this is the crux of what this thing is going to sound like, i just need to improve the sound fonts and clean the mix up.
this
is a temporary mix, built up in noteworthy, that suffers from a
slightly blurry drum sound due to everything being run through channel
10 in the soundcard synthesizer. specifically, i'd like to turn the
snare down (because it blurs the toms) but it doesn't seem to be
possible to do this. obviously, i'll want to fix this as i build more
sophisticated mixes of the track. however, this is what the track
sounded like on playback as i was actually arranging it....
written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in mid june, 2014. this render was initially created on june 23, 2014.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/soundblaster-mix-3
Monday, June 23, 2014
cops came and went. these ones seemed a little less like your typical cops, and understood the premise a little bit better.
it was pointed out that i'd have a better chance of ensuring a diagnosis if i'm able to build a relationship with an md. this is more or less what i was thinking, it's why i went through the process of seeing a shrink in the first place, but the idea of trying to get a family doctor to build a diagnosis isn't something that crossed my mind. well, it's an avenue to explore, and it would be imprudent not to explore it.
again, they seemed surprised by my level of rational thinking. they weren't really expecting me to agree with them and were visibly shaken by how easily i agreed that the suggestion was reasonable. they seem to have been expecting me to resist somehow.
so, i have an alternate plan i'll want to put into motion in the next few days. but i want to be clear that the fundamental situation remains unaltered.
it was pointed out that i'd have a better chance of ensuring a diagnosis if i'm able to build a relationship with an md. this is more or less what i was thinking, it's why i went through the process of seeing a shrink in the first place, but the idea of trying to get a family doctor to build a diagnosis isn't something that crossed my mind. well, it's an avenue to explore, and it would be imprudent not to explore it.
again, they seemed surprised by my level of rational thinking. they weren't really expecting me to agree with them and were visibly shaken by how easily i agreed that the suggestion was reasonable. they seem to have been expecting me to resist somehow.
so, i have an alternate plan i'll want to put into motion in the next few days. but i want to be clear that the fundamental situation remains unaltered.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
It was on the islet of Stac an Armin, St Kilda, Scotland, in July 1844, that the last great auk seen in the British Isles was caught and killed. Three men from St Kilda caught a single "garefowl", noticing its little wings and the large white spot on its head. They tied it up and kept it alive for three days, until a large storm arose. Believing that the auk was a witch and the cause of the storm, they then killed it by beating it with a stick. It is the only British bird made extinct in historic times.
just slept about 26 hours or so, waking up only briefly to eat and check social media. it's my neck again. i think it's ok, now.
i can't really pin a cause. it's probably a culmination of things. i went for a long walk on friday morning with a bag full of compost, but i really felt fine when i came back. i feel comfortable in my decision to do so, but i don't deny that there's been a little stress about deciding to end my own life in a few months, conditional on circumstances. a lot of coffee. lack of sleep. the piece i've been practicing has got me really tense, with clenched teeth and everything - this is i think is the primary culprit, the others are only secondary. and nicotine (i'm still on target, but cracked a bit last week). guess i just burnt out.
i'm alert now and hoping to finish the sequencing on the track by the end of the night.
i can't really pin a cause. it's probably a culmination of things. i went for a long walk on friday morning with a bag full of compost, but i really felt fine when i came back. i feel comfortable in my decision to do so, but i don't deny that there's been a little stress about deciding to end my own life in a few months, conditional on circumstances. a lot of coffee. lack of sleep. the piece i've been practicing has got me really tense, with clenched teeth and everything - this is i think is the primary culprit, the others are only secondary. and nicotine (i'm still on target, but cracked a bit last week). guess i just burnt out.
i'm alert now and hoping to finish the sequencing on the track by the end of the night.
Saturday, June 21, 2014
doesn't matter if it's true or not.
http://stupidevilbastard.com/2004/11/man_tries_to_convert_lions_to_jesus_gets_bitten/
http://stupidevilbastard.com/2004/11/man_tries_to_convert_lions_to_jesus_gets_bitten/
so, it's entirely predictable that sending in military thugs and shelling apartments is going to create resentment and strengthen resistance...
the question, now, is if reconciliation is possible or if the crackdown has permanently pulled the region out of kiev's sphere of governance.
bottom line: somebody ought to chop off poroshenko's penis to prevent him from thinking with it. this is just utter tactical stupidity, from any perspective.
the question, now, is if reconciliation is possible or if the crackdown has permanently pulled the region out of kiev's sphere of governance.
bottom line: somebody ought to chop off poroshenko's penis to prevent him from thinking with it. this is just utter tactical stupidity, from any perspective.
so, it's entirely predictable that sending in military thugs and shelling apartments is going to create resentment and strengthen resistance...
the question, now, is if reconciliation is possible or if the crackdown has permanently pulled the region out of kiev's sphere of governance.
bottom line: somebody ought to chop off poroshenko's penis to prevent him from thinking with it. this is just utter tactical stupidity, from any perspective.
the question, now, is if reconciliation is possible or if the crackdown has permanently pulled the region out of kiev's sphere of governance.
bottom line: somebody ought to chop off poroshenko's penis to prevent him from thinking with it. this is just utter tactical stupidity, from any perspective.
Friday, June 20, 2014
hey, listen - reality is that society is running just fine without
me, and that the challenges i'm facing are not unique to me, and will
become increasingly prevalent over the course of the next generation.
youth unemployment in this region is pushing 30%. there are places in
europe where it's pushing 50%. this is a structural level of
unemployment that is likely with us permanently moving forwards. the
solution is not to magically create jobs where no jobs are necessary, to
dig ditches and fill them in as the old saying goes, it's to come to
terms with the reality that we've already reached the technological
requirements of full communism and adjust the social system to account
for that reality. my generation is just unfortunate enough to be on the
bleeding edge of it, where the shifts in technology are ahead of the
shifts in mass consciousness. there's no future in western society
beyond that realization, but there's a lot of social norms and
traditions pushing against coming to terms with it. the fact is we live
in a reality where we're increasingly only able to employ a small
percentage of the population, and the rest is not going to have any
option but to live on the wealth that the machines create, in one way or
another.
there's a popular misconception that we've lost all the jobs to offshoring, but if you actually look at statistics and ask economists about it the truth will come out that the largest share of job losses are due to mechanization. mexico didn't steal your job, robots did. the robots and artificial intelligences are just getting better. i've seen a number of articles recently asking if doctors are about to be replaced by smart phones. well, i think we'll always have a place for doctors and surgeons especially - but the workload may decrease dramatically. a "family doctor" may soon be a thing of the past. the classrooms of the near future will probably not have teachers in them. &etc.
as all these shifts in technology create ever increasing levels of unemployment, we're going to have to adopt ideas like job sharing. to an extent, we're already there, with the ubiquity of part-time employment. but, again, the social system hasn't adjusted to it. perhaps, more problematically, workers movements haven't adjusted to it. demanding higher wages seems progressive, but it's masking a larger problem. from a quality of life perspective, working part-time is far better than working full-time, is it not? that's less work and more play, which ought to be the goal (i understand it isn't currently). but, it requires structural adjustments like guaranteed incomes to fill in the holes. otherwise, we need to turn the machines off - or adopt ghastly measures to decrease the population.
these are realities that we all need to come to terms with. more and more people are going to be living the way i am, out of necessity, because a prole has nothing to sell but labour, and if capital isn't buying labour then the prole simply doesn't have a way out. i'm just a little ahead of the curve in understanding these things.
the only reason it's not hitting us right now with mass movements is that there's so much wealth tied up in the older generation. i didn't get the worst hand in life, but i didn't get the best one, either. there's thousands and thousands of people in my age group in my situation, but they have family they can live with, so they're not in dire straits.
i mean, i'm sure you've seen these self checkout machines at grocery stores.
consider the consequences if every grocery store, big box chain and retail outlet let their cashiers go as obsolete in the face of new technology. well, it's gonna happen....
there's a popular misconception that we've lost all the jobs to offshoring, but if you actually look at statistics and ask economists about it the truth will come out that the largest share of job losses are due to mechanization. mexico didn't steal your job, robots did. the robots and artificial intelligences are just getting better. i've seen a number of articles recently asking if doctors are about to be replaced by smart phones. well, i think we'll always have a place for doctors and surgeons especially - but the workload may decrease dramatically. a "family doctor" may soon be a thing of the past. the classrooms of the near future will probably not have teachers in them. &etc.
as all these shifts in technology create ever increasing levels of unemployment, we're going to have to adopt ideas like job sharing. to an extent, we're already there, with the ubiquity of part-time employment. but, again, the social system hasn't adjusted to it. perhaps, more problematically, workers movements haven't adjusted to it. demanding higher wages seems progressive, but it's masking a larger problem. from a quality of life perspective, working part-time is far better than working full-time, is it not? that's less work and more play, which ought to be the goal (i understand it isn't currently). but, it requires structural adjustments like guaranteed incomes to fill in the holes. otherwise, we need to turn the machines off - or adopt ghastly measures to decrease the population.
these are realities that we all need to come to terms with. more and more people are going to be living the way i am, out of necessity, because a prole has nothing to sell but labour, and if capital isn't buying labour then the prole simply doesn't have a way out. i'm just a little ahead of the curve in understanding these things.
the only reason it's not hitting us right now with mass movements is that there's so much wealth tied up in the older generation. i didn't get the worst hand in life, but i didn't get the best one, either. there's thousands and thousands of people in my age group in my situation, but they have family they can live with, so they're not in dire straits.
i mean, i'm sure you've seen these self checkout machines at grocery stores.
consider the consequences if every grocery store, big box chain and retail outlet let their cashiers go as obsolete in the face of new technology. well, it's gonna happen....
lol.
some cops showed up today to talk about my suicidal facebook messages. but, the context in the messages is very clear - i'm not currently suicidal. such an autonomous decision is dependent upon the outcome of the odsp evaluation in september. i was posting to prepare others for the eventuality. further, while i'm fairly certain of the outcome, i'm actually holding out hope that it will be extended. how can i be suicidal if i'm mutedly optimistic about the future, and merely planning for the worst case should it actualize?
i've already posted my logic.
it's always interesting explaining my coldly rational, detached perspective to people that seem to think they have the ability to magically project their desires onto reality.
but, you're giving up too soon! you're young!
it's not a question of giving up. that's a subjective perspective. i'm about analyzing data and coming to objective conclusions. my attitude doesn't affect the data, which clearly demonstrates that my chances of finding employment are exceedingly low. it has nothing to do with how i feel, it's just what the data states.
but, you haven't tried.
sure i have. that's how i built up my data set. why try further when the data projects a high probability of failure? it would be *this* behaviour that would be insane.
but that was in ottawa.
the conditions here are worse than in ottawa. that's why i moved here. it follows that i should spend even less time trying here.
you're just focusing on numbers and statistics, you just need to think positively and...
no. i need to focus on data. your arguments are not convincing, because you're not challenging the data, you're merely asking me to ignore it in favour of magical thinking.
*frown*
i tried to explain it, but they didn't get it. they did, however, convince me to allow a nurse to come later today to talk to me.
btw: the correct mathematical argument against my data-driven deductions is to question whether employment data is dependent. if each process is independent of the next, my conclusions collapse.
i think there is some argument for this. in fact, it even follows that if each process is independent then the probability of eventually finding a job approaches one (because any non-zero probability implies at least one success in infinitely many trials).
however, i'm convinced that the challenges are related to personal character traits, which makes each trial dependent on the last.
some cops showed up today to talk about my suicidal facebook messages. but, the context in the messages is very clear - i'm not currently suicidal. such an autonomous decision is dependent upon the outcome of the odsp evaluation in september. i was posting to prepare others for the eventuality. further, while i'm fairly certain of the outcome, i'm actually holding out hope that it will be extended. how can i be suicidal if i'm mutedly optimistic about the future, and merely planning for the worst case should it actualize?
i've already posted my logic.
it's always interesting explaining my coldly rational, detached perspective to people that seem to think they have the ability to magically project their desires onto reality.
but, you're giving up too soon! you're young!
it's not a question of giving up. that's a subjective perspective. i'm about analyzing data and coming to objective conclusions. my attitude doesn't affect the data, which clearly demonstrates that my chances of finding employment are exceedingly low. it has nothing to do with how i feel, it's just what the data states.
but, you haven't tried.
sure i have. that's how i built up my data set. why try further when the data projects a high probability of failure? it would be *this* behaviour that would be insane.
but that was in ottawa.
the conditions here are worse than in ottawa. that's why i moved here. it follows that i should spend even less time trying here.
you're just focusing on numbers and statistics, you just need to think positively and...
no. i need to focus on data. your arguments are not convincing, because you're not challenging the data, you're merely asking me to ignore it in favour of magical thinking.
*frown*
i tried to explain it, but they didn't get it. they did, however, convince me to allow a nurse to come later today to talk to me.
btw: the correct mathematical argument against my data-driven deductions is to question whether employment data is dependent. if each process is independent of the next, my conclusions collapse.
i think there is some argument for this. in fact, it even follows that if each process is independent then the probability of eventually finding a job approaches one (because any non-zero probability implies at least one success in infinitely many trials).
however, i'm convinced that the challenges are related to personal character traits, which makes each trial dependent on the last.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
this is such bullshit.
they're keeping the fisherman out because they're doing military testing, possible even testing nukes.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/8679/20140617/pacific-ocean-tiny-island-focus-of-commercial-fishing-ban.htm
they're keeping the fisherman out because they're doing military testing, possible even testing nukes.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/8679/20140617/pacific-ocean-tiny-island-focus-of-commercial-fishing-ban.htm
obviously. that's why they're supporting isis.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/19/obama-wants-maliki-out/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/19/obama-wants-maliki-out/
it's saudi money and american weapons. no us airstrikes are likely.
the iraqis played both sides and got burned.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iraq-urges-us-airstrikes-as-insurgents-press-offensive/2014/06/19/51b0ef07-f5cd-4eb5-8260-1ab75c2d2ee4_story.html
the iraqis played both sides and got burned.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iraq-urges-us-airstrikes-as-insurgents-press-offensive/2014/06/19/51b0ef07-f5cd-4eb5-8260-1ab75c2d2ee4_story.html
head cleared, decision clarified, expecting the worst, resolved to get as much music done between now and september as i can.
that means i'm not thinking about it between now and then or wasting my time with it.
i just want to get the logic down somewhere for when (if) they find the body.
1) it does not appear as though i am going to have my disability renewed.
2) therefore, i will be unable to pay rent.
3) therefore, i will lose my studio. again.
4) i have nowhere else to store my studio.
5) therefore, i will have no way to save my studio if i am unable to pay rent to house it.
