i am republishing everything temporarily in order to use mirroring software to pull it down. i expect this post to be taken down within 24-48 hours. i would request you refrain from unwanted moderation in that time frame, so i can take my site down from here and upload somewhere that cares more about speech rights and less about conservative value systems.
friday, april 1, 2022
so, i stopped midway through yesterday and decided to force myself to sleep.
paypal has been giving me a hard time for a while about not having a phone, so i had to call them over voip and they have apparently put a hold on the account because they can't connect it to a mobile device. this is the reality of living in canada, right now - the government thinks it can take control of your bank account on the flimsiest, most ridiculous pretext. i'm going to start looking at alternatives, but my options may be slim.
my old deathtokoalas account has also apparently been flagged by a bunch of right-wing, capitalist losers, so i cannot host audio there. they seem to be trying to punish me by introducing restrictions that make it harder to monetize, which is just clueless regarding my intent in using the site - i do not want ads on my site, and would like the ads to be removed, please. so, i'm going to use the fake account, instead, because it's not subject to a bunch of right-wing censorship bullshit.
i think the difference is that the old site had a lot of views at one point, whereas the new one has no views. so, i have less rules to follow, because i have less views. seems like i want to minimize views, then.
whatever. it works fine on the fake account, so it's uploading there, instead. the other site has a lot of subscribers, but they never bought anything, so they're not useful to me.
2:58
to be clear: the old dtk site has less than a thousand subscribers and, because it's been dormant since 2016, it has lost subscribers at a rate higher than it has gained them. it was close to 1000, at one point.
youtube's logic seems to be that, because i'm driven strictly by money and have no principles (like all of the other capitalist pieces of shit in this society), i must be trying hard to get subscribers, so i can get money. that's typical warped right-wing logic. and, they don't want me to monetize, because the content isn't "family friendly". so, all kinds of wires got tripped and i'm under all sorts of micromanagement.
in fact, i would shut that site down if they ever put ads on it, because it houses music as promotional material. i would not join the youtube partnership program, for that account - i would strenuously, viciously oppose any ad placement, at all.
the other account has something like 7 subscribers, so i'm not of any threat to them, at the moment. there's consequently no restrictions on the account.
because i don't want ads on the site, it makes sense for me to use the other site, instead.
but, it's a curious window into the warped logic at google.
3:07
i mean, it make sense to think that you'll reach a larger audience with more subscribers.
i was unable to determine a correlation of the sort in empirical testing, and i saw almost no connection between subscriber counts and bandcamp sales. i was left to conclude that subscribers are completely useless to independent musicians trying to sell actual music, rather than trying to make money from youtube ads.
3:10
what i want is a place to host low quality music streams as previews to sell flacs with. i intend to embed the streams in the store page at my blog. what i don't want is ads on my music.
so, the account with the most subscribers turned out to be the worst place for me to upload to, as the site treated the content as potentially monetizable if i uploaded it there, and did not if i uploaded it elsewhere, to a site with less subscribers.
3:15
i mean, we'll see how this goes.
if youtube gets bitchy about it, i can always do something like stream from a drive share, or even just upload the video to the blog, itself. the blog will store it in low quality, by design. great - that's what i want.
for right now, the connectivity of youtube is still somewhat useful, but only to the point that they get pushy about things.
3:22
listen, google.
your model is of no use to me. i'm not going to sell thousands - or even hundreds - of records. i'm an obscure, experimental composer. as zappa would say, the music has "no commercial potential".
and, i don't care, because i'm not driven by a profit motive. i mean, i have to survive, but that'\s not the same thing. and, i have principles because my art has credibility.
your music streaming model is not universal and some concept of album sales will remain necessary at the margin, where streaming is not relevant.
deal with it.
3:31
i wonder sometimes if i'm essentially living out a dramatic representation of joe's garage.
prophetic.
3:37
so, i spent the morning uploading almost my entire discography to youtube, and filling in "liner notes" in the front. it's mostly done, up to the chapters, which i'll do later.
i want to get to doing one release per day, and having everything uploaded will help. but, i don't have a real solution yet with the paypal issue, and i haven't looked at the options. i might put that off.
i have a few more uploads to finish - inri076, inri079-inri085 - and it will make sense to do them after i get the cover arts finished, and the work on them done, itself. so, that will all come up together.
i need to eat and shower and i'll be back at it in a few hours.
10:12
so, is this done?
it's pretty close.
i'm sticking with paypal because people trust it, because it connects directly to my bank account and because the alternatives are even more reliant on mobile devices.
i haven't eaten in too long. i needed a template. i'm almost there.
it's actually nice to get absorbed in something, it's been too long.
14:41
saturday, april 2, 2022
yeah, i'm very concerned about the possibility of a major war between turkey and russia breaking out. the turks just launched an offensive into syria, and the turkish press is talking about arming the al qaeda militias that the russians are bombing. turkey, who seems to be representing the ukrainian side in peace negotiations with russia, is also the only country that's reacted to ukraine's goofy proposal about "guarantors". that would essentially enter turkey into the war on the side of the ukrainians, and it's hard to see how you contain such a thing when you have multiple fronts running. another possible flashpoint is libya,
what is this conflict? it's a byzantine civil war, and it's ancient - it goes back to the days when the turks began migrating into western iran, about 1000 years into the common era, and climaxes with the roman withdrawal to moscow. the ukraine-russia war is currently an east slavic civil war - a contained struggle within an ethnic group that should not be interfered with. but, if the turks intervene, they escalate the conflict to the byzantine civil war that has been going on for a thousand years, about who has ultimate control over the black sea and the eastern mediterranean, from carthage, to alexandria, to antioch, to constaninople, to singidinum.
this would be a major war that might destroy one or both countries and would likely dramatically redraw the map, the kind we haven't seen, anywhere, in decades.
0:27
if you ask me, will smith should be charged with assault and sent to jail.
0:55
but, when you're a privileged white male like will smith, the law doesn't apply to you.
0:59
don't fool yourself: if that was kanye west (and it might have been.), he'd be locked up right now.
but, will smith is too white to go to jail.
1:06
i just want to notate the 2017 vlog narrative slightly because i'm not posting the in between parts.
- so, i did lose a case in oct, 2017 regarding eviction for personal use. the property owner lied in court, and the ruling was entirely incoherent, intentionally reversing the burden of proof.
- i decided i could easily win an appeal on correctness grounds (this is pre-vavilov) and concluded i could hold the unit for at least a few years. the goal was to wait the old guy (who died a few months ago) out and hope they sold.
- that said, i also decided it would be prudent to look at options. i decided that i would move if i could find something "better", and i'd have to work that out. my main concern was the smoke in the building, which was getting worse. i've also usually preferred third or fourth floor apartments for safety reasons.
- with a plan in place, i went partying in detroit in early nov, one more time for the year.
- i served the landlord with an appeal in nov. nov 8, i think. personal service. there's a journey in the vlog.
- when i got back from serving the appeal, i took an apartment down the street. things did not work out in this space, but i was told it was a non-smoking building (a brutal lie, in hindsight) and i liked the fact that it was on the third floor.
- i moved dec 1, 2017.
the vlogs will quiet down again after that as the next few months were very, very uneventful.
6:36
this is the vlog for oct 31, 2017, where i close inri054.
11:36
this is the vlog for nov 1, 2017, where i close inri055 and finish inri056.
11:41
this is the vlog for nov 2, 2017, where i close inri056.
11:44
this is the vlog for nov 3-5, where i close inri057, go to see lee renaldo in detroit and don't get home until the next morning.
12:24
this is the vlog for nov 8, 2017, where i go to lasalle to serve my landlord, run into problems with my bicycle on the way there and don't actually get back until the next morning.
there are a couple of static entries. it is possible that i may have thought the device was running when it wasn't, but i find the situation curious, yet again. the first static entry - 1354 - was recorded walking between grand marais and cabana, through what was a school yard. i didn't know where i was or what i was walking into, and the commentary was actually somewhat comical. i am disappointed in not having that recorded, whatever the reason. the second static entry - 1356 - was recorded at the intersection of cabana & the 401, and i was trying to figure the area out. i had not yet been to this part of windsor.
again - i don't know what happened, but it is at least consistent with the idea that i did not turn the camera on before i started talking into it, turned the camera on when i stopped talking, pulled it up to look at it and turned it off. i might have done that if i wasn't paying attention.
the other explanation is that somebody deleted the files.
i also have a clear recollection of filming quite a few more segments than appear and these segments would certainly appear to have been deleted at some point. again: i don't believe they would be recoverable at this point, and that's disappointing to me.
14:56
nov 9-10, 2017 vlog, where i get a new apartment and follow through on serving the old landlord.
15:28
there's an old southern saying, that goes something like fool me once, shame on you. fool me... fool fool me,
(insert townsend chord)
won't get fooled again!
the "townsend chord" is, of course, a technique, and not a statement of ownership.
fool me twice, shame on me.
and, that's another way to understand how i react in the vlogs, even if i insist that the intent of the suit was to correct behaviour rather than to win money. i'm not a very naive person, but you have to trust your landlord, on a basic level - they will enter your house, from time to time. they have keys. if your landlord is going to be dishonest, it's better to find out sooner than later. but, i don't forgive people for dishonesty, and once the benefit of the doubt is removed, it cannot be reestablished.
19:01
i mention this at the end of it: i went to their fucking house, generated a police report and filmed the hand off. i can prove that she got served five different ways.
and, i get home to an email saying she didn't get the document and didn't know what i was talking about.
so, yes, i did have to go to their house and give them the document directly, and i did have to film it and i would have had to file the foi to get the police report. and, she'd probably have still lied to the judge.
19:09
sunday, april 3, 2022
i had a scare last night - i went to try to load a virtual machine from my laptop (the one i did video editing in) on my production machine, and accidentally deleted my main vm.
shit. that would be very bad, truly.
undelete? nope - 25 gb. ntfs. fuck.
i had to download a program called testdisk, but i was able to get it back, along with a couple of odd things i don't remember much.
i have a dedicated partition for the vms, that is fully isolated from the os. they're very important. that was very scary, but it seems to be ok.
what's in thee other ones, though?
and, what am i doing?
well, it took a few days to finish uploading the files to youtube, but it's done. i watched a few days worth of vlogs while i was filing in details; there's more coming. that's the backend for the inri records store, and it's useful for it to be there.
i waned to get out to do some things this week, but i couldn't close the thought. and, tonight i'm fighting with a drug addict upstairs.
what a fucking ridiculously scattered week, but i think it should converge in the next few hours.
4:59
if you're curious,
1) i drink a lot of coffee and don't intend to stop. but,
2) i have really never enjoyed alcohol, except in social settings, where i use it to compensate for extreme levels of social awkwardness. i'm not able to deal with social interaction without the use of alcohol, but i have almost no interest in alcohol outside of social situations. it's consequently actually not surprising that i have not consumed a drop of alcohol since they closed the border in april, 2020. i've simply had nowhere to go.
3) while i have historically tended to smoke very small amounts of marijuana in very isolated segments of time - i've been known to buy a quarter around dec 20 and slowly smoke through it until mid january - i have never been a habitual marijuana user, and have never smoked it randomly or casually. i've often gone months at a time without touching it, and i've always been strenuously opposed to consuming it in residential areas - i've always argued that you should go to the park, or smoke it at the bar. i tend to smoke marijuana almost strictly at concerts. but, i actually haven't bought a christmas quarter since the end of 2017, which is now a long time ago, and i don't really have any interest in using marijuana at this time. i suspect i may have grown out of it, entirely. somebody randomly gave me a gram of marijuana in march of 2021 as an apparent promotion for their business, and that was the last time i smoked any. before that, i believe i purchased one gram of marijuana on my birthday in 2021 because the edibles i bought sucked. so, i haven't touched it at all in a year - which is less than i usually smoke, but not entirely unusual.
