thoughts on the latest spencer krug recording

i've listened to a few tracks off this record, and i'll admit that i grasp why a pop audience would react positively to it - it sounds fancy. i'm not being an ass on purpose (although i probably couldn't prevent myself), but it's the basic idea. it gives you the opportunity to put down the garbage you normally listen to and feel sophisticated and upper class for an hour. and, maybe it might act as somewhat of a gateway.

but, it's just so terribly contrived. the cadences. the crescendos. it's blatant cliche, and clearly consciously designed to maximize itself as such. and, on top of that, he plays the instrument like a blunt poke in the eye - most of the record sounds like a player piano. not a sequencer. you can program dynamics into a sequencer. this is just straight artillery fire.

the guy has demonstrated potential. and his refusal to do what he's expected is definitely refreshing. but, i'm sorry to say that this is some of the deadest piano music that i've heard.

this is uncharacteristically interesting, coming from spencer krug. it's evidence that he maybe needs to slow down a little and focus on writing a handful of good songs every few months rather than a constant stream of mediocre ones. to put it another way, it's evidence that he's able to create a really good record if he wants to. electronic pop is such a saturated space nowadays, and so little of it is worth engaging with. it's a treat when you do run across that rare solid disc in the constant stream of fluffy noise.

thoughts on the new pinkish black single

the last one took a bit to click, but it eventually did, and this is likewise a bit disorienting. you have to give this band full marks for a subtle evolution. but it comes with the caveat that they're getting harder to follow because they seem to be getting poppier and poppier.

this is moving slowly into something like spencer krug territory.

(that one record he did, organ music - not vibraphone music like i hoped, is actually uncharacteristically interesting. it's a saturated space, with a lot of mediocrity, but nothing hits you in the gut like a good, dark, smart synth pop song.)

yup.

actual weekly results

To: nnanos@nanosresearch.com

hi.

i'm just curious if you'd be willing to start releasing your actual weekly results in your pdfs. i know your sample sizes are small, so it's important to be cautious and everything. but i'm sure you're aware that the media tends to (on purpose or not) not understand the difference between a snap poll and a rolling average, and is consistently reporting your results as a snap poll. i realize there's value in what you're doing. but, if you were to put the actual weekly data at the bottom of the pdf somewhere, it would help people construct and understand your results better.

j

it's a scam. it's not a way to reduce emissions. it's a way to convert emissions into an abstraction that can be inflated and deflated into profits for investors. in a sense, it's the sacred cow that industry has been looking for since the beginning of industrialization: how can we turn waste products into profits?

the basic premise is that the solution to capitalism is more capitalism.

people are going to look back at cap & trade as the defining symptom of an utterly insane society.

i've never liked this question, because it's not clear what it means for a government to "manage an economy" in a global free market system. i mean, it's a perception thing, i get that. but, then you're not really measuring what people actually think - you're doing market research on the effectiveness of the conservative election propaganda. they themselves never actually explain what they mean by "managing the economy". i pay pretty close attention, and have for many years, and ten years on it's still just a vague slogan. the entire narrative has always been incoherent.

i mean, i could understand the marxist-leninist-maoist party running on a platform of "managing the economy". they'd lay out their four year economic action plans, and we'd get our chance to put some input into it. of course, they probably wouldn't listen. nor would they respect the results of the election. i digress.

it's important because if the question is just a measurement of how people are reacting to ads then it's not actually an election driver. it would become interchangeable with whatever else is being advertised, because it's just the repetition of a slogan. people changing their mind wouldn't suggest any change in opinion so much as it would say something about the effectiveness of various ads. i don't think that's actually true - or at least not broadly. i give people more credit than that. but unless the question is specified, it's not clear what people mean when they're changing their views, or what they even meant in the first place. even if it's just a perception, there must be a thought process underlying it.

if they could be a little bit more specific, it would be helpful in understanding if this is actually an election issue or if it's just an advertising issue.