6) humans need a purpose to continue to exist and whither away without one. i have categorically rejected most accepted purposes for existence as not interesting (children, "career", partner, family, etc.). the one purpose i have is recording.
7) therefore, losing my studio would also be losing my purpose to exist.
8) therefore, i would no longer have a will to exist.
9) therefore, suicide will become desirable.
note that, questions of the desirability of labour aside, the chances of me finding employment here or elsewhere are approaching zero. i haven't had a job of any sort since 2011 and i haven't had a full time job since 2008. i have also consistently been fired from every job i've had since 2008 for being unable to show up on time. i see no use in pretending that i will be able to support myself when the evidence is abundantly clear that i will not be able to.
it follows that i'm better off maximizing the recording time i have left than i am wasting my time trying and failing to find a job i'd be fired from within a few weeks, anyways.
...or neuroticizing over a way out. there isn't one.
that means i'm not thinking about it between now and then or wasting my time with it.
i just want to get the logic down somewhere for when (if) they find the body.
1) it does not appear as though i am going to have my disability renewed.
2) therefore, i will be unable to pay rent.
3) therefore, i will lose my studio. again.
4) i have nowhere else to store my studio.
5) therefore, i will have no way to save my studio if i am unable to pay rent to house it.
6) humans need a purpose to continue to exist and whither away without one. i have categorically rejected most accepted purposes for existence as not interesting (children, "career", partner, family, etc.). the one purpose i have is recording.
7) therefore, losing my studio would also be losing my purpose to exist.
8) therefore, i would no longer have a will to exist.
9) therefore, suicide will become desirable.
note that, questions of the desirability of labour aside, the chances of me finding employment here or elsewhere are approaching zero. i haven't had a job of any sort since 2011 and i haven't had a full time job since 2008. i have also consistently been fired from every job i've had since 2008 for being unable to show up on time. i see no use in pretending that i will be able to support myself when the evidence is abundantly clear that i will not be able to.
it follows that i'm better off maximizing the recording time i have left than i am wasting my time trying and failing to find a job i'd be fired from within a few weeks, anyways.
...or neuroticizing over a way out. there isn't one.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
i went back to the clinic to get a second rec and they suggested i go
to a "crisis center" at the hospital. i'm debating it, and leaning
towards doing it now rather than waiting for the decision and doing it
then.
i don't know what the right diagnosis is either, but i'm certain that it's abundantly clear to any person that can analyze evidence that i'm not capable of or interested in participating in society, and anybody denying that clear and obvious truth must have a political motive in front of him.
bluntly: if you actually think i'm capable of properly functioning in this world, you're either stupid or ignorant of the facts.
i'm sick of struggling. if the system doesn't make the right decision, people are going to get hurt.
a life spent working is a life that is not worth living.
if this happens (and i'm hoping things are worked out, but, if odsp throws me off, i will almost certainly choose to end my life or do something that will place me in a jail cell for a long time), you need to think of it in terms of me ending my suffering. it will be for the best.
one day, people will look back at the barbarity of market societies and canonize those who resisted. hopefully, through suicide, as an act of defiance, i can provide inspiration for future generations.
i don't know what the right diagnosis is either, but i'm certain that it's abundantly clear to any person that can analyze evidence that i'm not capable of or interested in participating in society, and anybody denying that clear and obvious truth must have a political motive in front of him.
bluntly: if you actually think i'm capable of properly functioning in this world, you're either stupid or ignorant of the facts.
i'm sick of struggling. if the system doesn't make the right decision, people are going to get hurt.
a life spent working is a life that is not worth living.
if this happens (and i'm hoping things are worked out, but, if odsp throws me off, i will almost certainly choose to end my life or do something that will place me in a jail cell for a long time), you need to think of it in terms of me ending my suffering. it will be for the best.
one day, people will look back at the barbarity of market societies and canonize those who resisted. hopefully, through suicide, as an act of defiance, i can provide inspiration for future generations.
well, that went terribly. and, all the peace and stability and
happiness i've been feeling over the last few months just went up in a
smoke of rage and anger and hopelessness.
some ideas floating through my mind.
1) show up at the psychiatrist's office with a butcher knife and saw my foot off in front of him. manipulating you? want me to prove otherwise, you producerist piece of fucking shit? how about we get your license taken away? ruining your career would give me more pleasure than my foot does. fucker. die. die. die.
2) taking baseball bats to the odsp building and just hanging out outside until the cops show up, and then admit it. when they release me, do it again. then again. and again. and again....
the bottom line that these fuckers have to come to is this: they can either sign my disability papers, or they can watch me kill myself and/or put me in jail, because i'm not participating in this society. it's a threat, but it's not an empty one. i'm at the end. there's no compromising. no trying to fit in. i'm on the fucking terrorists' side. this society needs to be incinerated. i'd rather bomb a walmart than work in one. and i'd rather read in a jail cell in peace than be forced to participate in the market.
some ideas floating through my mind.
1) show up at the psychiatrist's office with a butcher knife and saw my foot off in front of him. manipulating you? want me to prove otherwise, you producerist piece of fucking shit? how about we get your license taken away? ruining your career would give me more pleasure than my foot does. fucker. die. die. die.
2) taking baseball bats to the odsp building and just hanging out outside until the cops show up, and then admit it. when they release me, do it again. then again. and again. and again....
the bottom line that these fuckers have to come to is this: they can either sign my disability papers, or they can watch me kill myself and/or put me in jail, because i'm not participating in this society. it's a threat, but it's not an empty one. i'm at the end. there's no compromising. no trying to fit in. i'm on the fucking terrorists' side. this society needs to be incinerated. i'd rather bomb a walmart than work in one. and i'd rather read in a jail cell in peace than be forced to participate in the market.
Paul Walker
why does the Iraqi girl at 1.53 look European?
deathtokoalas
as others have pointed out, there is a continuum of ethnic iranians through the north of syria and iraq, into iran and north into afghanistan. but, it's an error to suggest that indo-europeans (indo-germanic isn't a good term,for historical reasons) are inherently light skinned or connected to europe. a substantial portion of indo-european speakers today live in india, and it's widely accepted that their origins are somewhere in central asia. that is to say that the child does not "look european". she is simply light-skinned.
precise kurdish origins remain difficult to establish, but they speak an iranian language and it's generally thought that they descend from the earliest iranian invasions into the region. some people suggest they may be related to a group of people historically known as "medes", but this is mostly speculation. regardless, something along those lines is roughly correct. that places their entrance into the region, probably from the northeast, at roughly 1000 years before the common era. stated tersely: light-skinned people have continuously occupied the north of syria and iraq for roughly 3000 years. further, to their slight north, exist armenians and various caucasian groups, whom are also all light-skinned and have been in the region even longer.
it is true that ancient mesopotomian groups (like babylonians) were semitic, and probably of tanned complexion. however, they never expanded far outside of the fertile crescent; light-skinned ancestors of armenians and what we today call christian assyrians (like urartians) existed in the north of syria and iraq.
the oldest group known to modern iran are called elamites and are thought to have probably looked like some modern indians (they may have spoken a language related to the dravidian languages, but this is far too difficult to reconstruct with certainty). these groups were slowly displaced by invading iranians over a period of roughly 1000 years. starting about 500 years before the common era, light-skinned iranians were the dominant cultural and political force through syria, iran and iraq for another thousand years. the struggle between first greece and then rome and persia existed in the context of white emperor against white emperor.
the seventh century saw a series of catastrophic wars between persia and rome that left both of them unable to defend their borders. this allowed some muslim conquerors to "liberate" the semites in the south of iraq and what was then called judea from persian and roman rule, respectively, and put them under the control of a growing center of power in the city of medina. starting around the year 700, waves of arab settlers began to migrate into areas that muslim warlords had conquered, from both persia and rome. the persians were conquered entirely, and the romans never fully recovered. multiple waves of turkish and mongolian invasions followed, but they were largely assimilated. this constructs the broad boundaries of the existing ethnic divisions in the middle east.
eventually, the british carved an irrational state out of the ottoman empire that tried to create a coalition between a northern iranian region and a southern arabic region, but it's perhaps naive to suggest this was done out of ignorance.
so, the short answer is that light-skinned people are actually indigenous to this region, which is historically connected to central asia, and the typical darker-skinned "arabic-looking" person is in fact only really indigenous to the arabian peninsula.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
the indigenous people of that region were asssyrians, before the kurds helped carry out a genocide of them around the first world war. the kurds are thought to be indigenous to the zagros mountains.
however, there is no historical record of the kurdish people before the dawn of islamic imperialism. it's not difficult to deduce that they've probably been around the mountains for a very long time, but it is not possible to connect them to a past ethnic group. medes have been presented as a good guess, but it's ultimately without compelling evidence.
the kurds could, for example, descend from a group of iranian migrants fleeing the islamic advance, or they could be a late migration of alans or ...
i haven't read that text, but i've read enough on the topic to know that what the genetic analysis has demonstrated is that the people of the region demonstrate a genetic continuity and similarity to their neighbours. that is to say that kurds are genetically similar to assyrians, northern arabs and armenians. that doesn't do anything to prove origin, it just proves that the groups have mixed over the period they've been in contact. the same kind of analysis will state that the welsh and english are genetically similar, but we have historical records that tell us they have different origins.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
i'm going to respond to this and then block the commenter, because i'm not interested in the kind of language being used. my primary source was cavalli-sforza many years ago, updated along the way with various articles that i didn't think to document, as i wasn't expecting to be asked for sources on youtube 15 years later. but, i need to stress that i haven't just looked at results of studies, i've analysed the math underlying them.
the indigenous people of the area - assyrians - are not closely related to southern arabs at all. they show a stronger genetic resemblance to jews, but are also the most distinct group in the region. some people will suggest that, due to religious differences (being christian in a sea of muslims) there has been less genetic mixture between assyrians and other groups and this is why assyrians seem to demonstrate a bottleneck. however, it should be noted that the aforementioned genocide no doubt substantially reduced the amount of genetic diversity present in the assyrian population, making it difficult to come to meaningful conclusions as to how widespread the genetic flow was amongst the assyrians, who live continuously in the area for 3000 years before they were mass slaughtered, and the people around them.
the bigger point i'm trying to get across is that what these genetic studies have demonstrated is not that whatever group is from whatever area, but that groups that live in close proximity tend to demonstrate dramatic gene flow. assyrians, armenians, kurds and a number of the turks of the region are genetically indistinguishable from each other. there is no way to use genetics to demonstrate a person's exact ethnicity, and groups that live in close proximity are not genetically distinct from each other.
it was initially thought that genetics would help us classify races. instead, what genetics has taught us is that there is no biological basis for the concept of race. it is simply not a scientific concept.
worse, you seem to be making a very elementary error in the way you're interpreting the data. i don't know if your source makes the same error or not, but if it doesn't then you're misunderstanding it. you're not just confusing genetic continuity with ethnic continuity, which a stigma has not built up against yet but is wrong nonetheless, but you're making the massive faux pas of confusing linguistic continuity with genetic continuity, which i tried to correct the original posters on. finding that skeletons in the region have dna that is similar to modern kurdish dna is not demonstrating kurdish-speaking continuity or kurdish-identifying continuity. it is merely demonstrating genetic continuity. this could, and in fact usually does, happen when a group of invading people interbreed with a dominant indigenous group, as likely happened when the kurds moved from (probably, not certainly) the zagros mountains into the region. i gave you an example of this phenomenon in britain - english speakers are predominantly celtic-british, like the welsh, despite speaking a language and identifying as an ethnic group that invaded from germany. you haven't demonstrated anything about where the kurds came from, you've just demonstrated that they had sex with the people that lived there when they got there.
with that, i now block.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
he got one in before i blocked...
i repeat that there was no mention of the kurds until the arab invasion. kurd is actually an arab word that means something like "wanderer". it would be difficult for greeks and sumerians to describe an ethnic group named by arab invaders. so, i'm not going to ask for a source because i already know it's bullshit. if he's not just making it up, he's certainly drawing on a source that tries to extrapolate kurdish history backwards by identifying them with other groups. but as i've stated, that can't be done through more than crude guesswork, because the term is not indigenous in origin and whatever the original indigenous term actually was has been lost to us. it's little more than a hunch, but the etymology of the term is why i'm of the opinion that the kurds probably moved west as a result of being displaced by arabs moving into iran. they may have been refugees. note that this region was also the battleground between persia and rome for upwards of a thousand years, so it would make sense that the end of that conflict would lead to an increase in migration into a newly peaceful area.
as an aside, the linguistic evidence (which is more compelling than genetic evidence when it comes to migration of ethnic identity) puts the derivation of the kurdish language from persian in northwest iran about the year 100 or so. so, if we understand the genetic evidence properly (which rejects the kurds as a race distinct from the people around them), and we rely on the linguistic evidence as a means of determining ethnogenesis instead, it would have to be stated that the kurds didn't even exist as an ethnic group at the time of the sumerians or babylonians.
i'm also going to post a link for further reference. this is a little bit dated, and i wouldn't take the chart too seriously (if you read the write-up, it explains that the differences are slight. these charts are also sort of cherry picked. minor variations in the model that take into account different expressions create different relationships. the key is that the cluster from pathan up to "turkish" (iranian, here. the greeks didn't leave a mark in anatolia, either, but the persians did) is closely related. also, throwing pathan and tajiki in is sort of a curveball. it's a control, really. that shouldn't be read as that armenians are closely related to afghans. it should be read as armenians are closer to afghans than they are to yemenis, which is not very close in either way. a larger sample of ethnicities would separate them out.), but it gets the point of genetic continuity (rather than genetic difference) being dominant across the middle east.
http://www.atour.com/health/docs/20000720a.html
why does the Iraqi girl at 1.53 look European?
deathtokoalas
as others have pointed out, there is a continuum of ethnic iranians through the north of syria and iraq, into iran and north into afghanistan. but, it's an error to suggest that indo-europeans (indo-germanic isn't a good term,for historical reasons) are inherently light skinned or connected to europe. a substantial portion of indo-european speakers today live in india, and it's widely accepted that their origins are somewhere in central asia. that is to say that the child does not "look european". she is simply light-skinned.
precise kurdish origins remain difficult to establish, but they speak an iranian language and it's generally thought that they descend from the earliest iranian invasions into the region. some people suggest they may be related to a group of people historically known as "medes", but this is mostly speculation. regardless, something along those lines is roughly correct. that places their entrance into the region, probably from the northeast, at roughly 1000 years before the common era. stated tersely: light-skinned people have continuously occupied the north of syria and iraq for roughly 3000 years. further, to their slight north, exist armenians and various caucasian groups, whom are also all light-skinned and have been in the region even longer.