4) i haven't touched any cigarettes since the summer of 2020.
5) i haven't done magic mushrooms since i lived in ottawa.
6) i have never touched any hard drugs and don't expect i ever will. i have been in the room with people doing lines and have turned it down. i've never seen meth or opiates, and wouldn't know what they look or smell like. i have suggested in the past that i might try mdma if i was 100% sure of the source, but that urge has long passed.
i can't say i ever planned to go quite this straight edge. i know that others have used the pandemic as an excuse to get drunk, but i've found that the social isolation has had the opposite effect on me - i'd rather be entirely sober when i'm by myself. i've grown entirely disinterested, and i suspect i might stay this way.
it will be when it warms up that i'll start wanting to go to shows, and we'll see where it goes.
for now, my views have not changed: i have always argued for the introduction of bylaws preventing marijuana consumption in residential neighbourhoods. i reject the rights of smokers, and am strictly in line with the rights of non-smokers. marijuana is something that belongs in farmers' fields and back alleyways, not something that belongs in living rooms. and, the only important rights issue at play is the right of a non-smoker to clean air, and the right to not be disturbed by the drug habits of one's neighbours.
i will continue to aggressively fight for my rights, as a non-smoker.
6:17
when i moved in to an apartment on bronson in early 2007, i bought a case of beer to leave in the fridge. i ended up throwing it out a few years later because it had entirely expired.
i bought a 40 of vodka in early 2020. it's been sitting in my cupboard for two years, untouched.
if i was going out somewhere, i'd have to swig it, though - i can't deal with people, otherwise.
6:20
so, i got my virtual machines back (thankfully) and i couldn't find anything i was looking for in the ones from the laptop.
i can check my archive drive, but i think i'm out of luck.
7:29
oddly, the bios in my production machine got set forwards an hour.
i was a little suspicious, but i'm going to guess it's hardcoded into the "first sunday of april", which was the rule up until 2006.
this bios revision is 2009, but i guess they missed that, or otherwise expected windows time synchronization, which is off because the computer is air-gapped.
7:36
this was a "vista ready" board purchased in early 2007, so it should have arguably already implemented the change, but so be it.
7:38
there's been talk about removing daylight saving time, and what i've been pointing out since i moved to windsor is that setting the clock forwards an hour in march means the sun doesn't come up until 8:00. if i had to go to work, i'd need the lights on in the morning. but, i'm also at the cusp of the time zone.
if the intent is to reduce energy consumption, i wonder if the better approach might not be to reduce the length of the work day. there's also been talk of moving to a four day work week, which would be a reduction from 40 to 32 hours. might it make more sense to move to a six hour day?
a 10:00-4:00 work day would ensure that the sun is always up.
7:46
i may go to a few more parties over the course of my existence. sure.
but, i assure you that i'm not going to sit in my apartment by myself and get shitfaced on anything - i think that's pathetic, and i always have.
i will continue to fight for the restriction of smoking in residential spaces. and, fuck your property rights.
8:30
this took longer than intended, because i updated more information than intended, but it is done, now.
as before, this comprehensive 1996-2003 (so far.) collection is in low quality, 128 kbps quality, and is intended as a deep preview.
it is a very large amount of music, and it's still coming. i should get inri076 & inri079-inri085 up within a few days.
9:28
as before, i've also split the discography into projects.
completed projects: inri, deny everything, rabit is wolf, jjjjjjjjj
completed but not fully updated projects: fuel true anarchy in the americas
projects i'm working on to finish period 3: the trivial group + cycles per second, tetris
9:37
the main projects are really inri (period 1)---->jjjjjjjjj (period 2)---->the trivial group (period 3), with deny everything as transitional between inri and jjjjjjjjj and ftaa as transitional between jjjjjjjjj and the trvial group. rabit is wolf is really a set of demos, almost of which ends up finished as jjjjjjjjj, ftaa or trivial group. then, the main focus of period 4 is proverbs.
10:05
ok.
so, i need to finish the template for inri records now, then.
the paypal issue seems to be dealt with. the previews are streaming. let me make sure the whole thing is set up, ready to go, and then i can get to adding one release per day for the next several weeks, until i'm done. i want to update side templates, first.
to an extent, i haven't solved the problem, though, have i? i wanted an archive somewhere. cloud space. but, not accessible.
i should set up some fake accounts for that reason. one account per period is likely sufficient. but, not right now - i still have liner notes to finish.
i'm going to need something like a terrabyte of space after i die, and i hope that's sustainable. this isn't a new idea. gravestones are legacy - i don't even want one. just burn me and be done with it. but, i want permanent data storage and only the state can really provide for it.
a permanent drive share is something that will probably become normal, but what is the standard size going to be?
10:17
see, this guy's been dead since 2009, and the warning is "don't lett his happen to you".
http://posthumanblues.blogspot.com/
but, this is actually exactly what i want. i want people in the year 2500 to be able to read my blog. that's the point - that's what i'm doing. are you reading this in 2500?
what i'm more concerned about is google deleting it to save space - that's what i want to prevent. there's gotta be some way to tell google "never delete this!", eventually.
10:36
this is surprisingly difficult to google.
most people seem concerned about:
- accessing a family member's blog, which is, like, fuck off. if your family member wanted you to access their blog, they would have told you. chances are that your family member didn't want you fucking with their blog, and doesn't want you fucking with their blog after they've died.
- how to delete your blog after death.
the idea of a permanent internet presence seems to be strangely niche, which is likely a consequence of digital natives not dying in large numbers yet.
so, i might actually be on the cusp of this - i might be one of the first people that has to figure this out.
for now, let me throw it out there - i want this blog to exist forever and i'd like a way to tell google that, and some assurance it will happen.
10:55
(this post was edited to have the retarded memes i'm trying to delete, including the stupid overused pynchonian ellipsis that i used to use 20 years ago and have stopped using for quite some time and the introductory "so", which the unwanted editor overuses because they want everything reduced to the level of retarded, cliched memes. i said something about combining a large website into a single file, but the crux of it was lost in the unwanted editing, and i don't have the train of thought to reconsttuct it, at this time)
10:57
i don't consider myself a digital native, but i'm one of the last non-natives. i'm in a five year time window when it's blurry.
10:58
i was messing around with dos and playing civ about 1992-3ish. i remember my stepfather upgrading from a 386 to a 486 and thinking it was a really big deal.
but, i first encountered a computer in a computer lab in a school, and was actually quite intimidated by it. i was typing into wordperfect in grade two, and there was a program called "logos" i messed around with in grade 4. i did not have gaming systems as a kid, but some kids i knew did.
but, i was poor; there was a commodore 64 in a house across the street from me, for example. there's some possibility i might have been exposed to a computer a little earlier, if the circumstances were different.
once i did get a computer parked in front of me, about 1997, it became hard to get me off of it.
so, it's blurry - i wasn't raised on the thing, and i had to learn it, but there are people my age that were reared on 80s apples and commodores and amigas, and i was aware it was happening around me.
anybody more than 5 years younger than me would have to be a digital native, but i'm still in that overlap, where i remember a world before the internet, and have to say i'm honestly not one.
11:08
apparently, one of the things that is pissing the russians off is that biden won't meet with putin face to face for direct security discussions, which they're interpreting as a slight. but, again, the russians don't seem to get it.
do they think that biden makes these decisions himself? do they think they'd be going directly to a decision maker? that seems to be what they're getting at.
when biden has a meeting with trudeau, for example, it's little more than a choreographed photo op, put together by the staff on both sides. they don't actually have real discussions, or make actual decisions. the whole thing is scripted, and any signatures or agreements are determined by staff before hand.
if the americans are sending somebody from the state department to russia, the russians should actually be realizing that the person they're sending is the shadow government suit that is actually making decisions, which then get sent up the chain. those decisions might get vetted, but they're delegated.
see, i guess the russians might not get it because they basically still live in a monarchy, where they look to a head state for absolute authority. but, surely they should realize that america will delegate to experts, not put everything in the hands of the elected figurehead.
if anything, the white house may be trying to avoid biden making an ass of himself.
they used to talk about "miscommunication" during the cold war. but, this sort of suggests we're back to square one, in a lot of ways. the cold warriors with any experience are all dead, leaving behind a generation that did not gain the experiences of actually living in the actual cold war, and are on the brink of handing power to a generation that doesn't even remember it.
this may have come from the previous conflict, but it is not it and the error of conflating the two things should be avoided.
12:53
i have no ability to evaluate the truth value of either russian or american reports regarding goings-on on the ground outside kiev.
i will take note of the russian narrative, which is the opposite of the american one:
western narrative: russians frustrated by inability to take kiev take it out on civilians
russian narrative: americans frustrated by inability to win information war make up bullshit on the spot
i have no idea what is true and what isn't, and you don't either. i don't think the russians had any serious intent to attack or occupy kiev, though.
what i'll say is this: when western media starts using terms like "genocide", it comes with a framework that has an endpoint attached to it. i do not know what is true, and these are the sorts of things that require deeper investigations by un bodies. but, i would strongly suspect that the language implies that the west is considering intervening, due to an apparent perception that the russians are weaker than previously thought.
for all the rhetoric, that's the precise mistake hitler made.
17:53
am i daring to suggest russian media is equally credible?
i would argue that, while far from a paragon of truth, russian media is slightly more credible.
i want you to realize what that means: if 60% of the western press is complete bullshit, perhaps only 55% of the russian press is in the same category. it's not a substantive difference, but it is noticeable.
as a westerner, the russian media often fills in holes and context that i cannot access from western media. if you were to simply read cnn, you'd think the russian operation was entirely unprovoked, and they're pointlessly slaughtering civilians. the western media will go so far as to argue that the idea that there are nazis fighting in ukraine is russian propaganda, which is quite readily demonstrably false.
the scope of russian media in the west is less, so it's hard to make a direct comparison, but they don't tend to make these demonstrably false claims in their english reporting. they're not trying to sell putin to us, and they don't need to.
but, filling those gaps is imperative, and realizing they exist really does clarify what you're really getting from western propaganda.
i would be concerned right now about some trigerring of some bullshit policy like "responsibility to protect", as we look the other way while the turks bomb the kurds to shit, yet again. our media doesn't bring out this language, unless it's planning to use it to justify an action.
18:05
do i support the responsibility to protect?
it's never been used in any way other than cynically. in principle, it has some abstract justification. but, in practice, it has a 0% credibility score.
i do not think arguments of the sort would be appropriate regarding the situation in ukraine, as it is demonstrably the case that the russians are battling extreme right militias that are holding civilian areas against the wishes of the population. i mean, the situation is variable - ukraine is a large country. but, if the principle has any value, it's to flip it over and argue the russians are trying to protect the civilians against the militias.
i want to be clear: i'm not making that argument. but, it's a better argument than the one the west appears ready to make.
this is a civil war in east slavia, and i would support non-intervention.
18:17
what happens if the russians and americans end up in a hot war, both citing the same bullshit pretext, so that they are essentially citing a mutual responsibility to protect ukraine from the other?
can we not reduce any war to a responsibility for each side to protect itself from the other?
i mean, it's the language of dumbards. it's idiotic, on it's face. but, it may be helpful to see it play itself out - and have both sides claim they are protecting the same people from the other. that would expose the policy as a set of unworkable contradictions and throw it in the dung heap of history where it belongs.
i've cited iraq as epoch-shifting (international law no longer truly exists, after iraq), but the russians cite libya. and, they're right. it was the most cynically bullshit advance of western imperialism in the history of western imperialism.
so, if you start hearing that language thrown around, recognize it for the cryptofascist imperialist rhetoric that it really is.
we may be on the brink.
