actually merely indicates that its far more wrong than anybody could ever imagine.

"Making mathematical models is fun and all but without empiricism it's called making random shit up in a fantasy land."

that's right. that's why i switched from physics into math. i figured if i was going to be working in lala land, it would be more worthwhile to do so as a mathematician, rather than as a magician.

most of what passes as modern physics (from string theory to relativity itself) doesn't pass any meaningful definition of science. almost none of it is falsifiable, and there's virtually no experimental data underlying any of it. almost all of it is legitimately just mathematics. and, when you take into account what i said about euclid up there, that makes a lot of it more or less useless. they use all kinds of geometry in their models without having any kind of empirical basis as to the validity of the geometry itself.

worse, you get prominent scientists (like stephen hawking) taking outlandish positivist positions that declare that the model creates the reality. i've literally choked listening to these people talk, in absolute awe.

then, they confuse themselves misapplying godel. hawking actually published a paper a while back declaring that godel's math implies a theory of everything is impossible. that only makes sense under the assumption that the model and the reality are inseparable from each other.

so, yeah. you're right. and that's the exact reason i gave up on physics.

"Something tells me proving photons have non-zero rest mass is going to be a tricky one, however even if it were proven to be so it would be such a tiny tiny mass as to be negligible."

i couldn't see how to do it, other than finding a tachyon. but, i think the implications are more profound than you're realizing.

deathtokoalas
+sahilmalhotra17
well, i'm not skeptical about the lhc results. and, my argument is purely rational. it's really so simple that you wouldn't expect it would even be controversial, once you think it through. i'd direct you to my previous response.

light does indeed travel at the speed of light, that's tautological. but, does the speed of light actually provide a speed limit?

i'm going to try not to take on your claims about mathematics too directly, other than to point out that the way you're thinking about this is actually the root of the problem in the way that physicists think, and it comes out of these philosophical treatises written in the previous centuries. something we've learned over the last century is that what we call mathematics is itself merely a model to try to understand numbers. despite hawking's sad and comical attempt to grapple with it (those are strong words, and i don't state them lightly), i don't feel that modern physics has really come to terms with godel's work and it's not going to get anywhere further until it does. i guess hawking gets credit for actually realizing there's a problem, there.

there are a number of geometric issues in mathematics that cannot be resolved by starting with a set of axioms and deducing things. these are empirical issues. and, until they're worked out, we're going to have to deal with a lot of nonsense in geometry like the banach–tarski paradox that reduces both fields to idle speculation.

mathematics is not the language of nature. i know physicists like to think that, but that thinking is obsolete. mathematics is merely another model, and it has some really serious problems in it.

stated another way, a lot of what mathematics models is not the reality we live in. you can't split a ball into two equal balls in reality. it defies conservation laws. when physicists take that mathematics and try to use it to develop physical theories, their results consequently do not apply to reality, either.

but, as for light? it has a particle nature. as far as i'm concerned, that implies it has a mass.

monkone
(deleted post)

deathtokoalas
well, i'm not going to stand here and argue that all physics is wrong, and i'm sorry if you got the impression that this is what i was saying. this computer i'm typing on, and the method used to communicate with you over a network, would belie such an outlandish statement. and, yes, science is a work in progress, and that's what makes it science. nor do i have anything to counter any of the points you just made. all these things are true enough.

it was more the epistemological basis that turned me off. and, the more i learned about math, the more dissatisfied i became with the whole hurrah. i didn't feel i was actually learning anything of any value, i was just following through on a lot of assumptions that i couldn't really swallow as accurate. so, i play guitar now.

i could pull the copenhagen consensus out as another head-scratcher. basically, it's this:
"we, the pre-eminent german scientists of the world, cannot figure this shit out. therefore, let it be decreed across the world that nobody shall ever figure this shit out for all of time eternal."

that is something i can sympathize with einstein on.

monkone
(deleted post)

deathtokoalas
yeah, i've seen that explanation before, but i believe it's just an interpretation. i don't think the duality is really settled in any authoritative way.

i haven't seen the matter-antimatter argument before, but allow me to be skeptical in pointing out that if the mass is small enough it will wash out in the error.

monkone
(deleted post)

deathtokoalas
well, the funny thing is i gave up on math when i came to the conclusion that it ought to be empirical, and everybody realized it, and nobody wanted to do anything about it, or seemed to even really care.

Atwa Jesper
Sorry if I'm intruding but I wanted to interject very quickly and bring up the fact that some 'debaters' get lost in the heat of the arguments and usually and unintentionally digress from the main topic. 

We could spend days throwing theories and studies on the table that at the moment seem to be contradicting each other but the God discussion and Science, have not much to do with "what seems logic to me" or with the typical "it doesn't make sense". The universe doesn't care for what seems plausible or not, reality is reality and if a phenomenon behaves in a certain way, well, we test it and prove it with evidence and that's it. How many things that nowadays work and seem to make perfect sense, didn't seem logic or natural when they were being developed by those 'crazy thinkers'. Big masses of Metal are able to float on water and carry a lot a things, or we could have also leave the Skies to the birds but we still made it. With today's knowledge all of that seems normal because we know how it's done but again, those ideas didn't seem to be any logical.

Anyways, it seems I'm digressing myself. Regardless of the limited understanding that we have today of the natural world, we shouldn't fall again in the fallacies of "arguments from ignorance" or "the God of the gaps". The fact that many things are still unknown to humanity and Quantum physics doesn't seem to make much sense, doesn't mean therefore God.

The massless protons and other topics must be resolved for science advancement purposes, not to prove that any God does or does Not exist.