it is true that ancient mesopotomian groups (like babylonians) were semitic, and probably of tanned complexion. however, they never expanded far outside of the fertile crescent; light-skinned ancestors of armenians and what we today call christian assyrians (like urartians) existed in the north of syria and iraq.
the oldest group known to modern iran are called elamites and are thought to have probably looked like some modern indians (they may have spoken a language related to the dravidian languages, but this is far too difficult to reconstruct with certainty). these groups were slowly displaced by invading iranians over a period of roughly 1000 years. starting about 500 years before the common era, light-skinned iranians were the dominant cultural and political force through syria, iran and iraq for another thousand years. the struggle between first greece and then rome and persia existed in the context of white emperor against white emperor.
the seventh century saw a series of catastrophic wars between persia and rome that left both of them unable to defend their borders. this allowed some muslim conquerors to "liberate" the semites in the south of iraq and what was then called judea from persian and roman rule, respectively, and put them under the control of a growing center of power in the city of medina. starting around the year 700, waves of arab settlers began to migrate into areas that muslim warlords had conquered, from both persia and rome. the persians were conquered entirely, and the romans never fully recovered. multiple waves of turkish and mongolian invasions followed, but they were largely assimilated. this constructs the broad boundaries of the existing ethnic divisions in the middle east.
eventually, the british carved an irrational state out of the ottoman empire that tried to create a coalition between a northern iranian region and a southern arabic region, but it's perhaps naive to suggest this was done out of ignorance.
so, the short answer is that light-skinned people are actually indigenous to this region, which is historically connected to central asia, and the typical darker-skinned "arabic-looking" person is in fact only really indigenous to the arabian peninsula.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
the indigenous people of that region were asssyrians, before the kurds helped carry out a genocide of them around the first world war. the kurds are thought to be indigenous to the zagros mountains.
however, there is no historical record of the kurdish people before the dawn of islamic imperialism. it's not difficult to deduce that they've probably been around the mountains for a very long time, but it is not possible to connect them to a past ethnic group. medes have been presented as a good guess, but it's ultimately without compelling evidence.
the kurds could, for example, descend from a group of iranian migrants fleeing the islamic advance, or they could be a late migration of alans or ...
i haven't read that text, but i've read enough on the topic to know that what the genetic analysis has demonstrated is that the people of the region demonstrate a genetic continuity and similarity to their neighbours. that is to say that kurds are genetically similar to assyrians, northern arabs and armenians. that doesn't do anything to prove origin, it just proves that the groups have mixed over the period they've been in contact. the same kind of analysis will state that the welsh and english are genetically similar, but we have historical records that tell us they have different origins.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
i'm going to respond to this and then block the commenter, because i'm not interested in the kind of language being used. my primary source was cavalli-sforza many years ago, updated along the way with various articles that i didn't think to document, as i wasn't expecting to be asked for sources on youtube 15 years later. but, i need to stress that i haven't just looked at results of studies, i've analysed the math underlying them.
the indigenous people of the area - assyrians - are not closely related to southern arabs at all. they show a stronger genetic resemblance to jews, but are also the most distinct group in the region. some people will suggest that, due to religious differences (being christian in a sea of muslims) there has been less genetic mixture between assyrians and other groups and this is why assyrians seem to demonstrate a bottleneck. however, it should be noted that the aforementioned genocide no doubt substantially reduced the amount of genetic diversity present in the assyrian population, making it difficult to come to meaningful conclusions as to how widespread the genetic flow was amongst the assyrians, who live continuously in the area for 3000 years before they were mass slaughtered, and the people around them.
the bigger point i'm trying to get across is that what these genetic studies have demonstrated is not that whatever group is from whatever area, but that groups that live in close proximity tend to demonstrate dramatic gene flow. assyrians, armenians, kurds and a number of the turks of the region are genetically indistinguishable from each other. there is no way to use genetics to demonstrate a person's exact ethnicity, and groups that live in close proximity are not genetically distinct from each other.
it was initially thought that genetics would help us classify races. instead, what genetics has taught us is that there is no biological basis for the concept of race. it is simply not a scientific concept.
worse, you seem to be making a very elementary error in the way you're interpreting the data. i don't know if your source makes the same error or not, but if it doesn't then you're misunderstanding it. you're not just confusing genetic continuity with ethnic continuity, which a stigma has not built up against yet but is wrong nonetheless, but you're making the massive faux pas of confusing linguistic continuity with genetic continuity, which i tried to correct the original posters on. finding that skeletons in the region have dna that is similar to modern kurdish dna is not demonstrating kurdish-speaking continuity or kurdish-identifying continuity. it is merely demonstrating genetic continuity. this could, and in fact usually does, happen when a group of invading people interbreed with a dominant indigenous group, as likely happened when the kurds moved from (probably, not certainly) the zagros mountains into the region. i gave you an example of this phenomenon in britain - english speakers are predominantly celtic-british, like the welsh, despite speaking a language and identifying as an ethnic group that invaded from germany. you haven't demonstrated anything about where the kurds came from, you've just demonstrated that they had sex with the people that lived there when they got there.
with that, i now block.
(deleted)
deathtokoalas
he got one in before i blocked...
i repeat that there was no mention of the kurds until the arab invasion. kurd is actually an arab word that means something like "wanderer". it would be difficult for greeks and sumerians to describe an ethnic group named by arab invaders. so, i'm not going to ask for a source because i already know it's bullshit. if he's not just making it up, he's certainly drawing on a source that tries to extrapolate kurdish history backwards by identifying them with other groups. but as i've stated, that can't be done through more than crude guesswork, because the term is not indigenous in origin and whatever the original indigenous term actually was has been lost to us. it's little more than a hunch, but the etymology of the term is why i'm of the opinion that the kurds probably moved west as a result of being displaced by arabs moving into iran. they may have been refugees. note that this region was also the battleground between persia and rome for upwards of a thousand years, so it would make sense that the end of that conflict would lead to an increase in migration into a newly peaceful area.
as an aside, the linguistic evidence (which is more compelling than genetic evidence when it comes to migration of ethnic identity) puts the derivation of the kurdish language from persian in northwest iran about the year 100 or so. so, if we understand the genetic evidence properly (which rejects the kurds as a race distinct from the people around them), and we rely on the linguistic evidence as a means of determining ethnogenesis instead, it would have to be stated that the kurds didn't even exist as an ethnic group at the time of the sumerians or babylonians.
i'm also going to post a link for further reference. this is a little bit dated, and i wouldn't take the chart too seriously (if you read the write-up, it explains that the differences are slight. these charts are also sort of cherry picked. minor variations in the model that take into account different expressions create different relationships. the key is that the cluster from pathan up to "turkish" (iranian, here. the greeks didn't leave a mark in anatolia, either, but the persians did) is closely related. also, throwing pathan and tajiki in is sort of a curveball. it's a control, really. that shouldn't be read as that armenians are closely related to afghans. it should be read as armenians are closer to afghans than they are to yemenis, which is not very close in either way. a larger sample of ethnicities would separate them out.), but it gets the point of genetic continuity (rather than genetic difference) being dominant across the middle east.
http://www.atour.com/health/docs/20000720a.html
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
neither mulcair nor trudeau will reverse the decision if they win.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/northern-gateway-pipeline-approved-with-209-conditions-1.2678285
trudeau's party won't let him.
and, mulcair's party will ultimately push for refineries to create more union jobs, not to shut the project down.
it might put a few more greens in parliament, and they'll be ignored.
we don't live in a democracy. the opposition has just wasted a lot of time playing silly political games that they can never win, rather than build networks that can oppose the construction by force.
and, on that note: only in canada do we look at election results that contradict every poll taken and say "gee, i guess the pollsters got it wrong".
i didn't see one person suggest the election was fixed.
and, look at the way it got spun: "flopping" was a "mistake".
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/northern-gateway-pipeline-approved-with-209-conditions-1.2678285
trudeau's party won't let him.
and, mulcair's party will ultimately push for refineries to create more union jobs, not to shut the project down.
it might put a few more greens in parliament, and they'll be ignored.
we don't live in a democracy. the opposition has just wasted a lot of time playing silly political games that they can never win, rather than build networks that can oppose the construction by force.
and, on that note: only in canada do we look at election results that contradict every poll taken and say "gee, i guess the pollsters got it wrong".
i didn't see one person suggest the election was fixed.
and, look at the way it got spun: "flopping" was a "mistake".
Monday, June 16, 2014
this article makes no sense. mdma is a hallucinogen that has to do with serotonin levels and is the safe(st) part of doing e. the dangerous part that usually leads to heart issues is the meth or coke that it's spiked with, because they're uppers. what generally happens is that people don't realize that e is mostly meth and mix it with even more meth or coke. it's not the bit of largely harmless mdma that gets them, it's the mix of meth, coke, speed or whatever else that pushes their blood pressure through the roof and starts bursting blood vessels.
it follows that 91% pure e is waaaaay safer than 58% pure e, because it's not the mdma that's dangerous but the stuff they splice it with.
my opinion on the drug is that i won't touch it because i know i'm probably getting some kind of upper (probably meth), and i don't do uppers. if i could get pure, regulated mdma i'd try it...i just have zero confidence in the street to produce it.
the end result is still that regulation is the way forward. but, somebody seems to have fucked up the reporting somewhere...
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/12/mother-martha-fernback-died-ecstasy-legalisation-debate
ok. it turns out she took 500 mg.
a typical dose is 100 mg.
so, she overdosed in terms of how much, not in terms of purity. 500 mg would be dangerous at any mixture.
it would be nice if the press would stop treating mdma like heroin, but it's probably not likely.
it follows that 91% pure e is waaaaay safer than 58% pure e, because it's not the mdma that's dangerous but the stuff they splice it with.
my opinion on the drug is that i won't touch it because i know i'm probably getting some kind of upper (probably meth), and i don't do uppers. if i could get pure, regulated mdma i'd try it...i just have zero confidence in the street to produce it.
the end result is still that regulation is the way forward. but, somebody seems to have fucked up the reporting somewhere...
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/12/mother-martha-fernback-died-ecstasy-legalisation-debate
ok. it turns out she took 500 mg.
a typical dose is 100 mg.
so, she overdosed in terms of how much, not in terms of purity. 500 mg would be dangerous at any mixture.
it would be nice if the press would stop treating mdma like heroin, but it's probably not likely.
it's not the case that this church is setting up peacefully and that it's followers are harmlessly going about their daily lives. this is a meeting point for people with discriminatory and hateful views, who will go out into the community and act those ideas out. this idea of religion as peaceful expression must be challenged. it's just simply not accurate. religion is systemic and hierarchical. it seeks power. it spreads propaganda. it's a political threat to the area and must be treated that way.
free speech is not protected speech. no sane person would suggest that people ought to be able to speak their mind without social consequences; the idea is that people ought to have the right to make the decision on whether it's worth taking the risk or not. these types of christian groups are taking a risk in spreading hateful messaging, and ought to deal with the consequences of it.
i do support the vandalism as a political statement, but it's only a first step. the next step needs to be boycotts against church members and other political actions designed to reduce their influence in the community and run them out of town.
it sounds harsh and it's against certain liberal values that are embedded in our cultural psyche, but we have to collectively understand that there is no peace with religion and allowing it to build is just ceding ground to enemy forces.
free speech is not protected speech. no sane person would suggest that people ought to be able to speak their mind without social consequences; the idea is that people ought to have the right to make the decision on whether it's worth taking the risk or not. these types of christian groups are taking a risk in spreading hateful messaging, and ought to deal with the consequences of it.
i do support the vandalism as a political statement, but it's only a first step. the next step needs to be boycotts against church members and other political actions designed to reduce their influence in the community and run them out of town.
it sounds harsh and it's against certain liberal values that are embedded in our cultural psyche, but we have to collectively understand that there is no peace with religion and allowing it to build is just ceding ground to enemy forces.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
tigers and humans (as well as lions and humans, and crocs and humans) have evolved in a predator-prey relationship. it's not like that with bears or wolfs or even with leopards. there is absolutely no way to get one of these things to see you as anything more than food. it just boggles my mind that due to whatever arrogance or religious thinking or whatever else, people don't realize that we are not at the top of the food chain in certain parts of the world.
even with that taken into account, the general understanding of any kind of beast is that once they kill once they will kill again. this is the reason we kill crocs and wolves and mountain lions that get one of us. so, i don't understand how the tiger was not put down by law enforcement after it's first victim.
even with that taken into account, the general understanding of any kind of beast is that once they kill once they will kill again. this is the reason we kill crocs and wolves and mountain lions that get one of us. so, i don't understand how the tiger was not put down by law enforcement after it's first victim.
ok, this describes me pretty well, except perhaps the manipulative part (i'd rather avoid people altogether than try and turn them into personal puppets), but what's the problem if i'm happier interacting with a book or a guitar than a human being? in the context of spectrum politics and individual rights, it strikes me as more of a question of economics. it kind of makes me a "free rider", but there's not much i can do about it besides go through some kind of brainwashing. on the other hand, if we modified our economic system to focus more on using technology as a distributive tool, then we could all be happy introverts living in our closed realities as we walk around from one machine to the next. so, is this a negative disorder, or are we actually pushing the genome forward?
Saturday, June 14, 2014
uploading recent guitar demo to soundlcoud
a math rock version of the three's company theme, or something. i'm now caught up. these are the kind of silly shorts that will be posted here moving forward....
https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/2014-05-18a
https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/2014-05-18a
deathtokoalas
isn't it obvious that the cub is too small to offer much of a meal, but could act as a trojan horse to catch a bigger one? lions normally hunt in packs. if it's solitary, how is the lion supposed to catch a big meal? it needs a better trick. as soon as the cub gets close to the herd, it tries to ambush....
i'm a little skeptical about lions being empathetic, but i'm comfortable with the idea that they're very sneaky and very smart.
Alastair Leith
You look pretty miserable too :-)
deathtokoalas
you know, i get a comment on that almost every day. it's a shot i took when hungover, and uploaded because it's the last thing people expect to see in a profile pic nowadays.
Alastair Leith
Winning! And why do you hate koalas?
deathtokoalas
clearly, it's their nefarious level of cuteness.
Jason P
That's exactly what I thought, too. The lion was using the baby as bait to find bigger meals -- the baby was just too small for it to satisfy.