19:28
the russians actually have a long history of citing themselves as the protector of slavs, in their southern expansion into austria-hungary and turkey. there's a good argument that the responsibility to protect is essentially a czarist policy in origin, and what the russians are doing in the donbas is the literal application of it, in a pretty clear historical context. and, the russians have arguably been the nation that has used it the least cynically - at least it was actually true that the slavic and caucasian peoples sought liberation from various foreign occupiers, if that does not extend to constantinople, itself. as the orthodox overlords, have the russians not long had a responsibility to protect anatolian greeks from turkish oppression? i understand that there were population transfers...
the flip side of that is that hitler cited the responsibility to protect when he invaded the sudetenland. there were germans there, being oppressed by slavs.
the policy was written in the naive assumption that history was over, which was always absurd, and it was taken seriously to the discredit of those that tried to do away with history. what it is is an algorithm for nationalist conflict, and it should be stepped away from before it leaves us all dead.
if everybody thinks they have a responsibility to protect, everybody ends up killing each other. the exceptionalism of america was and remains ridiculous, and we shouldn't need it demonstrated to us in the form of a world war.
19:50
we do not have a responsibility to protect.
what we have is an obligation to avoid escalation and remain neutral in conflicts that do not concern us.
19:53
cutting the "gas tax" is in truth a handout to the fossil fuel industry. the result is that the polluters get more money and the people get less.
if there are concerns about gas prices, the state should approach it by regulating prices, not by reducing taxes. regulation would ensure that the collection of public funds is not affected, and that shareholders pay the brunt of cost increases, instead.
20:18
you know, i have to wonder if these nose bleeds are affecting my ferritin levels.
it's really the only place i'm ever actually bleeding.
20:49
neo-liberal governments continually push for the privatization of profit and the socialization of loss. this needs to reverse itself.
the people should get the windfall from higher gas prices in the form of higher state revenues (and you can even use some of it to pay debt, if you insist, if it's provincial), and losses should be privatized to shareholders.
20:50
it's absolutely pathetic behaviour from dhimmi joe, who should be condemning these governments in full-throated terms, but is instead doing their dirty work for them, and getting nothing in return for it.
america is saudi arabia's bitch.
kiss the stone, dhimmi joe.
21:02
when you say you want to protect civilians against some bad guy that's behaving nefariously, what does that mean?
it means you have to kill the bad guys.
now, if you could launch, like, a police raid or something, ok. but, that's not what you mean, in context - you mean you're going to bomb the country, you're going to destroy infrastructure and you're going to kill civilians. that's unavoidable.
so, then somebody else ends up with a responsibility to protect those civilians, leading to a cycle of violence. this is unavoidable, unless you have a leviathan type hegemon, and we don't - and shouldn't want one. it follows that the responsibility to protect is simply an algorithm for the continuation of the cycle of violence.
in ukraine, i assure you that nato forces will kill more civilians than the russians could ever kill, if they wanted to.
so, it turns out that killing civilians to protect civilians isn't so well thought out. funny that,
21:21
it's bullshit orwellian propaganda, and it has been from day one.
but, read the news.
there's a major war coming.
21:25
monday, april 4, 2022
yes, this is political. but, don't miss the point - russia is popular enough in hungary that the guy just won a flat out majority by running against ukraine.
and, something similar just happened in serbia, and might happen soon in romania or bulgaria. at the end of the day, eastern europe will identify as slavic, and will be more likely to join the russians than to fight them.
the truth is that ukraine & poland, together, are a buffer state in both senses - they both protect the russians from the west of europe, and block them from the balkans, who are much more friendly to them.
a land corridor around the black sea to the balkans could be very dangerous for everybody, as the irony is that if this does go live, as i'm worried about, it will be the eastern european countries - the ones we're supposed to be protecting - that will be the first to defect.
with the exception of poland and the far west of ukraine, i would not expect the countries of eastern europe to put up any sort of serious resistance to a russian occupation. there will need to be azov battalions across europe. and, then what is that, if not the return of fascism to europe?
5:10
fwiw, hungary - like romania and much of greece - is ethnically but not linguistically slavic.
i would not consider the idea of hungary being a part of the slavic nation to be controversial.
5:17
5:39
i'd believe this, too.
but, if you poll the romanians and they tell you they want neutrality, is that not essentially a pro-russian statement?
what it's saying is something like while we would prefer independence, we would rather join russia than fight them.
and, i think that's the truth in much of eastern europe, which ended up under the nato protection racket, without having any interest in denouncing their longstanding association with russian/byzantine culture.
you need to understand that the way we're taught about the fall of communism in the west is mostly propaganda. regardless, if we skip over this and acknowledge that the communists were tyrannical, being opposed to what was called communism is not the same thing as being opposed to russia. many years later, the soviet system is now done away with, while the reality of centuries of russian cultural interconnection remains.
the point in opposing nato expansion was that it was unsustainable. and, when 80% of romanians oppose sending ukraine weapons in the current context, that is a red flag as to what would actually happen should any sort of war actually happen in the region.
i would have taken in the czechs and the slovenes and signed an agreement with the poles. and, that would have been it.
5:58
so, what did i do this weekend?
i had a list of five loose-ends before getting top part 6:
1) payhip uploads, which is done up to inri069. paused.
2) youtube vlog uploads, which are on pause for the minute.
3) liner notes from inri075--->inri085
4) uploading vocal discs, which i wanted to do in the morning but didn't.
5) inri records store/blog
then:
6) finishing period 3 by moving backwards from feb/2021.
what i did this weekend was upload and categorize a lot of youtube videos and sleep a bit more than i wanted to.
you will notice two new links on the side: the inri records store blog and a donate button. i'm updating that, site wide.
then, i have to put this aside for a few hours to type up oral arguments for my hearing in the karen/cop case on thursday. i also have a doctor's appointment by phone this afternoon, but i didn't get a blood test this month (i meant to wait until this week, and then i couldn't get out to do it), so it should be quick.
6:31
the drug addict came back in disgusting force this morning.
i can't handle this becoming frequent, so i took a look outside to see if i could locate the smell. i still believe that the smell is coming from upstairs, but it seemed this morning that it might be coming from one side, or that, at the least, whomever was smoking was on that side when they were.
so, i knocked on the door.
"gee, it really stinks over here. i live next door. my window's right there (pointing). have you been smoking out here?"
"it's a skunk."
"right. well, i live next door, and i really don't like marijuana, so could you not smoke near my window please?"
"it's not dope, it's an animal."
"yeah. right."
"asshole."
"sure. whatever."
what are the chances that a skunk sprayed in the same place within two days? the actual answer is effectively zero. skunks don't spray very often - you have to really scare a skunk to get it to spray. and, it takes up to two weeks to fill the tank back up. the idea that the same skunk might have sprayed in the same space in the space of 48 hours is physiologically nearly impossible; whatever the source of the smell, it is not a repeat skunk attack. skunks just don't work like that.
i am going to take the attempt to distract as an admission of guilt. he might have said "it wasn't me, i think it was the neighbour on the other side", or he might have even apologized. but, "it wasn't me, it was a skunk." is just a balls out, flat out lie, and that suggests he's at least partly in on it. we'll have to see if telling him it's bothering me affects his behaviour or not.
if he's a halfways decent person, he'll smoke in the back, or in the basement, or something. if he's an asshole nihilist, he'll just ignore me. we'll see.
is there another answer?
it's the spring, and there are cats around here. it is not a skunk, but there is an outside possibility that it might be cats in heat.
we'll see what happens.
am i ready to fight this yet? i don't want to, really, but i know it's a matter of time. i still want to put it off, and let the market implode slightly.
and, i may want to get out of this city altogether.
7:59
i did a plaster run over the windows on that side.
hopefully it helps.
i can do another one over the front door. but, i need some participation by the smokers - if they want to do disgusting drugs, they should have some common decency and respect for the people around them, and hide in the fucking basement like the disgusting addicts that they are.
8:33
i don't care how they waste their lives.
but, i don't want to be annoyed by their disgusting, worthless, oxygen-wasting piece of shit existences.
8:34
ok.
so, i've decided that the template for the new inri records page is done, but i still have to fill in the track pages.
this will actually overlap with the releases blog.
and, i might decided to fill in one release per week rather than per day. we'll see.
for now, that's ready to go, and i'll plan to get inri000 totally finished either tonight or tomorrow. rioght now, i need to finish those oral arguments.
11:11
i've got the second one of these up, now.
this is a reconstruction of what i actually released at the very end of 1999, except that tracks 1 and 19 have been run through remastering software and a few tracks at the front of the cover disc have been cut up mildly. so, this is my third record packaged with the covers disc, which was my initial intent, and how i did it until i cut it up at the start of 2014.
i consider inri031-inri034 + inri042, as they exist, to be authoritative. but, i want this to exist as an alternate presentation, so that i have a sequence of 2xlps with vocal reconstructions on them.
the 5th and 6th records go together, but i'm neither reconstructing sean's vocals nor am i releasing a double with myself singing on one side and sean singing on the other, so that double will exist as a stub. or maybe i'll reupload it as it is just so there's a link. i dunno.
4 and 6 also go together, and this is a little different - i'm going to upload them together as a 2xlp sample/vocal project and release it as ftaa. in some ways, that makes inri067 (spoke) somewhat superfluous, but there is a difference, in that inri067 is concise and inri084 will also include vocal tracks & a few instrumentals.
i will listen to this as i do the oral arguments. but, i've blown the day and i need to sleep.
19:24
tuesday, april 5, 2022
the dating for my hexonxonx cover keeps getting changed from 1998 to 1999. this is false.
to begin with, the discography housed by todd zacharitz for the souls that create is wrong - the collection was put together in late 1998, not early 1999. i created it, i'm authoritative. i shipped copies with my first record (completed in the summer of 1998) but not with my second (completed in very early 1999). the souls that create was completed after the hymns of the warlock, but before remix dystemper.
but, the hexonxonx remix/cover itself was completed months before the release of the souls that create. i used a tascam 4-track for recording, and still have the cassette masters. the recording was between my phantom of the opera cover (dated to june, 1998) and my demos for the track idiotic (aug, 1998). i've consequently dated it to july 15, 1998. but the only certainty is that it was from the summer of 1998.
5:18
remix dystemper is dated to october, 1998.
that would mean the souls that create was released around september or october of 1998.
5:20
i date it to sept 1, 1998, but that is a guess.
it was the late summer or early fall of 1998.
5:21
i got a strange attempt to take one of these recent posts down as "spam".
it's very odd. this is a blog that exists strictly to promote my music. i am a musician - i'm not anything else.
if you came here looking for something other than music, you've come here with false expectations. this has no purpose other than to act as a front-end for my art, and there is nothing here that does not interact with or exist strictly as a component of my music.
in the end, the writing here is an elaborate set of liner notes for a lengthy, complicated discography.
i think i understand that there are people that think i have political aspirations, but i don't. art is inherently political, and i will continue to explore political ideas in my art, but i am not a politician, i am an artist.
5:42
like many artists, i may identify as a free speech and as a far left political activist. i want to imagine a better world, and presents ideas as to how to get there.
but, the last thing that i want to do is write laws that tell people what to do. i have no interest in such things, at all.
5:44
i reposted the post in question, and it didn't trigger. what that tells me is that the post was flagged as "spam" by a very lonely, pathetic human that has nothing worthwhile to do with their time and should go crawl into a hole somewhere and die.
they can send me a txt when they get in the hole, so i can post celebrate good times to this space.