Btw, the ones making the assertion that a God exists are the ones obliged to prove it. The burden of proof is on the ones making the assertion, not the other way around.

deathtokoalas
that's all very true, but it doesn't really have anything to do with what i posted.

the value of science in my view is twofold: falsifiability and repeatability. but, when you look at the bulk of modern theoretical physics, very little of it meets either criteria.

that in no way implies a god must exist, and again, i'm sorry if you thought that's what i suggested. but it does place the two fields on a roughly equal footing. in my mind, that doesn't give religion more credibility, but it does give parts of modern physics less credibility.

in religion's defence, it's a bit of a strawman to argue it's rooted solely in faith. i'm simply not aware of analogues in other religions, but christianity has libraries and libraries worth of material that attempts to deduce aspects of morality using reason. we think of the "natural law" that defines what is roughly thought of as "secular humanism" as a modern, liberal idea but it in reality traces back to christian theologians like augustine and aquinas. it's use in the english legal tradition actually has more than a little bit to do with the feudal system. when the english scholars of centuries past deduced that natural law ought to be supreme to legislated law, what they really meant was that the church's law is supreme to the king's law, and for the precise reason that the king was still viewed as subservient to the pope, at least in moral purposes if no longer in political ones. it may have earlier roots in aristotle, but the reality is that secular humanism is the philosophical continuation of a branch of christian theology. both systems appeal to reason to determine moral value, rather than the dictates of human beings. the difference is merely that the christian theologians thought god acted through reason, and modern humanists tend to consider that to be a question that is not worth asking.

yes, you have to work in ideas like infallibility of the pope into the equation, and write them off as ridiculous on their face. however, it's not really fair to blame that on the religion itself - it's more of a consequence of human politics and the tendency of power to act as a corrupting influence. in christianity's further defence, it must be pointed out that the pope has never existed without theological opposition of some sort, and that the reformation is a historical event that actually did happen.

i'm losing a bit of focus. biology is quite different because it is far more empirical than modern physics - a situation that is the reverse of what it was 100 years ago and that i think most people haven't really come to terms with yet.

i was simply responding to a comment krauss makes at the beginning of the video about physics not being "just another story" because it makes testable predictions. but, this is largely untrue. physics does make some testable predictions, but it makes far more untestable claims by deducing things from a set of first principles, just as aquinas did. it follows that when the religionists argue that physics is mostly just another story, they are making a valid point.

but, no, that doesn't mean a god must therefore exist.

just throw an epsilon in there and see what happens. publish it if you want, i don't care, my aspirations are all in music.

(noting, of course, the conceptual change that light could be at rest in the first place.)

ok, i know physicists like to think in terms of consequences. it bugs me, but i'll go with it. it may actually make a few things make more sense.

consider the idea of determining the relativistic mass of a photon. you know the formula (hopefully), with the big M equal to the little m over the square root of one minus v/c squared. if you actually plug zeros into there, you get the lovely 0/0, so you take a limit. but think about what you're doing when you take a limit - you're setting them both to non-zero. if you were actually setting them to zero, you'd set them to zero. when you're taking a limit, you're getting as close to zero as you possible can, without actually getting to zero. that is, you're assuming a non-zero rest mass.

mathematically speaking, you would actually formally even plug an epsilon into the m, and c-delta into the v. that is because m (epsilon) is approaching zero and v is approaching c (or delta is approaching 0). but, then you go and set it all to zero. that's really not consistent with itself.

now, on a graph, you might plug in an imaginary point to make the thing continuous, if you want it to be continuous. but it would be crazy to do that in the realm of physics. that's forcing reality to obey something that isn't even an arbitrary convention, but a pure fantasy that mathematicians create purely for the fun of it. plotting that point is carrying out magic. it's a magic point...

what the formula actually states is that light can never reach the speed of light. this is tautologically false.

if you just plugged a non-zero epsilon in there in the first place, set v equal to the speed of light and set a new speed limit of pure energy at "c+delta" (and you could maybe even come up with delta in terms of epsilon some other way, but be careful that you're not being circular) you'd get the same mathematical idea, but in a way that actually makes mathematical sense.

and i actually hope that example further demonstrates some of the problems in the way physicists use mathematics.

they always said einstein failed math.

russellrummage
Well, with respect, physics seems to have done very well so far. Sure, it is all model dependant, no one claims it as absolute truth do they. Yes you seem to know your stuff, mostly on the maths side. But I think I will put my confidence in the current prevailing views rather than a random Youtuber who looks like they have smoked enough weed to embarrass the biomass of the Amazon rainforest.  Call me some sort of utilitarian if you wish, but these flawed theories you critique have done a great job of explaining many things. In any case, c is just the speed of a massless particle in a vacuum. Being called the speed of light is just a historical artifact. So even if it turns out a photon does have an incredibly small mass, I don't see how it breaks the theory. But most importantly, what the fuck's your problem with koalas?

deathtokoalas
the idea that nothing can move faster than pure quantized energy (massless particle strikes me as an undefined concept) strikes me as pretty rational, and not something i'm going to argue against. but, if we accept that light does have a mass, it opens up a lot of questions as to what that means, exactly. is it even defined? is it an imaginary limit, in the sense that nothing actually achieves it? is the difference between the speed of light and the speed limit large or small? if it's large, what effects does that have on things like time dilation? space travel? as i mentioned before, i don't think you're really thinking through the possible ramifications. mathematically, it may only be a set of minor fixes. but this could have very large results, depending on the nature of those fixes.