Rob Scha Nay Nay
Good idea but it doesnt seem so. Not all nature needs purpose
deathtokoalas
it's not about purpose in some grander scheme of things, it's about understanding specific behaviour in the specific circumstance. lions cannot hunt large prey by themselves. it follows that she has no choice but to come up with a different tactic.
lions aren't the best at chasing things. instead, they rely on ambushing. one lion will sneak up behind the group of ungulates, startling it to run directly towards another; they try to manipulate their prey to run towards them, rather than chase them down and only chase when the ambush fails. they're really good at using the landscape to help them with this, and good at positioning themselves to take advantage of angles. i don't suspect they're doing the geometry mathematically, but they seem to get it intuitively. when lions are not able to hunt in packs, they're forced to rely on easier and smaller prey, like warthogs, or go after the old and young. if you think about it, the way they hunt is essentially herding behaviour, but with a kill at the end of it.
it's not that big a jump to go from ambushing the ungulates to using a baby to get close to them. i mean, it's an ambush tactic, either way. both are means to get close to the prey. i agree this appears to be novel behvaiour, but the jump in abstraction of thought is really not high, given what we already know about them.
further, as i mentioned previously, the video clearly demonstrates that this is what the lion is doing: it's allowing the calf to get close to the herd, then stalking around it. they didn't observe the tactic as successful, but the behaviour demonstrated is really blatant from the images in the film.
Rob Scha Nay Nay
I meant a purpose with respect to its survivability. It could just be a motherly glitch its CNS that has no bearing on its evolutionary success.
deathtokoalas
well, it could be, but the evidence doesn't seem to suggest that.
i just need to point out that i realize the film suggests the lion caught an antelope on her own, but this seems to be a mistake. the longer version suggests she ate a warthog. my best guess on that is that the calf is an antelope, and the speaker had a mental freeze.
it is very difficult for a lone lioness to catch a grown antelope, and warthogs make up the core diet of single lions. she'd have to be an exceptional hunter to pull off that feat, which is clearly not the case. that's why they hunt in packs.
Alex F
HOLY SHIT I just clicked on your channel. I'm scared now.
deathtokoalas
i think more people should click on my channel, but there's really no reason to be afraid.
unless you're a scaredy-cat...
simone4447
i think the lioness was hunting then fail yet the baby live, now the lioness have no idea what to do so she just stay with the cub. after-all she was raised by humans so she wasn't really trained by her mother to hunt correctly ...
deathtokoalas
where did you get the information that the lioness was raised by humans? if true, it's kind of a fail that the doc didn't mention it, and i need to modify my opinion. everything in the doc suggests that this is a wild lioness. it even hypothesizes that she may have been separated from her pride.
Cari Schumann
but lions often eat babies or sick or elderly prey so to say the baby was not satisfying meal can't be right lions are opportunistic hunters they eat what they can it's obvious the lion was nurturing the baby she could have eaten at anytime
deathtokoalas
lions will eat a baby as a snack if they know they can eat a real meal later. if they know they can't, it stands to reason that they might try a different tactic.
it wasn't nurturing it, either, it was starving it...
think of it like this: you might fry up a minnow as a delicacy (just go with it) if you know there's a supermarket near by. but, if you know you're going to be out in the wilderness for a while, you'd realize it makes more sense to use that minnow as bait to catch a bigger fish.
the lion is quite clearly stalking the larger animals when they go to investigate the calf. it didn't work, but it's obvious that it's what it was doing.
DHD9
your giving lions too much credit, I can't explain this, but I watch bog cat dairies and lionsll eat anything, including lion cubs. They don't care about size. And it let the calf feed so it wasn't deliberately starving it
deathtokoalas
when lions eat lion cubs, it's a territorial and genetic thing. there's a number of animals that they will kill and not eat - most notably cheetahs, who they seem to not want around for competitive reasons. they'll just storm a cheetah family, kill the babies and walk off. it seems they're killing them to avoid competition, but i don't think anybody really understands why they don't bother eating them on top of it.
i don't think the lion is starving the cub on purpose, either - it ultimately is going to want it to survive long enough to get close to the larger one. letting it close enough to feed, and taking a run during the distraction, is the whole point.
kristian perez
this theory makes no sense, how does the presence of a baby make others come closer ? if anyhting the presence of the lioness would drive off any other orix (forgive my spelling)
that and when the lioness did find a group she went straight for the baby rather than the other orix,
deathtokoalas
a mother oryx will be attracted to a calf in need because it does have motherly instincts towards it. they'll even try and protect their offspring from attack, and can sometimes succeed. so, if the lioness places the baby oryx just a little away from the herd, it will attract the mother away, where the lioness can more easily ambush. if you watch the video (or the longer version, i don't remember) again, you'll see that this is what happens - except that the mother oryx didn't take the bait long enough to get into pouncing range.
again, you have to realize that lions are very inefficient hunters when left alone. they rely heavily on their pack to hunt. the reason the lioness doesn't go straight for the larger antelopes is that it knows it can't catch them.
in packs, lions are apex predators and probably the most ferocious and deadly creatures on the planet. alone, they're forced to compete with other mid-level carnivores like jackals and cheetahs for much smaller prey.
kristian perez
if i recall, wasnt the baby oryx the reason for it being alone in the first place ? (other lions kept trying to kill it)
deathtokoalas
no.
simone4447
i like your idea of the lioness using the baby to get closer to prey but when the park guards tried feeding her meat to stop them from starving, the lioness didnt take it. If that was her intent to use the baby it must of change while they were together or she did want meat while being with the baby. idk but this wouldnt have happened if the lioness pride wasnt killed when she was young.
deathtokoalas
i think there's a lot of reasons why the lioness may or may not have taken possibly unsafe meat from humans and it's a big jump to deduce it had anything to do with the baby antelope.
isn't it obvious that the cub is too small to offer much of a meal, but could act as a trojan horse to catch a bigger one? lions normally hunt in packs. if it's solitary, how is the lion supposed to catch a big meal? it needs a better trick. as soon as the cub gets close to the herd, it tries to ambush....
i'm a little skeptical about lions being empathetic, but i'm comfortable with the idea that they're very sneaky and very smart.
Alastair Leith
You look pretty miserable too :-)
deathtokoalas
you know, i get a comment on that almost every day. it's a shot i took when hungover, and uploaded because it's the last thing people expect to see in a profile pic nowadays.
Alastair Leith
Winning! And why do you hate koalas?
deathtokoalas
clearly, it's their nefarious level of cuteness.
Jason P
That's exactly what I thought, too. The lion was using the baby as bait to find bigger meals -- the baby was just too small for it to satisfy.
Rob Scha Nay Nay
Good idea but it doesnt seem so. Not all nature needs purpose
deathtokoalas
it's not about purpose in some grander scheme of things, it's about understanding specific behaviour in the specific circumstance. lions cannot hunt large prey by themselves. it follows that she has no choice but to come up with a different tactic.
lions aren't the best at chasing things. instead, they rely on ambushing. one lion will sneak up behind the group of ungulates, startling it to run directly towards another; they try to manipulate their prey to run towards them, rather than chase them down and only chase when the ambush fails. they're really good at using the landscape to help them with this, and good at positioning themselves to take advantage of angles. i don't suspect they're doing the geometry mathematically, but they seem to get it intuitively. when lions are not able to hunt in packs, they're forced to rely on easier and smaller prey, like warthogs, or go after the old and young. if you think about it, the way they hunt is essentially herding behaviour, but with a kill at the end of it.
it's not that big a jump to go from ambushing the ungulates to using a baby to get close to them. i mean, it's an ambush tactic, either way. both are means to get close to the prey. i agree this appears to be novel behvaiour, but the jump in abstraction of thought is really not high, given what we already know about them.
further, as i mentioned previously, the video clearly demonstrates that this is what the lion is doing: it's allowing the calf to get close to the herd, then stalking around it. they didn't observe the tactic as successful, but the behaviour demonstrated is really blatant from the images in the film.
Rob Scha Nay Nay
I meant a purpose with respect to its survivability. It could just be a motherly glitch its CNS that has no bearing on its evolutionary success.
deathtokoalas
well, it could be, but the evidence doesn't seem to suggest that.
i just need to point out that i realize the film suggests the lion caught an antelope on her own, but this seems to be a mistake. the longer version suggests she ate a warthog. my best guess on that is that the calf is an antelope, and the speaker had a mental freeze.
it is very difficult for a lone lioness to catch a grown antelope, and warthogs make up the core diet of single lions. she'd have to be an exceptional hunter to pull off that feat, which is clearly not the case. that's why they hunt in packs.
Alex F
HOLY SHIT I just clicked on your channel. I'm scared now.
deathtokoalas
i think more people should click on my channel, but there's really no reason to be afraid.
unless you're a scaredy-cat...
simone4447
i think the lioness was hunting then fail yet the baby live, now the lioness have no idea what to do so she just stay with the cub. after-all she was raised by humans so she wasn't really trained by her mother to hunt correctly ...
deathtokoalas
where did you get the information that the lioness was raised by humans? if true, it's kind of a fail that the doc didn't mention it, and i need to modify my opinion. everything in the doc suggests that this is a wild lioness. it even hypothesizes that she may have been separated from her pride.
Cari Schumann
but lions often eat babies or sick or elderly prey so to say the baby was not satisfying meal can't be right lions are opportunistic hunters they eat what they can it's obvious the lion was nurturing the baby she could have eaten at anytime
deathtokoalas
lions will eat a baby as a snack if they know they can eat a real meal later. if they know they can't, it stands to reason that they might try a different tactic.
it wasn't nurturing it, either, it was starving it...
think of it like this: you might fry up a minnow as a delicacy (just go with it) if you know there's a supermarket near by. but, if you know you're going to be out in the wilderness for a while, you'd realize it makes more sense to use that minnow as bait to catch a bigger fish.
the lion is quite clearly stalking the larger animals when they go to investigate the calf. it didn't work, but it's obvious that it's what it was doing.
DHD9
your giving lions too much credit, I can't explain this, but I watch bog cat dairies and lionsll eat anything, including lion cubs. They don't care about size. And it let the calf feed so it wasn't deliberately starving it
deathtokoalas
when lions eat lion cubs, it's a territorial and genetic thing. there's a number of animals that they will kill and not eat - most notably cheetahs, who they seem to not want around for competitive reasons. they'll just storm a cheetah family, kill the babies and walk off. it seems they're killing them to avoid competition, but i don't think anybody really understands why they don't bother eating them on top of it.
i don't think the lion is starving the cub on purpose, either - it ultimately is going to want it to survive long enough to get close to the larger one. letting it close enough to feed, and taking a run during the distraction, is the whole point.
kristian perez
this theory makes no sense, how does the presence of a baby make others come closer ? if anyhting the presence of the lioness would drive off any other orix (forgive my spelling)
that and when the lioness did find a group she went straight for the baby rather than the other orix,
deathtokoalas
a mother oryx will be attracted to a calf in need because it does have motherly instincts towards it. they'll even try and protect their offspring from attack, and can sometimes succeed. so, if the lioness places the baby oryx just a little away from the herd, it will attract the mother away, where the lioness can more easily ambush. if you watch the video (or the longer version, i don't remember) again, you'll see that this is what happens - except that the mother oryx didn't take the bait long enough to get into pouncing range.
again, you have to realize that lions are very inefficient hunters when left alone. they rely heavily on their pack to hunt. the reason the lioness doesn't go straight for the larger antelopes is that it knows it can't catch them.
in packs, lions are apex predators and probably the most ferocious and deadly creatures on the planet. alone, they're forced to compete with other mid-level carnivores like jackals and cheetahs for much smaller prey.
kristian perez
if i recall, wasnt the baby oryx the reason for it being alone in the first place ? (other lions kept trying to kill it)
deathtokoalas
no.
simone4447
i like your idea of the lioness using the baby to get closer to prey but when the park guards tried feeding her meat to stop them from starving, the lioness didnt take it. If that was her intent to use the baby it must of change while they were together or she did want meat while being with the baby. idk but this wouldnt have happened if the lioness pride wasnt killed when she was young.
deathtokoalas
i think there's a lot of reasons why the lioness may or may not have taken possibly unsafe meat from humans and it's a big jump to deduce it had anything to do with the baby antelope.
Friday, June 13, 2014
Tr Lý
Based on my knowledge, Cossack is from Russia right? So tell me that it's a "People" Army or a Mercenary Army?
Drew DEI
Actually and historically Cossacks are from Ukraine - they basically founded Ukrainan statehood in Middle Ages. But later some of them (Don's cossacks) appeared to be on the territory of Russia. Modern russian "cossacks" are mostly role-players poisoned by imperial russian "rising-from-the-knees" propaganda
deathtokoalas
insofar as cossack is an ethnic tern, and it mostly isn't, it refers to a turkish people we now call "kazakhs". they were a type of pirate through the middle ages that survived primarily by raiding and plundering, but that was aligned with the russians as a mercenary force over time. this had a "civilizing effect" on them, and they assimilated into the countryside.
it follows that what you call "cossack" today has virtually nothing to do with what was called "cossack" centuries ago. i'm still trying to make sense of the way the media is using this, but it seems to me something people are self-identifying as and what makes the most sense to me is consequently that the term must translate more or less to "mercenary" - it must be a military rather than an ethnic term.
Thor Jørgensen
There are no real Cossacks left anymore, just like how there are no real knights, hussars or vikings.
But any real Cossacks would have been in Ukraine 14th to mid 18th century including Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Cossack Hetmanate.
Drew DEI
Yeah, and regarding the initial question - In "people" "army" by my information there are like 80% of mercenaries, and only about 20% - local people. and there are no some monolith structure actually but some groups and gangs consisting of local criminals, but as I see, some normal people also support this. it is sad.
Vladimir Semiglazov
what information???? the one you just made up???
Илья Аленин
there are Ukranian (Zaporozhye) and Russian (Don, Cuban etc) cossacks: ZaporozhyeCossacks fighted against Poland and united with Russia, russian cossacks were peasants which flinged off landlords
deathtokoalas
the ukrainians initially had to bring in mercenaries because the soldiers didn't want to shoot at their own people. we're talking about cossacks and varangians, here. similar mindset. oldest tactic in the book. however, they seem to have been replaced at least partially by ukrainian nationalists from the maidan protests, who seem to be less discerning. unfortunately.
whether cossack means mercenary or not, it's clear there are russian agents operating. so, it's not one or the other. it's both.
Drew DEI
what mercenaries? our country cannot even buy bulletproof vests for the amry, we are doing it by ourselves. Do you at list imagine what money are necessary to hire professional mercenary army? Official wage of Ukraine military soldier is about $200.
deathtokoalas
i can't answer that, but i'd remind you that ukraine is notorious for shady financing and money laundering. the reports were coming out of germany. i don't think they speculated on financing.
Based on my knowledge, Cossack is from Russia right? So tell me that it's a "People" Army or a Mercenary Army?