5:50
i really want the person that is coming here to harass me to identify themselves, so that i can have a restraining order placed on them. if i knew who you were, i would take steps to legally prevent you from communicating with me.
cease. desist. go away. fuck off. leave me alone.
5:58
there is no justification whatsoever for that kind of harassing behaviour, and you should be brought to justice. but, you just hide behind your screen and think you can tattle on me, like the piece of shit child that you are.
5:59
if you don't like this site, don't come here and read it.
i assure you that i don't care if you wake up alive or dead tomorrow, and i have no comprehension as to why the feeling isn't mutual. it's just absolutely baffling to me that people don't have anything better to do with themselves.
6:01
anyways, here's the new release, again, inri083.
i don't expect to alter it, but i need to keep listening to it to be sure.
6:03
the vlog is now uploaded to dec 1, 2017, which is when i moved.
i'm stopping there for a bit. i'll need to update that as i'm eating over the next few days. i will need to log into vista to rebuild the last youtube uploads, so it's a rational spot to stop.
as mentioned, i'm a little behind on legal stuff. i just need to run through this before thursday. but i actually expect that the issue will be largely dealt with in a written sense. and, i wonder if they don't already have a decision. everything i might say is already presented, and i frankly think the case is pretty obvious - the arrest was blatantly illegal, and the oiprd has already admitted that it should have sent the case back. this isn't the kind of thing that you win with brilliant oration, it's really pretty dry and technical and bureaucratic.
i have some files to present regarding the identity of the karen, and i hope it convinces the judge that something very fishy that requires an investigation happened. but, the real crux of the case is beyond that.
6:47
what do i have left with this, though?
- i have to reapproach the deny everything/ftaa re-release. everything is set, except the last track, which is a question mark - i may have to rebuild the sample collage over the remaster. yeah. i wanted to avoid that, but it might be necessary. it's the only sample collage that got remastered. i think it's the only way to do it.
- i should build cover art for the inri075-inri085 releases that are already done. then, i should release them physically at bandcamp. then, i can move the flacs to the alephs. the 7th flac disc will need inri075 to close. the 8th may follow almost immediately.
- i can upload youtube previews for inri076, inri079, inri080, inri081, inri082 and inr083 right away, but i have to get into vista to encode it in movie maker.
- i want to double check missing days and what not on the 2017 vlogs for the last half of the year.
- i need to update the music blog from february on.
then, i can get back to finishing period 3, starting in early 2021 and moving forwards. i'm also building the inri records site, one album per...let's do it per week. it's going to be more heavy than i thought.
6:54
the fact that all of my laptops are broken means i can't multitask like i used to.
i have to do one thing at a time.
6:56
i don't want to get bogged down evaluating tautological accusations about being immoral in the midst of a war.
but, this is the russian take on this:
you'll note that it's virtually identical to the western press, except the actors are replaced. the west uses "troll farms" to "spread disinformation". it's pretty surreal.
i have no idea what 's true - i wasn't there, and you can't trust any media.
but, generally speaking, all actors in an armed conflict commit "war crimes", which is a redundant term. war is a crime. you can't have a war without committing crimes.
the truth is no doubt less that one side is doing something bad and the other isn't and rather that both sides are doing more or less the same thing. we know that the forces on the ground that are fighting for ukraine are particularly nasty actors, with a particularly brutal ideology.
there is a difference, though: while the ukrainian forces seem to be systematically targeting civilians for extermination, any such behaviour by russian forces is likely rogue. that doesn't mean it did or did not happen - i don't know. there's no valid source. - but i would cast doubt on the claim that it was ordered by any russian command. if it happened, and the russians are the actors responsible (neither of which claim is clear), it would have likely been the result of somebody disobeying orders. the opposite seems to be true regarding the ukrainian forces, which are operating under a clear ideology of far-right extremism.
the incident will likely not be investigated fairly. rather, a politicized body will take over it, and may use it as a pretext to escalate. and, this is dangerous - this is what concerns me.
7:24
well, the sun's up and i'm not getting overpowered by second-hand smoke, yet.
7:25
when you read the russian news, and it looks like rachel maddow, it should make you realize that rachel maddow is a cia agent.
7:33
and, as for the trudeau government?
you would expect them to align with nazis, thugs, fascists and other extreme right-wing extremists - because that's what they are, themselves.
7:51
i get it - i'm confusing you. if i'm not with you, i must be against you. so, if i'm not falling all over joe biden's dick, i must be a russian spy.
i could trot out the critique of the law of the excluded middle, or i could just call you retarded. i dunno what's more helpful.
but, this approach is particularly subversive, isn't it? when i criticize western media - and, yes, rachel maddow is obviously a cia agent - you can't knee jerk and call me a russian spy, because then i'm criticizing russian media in the same paragraph.
how does the american media gestapo react to something like this:
when you read the russian news, and it looks like rachel maddow, it should make you realize that rachel maddow is a cia agent.
this is baffling, to them. they have no defense. they can't deal with it.
they can't attack honesty - they can just escalate bullshit with more bullshit.
8:44
americans (rightfully) consider this to not be america's problem. the russians have not attacked america; most of therm have not heard of ukraine, and couldn't locate it on a map.
americans rallied around pearl harbour and 9/11, but they don't care about some ruskie civil war in asia.
that's the answer. and, if americans start dying, biden will get savaged for it.
now, if they blew up a nascar race and blamed it on the russians? sure.
9:01
america is an insular society that cares little about what happens outside of it's borders, except in the context of direct self-defence.
biden isn't getting the bounce because america is not afraid of putin, despite great attempts to scare monger.
9:06
to be clear: it's not that the situation is some kind of counter-example to the rally-around-the-flag phenomenon.
the fact is that america is not at war, that americans don't see themselves at war and that americans do not interpret an attack on ukraine as an attack on america, on it's allies or on it's interests.
americans see the issue as a foreign conflict that has nothing to do with america. and, they're right - that's exactly what it is.
so, what you're likely to see is the opposite effect, which is just as documented, if not more so, which is that americans prefer non-intervention and isolationism when faced with a conflict that they do not see as relevant to them. in those scenarios, presidents that become involved in distant, foreign adventures that have nothing to do with america, it's allies or it's interests actually tend to get nailed at the ballot box.
9:15
i'm actually pretty good at this.
they make you get them all. i got one wrong, out of 47. so, i got 46/47, which was weighted to 140/141. but, the scoring is upside down - the big countries are the easy ones.
the one i got wrong was san marino. if you look at the site, there's four circled city-states in southern europe. i knew which one was andorra, and i knew which one was the vatican. i must admit that i could not place san marino on a map, but i would have guessed it wasn't monaco via elimination if i had a list of names. i didn't. alas.
so, i clicked on monaco the first time, then had to get the right one the second time.
i got everything else right the first try.
how do you do?
hey, don't get arrogant about americans being insular until you can pass this.
9:30
the one i got wrong was getting uzbekistan mixed up with turkmenistan on the first try.
i knew one was one and the other was the other.
i got suriname mixed up with french guyana. again.
yup.
i got the uae mixed up with oman.
...and, i didn't do so well with africa, less than 90. :(.
i did ok with north, east and south africa but west africa has a lot of little countries and i could not determine one from the other.
9:54
no, i need to reiterate the point. you can accuse me of falling for a trick, but you're missing the point of what i was doing.
i didn't sue because i wanted to bankrupt them or to make money from the mess, although i was prepared to do that. the reason i sued was to correct behaviour. the intent was not to win a large payout from the landlord, it was to force them to sit down and behave like adults.
you have to understand that the context was that i had two clinically retarded people that had been given the run of the place. i don't know if the father was born that way or suffered some kind of a head injury, but the daughter was autistic and the father was just as challenged. they were incapable of thinking things through, and needed the kind of structure that the old property owner provided in order to stop them from misbehaving. in the absence of a strong authority figure, they became completely out of control.
i needed some kind of leverage to force the parties to sit down and reintroduce some kind of rules that the upstairs tenants had to follow. if that could not be done, the tenancy could not be resolved.
i did not want to move, and i had no long term self interest in a financial settlement, which would have led to larger problems. had the new landlord reacted differently, the issue would have gone to trial and the situation would have imploded. i didn't want that, and it wouldn't have worked out for me had that happened. i would have had little actual choice but to follow through, though.
my other options were as follows:
1) i could ignore the situation, and let the upstairs tenants contain to run around amok, without any structure. that would have led to problems with cat feces in my living space, as well as illegal intrusions into my apartment. clearly, i could not have ignored the situation - some response was required.
2) verbal communication was attempted, but ignored.
3) so, yes - i had to sue to get the point across that i was serious and that behaviour had to change.
4) i could have followed through with the lawsuit, and i might have won a few dollars, but it would not have helped resolve the situation. it is even possible that the court would have dissolved the lease, in the process of providing me with some payout, which would have been the last thing i wanted. and, they would have filed the eviction for personal use the next day, regardless.
you can't judge decisions by outcomes, you have to look at the information available at the time. let's say, for example, that i would have won the personal use case, as i believe i should have - and i believe i would have, on appeal. then, winning that lawsuit would have simply created further barriers to maintaining the tenancy. conversely, let's suppose i had won the original case, then got the eviction notice, then lost the case and then didn't find the other apartment on short notice, and then stayed there long enough to go to divisional court and fight the appeal. then, the fact that there was a previous payout would have acted against my own interests, as they could have argued the situation was dysfunctional.
i can only say this over and over again: i did not intend to or want to go to trial. i was not looking for money. i even suggested to the property owner at one point that any winnings be donated to a charity of her choice. i was trying to force the parties to behave like adults, and produce an agreement where some kind of structure could be reconstructed to restrict the retarded behaviour of her retarded relatives. and, i was seeking a solution until the end.
at some point, i had to recognize that i was dealing with pure malevolence, and it was in my best interests to get away from these people. but, you have to let a liar lie before you know they're liars.
i made the right choice, and i don't regret it, although, as mentioned, i do wish i had reopened the case afterwards, when the desire for reconciliation was no longer relevant and a financial payout became useful as a means of retaliation. but, i just wanted to be done with it and move on......
there is perhaps a deeper realization, here: not everybody is driven by finances. there are people that put principles ahead of profit. and, if you think that makes me foolish, the feeling is mutual.
10:44
you could also look at it like this....
costs associated with the confrontation between the landlord and tenant were:
landlord: ~$10,000
tenant: $0.
you'll have to ask her if it was worth it or not.
10:54
if you try to remove items that are posted in this space by flagging them as spam, i will get a notice from google. i will then repost the items.
as the items are clearly not spam, i have every reason to argue the point, and will simply continue to repost them. if that triggers the involvement of a human, that human will decide the posts are not spam.
it's a stupid waste of time.
grow up and fuck off.