i've generally interpreted the shift in this question as the populace stepping back from neo-liberalism and free markets and re-evaluating keynesianism and social democracy. there's also some evidence that marx has become somewhat trendy recently, although i'm not sure how relevant that is, or how well people understand any of it. but, the neo-liberal model has taken a bit of a beating in the public sphere (and quite badly over social media) so it seems rational and consistent with my experience that people that are rejecting the conservatives on "managing the economy" - or not managing the economy - are swinging left on it.

but, i'm not entirely sure that that's justified.

it would certainly help the direction of public policy over the next decade if some polling could clarify.

more pointedly: are they rejecting the neo-liberal ideology, or are they rejecting the conservative party?

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-economy-leaders-aug25-1.3201735

you have to understand that the nanos polling is a rolling average, not a snap poll. it's not nik's fault. he's clear about what he's doing. but, it's consistently reported inaccurately.

this report does not suggest that the parties are running at that level right now. it suggests that it is the average level of support that they ran at last month. to present it as a snap poll is dishonest - perhaps accidentally, as i know that journalists are often not so good at math.

the value of this kind of polling is to track long term trends. and, because nik's samples are so small and consequently vary a lot, it works together to smooth itself out.

it's a measure of party viability. and, because this election is so long, it may be useful in understanding where people's brains really are in the long run, rather than where their votes are in the short-run.

it's just important that you understand what you're actually reading. and, it would help if the media were clearer about it.

nik's polls have a lag built into them - it's by design. it's just measuring something else. they will align with the current consensus over the next month, as they catch up. but, by then, the consensus may have changed, and they'll be behind again.

right now, they're useful because the race is young and there's a lot of undecideds. but, as we get closer and closer to the election, this method will be unable to predict last minute changes.

for example, something you can pull out of nik's polling that you won't see elsewhere is that the ndp support base in quebec is relatively weak - some of that support is torn between the bloc and the ndp, whereas some of it is torn between the ndp and the liberals. it's not that snap polling would be over-estimating current support so much as it's pointing out that the current support level is not strong, not decided and still open to switching.

it also suggests that the ndp support in ontario is very weak, and possibly driven by perception about who has a better chance of winning. again: that's not to suggest that the snap polling is wrong. it's to suggest that the support is not strong.

and, so the takeaway is that the race is still wide open, and that the snap polling at this early stage should be taken with some caution.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/three-main-federal-parties-tangled-in-three-way-tie-nanos-poll/article26090470/

see, i share this concern. but, it's why i think it's important to stand up. remember when we claimed no allegiance to countries, to leaders or states? when we would kill the generals on our own side to stop the war, rather than continue to fight it? so, why are we marching in lock stop with this party as it swings well to the right of the liberals?

there's an alternate outcome of this sad tale: the caucus revolts, starts a new party and rejuvenates itself. will there be enough independent voices left to do so? if not in parliament, then certainly outside of it.

we will win most of our battles in court. we all know this. but, if we continue to support the same policies under a different slogan, we embolden them to continue.

you don't have to stand in line. you can vote for another party to send a  message. or not vote at all to send an even stronger one, if you see nothing you can truly support.

and, if harper wins again? well, can you point to a single policy point where the ndp is truly preferable?

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/j-baglow/2015/08/mulcairs-lead-polls-does-not-protect-him-criticism

these articles never say anything about transmarginal inhibition. i think we're all mostly ultra-paradoxical on most advertising, and that it can consequently backfire badly.

the opposition hasn't helped, either. i think the truth is that all the liberals had to do to win last election was not run a war criminal. they couldn't figure out how to find a candidate that wasn't a war criminal, apparently. the liberals that did vote swung to the ndp.

it's a kind of a correlation v. causality thing. when the dust lifts, i think we're going to realize that we're attributing far more to harper than we ought to, and that rather than being some kind of evil genius, the truth is that he's really an absolute imbecile that's had the good fortune of dealing with the most incompetent opposition in canadian history.

thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/08/24/Polarizing-Voter-Tactics/