Drew DEI
Actually and historically Cossacks are from Ukraine - they basically founded Ukrainan statehood in Middle Ages. But later some of them (Don's cossacks) appeared to be on the territory of Russia. Modern russian "cossacks" are mostly role-players poisoned by imperial russian "rising-from-the-knees" propaganda
deathtokoalas
insofar as cossack is an ethnic tern, and it mostly isn't, it refers to a turkish people we now call "kazakhs". they were a type of pirate through the middle ages that survived primarily by raiding and plundering, but that was aligned with the russians as a mercenary force over time. this had a "civilizing effect" on them, and they assimilated into the countryside.
it follows that what you call "cossack" today has virtually nothing to do with what was called "cossack" centuries ago. i'm still trying to make sense of the way the media is using this, but it seems to me something people are self-identifying as and what makes the most sense to me is consequently that the term must translate more or less to "mercenary" - it must be a military rather than an ethnic term.
Thor Jørgensen
There are no real Cossacks left anymore, just like how there are no real knights, hussars or vikings.
But any real Cossacks would have been in Ukraine 14th to mid 18th century including Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Cossack Hetmanate.
Drew DEI
Yeah, and regarding the initial question - In "people" "army" by my information there are like 80% of mercenaries, and only about 20% - local people. and there are no some monolith structure actually but some groups and gangs consisting of local criminals, but as I see, some normal people also support this. it is sad.
Vladimir Semiglazov
what information???? the one you just made up???
Илья Аленин
there are Ukranian (Zaporozhye) and Russian (Don, Cuban etc) cossacks: ZaporozhyeCossacks fighted against Poland and united with Russia, russian cossacks were peasants which flinged off landlords
deathtokoalas
the ukrainians initially had to bring in mercenaries because the soldiers didn't want to shoot at their own people. we're talking about cossacks and varangians, here. similar mindset. oldest tactic in the book. however, they seem to have been replaced at least partially by ukrainian nationalists from the maidan protests, who seem to be less discerning. unfortunately.
whether cossack means mercenary or not, it's clear there are russian agents operating. so, it's not one or the other. it's both.
Drew DEI
what mercenaries? our country cannot even buy bulletproof vests for the amry, we are doing it by ourselves. Do you at list imagine what money are necessary to hire professional mercenary army? Official wage of Ukraine military soldier is about $200.
deathtokoalas
i can't answer that, but i'd remind you that ukraine is notorious for shady financing and money laundering. the reports were coming out of germany. i don't think they speculated on financing.
just a correction: mulcair was not leader of the ndp in the last election, jack layton was. there was a complicated mix of sympathy for a dying layton (who everybody agreed blew away duceppe in the debate), a desperate attempt to stop a conservative majority (and maybe allow an ndp-liberal coalition, which itself is a complicated mess), revulsion at ignatieff, generational change and a feeling that the bloc wasn't accomplishing anything, partially on harper's repeated suggestion. quebec has a history of this sort of thing, moving in giant leaps and bounds from one party to the next, in some kind of weird mass consciousness. it's kind of eery, actually. and the west does the same thing under repeated upheavals of "prairie populism".
but, i agree with the general point being expressed here. and, the frustrating thing is that, if the goal is solely to take power, it isn't bad politics for the ndp to do what they're doing....they got a boost of a few percentage points this time...for some reason or other (i suspect age), the deciding factor seems to have been that turnout, and specifically tory turnout, was very low in the gta.
anyways, the ndp has four years to think about it, now. one way or the other, they're going to emerge as a very different beast next time around. it didn't translate into seats this time around, but the ndp seem to have broken through to some different types of voters. for better or worse. it's actually the tories that walk out of this in crises.
i think we saw the beginning of the core of their voting demographic withdrawing from public involvement due to the various factors associated with aging: lower mobility, lower interest, etc. but i'd like to see some numbers verify that or prove it wrong. if they don't find a way to mobilize young people, and these abstract financial scandals pushed through the sun franchises really aren't it, the tories could be devastated the next time through.
----
LeGioNoFZioN
the Progressive Conservative party of Ontario is not a "tea party" like conservative government, it isn't even hard right. people who use that are scare mongering and intellectually dishonest. The Liberal and PC party's are nearly indistinguishable to anyone being truthful. their rhetorically different, but historically so similar MPP's jump from one party to the other relatively frequently. with Horwath the new head of the provincial NDP, it seems they are drawing more to the centre, and are gaining support for their centrist move in Toronto.
(lengthy but typical discussion about climate denial is removed as i am not a party to it and it does not include worthwhile arguments)
deathtokoalas
the canadian spectrum is rather difficult, because the provincial parties are independent of the federal ones. some of the most right-wing parties in canada in recent memory have been from the ndp, and some of the most left have been from the liberals.
so, you have to look at the status quo. hudak's proposals are not centrist or middle of the road relative to the status quo, he's very far to the right of bill davis and even to the right of the alberta pcs. he would be the most right-wing premier in the country. that doesn't make him mussolini, but it does take him out of the mainstream.
well, maybe he's not more right-wing than brad wall. second most, then. point stands.
a4d3
How was he part of the new ice scare in the 70s? He was studying Venus before he realized what a dramatic effect GHGs have on climate. Also, I recommended him because he is one of the most respected scientists. Not everyone agrees with all his points but he breaks down what is agreed upon very clearly.
LeGioNoFZioN
I read about it years ago, this is the only article I could find on it online at this point http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/sep/19/inside-the-beltway-69748548/?page=all
but the point is he was advocating for global climate change in 1971 based on a computer model he created, which turned out to not be correct in any way. And he has been on the receiving end of some serious cash for his research post 1990's. My point is he has a vesting interest, and financial gain to be made out of his advocacy.
a4d3
This comes up all the time but it's really pretty weak if you think about the way the world works, in my opinion. The first question is, what serious cash? Where does it come from? How does it compete with the profits of energy companies almost entirely invested in fossil fuels? (for fun, google the largest corporations in the world when you have a chance). The second question, noting however that the article mentions the ice age was not something he predicted but a colleague of his did, wouldn't it have been easier to have stuck with the cooling hypothesis of his colleague if he was after money? Why work so hard to reverse it? And then, if you consider how many scientists around the world studying different fields support the theory based on their own research, how plausible is this dark money hypothesis? It's also worth noting that despite some scientists predicting cooling in the 70's, metastudies of research during that time period show that even then cooling was predicted by a small minority of scientists. So as far as I can tell, (although you didn't imply this) all the talk about how scientists change their minds like the wind changes direction is really misinformed.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s-basic.htm
I stand by the recommendation but, as I mentioned, feel free to look at any other respected scientist.
deathtokoalas
these arguments are terrible. none of you have the slightest idea of what you're talking about on a scientific level, so you try to discredit each other with red herrings about finances or argue around the red herrings with aloof rationalizations. one can attempt to explain the motives underlying bad science by looking at the source of funding, but one cannot reasonably draw inferences about the nature of any research by looking solely at the funding. i know it might seem like environmentalists do the latter, but they in fact do the former. is it subtle? to me, it's glaring, but maybe it's not so obvious to others.
jonathan swift died a really long time ago, and the fact is that he didn't really understand what he was tearing down well, anyways - he was really just drawing a giant strawman. but, for whatever reason, he remains this kind of hero amongst a certain type of luddite, who continue to perpetuate the same strawman fallacy hundreds of years later. it's kind of distressing.
even if he did have a convoluted point in attacking the easy target of astrologists and pythagoreans and then calling that a satire of science, there were hardly things such as confidence intervals or correlative statistics at that point in history.
so, let's try and keep up a bit better.
does anybody have any substantive criticism or support for any papers this guy has published?
---
LeGioNoFZioN
what these two fail to note is the non stop string of corruption and scandal and waste from the liberal party since they came into power. the literally make the Mike Harris days seem like a cakewalk in comparison. Only the hard left and extreme left folks are vexed with Horwath. The middle of the road folks who used to vote liberal and are vexed with the Liberals for their incompetence and blatant corruption ... the average unionized labour worker ... they are going to vote for Horwath. I'm a libertarian enthusiast, unlike most of my friends and the one thing I hear in most of my circles is anyone but Wynne (the Liberal leader). I've never voted NDP before but if it helps prevent Wynne from holding power, I'm all for it. I'd vote any party that stops the liberals from capitalizing on their fear mongering campaign to retain power in the face of corruption and scandal.
deathtokoalas
but the tories have corruption built into their governing philosophy. their prime goal is to sell off public resources to their buddies. this idea that they could possibly be less corrupt is just laughable.
i don't want to get too abstract, but you should flip through plato's take on democracy in the republic. the basic conclusion is that democracy is an inherently corrupt form of government, but that accepting a little bit of corruption is a valid trade-off if you want representative government. it's a very grounded, realistic analysis.
the blunt truth is that expecting a democratic government to be free of corruption is utopian type thinking. but, if you're a free market enthusiast, you're used to that.
LeGioNoFZioN
I disagree with the idea that selling off public assets is corrupt. I think it can be either bad or good depending on the asset and what it's use is. so I would argue applying reason to each case would determine whether selling any given asset is positive or negative and blanket statements are too general to ever be accurate.
I recognize some degree of corruption is unavoidable, man is an imperfect creature.
Free market enthusiasts don't expect democratic governing to be free from corruption, to the contrary we expect it, and we expect it in larger amounts the more power a given government can exercise
deathtokoalas
right, but they don't just sell them off, they sell them off to their donors. they're total scam artists.
what i meant about markets being utopian is the idea that they can work without being regulated....
LeGioNoFZioN
I would agree selling assets off to donors as a pay off is a BS move, but that isn't the case in all public asset sales in Ontario in the last 20 years, whether PC Liberal or NDP.
Markets can work without being regulated, but once you start, it is nearly impossible to stop, and regulation impedes development, growth and advancement. regulations are often well intended but often produce results other than the intention of the regulator. I recognize some areas and some sectors should be regulated for everyone's well being, but those areas are few and far between.
deathtokoalas
do you have an example of anything that's been privatized in ontario over the last twenty years that hasn't led to a profitable industry for the politicians' buddies and higher prices for consumers? privatizing the electricity system was a catastrophe. it's a surreal comedy that the tories are trying to pin the disaster on the liberals. how about building roads at public expense, then selling them off to private investors? but, do you have a counter-example...?
i actually agree that market regulation tends to put the oligopolies in charge, telecommunications are a good example, but i follow the economic logic that thinks of markets as an unstable system that seeks equilibrium in collusion. it follows that a free market is only possible if an outside force exists to constantly prevent firms from colluding with each other, either by breaking them up by force or by providing incentives for them to continue competing. unfortunately, when we take (1) into account, we're left in an impossible situation. our actual option is between state ownership and private oligopolies. so, i'd argue we should nationalize the lines rather than regulate them....
----
a4d3
Merge those goddamned parties !
deathtokoalas
despite the problems with the ndp recently, if you merge the ndp and liberals you eliminate any leftward pull on the liberal party and create the kind of dynamic that exists in the united states, where the two parties are constantly competing for the right, because there's nobody to vote for on the left anyways. that is to say that the democrats have no fear of moving too far right because they know nobody an inch left of centre is ever going to vote republican.
there was supposed to be a level of dialectical thinking in the two-party system, but they fucked it up. the idea is if you have two competing ideas, they'll combine to form one. but it doesn't happen. the spectrum just pushes one way or the other. it's not necessarily going to have to push right (it was pushing left for a while in the 30s) but it's always movement in one direction, because it's a process of competition rather than one of synthesis.
the way to get the right kind of dialectic going, and it's what we should want if we're thinking clearly instead of ideologically, is to create thesis and antithesis on the left and right and let the synthesis form in the middle. that creates a natural governing party. and, it's fine so long as corruption is kept in check one way or another.
we need the ndp to get back to their principles.
but, i agree with the general point being expressed here. and, the frustrating thing is that, if the goal is solely to take power, it isn't bad politics for the ndp to do what they're doing....they got a boost of a few percentage points this time...for some reason or other (i suspect age), the deciding factor seems to have been that turnout, and specifically tory turnout, was very low in the gta.
anyways, the ndp has four years to think about it, now. one way or the other, they're going to emerge as a very different beast next time around. it didn't translate into seats this time around, but the ndp seem to have broken through to some different types of voters. for better or worse. it's actually the tories that walk out of this in crises.
i think we saw the beginning of the core of their voting demographic withdrawing from public involvement due to the various factors associated with aging: lower mobility, lower interest, etc. but i'd like to see some numbers verify that or prove it wrong. if they don't find a way to mobilize young people, and these abstract financial scandals pushed through the sun franchises really aren't it, the tories could be devastated the next time through.
LeGioNoFZioN
the Progressive Conservative party of Ontario is not a "tea party" like conservative government, it isn't even hard right. people who use that are scare mongering and intellectually dishonest. The Liberal and PC party's are nearly indistinguishable to anyone being truthful. their rhetorically different, but historically so similar MPP's jump from one party to the other relatively frequently. with Horwath the new head of the provincial NDP, it seems they are drawing more to the centre, and are gaining support for their centrist move in Toronto.
(lengthy but typical discussion about climate denial is removed as i am not a party to it and it does not include worthwhile arguments)
deathtokoalas
the canadian spectrum is rather difficult, because the provincial parties are independent of the federal ones. some of the most right-wing parties in canada in recent memory have been from the ndp, and some of the most left have been from the liberals.
so, you have to look at the status quo. hudak's proposals are not centrist or middle of the road relative to the status quo, he's very far to the right of bill davis and even to the right of the alberta pcs. he would be the most right-wing premier in the country. that doesn't make him mussolini, but it does take him out of the mainstream.
well, maybe he's not more right-wing than brad wall. second most, then. point stands.
a4d3
How was he part of the new ice scare in the 70s? He was studying Venus before he realized what a dramatic effect GHGs have on climate. Also, I recommended him because he is one of the most respected scientists. Not everyone agrees with all his points but he breaks down what is agreed upon very clearly.