10:56
the best outcome would have been if the building remained in the hands of the old property owner, but i had no control over that.
the thing i had control over was to stand my ground, push back against aggressive malevolence and try to assert my rights, as a tenant, against a landlord that did not appear to accept the premise that tenants have rights. that pushback had to end in a process of understanding that i need control over the space i live in and cannot accept people entering the unit randomly or throwing cat feces outside my window. if, in the end, those rights are not asserted, there is no end point but endless conflict, and i did not want that. i wanted a return to the sort of tenancy that existed before the building was taken over by the ignorant, horrible, tyrannical, dishonest woman that bought the place.
a couple of thousand dollars doesn't resolve or fix anything - it's not what i wanted, and would not have been an acceptable solution, on it's face. even if i had won those couple of thousand dollars, i wouldn't have considered the process worthwhile unless it also came with an agreement to alter behaviour. it was the latter i sued for, not the money.
when given the agreement, i picked it without forcing the exchange of money, in the hopes it would make it more likely that the agreement would be adhered to. but, certainly, if they would not adhere to the agreement in the absence of a payout, they would not have adhered to it in the presence of one. so, all i would have had was a few dollars (which are of little value) and a broken agreement (which would have been a far more important concern). if the agreement ends up broken regardless - as it is clear, in hindsight, was the only possible outcome - the existence of that few dollars is trivial. it is more important to push for the agreement than the money.
as mentioned, if you work out the possibilities, there is really no outcome where taking the money could have helped me accomplish any of my actual goals. sure, i might have ended up with a few extra dollars, but that would not have been useful in any meaningful sense. in the sense that i should have carried that out, i should have pursued that after the fact, and not during the process.
so, if you want to push the purely financial aspect, then, yes, i should have done the following:
1) signed the agreement and withdrawn the case
*2) filed with the board that the agreement was signed in poor faith, which nullifies it.
3) carried on with the claims, and maybe won a few thousand dollars, most of which i would have had to give to the city, anyways.
* but, as the intent was to maintain the tenancy, i had to wait until the personal use issues resolved one way or another - either until the eviction (which my withdrawal had no effect on) worked itself out, or until it was defeated. and, i decided it wasn't worth it. maybe it was worth it...but, maybe it wasn't. not really.....
11:14
strictly legally speaking, you can't just show up in a court and lie your way out of a situation and then laugh about it. i mean, you can try, but then you're liable for lying, and will, in most cases, end up suffering twice as badly, once it's explained to the court that you're a filthy, dirty, piece of shit liar. courts don't look fondly upon agreements signed in poor faith by smarmy, asshole landlords trying to take advantage of tenants.
and, sure - maybe i should have punished her for lying and forced her to pay out as retribution. maybe that would have been the right thing to do, on some level. certainly, i could have done that, and i would have won, if i had.
but, i don't give a fuck about any of that, on it's face, and it was more important to me to move on than drag something out to enact vengeance and retribution. the couple of hundred dollars wasn't worth it to me.
i had no costs to recoup. the city paid the moving bill, and even gave me last month. so, i actually made $700 out of it, which is more than i could have won. if it had cost me something to move, i might have decided differently. it didn't.
so, she got away with something - sort of. she got away with it, if you ignore the thousands spent on legal costs, right? but, it wasn't because she was smart. what she did was actually incredibly stupid, and it should have cost her twice of what i asked for. it was because she was lucky that i live on disability, and that i don't believe in retribution, as a principle.
i incurred no costs, and had nothing to recoup.
now, of course, things didn't work out in the place i moved to, which created further problems. and, when i sued that place, it was because i wanted to leave immediately - so i sued for a reduction and the dissolution of the lease. that was enough to cover moving costs, first/last and then some. again - i could not have foreseen that, and think moving was the right choice to make.
11:30
i'm going to create a html table for my grocery list and print off dozens of copies.
i think that's easier.
12:21
wednesday, april 6, 2022
i have to say that i've been struggling to get my head around it, and i fundamentally don't understand this idea of forcing google to pay for it's users sharing links.
the media frames it in terms of "hosting content", but as far as i can tell, that has nothing to do with what's being proposed. i mean, sure - if facebook were mirroring news articles, it should pay for it. and, frankly, if i were facebook, i might react that way: if the government is going to force facebook to pay for "hosting content", it should actually host content, which would mean designing a service where it literally just copies existing articles to it's own servers and puts ads on it.
but, sharing links is not hosting content, it's free advertising. and, i don't understand what the claim made by these media companies is, or why they're complaining about free promotion.
rather, it seems like these companies have simply lobbied their way into getting the government to legislate a redistribution mechanism from one bourgeois entity to the other. i see no legal, moral or logical reason for this redistribution, but money talks and lobbying works.
i would consequently label this bill as a form of corruption.
but, it opens up an interesting question: why shouldn't everybody else else get paid when users share links? what makes news outlets special, besides the lobbyists? if somebody posts a link to my bandcamp site, why shouldn't i get paid for it, too?
i do a lot of media commentary and analysis on this site, and the idea that i might have to pay to post links of the media i'm debunking, fact-checking and/or criticizing is entirely inconsistent with any concept of academic freedom, or of free speech, more generally. in that sense, the law is rally quite literally fascist, as it seeks to shut down dissenting voices and instead present a uniform narrative designed by official state media. such a crack down on free speech must be strenuously resisted.
but, the fact is that i don't have ads on this page and i'm not making a profit by doing academic deconstructions of mainstream media. there should, at the least, be exceptions for academic work, or the government is turning the clocks back to the dark ages and trying to control access to information.
but, if i were facebook, that would be my response - if you want to charge us for hosting content, let's host content, then. we're paying for it, right?
11:37
the content of this blog is the analysis - that is the original writing, that is what is of value and what is worth coming here to read.
the articles by the journalists (that i deconstruct as garbage) are worthless, and not worth paying a cent for.
so, do you want me to post academic citations to the articles instead of the links?
11:40
frankly, if there is a service being provided that requires renumeration, it is as follows:
1) google provides for free search engine integration. that is, the various news sites are allowed entrance into google's database so that users can search for content for free. news sites should pay for this access.
2) facebook provides free user-generated advertising to news sites. news sites should pay facebook for that advertising.
facebook generates revenue on top of the user-generated advertising, but it does not replace or take away any ad revenue generated by actually going to the site. there is no unjust enrichment on behalf of the companies. it's more comparable to a multiplier effect.
far from it being the case that the news industry is having revenue taken away by facebook, it is rather the case that new sites that are unable to capitalize on the substantive free advertising provided by google & facebook are further demonstrating their lack of commercial viability in the existing world; if a site like the globe and mail cannot survive, in spite of millions of users from across the world sharing links to their website, it is because they are not commercially viable. and, frankly, it's largely because their content sucks.
i'm having difficulty following the arguments the government is making, and i think the reason for it is that they're incoherent, rather than something else. the whole relationship here is being inverted, and the only discernible reason for it is lobbying power. that is not good government, that is corruption.
14:19
rather than there being any sort of discernible legal principle underlying this, it seems to be something like "boring legacy news sites are no longer able to compete in today's world of exciting user--generated content. i don't like this fact, this truth and this reality. therefore, i'm going to use my power to arbitrarily order that this other successful company give this less successful company some of their profits, because i just feel like it. and, fuck you if you don't like it.".
i can act like that as an individual, but governments cannot behave like this. it's arbitrary, it's corrupt and it's an abuse of power.
14:27
here's a newsflash: ordering facebook to send money to the globe and mail will not increase readership, it will just make them financially reliant on facebook to exist.
if i were the globe and mail, i would rather be a ward of the state than a subsidiary of facebook.
the better way to do this is just be honest about it and announce state subsidies for failing media companies, to help them make the content they generate more competitive.
14:31
and, here's another potential tactic by facebook - why not just buy the globe and mail?
14:38
what are viable business models for writers in today's world?
- you could click bait. but, you wouldn't be a serious writer. and, let's be real - most aren't. if you just want the cash, then click bait. i mean, you can do it. i may one day set up a separate garbage blog strictly for ad revenue.
- you can do magazines, which means subscriptions and paywalls. there's always been magazines.
- you can do open source, which is what i'm about. but, it requires some kind of ubi or alternate income source.
i would like to see almost everybody move to open source. but, magazines will continue to exist, and click bait is what it is.
what doesn't work is connecting ad revenue to serious writing, if it ever did. that model should be abandoned.
if you want to survive on ad revenue, you have to adjust to the market; if you don't, you'll have to focus on a smaller readership and rebrand as a magazine.
16:01
ok.
i think ukraine has been partitioned.
the forces on the ground will now need to move in to their places, and that is likely the end of this round.
17:37
so, i got some grocery shopping done yesterday and i've got a few minor updates.
- i'm adding broccoli to the salad, probably permanently. it seems superfluous according to the charts, but i've learned i don't absorb things as well as others, and it's a cheap source of various vitamins and minerals. when i update these, i'm going to be making sure i over do certain things. that extra bit of broccoli could help.
- i bought some thai peppers because i couldn't find any cayenne peppers, and they certainly spiced up the salad this morning, but i don't expect to hold with it. i've been toying with the idea of replacing the teaspoon of cayenne powder with real cayenne peppers, but the powder is really incomparably better, nutritionally. to be clear: i'd be better off eating 20 g of actual live pepper, but good luck with that. i found 3 g to be challenging this morning, and it seems to have also caused a bowel movement and resulted in burning hands for hours. for now, i'm going to add small amounts in in addition to the cayenne powder rather than in replacement of it, and we'll see if i want to hold to it strictly for the spiciness or not. it's a decent boost of vitamin e, but i otherwise can barely get any nutritional value at all out of a few grams of live peppers; conversely, things like vitamin a and lutein pile up when you get it fermented (hot sauce) or as dried powder (cayenne, paprika). i will keep an eye out for actual cayenne peppers, which are less spicy and which i may be able to integrate in larger amounts. my diet is dominated by capsicum now, though.
- i'm going to stick with the red bananas, but it means riding out to lasalle on a weekly basis. that's fine, it's an excuse for some exercise. i'm also going to take a ride out to the sobeys, probably next week, in search of items like fresh sour cherries (they had some at the old close store, years ago, too) and any other strange fruit they might have. they might have real cayenne peppers, too. at this point, i've done a fair amount of research and understand what is and is not actually good fruit. the sobeys is expensive, but that doesn't matter for a bit as i'm building this up.
- i bought some mangoes to try, and we'll see what i think. there's enough for five bowls. mangoes are nutritionally valuable, but they're expensive. i don't know why i'm importing them, though - we have a large south asian presence in canada, and we should be growing them in greenhouses. canadian fruits (apples, grapes, peaches) are shit for nutrients, compared to items like avocados, kiwis, guavas and mangoes. the one really good fruit that grows here endemically (roeships) appears to have no market, and just grows wild on the street as a weed. it's better for you than 90% of the fruits in the store. the nutrient content depends (partially) on the soil, but not the vitamin content. climate and evolution gave us what we have, but we're not bound by it anymore, and we should be growing more nutritious fruits and leaving the empty, sugary ones behind. i'm specifically looking to boost my vitamin e a little, as it's the missing fat soluble vitamin that can't be tested for. i'm realizing that i used to take massive vitamin e supplements years ago, in the form of these menoprim pills i took. so, we'll see if i think this is stable or not.
so, here's the update:
==========
breakfast, in three parts:
1) cereal: vector + all bran + raw wheat bran + ground flax seed + soy milk + vitamin c.
removed: fake cinnamon
experiments: i am going to eventually run out of soy milk and may need to move to powdered soy protein.
2) fruit bowl: fresh or frozen strawberry, white or pink guava, fresh kiwi, fresh avocado, fresh yellow banana, fresh red banana, frozen raspberry, frozen blueberry, paprika (dried red peppers), sunflower seeds, nutritional yeast.
removed: nectarines (too bulky), lychees (not good, here, and potentially dangerous), cranberries (oxalates)
experiments: mango (current), fresh blackberries (periodic), fresh sour cherries (periodic), peaches (if on sale and ripe), persimmon (they've always been very expensive...), currants?, rosehips?
3) dairy bowl: strawberries, nutritional yeast, condensed algal omega-3s, cherry yogurt, cherry ice cream, vitamin d.
removed: n/a
experiments: n/a
lunch, in three parts
1) salad: kale, kale stalks, carrots, tomatoes, red peppers, broccoli, nutritional yeast, sunflower seeds, paprika, cayenne pepper, hemp seeds, oregano, thyme, basil, cumin, red hot sauce, olive oil margarine, caesar salad dressing, soy milk, cheddar cheese
removed: lime (moved to quinoa bowl), garlic (moved to eggs), beets (nitrates & oxalates), spinach (oxalates), green beans (yuck), anchovies (less iron than thought), mustard seed, pepper, salt
experiments: chopped chili peppers (current), tofu, chickpeas (high omega-6, though), sesame seeds (also high o-6s), red clover, beets again?, seaweed?
2) quinoa: quinoa (cooked with hot sauce), lime, cumin, paprika, caesar salad dressing, cheddar cheese
removed: n/a
experiments: some kind of fish, eventually. i want indoor, non-grain fed, though, impossible. so, tofu?
3) dairy bowl: probiotic yogurt, cheddar cheese, nutritional yeast, hot sauce, vitamin d
removed: mustard seed (too powerful)
experiments: n/a
supper:
eggs: four extra large eggs cooked in olive oil margarine, flax bread, olive oil margarine on bread, garlic, nutritional yeast, cheddar cheese, apple + grapefruit juice, vitamin d
removed: pepper, salt, peppers, tomatoes
experiments: n/a
19:26
regarding the apple juice, which i need to find some replacement for, as the brand i used to buy moved from fresh to concentrated, and i will not purchase or drink concentrated fruit juice....
so. the best thing to do would to find a way to work lime, orange, grapefruit and apple in. lemons are a bit better than limes for c, but the inositol is more useful, given that i get tons of c. i'm not sailing the world, and not concerned about scurvy. limes also have more furanocoumarin. so, for my purposes, limes dominate lemons.
i seem to have jumbled a part of this up in my memory.
i thought i was drinking grapefruit juice because it was high in inositol and oranges were the only citrus fruit without inositol. but, apple juice is cheap and grapefruit juice is expensive, so i just added a bit of grapefruit juice to the apple juice to boost the inositol content. inositol is a natural sugar that your body can manufacture as a precursor to neurotransmitters like serotonin, but can also absorb directly. if you get more inositol, you increase your body's ability to manufacture serotonin, although it's not a direct, linear relationship - it's just making sure your body has the building blocks.
but, it's not oranges that have no inositol, it's lemons. and, i wasn't drinking grapefruit juice because oranges don't have inositol, i was using limes in my ceasar because lemons don't have inositol.
i want to stick with the limes as an alternative to the lemons, explicitly, although it opens the question as to whether i may want to move to oranges in the quinoa bowl. i got some gigantic, lemon-sized limes a few weeks ago, and i've gotten used to them, but i'll probably never find them again. if i go back to dumping the small limes in the salad bowl (as a replacement for the lemon in the homemade caesar, which makes sense), i could bring in oranges for the quinoa bowl, instead. oranges don't work well as a replacement for lemons, tastewise, but oranges have more inositol and more vitamin c than limes, and the role of the orange in the quinoa bowl is now to introduce vitamin c. quinoa is pretty bitter as it is, and the orange may be a benefit. that would double the inositol and boost the c.
see, the thing is that we're back to the salad as a meal of it's own and a three-part process. so, i need to analyze it that way, again.
so, why did i have grapefruit juice, then? the reason is because it was the highest option in the list for inosiol, but oranges are really not very far behind. if the issue is strictly inositol, orange juice is not a bad replacement for the apple juice (or the grapefruit juice) at all.
i used to drink orange juice, strictly, but i found the price start to jump a few years ago. so, the reason i'm drinking apple juice in the first place is that it's cheaper than orange juice, but it relied on finding that cheap pure apple source. if i've lost that, the apple juice is no longer very attractive. apples are not very nutritionally useful, and don't add much to any diet, not even if the attempt is to be varied, which i'm doing - i've got every type and category of fruit, and it's not an accident.
so, i should really take a look at the price, primarily. but, i should just look at the options interchangeably. i could move to a grapefruit-orange combination. but, if the most reasonable thing to do is just to go back to orange juice, i shouldn't be concerned about that - i will get plenty of inositol and plenty of c that way.
20:54
actually, i need to hold the grapefruit for vitamin a and lycopene, particularly. i want lycopene in the fruit (guava), the salad (tomato) and the eggs (grapefruit juice). oranges have a lot less carotenoids than grapefruit juice.
ok.
ideally:
- limes can go back in the salad bowl, for inositol content, as a lemon replacement, which was the initial point
- for the quinoa bowl, the desire and purpose is c, for absorption. oranges are the best of them all for c. so, i should go with an orange. i'm also far more likely to find medium sized oranges than medium sized limes.
- apple & grapefruit juice combination can be retained for the eggs. but, if pure apple juice is no longer cheaper, i can look at orange juice, instead. oranges have more inositol and more c than apples, and i don't know of any obscure phytochemicals that apples really excel at.
ok.
so, that's decided.
i'll pick up some oranges next time i'm out.
=====
breakfast, in three parts:
1) cereal: vector + all bran + raw wheat bran + ground flax seed + soy milk + vitamin c.
removed: fake cinnamon
experiments: i am going to eventually run out of soy milk and may need to move to powdered soy protein.
2) fruit bowl: fresh or frozen strawberry, white or pink guava, fresh kiwi, fresh avocado, fresh yellow banana, fresh red banana, frozen raspberry, frozen blueberry, paprika (dried red peppers), sunflower seeds, nutritional yeast.
removed: nectarines (too bulky), lychees (not good, here, and potentially dangerous), cranberries (oxalates)
experiments: mango (current), fresh blackberries (periodic), fresh sour cherries (periodic), peaches (if on sale and ripe), persimmon (they've always been very expensive...), currants?, rosehips?
3) dairy bowl: strawberries, nutritional yeast, condensed algal omega-3s, cherry yogurt, cherry ice cream, vitamin d.
removed: n/a
experiments: n/a
lunch, in three parts
1) salad: kale, kale stalks, carrots, tomatoes, red peppers, broccoli, lime (w /pith and peel), nutritional yeast, sunflower seeds, paprika, cayenne pepper, hemp seeds, oregano, thyme, basil, cumin, red hot sauce, olive oil margarine, caesar salad dressing, soy milk, cheddar cheese
removed: garlic (moved to eggs), beets (nitrates & oxalates), spinach (oxalates), green beans (yuck), anchovies (less iron than thought), mustard seed, pepper, salt
experiments: chopped chili peppers (current), tofu, chickpeas (high omega-6, though), sesame seeds (also high o-6s), kidney beans, red clover, beets again?, garlic again?, seaweed?
2) quinoa: quinoa (cooked with hot sauce), orange (with pith and peel), cumin, paprika, caesar salad dressing, cheddar cheese
removed: lime (moved back to salad)
experiments: some kind of fish, eventually. i want indoor, non-grain fed, though, impossible. so, tofu?
3) dairy bowl: probiotic yogurt, cheddar cheese, nutritional yeast, hot sauce, vitamin d
removed: mustard seed (too powerful)
experiments: n/a
supper:
eggs: four extra large eggs cooked in olive oil margarine, flax bread, olive oil margarine on bread, garlic, nutritional yeast, cheddar cheese, apple/orange + grapefruit juice, vitamin d
removed: pepper, salt, peppers, tomatoes
experiments: n/a
21:23
i don't think i've ever bought an actual orange in a store,. i've always bought orange juice.
so, i don't know what's available here, or what the best option is. tangerines? mandarines? etc.
i want the highest c content and the highest inositol content.
21:32
i suppose that the best option would probably be any sort of red orange.
21:37
yeah. fake oranges (tangerines, mandarins, etc) seem to all have less c than real oranges, which are technically navel oranges.
i'll want to see if i can find some cara cara orange's though. i think that's what i really want.
21:41
i also need to remind myself to do the research to understand which type of bean is best. i've been ignoring them, but i need to look into them for iron.
i need the kind of bean that is:
- high in iron
- low in oxalate
- has a good omega-3:omega-6 ratio
- low in phytates
kidney beans might be the best choice. but, i should do the research and chart it out.
22:10
this is also a unique salad. i've looked it up.
red peppers, oddly, do not often appear in salads.
so, we're building j's salad, here, with j's special sauce.
22:21
so, i've created a hard-coded diet plan on the side:
rather than post the same thing over and over, i'll refer you to updates on the side, moving forward.
i should set up an entirely new blog for the diet plan.
22:54
this is a test.
i'm starting to think it's an algorithm, after all.
i post some very simple code here and make it very clear why i'm posting it. there's nothing remotely malicious in any of it. but, there's a lot of stupid people out there.
the last snippet of code i posted had to do with the blogger ui, for example. to suggest that that might be used for some kind of hacking is so ignorant as to be flat out retarded.
i neither have the education level, nor the aptitude, nor the interest level to engage in any sort of direct action activism of that sort. frankly, i'd consider it to be broadly counter-productive.
if a potential activist has the ability to thwart a specific action by the state, i'd argue that they should do it. but, i'd broadly condemn the kind of "activism" that reduces to vandalism as empty nonsense, whether it's vandalizing a bank or a statue. that kind of behaviour shows absolutely no understanding of the systemic causes of capitalist oppression, and is just going to land people in jail. then, when the movement needs your skills, you can't use them, because you're in jail because you did something pointless and stupid.
but, i couldn't do that - i don't have the skills to.
and, the very simple code posted here provides no suggestion that i might.
the code posted here is written at an introductory high school level, and that's the depth you should expect of any code posted here, in the future. as stated, the last snippet of code i posted here was to show people how to make a clickable banner using the blogspot api. it's hardly anything remotely complex, at all.
23:03
something very strange happened with the previous post.
you know, i might have a script running here, after all, but i didn't put it there, and i don't have the slightest idea how to remove it.
there is some possibility that this page has been hacked, and all i can do is tell google to update their security.
23:26
thursday, april 7, 2022
so, i posted something about an hour ago, and it seems to have been replaced by a link to a video from an external site.
but, i got the post in my email.
so, that would suggest that the communication was intercepted and converted, meaning there's probably a bot running on google's servers. and, i mean, what are the chances?
so, is this google's tricky way to go after sites that don't set up ads? fuck. you can't escape it. it's relentless.
0:16
i'd like to see one of these economists actually put together a coherent argument that there's any correlation between interest rates and housing costs. that's one of those bullshit linear curves that you have to learn in first year economics, and that the teachers have to explain that you shouldn't actually take seriously.
there's way too many factors that go into a person making a choice to buy a house. if it has any effect at all, it's negligible.
go ahead and find me the data. i don't want a logical deduction based on rational expectations - find me data. you can't. it's bullshit.
it might ultimately be a blip. but, if i were to guess at an actual cause, it would be that housing in toronto is being devalued by the population dynamics. the rich people are moving out, and the poor folks are moving in. that will decrease prices.
the same thing is happening in montreal, and these are somewhat alarming trends, if you're not a poor artist on disability - it's what happened in detroit. people want out...
3:45
"well, my wife's pregnant, but interest rates are up by a half a percent, so i guess we're out of luck. baby will have to sleep on the couch."
3:47
do you know what actually happens when you increase interest rates?
banks make higher profits.
that is all.
4:13
i am ready to go.
this'd better work.
i think the illegal arrest part is pretty obvious, although i don't know what they actually do about it. i am taking vavilov right on. i'm coming at you, vavilov. but, i can win this - this is clear.
the second part, sending the case out, is a bit trickier. see, i can't prove that corruption occurred; i need an investigation. and, the evidence might already be destroyed, if it did. if i can argue the first point should be correctness, the second is harder.
we'll see what happens.
i could dramatically rewrite the laws, here.