LeGioNoFZioN
I read about it years ago, this is the only article I could find on it online at this point http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/sep/19/inside-the-beltway-69748548/?page=all
but the point is he was advocating for global climate change in 1971 based on a computer model he created, which turned out to not be correct in any way. And he has been on the receiving end of some serious cash for his research post 1990's. My point is he has a vesting interest, and financial gain to be made out of his advocacy.
a4d3
This comes up all the time but it's really pretty weak if you think about the way the world works, in my opinion. The first question is, what serious cash? Where does it come from? How does it compete with the profits of energy companies almost entirely invested in fossil fuels? (for fun, google the largest corporations in the world when you have a chance). The second question, noting however that the article mentions the ice age was not something he predicted but a colleague of his did, wouldn't it have been easier to have stuck with the cooling hypothesis of his colleague if he was after money? Why work so hard to reverse it? And then, if you consider how many scientists around the world studying different fields support the theory based on their own research, how plausible is this dark money hypothesis? It's also worth noting that despite some scientists predicting cooling in the 70's, metastudies of research during that time period show that even then cooling was predicted by a small minority of scientists. So as far as I can tell, (although you didn't imply this) all the talk about how scientists change their minds like the wind changes direction is really misinformed.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s-basic.htm
I stand by the recommendation but, as I mentioned, feel free to look at any other respected scientist.
deathtokoalas
these arguments are terrible. none of you have the slightest idea of what you're talking about on a scientific level, so you try to discredit each other with red herrings about finances or argue around the red herrings with aloof rationalizations. one can attempt to explain the motives underlying bad science by looking at the source of funding, but one cannot reasonably draw inferences about the nature of any research by looking solely at the funding. i know it might seem like environmentalists do the latter, but they in fact do the former. is it subtle? to me, it's glaring, but maybe it's not so obvious to others.
jonathan swift died a really long time ago, and the fact is that he didn't really understand what he was tearing down well, anyways - he was really just drawing a giant strawman. but, for whatever reason, he remains this kind of hero amongst a certain type of luddite, who continue to perpetuate the same strawman fallacy hundreds of years later. it's kind of distressing.
even if he did have a convoluted point in attacking the easy target of astrologists and pythagoreans and then calling that a satire of science, there were hardly things such as confidence intervals or correlative statistics at that point in history.
so, let's try and keep up a bit better.
does anybody have any substantive criticism or support for any papers this guy has published?
---
LeGioNoFZioN
what these two fail to note is the non stop string of corruption and scandal and waste from the liberal party since they came into power. the literally make the Mike Harris days seem like a cakewalk in comparison. Only the hard left and extreme left folks are vexed with Horwath. The middle of the road folks who used to vote liberal and are vexed with the Liberals for their incompetence and blatant corruption ... the average unionized labour worker ... they are going to vote for Horwath. I'm a libertarian enthusiast, unlike most of my friends and the one thing I hear in most of my circles is anyone but Wynne (the Liberal leader). I've never voted NDP before but if it helps prevent Wynne from holding power, I'm all for it. I'd vote any party that stops the liberals from capitalizing on their fear mongering campaign to retain power in the face of corruption and scandal.
deathtokoalas
but the tories have corruption built into their governing philosophy. their prime goal is to sell off public resources to their buddies. this idea that they could possibly be less corrupt is just laughable.
i don't want to get too abstract, but you should flip through plato's take on democracy in the republic. the basic conclusion is that democracy is an inherently corrupt form of government, but that accepting a little bit of corruption is a valid trade-off if you want representative government. it's a very grounded, realistic analysis.
the blunt truth is that expecting a democratic government to be free of corruption is utopian type thinking. but, if you're a free market enthusiast, you're used to that.
LeGioNoFZioN
I disagree with the idea that selling off public assets is corrupt. I think it can be either bad or good depending on the asset and what it's use is. so I would argue applying reason to each case would determine whether selling any given asset is positive or negative and blanket statements are too general to ever be accurate.
I recognize some degree of corruption is unavoidable, man is an imperfect creature.
Free market enthusiasts don't expect democratic governing to be free from corruption, to the contrary we expect it, and we expect it in larger amounts the more power a given government can exercise
deathtokoalas
right, but they don't just sell them off, they sell them off to their donors. they're total scam artists.
what i meant about markets being utopian is the idea that they can work without being regulated....
LeGioNoFZioN
I would agree selling assets off to donors as a pay off is a BS move, but that isn't the case in all public asset sales in Ontario in the last 20 years, whether PC Liberal or NDP.
Markets can work without being regulated, but once you start, it is nearly impossible to stop, and regulation impedes development, growth and advancement. regulations are often well intended but often produce results other than the intention of the regulator. I recognize some areas and some sectors should be regulated for everyone's well being, but those areas are few and far between.
deathtokoalas
do you have an example of anything that's been privatized in ontario over the last twenty years that hasn't led to a profitable industry for the politicians' buddies and higher prices for consumers? privatizing the electricity system was a catastrophe. it's a surreal comedy that the tories are trying to pin the disaster on the liberals. how about building roads at public expense, then selling them off to private investors? but, do you have a counter-example...?
i actually agree that market regulation tends to put the oligopolies in charge, telecommunications are a good example, but i follow the economic logic that thinks of markets as an unstable system that seeks equilibrium in collusion. it follows that a free market is only possible if an outside force exists to constantly prevent firms from colluding with each other, either by breaking them up by force or by providing incentives for them to continue competing. unfortunately, when we take (1) into account, we're left in an impossible situation. our actual option is between state ownership and private oligopolies. so, i'd argue we should nationalize the lines rather than regulate them....
----
a4d3
Merge those goddamned parties !
deathtokoalas
despite the problems with the ndp recently, if you merge the ndp and liberals you eliminate any leftward pull on the liberal party and create the kind of dynamic that exists in the united states, where the two parties are constantly competing for the right, because there's nobody to vote for on the left anyways. that is to say that the democrats have no fear of moving too far right because they know nobody an inch left of centre is ever going to vote republican.
there was supposed to be a level of dialectical thinking in the two-party system, but they fucked it up. the idea is if you have two competing ideas, they'll combine to form one. but it doesn't happen. the spectrum just pushes one way or the other. it's not necessarily going to have to push right (it was pushing left for a while in the 30s) but it's always movement in one direction, because it's a process of competition rather than one of synthesis.
the way to get the right kind of dialectic going, and it's what we should want if we're thinking clearly instead of ideologically, is to create thesis and antithesis on the left and right and let the synthesis form in the middle. that creates a natural governing party. and, it's fine so long as corruption is kept in check one way or another.
we need the ndp to get back to their principles.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
what they don't realize is that they are liberals and what they think is liberalism is actually a type of right-wing populism pushed historically by the progressive party, often as a front for christian groups. liberals are all about free speech, free markets and individual rights. crucially, they're strongly in favour of a separation of church and state.
what these idiots have succeeded in is little more than to confuse people about words and concepts that they don't actually have a good understanding of. if you watch the show, you're left to conclude that liberals are a type of fundamentalist christian.
rather, a liberal is exactly what stone and parker are, and their target of ridicule is religiosity - bordering on what engels called utopian socialism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hriKiBbw3nU
what these idiots have succeeded in is little more than to confuse people about words and concepts that they don't actually have a good understanding of. if you watch the show, you're left to conclude that liberals are a type of fundamentalist christian.
rather, a liberal is exactly what stone and parker are, and their target of ridicule is religiosity - bordering on what engels called utopian socialism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hriKiBbw3nU
it's actually fairly common here to see unifor banners paired with conservative party yard signs (you know the ones, they're standard across north america) on the lawns of upper middle class houses. unifor is the big auto/energy union. i've been aware of this connection for a while, but i kind of expected it to be an under the rug thing rather than something openly flaunted. it's surreal to see how normal it is.
it doesn't make sense on first glance, but it does when you work the politics out in more detail. big union members in southern ontario are very well paid. they're more worried about their taxes being too high then they are about their collective bargaining rights and their political choices reflect that economic comfort. it's no longer "the bosses are stealing my wages to live in luxury" but "the government is stealing my wages to distribute to the community". the difference in function is less important than the perceived lost wages, regardless of the comfort they live in.
nobody wants to talk about it, though. the conservatives don't want to risk losing one of their most effective attack mechanisms, so they keep attacking them. the ndp don't want to come off as utterly irrelevant, so they keep acting like they represent them. but it's all a charade...
there's an election today. i'm not voting. i do sometimes, i don't sometimes. for today, i'm in a relatively new riding and i simply don't know the local candidates or local issues well enough.
i don't expect much to change, though.
it doesn't make sense on first glance, but it does when you work the politics out in more detail. big union members in southern ontario are very well paid. they're more worried about their taxes being too high then they are about their collective bargaining rights and their political choices reflect that economic comfort. it's no longer "the bosses are stealing my wages to live in luxury" but "the government is stealing my wages to distribute to the community". the difference in function is less important than the perceived lost wages, regardless of the comfort they live in.
nobody wants to talk about it, though. the conservatives don't want to risk losing one of their most effective attack mechanisms, so they keep attacking them. the ndp don't want to come off as utterly irrelevant, so they keep acting like they represent them. but it's all a charade...
there's an election today. i'm not voting. i do sometimes, i don't sometimes. for today, i'm in a relatively new riding and i simply don't know the local candidates or local issues well enough.
i don't expect much to change, though.
kinda feelin' bad about the centipede.
hey, i never tried to capture the thing. well, the whole symbiosis revolved around it's freedom.
i saw a baby one the other day....
the thing is that if i knew it was in there, i would have helped it out. how long was it in there?
a morbid, ridiculous thing to obsess over. i need to go find some steel wool...
hey, i never tried to capture the thing. well, the whole symbiosis revolved around it's freedom.
i saw a baby one the other day....
the thing is that if i knew it was in there, i would have helped it out. how long was it in there?
a morbid, ridiculous thing to obsess over. i need to go find some steel wool...
i was wondering where my little centipede buddy went and why it was slacking off.
turns out it fell in a pot, couldn't get out, and dehydrated
i think the reason i wasn't seeing the roaches was mostly due to the weather, not the centipede. still...
there's a gaping hole in the wall for pipes. i've done enough drywalling to know you're supposed to fill holes this big, but that was overlooked. i'd guess that keeping the roaches out has a lot to do with filling it up with steel wool. it's way too big for caulking, and i'm not buying a drywall sheet for this....
the other bad spot is in the closet, near the piping, but one thing at a time. and i think i've mostly already fixed it anyways, although i saw one in there yesterday for the first time since last september.
turns out it fell in a pot, couldn't get out, and dehydrated
i think the reason i wasn't seeing the roaches was mostly due to the weather, not the centipede. still...
there's a gaping hole in the wall for pipes. i've done enough drywalling to know you're supposed to fill holes this big, but that was overlooked. i'd guess that keeping the roaches out has a lot to do with filling it up with steel wool. it's way too big for caulking, and i'm not buying a drywall sheet for this....
the other bad spot is in the closet, near the piping, but one thing at a time. and i think i've mostly already fixed it anyways, although i saw one in there yesterday for the first time since last september.
i managed to keep the roaches out more or less completely over the winter, i don't think i saw more than two, but they're back now with the warmer weather. it's not at an infestation level, it just seems like they're freely entering from outside. but, if i don't find a way to close the entry path, i'm really asking for trouble.
they're the asian species, which means they'd actually rather be outside. the asians don't usually infest, they just come inside looking for water. but, they bring the most bacteria with them because they either come up through the pipes from the sewer or they come in under the wall from the yard, where they're known to eat various kinds of animal feces.
so, while they may not want to stay here, they're filthy disease carriers while they're in here.
i'm going to rip the stove away from the wall today and see if there's any way i can block the entrance points. foam. steel wool. whatever. the only way to really kill them off would be with a community-based program; i could spray everywhere in here and kill every single one that's in here, but if they're breeding freely next door (or in the sewers) then it's just a waste of effort. knowing that isn't likely, the key has to be to keep them from coming in.
they're the asian species, which means they'd actually rather be outside. the asians don't usually infest, they just come inside looking for water. but, they bring the most bacteria with them because they either come up through the pipes from the sewer or they come in under the wall from the yard, where they're known to eat various kinds of animal feces.
so, while they may not want to stay here, they're filthy disease carriers while they're in here.
i'm going to rip the stove away from the wall today and see if there's any way i can block the entrance points. foam. steel wool. whatever. the only way to really kill them off would be with a community-based program; i could spray everywhere in here and kill every single one that's in here, but if they're breeding freely next door (or in the sewers) then it's just a waste of effort. knowing that isn't likely, the key has to be to keep them from coming in.
well, the internet polls were completely inaccurate, as one would expect them to be. hopefully, that's the end of internet polls. the ivr were better than i'd have expected, but i think they got lucky. with turnout at 46%, polls are tough indicators. the one telephone poll i assumed would be closer was not entirely wrong - it got the ndp numbers the closest, of all the polling done.
overall, there was really very little change overall in seat count or distribution, so i'm not admitting a bad prediction at all. it seems like conservatives in the gta decided not to vote for anybody, and i'm going to guess it had something to do with hudak's transit plan.
to be clear: what i got wrong was low pc turnout. which is a strange thing to see, and something nobody was really talking about.
what the polling firms were pushing was the idea that low ndp turnout might push a liberal majority. the phone poll demonstrated that this was probably wrong. instead, low pc turnout pushed the majority. so it seems like the polls got it right, but it was actually a sort of a fluke.
if it wasn't the transport issue, why else couldn't the conservatives get the vote out?
age of voter, maybe?
2018 - 1945 = 73.
life expectancy in ontario is 81.
there's going to be some big changes, soon. is this the beginning of it?
for those out of the province, i should mention that the premier elect is openly gay. i'm not aware of any other premiers or governors that are open lesbians, nor of any that have won majorities. but if it was a factor in the election, nobody talked about it. it just wasn't mentioned. as it shouldn't have been. which is why i'm mentioning it. it's some social progress to elect a gay premier without anybody even noticing she's gay....
it kind of ties into the changes in demographics that may have kept the vote down.
i don't think anybody expects the tories to lose their hold on rural ontario. but, if the age structure shifts, they might be hopeless in urban areas unless they make some radical shifts.
overall, there was really very little change overall in seat count or distribution, so i'm not admitting a bad prediction at all. it seems like conservatives in the gta decided not to vote for anybody, and i'm going to guess it had something to do with hudak's transit plan.
to be clear: what i got wrong was low pc turnout. which is a strange thing to see, and something nobody was really talking about.
what the polling firms were pushing was the idea that low ndp turnout might push a liberal majority. the phone poll demonstrated that this was probably wrong. instead, low pc turnout pushed the majority. so it seems like the polls got it right, but it was actually a sort of a fluke.
if it wasn't the transport issue, why else couldn't the conservatives get the vote out?
age of voter, maybe?
2018 - 1945 = 73.
life expectancy in ontario is 81.
there's going to be some big changes, soon. is this the beginning of it?
for those out of the province, i should mention that the premier elect is openly gay. i'm not aware of any other premiers or governors that are open lesbians, nor of any that have won majorities. but if it was a factor in the election, nobody talked about it. it just wasn't mentioned. as it shouldn't have been. which is why i'm mentioning it. it's some social progress to elect a gay premier without anybody even noticing she's gay....
it kind of ties into the changes in demographics that may have kept the vote down.
i don't think anybody expects the tories to lose their hold on rural ontario. but, if the age structure shifts, they might be hopeless in urban areas unless they make some radical shifts.
uploading guitar demo from 2010 to soundcloud
this is another broken jam session and will come off as really simple (and it is, on some level) if you don't appreciate the subtle dissonance. regardless, it's easy to hear the stomp under it. i don't write much of it, but i'd love to start a really dirty garage rock band...
https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/2010-09-19a
https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/2010-09-19a
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
the only recent reliable telephone poll i've seen in ontario has the pcs slightly ahead, but the situation pretty much in a tie at 35 - and the ndp at a not-so-catastrophic 24.
i think the headlines of a liberal majority are more or less a scare tactic.
official prediction: liberal minority, with very little changes overall in seat count or distribution.
i think the headlines of a liberal majority are more or less a scare tactic.
official prediction: liberal minority, with very little changes overall in seat count or distribution.
a few points.
1) the green movement is not new, but in twenty-some years and dozens of opportunities i have to say i've never seen a green candidate control a debate, until now. but, it's a bit of a pyrrhic victory because...
2) ....if you look up on the stage, you have four factions of what should be a liberal party. the socialist candidate hardly sounds like a socialist, but would make a good left liberal. likewise, the kind of conservatism juncker is promoting really sounds like the right-wing end of the liberal spectrum. that leaves the self-identifying liberal in the centre, which is about right, and the greens as a special interest party. but, if these different strains of liberalism were to put aside their petty squabbling and integrate into a single party, it would be the greens that would be offering the most compelling and thought out vision moving forward. something that really stood out was the green candidate's understanding that the economy is not driven by monetary policy or tax rates but by aggregate demand. she's the only of the four that seemed to understand this.
3) worse, this is clearly political theatre. the body they're being elected to is almost powerless. so, what is this talk of forming a grand coalition to stop the anti-immigration parties from taking over the powerless parliament? it sounds like an excuse to ignore what little democracy exists in this process. are they seriously trying to paint a wide far-right brush over those that oppose the euro? because it turns history upside down. when will the european left stand up and declare that europe will no longer be crucified on a cross of gold?
4) as creepy as these anti-immigration groups are, it's becoming clearer and clearer that they're boogeymen that have been created by the banks to frighten the population into the status quo. and, should they not like the status quo, the alternative is crippling austerity. i've seen this movie already.
1) the green movement is not new, but in twenty-some years and dozens of opportunities i have to say i've never seen a green candidate control a debate, until now. but, it's a bit of a pyrrhic victory because...
2) ....if you look up on the stage, you have four factions of what should be a liberal party. the socialist candidate hardly sounds like a socialist, but would make a good left liberal. likewise, the kind of conservatism juncker is promoting really sounds like the right-wing end of the liberal spectrum. that leaves the self-identifying liberal in the centre, which is about right, and the greens as a special interest party. but, if these different strains of liberalism were to put aside their petty squabbling and integrate into a single party, it would be the greens that would be offering the most compelling and thought out vision moving forward. something that really stood out was the green candidate's understanding that the economy is not driven by monetary policy or tax rates but by aggregate demand. she's the only of the four that seemed to understand this.
3) worse, this is clearly political theatre. the body they're being elected to is almost powerless. so, what is this talk of forming a grand coalition to stop the anti-immigration parties from taking over the powerless parliament? it sounds like an excuse to ignore what little democracy exists in this process. are they seriously trying to paint a wide far-right brush over those that oppose the euro? because it turns history upside down. when will the european left stand up and declare that europe will no longer be crucified on a cross of gold?
4) as creepy as these anti-immigration groups are, it's becoming clearer and clearer that they're boogeymen that have been created by the banks to frighten the population into the status quo. and, should they not like the status quo, the alternative is crippling austerity. i've seen this movie already.
deathtokoalas
my experience is that geeks are actually generally jocks deep down that couldn't hack the hierarchy, so they end up hanging out with nerds (who tend to be more open-minded) by default and build up these passive aggressive inferiority complexes against them as a result of being constantly incapable of keeping up with them. over time, it just seethes into this sort of animosity, and in the end their inner jocks come out and they end up acting like assholes, which creates a more hostile reaction from the nerds.
in the end, it's really the geeks that are actual outcasts, as they end up hated by the jocks they couldn't compete with and the nerds they feel inferior to. nerds, on the other hand, generally remove themselves from society out of a lack of any interest.
i don't fit all the stereotypes. i don't game, for example. and i'm a guitarist (albeit a classical guitarist). but i definitely identify more with nerds.
A Typical Guy.
Mind blown..
TheWondermittens
Beautifully said
Alice Pan
I'm more of a geek than a nerd, but I don't get what you're trying to say? I'm not really social (if I could I wouldn't go have social interaction with more than 3 people) and trying to hang out with jocks or nerds, I have some friends who are nice and they're not really nerds, geeks or jocks.
deathtokoalas
i think i made myself clear. is there a specific aspect that isn't?
people aren't numbers so these categories aren't perfect, but geeks are generally people that would be jocks if the jocks didn't look down on them because they fail at jock things and consequently never really drop the type of hierarchical thinking that nerds tend to absolutely categorically reject. so, in their own minds, they end up trapped in between two different rungs on the hierarchy - they perceive of themselves as better than nerds but not as good as jocks and really "settle" for nerds as companions until they're able to somehow climb to the next rung, and all the while holding them in contempt. the thing is that they're actually generally not good at nerd things, either. over time, it tends to eat away at them and cause them all kinds of self-doubt, as they're constantly unable to keep up with the nerds at nerd things. that feeling of inadequacy is a direct result of that kind of jockish hierarchical thinking, which is the core of the problem. as they perceive of nerds as below them, and they have this persistent kind of competitive jock thinking, losing to nerds at nerd things sets off all these weird reactions and strange behaviours to try and keep themselves above the nerds in their own minds. it ultimately results in them behaving like the jocks that they really are.
i suppose the odd geek might grow out of high school, but my experience is that they usually don't. but i think you'd have to be in your late 20s at the least to have an experience of what happens to geeks as they age. as more of a self-identified nerd, i'd really caution younger nerds to avoid them as they grow older, because almost all of them will eventually turn into jerks.
is that clearer or is there something else you want a better explanation of?
GabeCoding
I can't tell what gender you are OP
deathtokoalas
how does it have anything to do with the contents of the post?
my experience is that geeks are actually generally jocks deep down that couldn't hack the hierarchy, so they end up hanging out with nerds (who tend to be more open-minded) by default and build up these passive aggressive inferiority complexes against them as a result of being constantly incapable of keeping up with them. over time, it just seethes into this sort of animosity, and in the end their inner jocks come out and they end up acting like assholes, which creates a more hostile reaction from the nerds.
in the end, it's really the geeks that are actual outcasts, as they end up hated by the jocks they couldn't compete with and the nerds they feel inferior to. nerds, on the other hand, generally remove themselves from society out of a lack of any interest.
i don't fit all the stereotypes. i don't game, for example. and i'm a guitarist (albeit a classical guitarist). but i definitely identify more with nerds.
A Typical Guy.
Mind blown..
TheWondermittens
Beautifully said
Alice Pan
I'm more of a geek than a nerd, but I don't get what you're trying to say? I'm not really social (if I could I wouldn't go have social interaction with more than 3 people) and trying to hang out with jocks or nerds, I have some friends who are nice and they're not really nerds, geeks or jocks.
deathtokoalas
i think i made myself clear. is there a specific aspect that isn't?
people aren't numbers so these categories aren't perfect, but geeks are generally people that would be jocks if the jocks didn't look down on them because they fail at jock things and consequently never really drop the type of hierarchical thinking that nerds tend to absolutely categorically reject. so, in their own minds, they end up trapped in between two different rungs on the hierarchy - they perceive of themselves as better than nerds but not as good as jocks and really "settle" for nerds as companions until they're able to somehow climb to the next rung, and all the while holding them in contempt. the thing is that they're actually generally not good at nerd things, either. over time, it tends to eat away at them and cause them all kinds of self-doubt, as they're constantly unable to keep up with the nerds at nerd things. that feeling of inadequacy is a direct result of that kind of jockish hierarchical thinking, which is the core of the problem. as they perceive of nerds as below them, and they have this persistent kind of competitive jock thinking, losing to nerds at nerd things sets off all these weird reactions and strange behaviours to try and keep themselves above the nerds in their own minds. it ultimately results in them behaving like the jocks that they really are.
i suppose the odd geek might grow out of high school, but my experience is that they usually don't. but i think you'd have to be in your late 20s at the least to have an experience of what happens to geeks as they age. as more of a self-identified nerd, i'd really caution younger nerds to avoid them as they grow older, because almost all of them will eventually turn into jerks.
is that clearer or is there something else you want a better explanation of?
GabeCoding
I can't tell what gender you are OP
deathtokoalas
how does it have anything to do with the contents of the post?
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
got some life shit worked out today, things are continuing to come together.
1) got accepted by a psychiatrist around the corner. i'm hoping this guy can do two things for me. the first is diagnose me with something i can rely on for longer term disability - i'm thinking i'm probably clinically schizophrenic, even if it's only a problem when i'm thrust into the "real world". there is no real world. there. qed. i laugh, but it's self-deprecating. the second thing i'm thinking is that it'd be nice to have cheap, legal, easy access to marijuana. i'm actually *very* convinced that it helps keep me stable. i don't even need large doses, and i wouldn't really want to be stoned all the time, but i'm very strongly of the opinion that a bit of pot every few days is very good for mental health, and may go so far as to say i'd probably have harmed myself by now if it wasn't for the pot. further, i won't take drugs in the form of pills. i'm a hippie like that. so, if he tries to prescribe me wellbutrin or prozac or something, i won't fill the rx - i'll ask for pot instead.
2) stage one of my border documents have been approved. i think the combined governments of the united states and canada are real assholes for standing over the bridge with an ax declaring that none shall pass, but they're the fuckers with the weapons, so what to do but mutter under your breath? i've wasted almost a year of my time due to this stupidity, which isn't making anybody safer and really *should* be a political liability. but i can't even vote against it. one day, we'll tear these walls down. for now, it's relieving to be just about through the annoyance. i need to go for an interview to prove i'm not arabic, i mean a threat to security. catching the swans show is not looking likely. and there's not going to be too many more chances for it, either. ugh. fucking fascists.
1) got accepted by a psychiatrist around the corner. i'm hoping this guy can do two things for me. the first is diagnose me with something i can rely on for longer term disability - i'm thinking i'm probably clinically schizophrenic, even if it's only a problem when i'm thrust into the "real world". there is no real world. there. qed. i laugh, but it's self-deprecating. the second thing i'm thinking is that it'd be nice to have cheap, legal, easy access to marijuana. i'm actually *very* convinced that it helps keep me stable. i don't even need large doses, and i wouldn't really want to be stoned all the time, but i'm very strongly of the opinion that a bit of pot every few days is very good for mental health, and may go so far as to say i'd probably have harmed myself by now if it wasn't for the pot. further, i won't take drugs in the form of pills. i'm a hippie like that. so, if he tries to prescribe me wellbutrin or prozac or something, i won't fill the rx - i'll ask for pot instead.
2) stage one of my border documents have been approved. i think the combined governments of the united states and canada are real assholes for standing over the bridge with an ax declaring that none shall pass, but they're the fuckers with the weapons, so what to do but mutter under your breath? i've wasted almost a year of my time due to this stupidity, which isn't making anybody safer and really *should* be a political liability. but i can't even vote against it. one day, we'll tear these walls down. for now, it's relieving to be just about through the annoyance. i need to go for an interview to prove i'm not arabic, i mean a threat to security. catching the swans show is not looking likely. and there's not going to be too many more chances for it, either. ugh. fucking fascists.
this is the right direction, but hovering around $.80-$.90 is kind of an everybody loses scenario, because it's not enough to bring jobs northwards but is enough to cause investors to lose money. it has to dip under $0.80 to have any kind of positive effect on job creation in canada.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/canadian-dollar-forecast-to-stick-below-90-through-end-of-next-year/article17692021/
my life has changed a lot since '06, when i saw the industry i worked in collapse due to parity. right now, i'm really better off with a good exchange rate, because i'm unemployed anyways and live near the border.
but getting the exchange rate down further would really help a lot of people in this country.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/canadian-dollar-forecast-to-stick-below-90-through-end-of-next-year/article17692021/
my life has changed a lot since '06, when i saw the industry i worked in collapse due to parity. right now, i'm really better off with a good exchange rate, because i'm unemployed anyways and live near the border.
but getting the exchange rate down further would really help a lot of people in this country.
uploading guitar demo from 2008 to soundcloud
going through my lo-fi demoes a few days ago, i realized that i'd already released most of them in the form of two existing demos.
the first was entitled "impressionist jazz punk" and was mid 2005. i'll be uploading it as is to bandcamp when i get there (i'm currently doing stuff from '01 and moving forward chronologically) and then deciding what should be redone. the second was a six track proverbs demo that was supposed to act as a plan for the proverbs symphony. it still will, if mildly modified. so, the bulk of the tracks won't go to the lo-fi site.
i kind of forgot about the rest. this is a jam from early '08 that i put aside for further work and forgot about.
https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/2008-02-16a
the first was entitled "impressionist jazz punk" and was mid 2005. i'll be uploading it as is to bandcamp when i get there (i'm currently doing stuff from '01 and moving forward chronologically) and then deciding what should be redone. the second was a six track proverbs demo that was supposed to act as a plan for the proverbs symphony. it still will, if mildly modified. so, the bulk of the tracks won't go to the lo-fi site.
i kind of forgot about the rest. this is a jam from early '08 that i put aside for further work and forgot about.
https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/2008-02-16a
Monday, June 9, 2014
the time machine (midi piano mix)
this is the next 2001 period piece i'll be working on. 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. yet, that doesn't change the fact that it's guitar music. the counterpoint is very guitar.
i'll have to analyse the score and determine whether it's actually playable or not, or if i can get it close enough. but this one is an open palette right now in the sense that it needs to be filled out, so the early instrumentation choices are really just a suggestion.
one possible idea is that i may split it into a guitar piece to start and a piano piece to finish. i'm thinking of adding sequenced drums and a more defined, squelchy bass part.
written in early 2001. rendered june 9, 2014.