9:51
do the democrats have a chance in the midterms?
i think the key point is realizing that the midterms really aren't about joe biden, that joe biden is the lamest duck of all time. the midterms are going to be about how america is changing, demographically. they're going to be about conflicts over pandemic restrictions, about climate change policy (and fuel prices) and about this perennial racial divide in the united states that will not go away.
if the democrats want to keep or win seats, they should be looking past joe biden. and, if the republicans want to do the same, they should be doing the same thing.
biden was elected to remove somebody else from office on the assumption he'd resign within a few months. he's not good or bad, he's irrelevant.
12:16
i mean, are you for or against biden's passed legislation?
wait. what passed legislation?
he's a caretaker - a seat warmer.
12:18
ok, so that's done.
i think it went well.
i want to be quiet about it for a few days, though.
16:58
that's certainly a weight off of my shoulder, though. that could be the last divisional court matter for a while, maybe ever.
so, i'm going to clean in here and get back to work.
17:59
friday, april 8, 2022
so, call it compassionate conservatism, then.
perhaps the neo-liberals have learned that they have to share a little bit of their pirate treasure. but, bullshit neo-liberalism by any other name is bullshit neo-liberalism.
the biggest thing i'm concerned about is that the lack of health care funding suggests the federal government is going to be pushing for the marketization of health care. they may attach some thatcherite noblesse oblige concept of charity obligations to their theft-through-privatization in an attempt to reduce opposition to it, but we should not be content with crumbs designed to placate us.
this doesn't seem to be the austerity budget i feared, but it's the first step towards it. and, i'm hardly interested in the rebranding shuffle around already existing dental care programs proposed by the ndp as an excuse to avoid voting against it, to prevent an election.
neo-liberalism was slow to take hold in canada, but the liberals are today indiscernible from the conservatives and we are not given an option in the existing party system; we can have neo-liberalism, or neo-liberalism. if what we want is socialism, we must abandon the bourgeois political system altogether.
4:22
i haven't finished cleaning yet, but i've started on finishing these loose ends, which is something that's pretty close to getting done, and i'm realizing that i need a copy of vista or 7 running in one of my laptops. that will be one of the loose ends, so i can multitask better.
i'm going to need to nlite a windows 7, which i don't fully understand the meaning of, yet. it will need to get all of the updates and at least have the thing moderately set up.
the issue with the compaq is that it kept rebooting, so i became convinced i was under attack by the police. with the end of the court process, that might stop. frankly, my chromebook has been relatively stable for quite some time,
the hp won't post. there was initially an issue with the electrical, but when i put it aside a few years ago the beep codes suggested a processor error. i took it apart this morning and put some thermal paste in it and now i'm being told by the flashing lights that it's the bios.
the bios virus. it's really not surprising. but, how do i get around it?
i might have to reprogram it. but, hp has some tools, and i should exhaust that process, first. so, that's what i'm focusing on tonight.
but, i've got vista booted up, too, and i want to get done what i want done in there, while it's running. so, there'll be some items coming up to youtube tonight.
17:03
i've determined that the bios in the thing seems to be gone. i have a bus pirate, i can likely serial in to the thing using the 90s laptop (it's what i did before to fix the production machine when i screwed it up by flashing it from windows), but i want that to be a last resort.
if i still had the recovery partition, i might have a backup bios in it, but i don't. i would never actually use the recovery partition to do anything, so i decided it was a waste
17:49
saturday, april 9, 2022
so, what's my update this evening?
1) i've got inri076 & inri079-inri083 updated here:
inri083 is still undergoing a lagging copyright check but i don't expect it to pick anything up. it doesn't tend to pick up covers, just samples. the minimal samples in the cover disc have been warped beyond the point that any kind of automated check would pick them up; somebody that knows would have to hear it. if it picks anything up, i'll have to delete it. as mentioned, i do not intend to monetize anything at youtube, except maybe the vlogs.
i listened to inri083 the other day when preparing for court, and it sounds great - just turn it down a little bit, maybe. i have to turn it down a little on this hardware...
2) i've got all of inri084 except one track uploaded.
i'm going to need to rebuild that last track but it might be a little while because i'm going to do it in sequence. so, we'll do inri084 once we get through inri075, inri077 and inri078. in fact, inri079-inri083 are done and it's just that one track for inri084.
3) or you could check out the instrumental bundle of inri084, which is my fourth record (deny everything) and my seventh record (ftaa).
3) i've made some progress on the chronology over the summer of 2004, which was the first time i sat down and tried to order this stuff. i have an archive of my website that was published to my personal web space at my university that was published in 2004 where i go through a 7-entry discography, as it existed at that time: inri, inriched, deny everything, rabit is wolf, reflections, ftaa & inricycled. each of those 2004 re-release entries is updated to reflect that information. i'm also retroactively dumping the 2xlp releases into that space over the summer of 2004. so, here's the updated listing:
the ftaa disc was really released as a part of the process of building that first inri records catalog in 2004. so, we have those re-releases in sequence, and then it moves to the 2xlp combinations - inri/inriched, inridiculous/inrimake and now deny everything/ftaa.
i'm going to want to listen to the last one a little. but, i'm going to get a skeleton for inri085 - the jjjjjjjjjs - up tonight, too.
for obvious reasons, i'm apprehensive about dropping sean's vocals in and i may have to rename the disc if i do. unfortunately, i feel it's the only really correct way to do it. but, if i do that, it won't be for a while, still. i'll have time to think it through...
and, then, the actual point - i want to get a start on the vocal side of the {e} disc, which is still not numbered.
other discs dated to the summer and fall of 2004 that comprise period 3.2:
1) inri086 is going to be a mixed cd i was handing out to people in the summer of 2004. but, i have to get the timing right. it may release with the csis records version of inricycled.
2) inri087 is going to be an updates ep dated to 2004 and that will become standard as i go through this. the process that i started in 2013 is authoritative but i had made previous attempts to remaster and rebuild old material. every time i do that, i'll put together an updates ep. the 2004 updates ep will primarily be edits made for the 2004 catalog update, which includes several remixes that were released o previous singles.
3) inri088 is probably the isomorphism single but i might have to double check the timing.
4) inri89 may be a drone compilation but that might wait until later.
5) inri090 is likely the poeticity vocal disc (the third volume in the vocal works).
6) inri091 is going to be a cd of guitar demos dated to mid-2004.
7) inri092 is the spontaneous combustion of leondardo pisano (fall, 2004)
8) inri093 would be xenophanes
9) inri094/inri095 would be the {e} record in instrumental and vocal forms..
that ends 3.2 and is as far as i want to seriously look, right now. it is all trivial group and cycles per second.
the first thing in 3.3 will probably be the matlab project, which will require me to build the 64 bit pc, which i will want to put linux on at this point.
0:57
i don't want to jinx it, but i made some changes, and i suspect my death to koalas email address may have been hacked, and that might have been the reason i was getting those spam notifications.
1:07
now, who would hack my account?
fucking pigs, that's who.
i suspect the pieces of shit were reporting my archiving as spam. see, i've got it set up so that everything i post here gets sent to my email, which is just an archiving step. if some piece of shit wanted into my email, that would get very annoying, and they might decide i'm spamming them.
that's actually pretty ballsy, for a hacker - it suggests a special level of delusionality. it's borderline schizophrenic, really. but, if the issue resolves, i guess i fixed it.
1:11
i don't consider getting content in exchange for ads to be "free". the user is, indeed, forced with an indemnity - it has to suffer through the advertisement. and, what does the content provider get in return, besides the degradation of their content, to a medium for some third party to pollute it with advertising? we can talk about whether providing server space in exchange for the indignity of being forced to put an ad on something, but this does not meet the definition of "free" - there is a clear exchange of space in return for advertising.
i don't feel that that exchange is worth it.
of course, like anybody else, i prefer things that are free. but, if i am to pay for server space, i'd rather give you money than pay in terms of consent for ad space.
this is how i would order these items:
1) free server space.
2) server space as a paid service.
3) server space in exchange for advertisements, as a paid service.
and, i will take this site down and upload it to godaddy before i am forced to suffer the indignity of putting ads on it.
so, while i'd rather the stream for inri083 (which is still checking) be entirely free, i will not accept the compromise of putting ads on it in exchange for server space. i would rather take the content down altogether than have it ruined by ads.
8:59
i don't care about grammatical conventions, and the grammar nazis can go fuck off and die under a rock somewhere.
writing is an artistic means of personal expression. there are no rules - it's anarchy. and, i will write in a way that reflects that, and tell you and your rules to fuck off.
i may use a comma in one way on one day, and then use it in a way that entirely contradicts it, the next. why? because i feel like it. my expressive choice are not defined by a mathematical formula, they are random, and unpredictable. there are no rules in grammar, no rules in language, no rules in expression and no rules in writing. consistency is irrelevant. attempts to enforce rules in this manner are mind control, and akin to a type of fascism.
so, take your grammar and cram it down your throat and fucking choke on it, you nazi piece of shit.
9:21
grammar is not something that exists naturally out there in the wild, it's a set of trivial and arbitrary conventions erected by eggheads in ivory tower institutions and that has no relevance to how actual people actually speak or actually express themselves in the real world.
my grammar is not wrong - there is no such thing as incorrect grammar, as grammar exists strictly in a subjective sense and solely as a means of individualist expression. you cannot collectivize grammar. it is not a function of the group, but a function of the individual.
your theory is wrong.
so, fuck off.
9:34
don't fucking tell me how to fucking express myself.
i have no tolerance for that kind of fucking bullshit.
9:35
oddly, the spam messages are now apparently fixed.
what i did was change my password.
9:35
that suggests that there was some lonely, idiot cop reading my email and marking my blog posts, which were sent to myself, as "spam" - a live human, not a bot.
kill yourself.
you're pathetic.
9:38
socialism is when the means of production is in the hands of the people, who make resource-allocation decisions on behalf of society, more broadly. production is based on need, rather than on profit. it's an economic relationship, but it says little about social relations. i support that.
collectivism is when the group is seen as more important than the individual, or the abolition of individualism altogether. it suggests that the rights of individuals are not important, but the rights of a group (whatever that means) are. another term for collectivism has historically been corporatism, as it is based on the idea that the individual does not really exist except as a part of the broader body, or corps. it's a social and moral idea that has little to say about economics. i oppose this.
any questions?
16:17
the catholics can go fucking crucify themselves on a cross of shit.
the last thing we need in this country is catholic teachers speaking out of turn. they can shut the fuck up.
16:36
students that do not want to show up to class should be failed.
16:42
so, i finally tried some mango in my fruit bowl this morning, and i have to say it really tasted like a peach. well, it tasted like a processed peach, not like biting into a fresh one.
i like peaches. but, peaches aren't particularly nutritious. mangos are pretty nutritious. the difference in price is dramatic...
the mangos i bought were about 30% pit. so they're nowhere near as big as i thought. i didn't try to eat the skin, but the skins are actually pretty thin on this variety - comparable to a lot of edible skins, if a little on the heavy side, in that spectrum. i tried to cut it like an avocado at first, before realizing i was better off cutting four slices away from the rind and then peeling the skin off with my fingers. you can then scrape off what's left with a knife, but it wasn't much.
i'm actually going to try the next batch with the skin on, like i eat kiwis. i'd like to eat banana and avocado skin, but it's just too much. we'll see about the mango....
am i sticking with it, though? well, it's hard to justify the cost. the glycemic index is a little higher than my other staples. i think the right answer is that i should keep an eye out for it on sale. like, really on sale. sometimes...
but, i haven't decided, yet.