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. yet, that doesn't change the fact that it's guitar music. the counterpoint is very guitar.
i'll have to analyse the score and determine whether it's actually playable or not, or if i can get it close enough. but this one is an open palette right now in the sense that it needs to be filled out, so the early instrumentation choices are really just a suggestion.
one possible idea is that i may split it into a guitar piece to start and a piano piece to finish. i'm thinking of adding sequenced drums and a more defined, squelchy bass part.
written in early 2001. rendered june 9, 2014.
the issue of the origins of fascism comes up so often. there's ad hoc and clinical answers. it generally goes through mussolini to some kind of guild organization. a lot of demagogues will try and twist hitler around as some kind of union representative, but people that know what they're talking about understand that he was a tool of industry and the system was designed to co-opt the unions away from socialism and towards nationalism rather than actually represent them (that is, "national socialist" is a sort of orwellian oxymoron, that tried to redefine socialism as everything it wasn't). somebody might say something about hobbes in passing....
in fact, hobbes is describing it just about perfectly in chapter 22 of leviathan, which was 1652, in precisely the terms mussolini would use - it's about society being organized into "corps", this whole materialist conception of a mechanical, working whole.
and yet hobbes is usually thought of as the first liberal. what nonsense. he's explicitly rejecting all individual rights (except the right to self-defense) and going out of his way to invest all property in the hands of the sovereign, thereby negating anything resembling property rights (although he seems to expect that use rights should be made clear to prevent squabbling). he strikes me as a massive influence on marx.
but his system is really, truly straight-up fascism. word for word.
in fact, hobbes is describing it just about perfectly in chapter 22 of leviathan, which was 1652, in precisely the terms mussolini would use - it's about society being organized into "corps", this whole materialist conception of a mechanical, working whole.
and yet hobbes is usually thought of as the first liberal. what nonsense. he's explicitly rejecting all individual rights (except the right to self-defense) and going out of his way to invest all property in the hands of the sovereign, thereby negating anything resembling property rights (although he seems to expect that use rights should be made clear to prevent squabbling). he strikes me as a massive influence on marx.
but his system is really, truly straight-up fascism. word for word.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
they're right. it's a complex issue about empowerment and exploitation, but it's turned into this sort of orwellian nightmare where empowerment and exploitation are inseparable from each other.
it's post-britney, i think. i remember living through the 90s and thinking we were turning back the clocks. blondie never hit that kind of media saturation, and madonna was all about the power. even the spice girls were in control. but, the whole fiasco around britney as a manufactured commodity really changed the industry for the worse, and what's happened since makes more sense in the context of a discussion of the supremes or billie holiday than one of madonna or courtney love.
it's post-britney, i think. i remember living through the 90s and thinking we were turning back the clocks. blondie never hit that kind of media saturation, and madonna was all about the power. even the spice girls were in control. but, the whole fiasco around britney as a manufactured commodity really changed the industry for the worse, and what's happened since makes more sense in the context of a discussion of the supremes or billie holiday than one of madonna or courtney love.
it's very well understood that the primary purpose here is image control, and simon wasn't confusing this on purpose but out of an inability to find evidence that corroborated the storyline, but what's the point of doing this at all if you're just going to embed them?
i know. it's dangerous. still.....
i know. it's dangerous. still.....
- hobbes presents a basic argument for reproductive rights that is something i've also argued for and have seen nowhere else. i'm not big into contract theory, but with the technology that exists today to facilitate birth control and abortion i find it difficult to sentence any male to fatherhood against his will. accidental pregnancy doesn't happen anymore, and can be terminated rather easily if it somehow does (i suppose due to ignorance) and the accident is fully unwanted. there consequently needs to be a sort of a trade off. women need to be in control of their own bodies, but the logical consequence of this is that men should not be held responsible for the child (aborted or not) unless they agree to enter into the arrangement. that reduces the process to two independent choices, rather than a unitary one - the would-be mother must first choose independently to have the child or not, and then the would-be father must choose whether to accept the responsibility of fatherhood. should he reject the responsibility, the would-be mother would of course be free to change her decision. hobbes is not as detailed, nor were abortion or birth control (safely) available in his time, but this is basically the argument he provides. it's one that modern law ought to take more seriously.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
now that the song is done, i'm going to take a quick break to finish
reading leviathan and then start the process of shifting off facebook to
my own site, over here:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/
i'll be using the network to check show listings, but i won't be posting here further. one of the things i'll want to do, shifting over, is set up various rss feeds.
the reason i'm shifting off is that i don't like facebook's decision to push the ui down from above. i want control over how my site looks. i want the ads removed. i'm sorry they don't agree with that.
but, there's lots of good reasons to get the data off facebook, too.
the best way to reach me is by email. if you don't have my email, i probably don't want you to have it. if you think i do want you to have it, msg me to find out if your intuition is correct.
i have several pages up, so it's going to take some time to transfer things. i'll be following a scorched-earth policy: delete everything as i transfer it to my own site. if there's something here you want saved, now's the time to save it.
what will remain will be a collection of rss dumps, because so long as people continue to use facebook it's kind of necessary to have something.
i think the long run solution has to be some kind of feed aggregator that works at the rss level. i think people are going to end up reading their twitter and facebook and youtube feeds all at the same time. it's probably actually a "woah. you can do that?" type thing. i'd guess almost everybody would switch to it if they knew it was possible. the idea was catching on for people merging msn, icq and etc right before facebook took over.
an interface that could cross-link the comments systems would be really ideal, especially if it could run standalone. and, it could conceivably kill a few sites off that don't want to play by the rules (facebook being the worst).
so, i also want greater control over the serving mechanism. right now, it sounds a little crazy, but wait for it.
i'm actually surprised that what i'm looking for doesn't exist in any kind of stable form. the idea has certainly been experimented with, but it's all for profit companies that fall apart when they realize there's no money in it. further development seems to be geared towards ipad type apps (which i'm never going to go for) and smart phones, which i'll never really get used to. i want a desktop product. fuck the trends...
i only use a handful of social media sites. if i were to build it myself, it would be very basic and never updated. but i'd be happy to throw the software out, open source, for further development.
one thing at a time. i don't even know how to get appspot to send out rss yet.
specifically: i don't want a ticker on a website, or multiple feeds on one page. just a simple, aggregated feed that i can interact with - and preferably through a standalone program that blocks ads and scripts.
it's the most basic, least visual, low return thing you could imagine.
and something like it is going to define how this shit works five years from now.
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/
i'll be using the network to check show listings, but i won't be posting here further. one of the things i'll want to do, shifting over, is set up various rss feeds.
the reason i'm shifting off is that i don't like facebook's decision to push the ui down from above. i want control over how my site looks. i want the ads removed. i'm sorry they don't agree with that.
but, there's lots of good reasons to get the data off facebook, too.
the best way to reach me is by email. if you don't have my email, i probably don't want you to have it. if you think i do want you to have it, msg me to find out if your intuition is correct.
i have several pages up, so it's going to take some time to transfer things. i'll be following a scorched-earth policy: delete everything as i transfer it to my own site. if there's something here you want saved, now's the time to save it.
what will remain will be a collection of rss dumps, because so long as people continue to use facebook it's kind of necessary to have something.
i think the long run solution has to be some kind of feed aggregator that works at the rss level. i think people are going to end up reading their twitter and facebook and youtube feeds all at the same time. it's probably actually a "woah. you can do that?" type thing. i'd guess almost everybody would switch to it if they knew it was possible. the idea was catching on for people merging msn, icq and etc right before facebook took over.
an interface that could cross-link the comments systems would be really ideal, especially if it could run standalone. and, it could conceivably kill a few sites off that don't want to play by the rules (facebook being the worst).
so, i also want greater control over the serving mechanism. right now, it sounds a little crazy, but wait for it.
i'm actually surprised that what i'm looking for doesn't exist in any kind of stable form. the idea has certainly been experimented with, but it's all for profit companies that fall apart when they realize there's no money in it. further development seems to be geared towards ipad type apps (which i'm never going to go for) and smart phones, which i'll never really get used to. i want a desktop product. fuck the trends...
i only use a handful of social media sites. if i were to build it myself, it would be very basic and never updated. but i'd be happy to throw the software out, open source, for further development.
one thing at a time. i don't even know how to get appspot to send out rss yet.
specifically: i don't want a ticker on a website, or multiple feeds on one page. just a simple, aggregated feed that i can interact with - and preferably through a standalone program that blocks ads and scripts.
it's the most basic, least visual, low return thing you could imagine.
and something like it is going to define how this shit works five years from now.
stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (final album mix)
this completed live version will also front the 2001 "serious period" album. i was filing the serious shit under jjjjjjjjj (there's nine there) at the time. it's a sort of tongue-in-cheek self parody at the idea of writing serious music. 'cause if i was ever going to commission a piece, i'd have to get rid of surnames and superfluous syllables and just shorten it to the basic "j", just to get the point across about rejecting anything formal. i was tripping out into some rather silly number theory...
anyways, that's the opening track. the second will be some fun to try and put together, but the others should be done fairly quick now that i have some hardware/software that can deal with it.
written late 2000 & early 2001. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may 2014. completed on june 6, 2014.
anyways, that's the opening track. the second will be some fun to try and put together, but the others should be done fairly quick now that i have some hardware/software that can deal with it.
written late 2000 & early 2001. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may 2014. completed on june 6, 2014.
stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (final single mix)
this is the final mix, without as many lead parts as i was thinking at one point, and without the vocals i considered adding, but with more than enough atmospheric additions to make the live recording worthwhile. it will end up opening the ep of remixes of this track that i posted to jan 10, 2001 and also end up opening the front of this compilation of material written over 2001, which will be the main album of the period.
i had some bad luck recording this. hopefully, the other stuff gets out a little faster.
written late 2000 & early 2001. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may 2014. completed on june 6, 2014.
i had some bad luck recording this. hopefully, the other stuff gets out a little faster.
written late 2000 & early 2001. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may 2014. completed on june 6, 2014.
publishing stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (inri043)
this is one of the tracks that i can't date well. i do, however, remember working on it during the winter, which means it must have been late '00 or early '01. i'm going to consequently deduce that it must have been what i was working on over the 2000 christmas break and date it coming out right after it.
actually, i have another reason to date it in early '01 rather than late '00: the introductory piano part was recorded live into my notation program on my dx100, which i was given over christmas (maybe a little before; it was a cheap garage sale pickup) to act as a controller for my recently broken jx-8p, that i had tried to take apart over the summer to clean a sticky key (a common problem with mid-80s roland analog synths) but failed and left keyless. it's still keyless. yet, the dx still drives it....
that introductory piano part formed the basis of the track, which built itself up fairly quickly. somewhere, i lost the nwc file by saving it as midi, which ruined all the formatting. it's been sitting on my drive ever since.
why put together seven different midi versions of the same track, and sequence them after a polished recorded version? well, this was never actually meant to be computer music. i was just composing something the old fashioned way with the intent of later giving it to some musicians to play. that never happened. what did happen was that i found myself playing it back on multiple sound cards over many years, trying to make it sound as good as possible in the short run - until i could finally get the chance to sit down and actually record it. while each of the different renders has it's strong and weak points, i ultimately don't feel that they form a total order. something i thought about doing was recording tracks independently on different cards and then pasting them together, but that would have just created another dozen incomparable mixes. rather than arbitrarily pick one, i decided to just upload all of them.
in hindsight, i think the format is interesting in itself in terms of it being a psychological experiment with sound. the differences from track to track are sometimes inaudible and sometimes extremely noticeable. stringing it all together in a row like this is challenging to any listener in the sense that it rips apart the process of becoming familiar with a piece. it means listening to exactly the same song through multiple different sound libraries. i think your brain would have to interpret that as a sort of a trip, especially when it comes to trying to build associations in sound within tracks that are both similar and different sounding, soundcard wise. i think that might be part of the reason i had so much difficulty isolating tracks in the first place.
so, listening to the ep through all the way is likely to be a bit disorienting and might ultimately be a strange experience. however, if you like the track for what it is as a collection of overlapping sequences of notes then i hope you get something out of the process of comparing and contrasting the renders together.
i have included the original midi file as a bonus item in the download, if you want to play with it on your own. the added guitar sections in the final version are recent additions and have not been written out.
written late 2000 & early 2001. the renders present here are all from the early months of 2014. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - electric piano, programming, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals, vocoders, digital effects & treatments, digital wave editing, composition.
the rendered electronic orchestras variously include piano, bass, synth bass, distorted electric guitar, clean electric guitar, steel string acoustic guitar, nylon string classical guitar, sitar, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, french horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, oboe, english horn, bassoon, synthesizers, clarinet, flute, piccolo, xylophone, glockenspiel, tubular bells, jazz drum kit, hand drums and electronic drum kit.
released january 10, 2001
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/stuck-in-the-middle-of-an-alley-closing-in-on-all-sides
actually, i have another reason to date it in early '01 rather than late '00: the introductory piano part was recorded live into my notation program on my dx100, which i was given over christmas (maybe a little before; it was a cheap garage sale pickup) to act as a controller for my recently broken jx-8p, that i had tried to take apart over the summer to clean a sticky key (a common problem with mid-80s roland analog synths) but failed and left keyless. it's still keyless. yet, the dx still drives it....
that introductory piano part formed the basis of the track, which built itself up fairly quickly. somewhere, i lost the nwc file by saving it as midi, which ruined all the formatting. it's been sitting on my drive ever since.
why put together seven different midi versions of the same track, and sequence them after a polished recorded version? well, this was never actually meant to be computer music. i was just composing something the old fashioned way with the intent of later giving it to some musicians to play. that never happened. what did happen was that i found myself playing it back on multiple sound cards over many years, trying to make it sound as good as possible in the short run - until i could finally get the chance to sit down and actually record it. while each of the different renders has it's strong and weak points, i ultimately don't feel that they form a total order. something i thought about doing was recording tracks independently on different cards and then pasting them together, but that would have just created another dozen incomparable mixes. rather than arbitrarily pick one, i decided to just upload all of them.
in hindsight, i think the format is interesting in itself in terms of it being a psychological experiment with sound. the differences from track to track are sometimes inaudible and sometimes extremely noticeable. stringing it all together in a row like this is challenging to any listener in the sense that it rips apart the process of becoming familiar with a piece. it means listening to exactly the same song through multiple different sound libraries. i think your brain would have to interpret that as a sort of a trip, especially when it comes to trying to build associations in sound within tracks that are both similar and different sounding, soundcard wise. i think that might be part of the reason i had so much difficulty isolating tracks in the first place.
so, listening to the ep through all the way is likely to be a bit disorienting and might ultimately be a strange experience. however, if you like the track for what it is as a collection of overlapping sequences of notes then i hope you get something out of the process of comparing and contrasting the renders together.
i have included the original midi file as a bonus item in the download, if you want to play with it on your own. the added guitar sections in the final version are recent additions and have not been written out.
written late 2000 & early 2001. the renders present here are all from the early months of 2014. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - electric piano, programming, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals, vocoders, digital effects & treatments, digital wave editing, composition.
the rendered electronic orchestras variously include piano, bass, synth bass, distorted electric guitar, clean electric guitar, steel string acoustic guitar, nylon string classical guitar, sitar, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, french horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, oboe, english horn, bassoon, synthesizers, clarinet, flute, piccolo, xylophone, glockenspiel, tubular bells, jazz drum kit, hand drums and electronic drum kit.
released january 10, 2001
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/stuck-in-the-middle-of-an-alley-closing-in-on-all-sides
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