20:04
i know it's a hard truth to come to, but the nutritional value of the fruit grown in canada is shit.
look at the fruit i have to get to build a seriously nutritious fruit bowl:
- strawberries, which are grown here, but they're tiny little things. the strawberries in canada mostly come from florida or california. we don't import many mexican strawberries, or at least i don't see them much. we could do this better in greenhouses, but we seem attached to our six weeks a year of mini strawberries. let's get past this.
- the white guavas are imported from mexico, but the pink ones are from the dominican republic. that's haiti's better half. if we import substantive amounts of goods from the dominican republic, i'm not aware of it. guavas grow in the southern united states, but would be hard to grow outside in canada.
- the kiwis i buy are mostly from italy. there's no reason we couldn't grow kiwis in the niagara area, but they would be better in greenhouses, as well.
- avocadoes in canada are imported in bulk from mexico
- banana production enjoys a very old monopoly in the western hemisphere, where they're grown mostly in central america.
- the frozen raspberries are strangely from serbia. i think raspberries do grow and can be grown almost anywhere. i don't know why the store is stocking frozen raspberries from serbia, and then overcharging for them.
- the mangoes are from mexico, as well.
what grows in canada?
- apples, tender fruits (peaches, nectarines, pears, plums, prunes, and cherries), grapes, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, and raspberries.
the berries have some value as vessels of vitamin c, and i happen to be a fan of cherries, but this is otherwise largely a list of the most useless fruits that there are.
we can do better than this, and we should strive to, as we find ourselves with dwindling space to actually grow actual food. there's no room in the future for low-efficiency fruits like apples and peaches. we need to shift to foods with better nutrition.
so, i don't want to import fruit, but i don't want to buy canadian fruit, either, because it sucks. give me the right choice - let me buy mangoes and avocadoes grown in canada.
20:31
so, the liberals are pushing through with offshore oil drilling in the subarctic and people are expressing surprise. i'm not surprised.
canada is a colonial state that exists for one reason: to extract resources for shareholders, most of them in the old world. the location of the shareholders has changed somewhat, but the purpose of this entity called "the government of canada" has not. insofar as the government does anything besides extract resources, it's largely as a human resources front-end for the extracting firms.
i was always very realistic about this: the liberals, the bay street party, were never going to shut down the oil industry. but, what struck me as somewhat encouraging about trudeau and his cronies was that they seemed to realize that green energy - green capitalism - was a major opportunity for this entity, that exists to extract resources.
the most optimistic thing that could have been hoped for from a trudeau government is that they might build the infrastructure to allow for transition, which is something no activist can do. only the state can really do this. it's only once profits from renewable energy begin to exceed profits from dirty energy that the investment environment shifts. and, then the liberals don't do anything - then the market fixes the problem for them.
are they doing what i hoped? no. but, they've made minor steps towards it.
i understand that the situation is dire. and i agree that the government is not doing enough. but, the government is neither composed of activists, nor of scientists; the government is run by investors. for all the talk of trudeau having no remote qualifications to form government or lead a country, remember that he inherited a hell of a trust fund.
we need to do many things at once. government is important, but it isn't everything. the best we can do regarding the problem of government is to push them to build infrastructure that will benefit investors - the capitalist state is incapable of doing anything else.
be upset - you should be. but, be sober, too. this is what colonialism is.
21:37
i think everybody expects macron to win the first round, and it will certainly be a statement by the people of france about how poorly he's performed, if he does not. the question is round two and, as i stated before, i think le pen will at the least making it very, very close.
i couldn't vote for macron to block le pen, myself.
22:03
i think people are confused by the spectrum, though.
the general english media account is that macron represents some bourgeois soft-left, and le pen represents the right. but, the spectrum in france has imploded, and it is worth pointing out that macron commands a lot of traditionally conservative support, while le pen is getting a lot of support from traditional socialist voters.
i think that they are both on the extreme right, in competing senses, and that the real way to understand the spectrum in france is that it doesn't actually exist.
22:30
sunday, april 10, 2022
this is an example of how the parties have become a two-headed monster.
jean charest was previously the leader of the federal conservative party, from 1993-1998. this was the period where the federal conservative party had split into populist/western factions ("reform", which was fundamentally built on the social credit movement in western canada, rather than the old tory federal conservative party, rooted in the upper classes of eastern canada) and old tory aristocratic/eastern factions. so, i say he was the leader of the conservatives, but it comes with that caveat - he was the leader of the rump party left after the party splintered. he won 20 seats in 1997 - better than the the two that were won in 1993 - and resigned to pursue a career in provincial politics.
jean charest then joined the liberal party in quebec in 1998 and was then the liberal premier of quebec, from 2003-2012, when he was forced out in the midst of the student strike demonstrations, as well as a lingering corruption scandal.
he's been quiet since. i mean, he got thrown out of office on corruption charges. that's usually career-ending.
however, he's now arguably the front-runner to once again becoming the leader of the federal conservatives, which have been reformed to a unified party, since the late 90s (something mr. charest staunchly opposed).
it's true that the federal and provincial parties in canada are separate entities, and that there's some subtleties around jumping back and forth. people that vote liberal federally may vote new democrat provincially in british columbia, for example. further, people change - that's fine.
but, that argument only works once, and in one direction. when you go from the conservatives to the liberals and back to the conservatives again, what you expose is a revolving door and a level of collusion behind the scenes.
at the end of the day, it's all theatre. the bankers win, either way. but, mr. charest's party jumping just exacerbates the point - it makes the reality pretty blatant, which is that there is not truly a difference between the parties, anymore.
there are classes in canada, and we all need to carefully understand our class interests. but, the ideological differences have been laid bare - it's thatcherite neo-liberalism for all, and there is no alternative on the ballot.
in canada, this is recent. you can date the start of it to the mid-00s, and blame it on ignatieff or martin, but the real point where the liberals embraced neo-liberalism was the election of justin trudeau, who has put the party on a direct, linear path to the hard right.
18:08
he can blather on all he wants, but he signed an agreement, and he's going to vote for it.
reference:
18:33
down here in windsor, we've already had a few nice days this year, even if they've been sort of ruined by the wind. you can't ask for extended periods of warmth this time of year, but it's helpful to work your way backwards from the midpoint between the last two solstices.
the shortest days of the year are around dec 21st, and it might seem like those should be the coldest, but it never works that way due to latent heat. the midpoint of dec 21st to mar 21st is about feb 1st, and canadians will mostly agree that that's about the coldest time of the year. so, we're about 2 months forward from the coldest time of the year; if we were to consider what point was two months before the coldest part of the year, it would be the start of december, which is when the reality of winter starts to set in (due to the shortening days). we typically get multiple mid to late teen pleasant days in december and in march, here, while we have to settle for rare low teen thaws in january and february. but, we typically get a handful of hot days in november and april, here, nowadays, in the new climate. as summer tends to linger into november nowadays, it tends to start going in april, as well.
there were six days where the temperature was about 15 degrees in windsor in march, including one above 20. that 20 degree day was technically in winter.
i'm sure we'll get bounces back into spring. but, it looks like it's going to get legitimately hot this week - nearly 30 degree humidity on wednesday. and, i'd expect it will be back by the end of the month, at least twice.
may will be summer in windsor, this year and most years moving forwards - as october has become, as well.
this is the new climate, and the models will need to adjust to deal with it.
the new seasons are as follows:
winter: jan-feb [temperatures hover around zero, but warm and cold snaps are possible]
spring: march-april [temperatures hover around 10, but warm and cold snaps are possible]
summer: may-october [temperatures are almost continually above 20]
fall: november-december [temperatures hover around 10, but warm and cold snaps are possible]
19:24
i mentioned the other day that i was going to type up an html table (a template) for my grocery list and print a bunch of them off. and, then i wondered if i could do this digitally.
i've been checking in periodically to see if digital tablets (i mean that in the old sense, as containing a stylus pen type input device) have come down enough in price and are actually useful or not for quite a long time and did another round tonight. i'm still not seeing what i really want. this would ultimately stem from the fact that i was at one point a math student, and not being able to scrawl things into the computer was always a major annoyance. what i initially wanted - some kind of usb pen type contraption - is now pretty cheap, where it was once very expensive, but it's no longer a thing i'm really excited about. what i'm looking for now is a digital note-taking device, and they're still running in the hundreds of dollars because the bottom of the market isn't being catered to. there are very cheap devices that are intended for kids to draw on, like etch-a-sketches. but they can't do the basic thing i'd want them to do, which is to save and reload a template. worse, they all take chrome batteries, which is wasteful.
but, after looking into it, there is something that i'm finding interesting, and that's this rocketbook mini, which is a reusable plastic notebook with erasable ink. now, to be clear - it has to be small, because i need to put it in my pocket or bag for grocery shopping. the fact that small means cheap is a happy coincidence, but anything that's large, here, is less useful. i was initially thinking that i wanted a device that could load the template up, let me scrawl over it and discard it, but i'd have to get into the hundreds of dollars to do that basic thing - along with a million other things i don't care about. and, i mean, that device is going to turn into a tracking device, too, which i'm not keen about. but, because the rocketbook is erasable, and doesn't require a battery to maintain memory, it can instead let me set up the grocery list once and then just erase and reenter the quantity and cost of items as required. it's useful for the task i actually want.
is this really necessary? well, what i've been doing for years is just scrawling over scrap paper. i have a pile of paper that has been used for some other purpose previously and still has plenty of space to write on, so i just reuse it for grocery lists, and recycle it when i'm done. if i were to run off a template, i'd have to go to the library, and then i'd be wasting paper. but, i'd be saving time. so, i kind of thought about that and reweighted it: is the time saved worth the paper wasted?.
this will solve both problems, without costing me much - i just ordered it for $30, including shipping. i will eventually spend that on legacy pens.
and, what of the ink? well, i'm using ink anyways. if i can replace the ink in the pen they send me, and i think i can, i could use a little less plastic. and, i believe i can recycle the notebook, one day, if i have to.
after looking into it, the pages do eventually get warped by the pressure placed on the paper, but if i'm only using it for one thing, it could last quite a while. there's 48 double sided pages in the notebook. if i can get a year out of each side, that's 96 years of grocery lists. i may find myself recycling each page one by one.
a digital writer (like a mobiscribe) would be ideal as a total notepad solution, one day, but right now it's still kind of not what i want. mobility was not previously important to me, but it is now; in that sense, a 6x9 device is just too big to lug around. remember - i don't use a phone. but, in the sense that having a mobile computer may be useful to me, it's a tablet-style device that i'd want, rather than a touch screen; if i can't type into it, at least let me write into it! i'm not a passive consumer of media, i want to be an active participant and i'm just going to get bored watching something. and, that price, for what i'd be using it for, is ridiculous. one day, though? yeah - i could see the value of having a computer in my pocket that i can write on, even if i can't really see the use of having one i can watch movies on, or push buttons on or talk into. full integration with a stylus pen - so that i could write emails, for example - would really save the concept of mobile computing, for me. a big part of the reason i don't have a phone is that the actual functionality of the device really isn't very exciting to me.
so, if the mobiscribe is too big to be useful as a mobile device (at least in the way i'd use it, for now), and i'd have to leave it at home, why would i pay hundreds of dollars for it when i can get a basic input device for $50 and let software on my pc deal with the hard stuff? as mentioned, i don't see myself having any real use for that, in the near future. but, if i'm ultimately scrawling into word anyways, why not just scrawl into word over usb, in the first place?
i can grasp that something like a mobiscribe may be of use to somebody in an office, which is what they're marketed for, but that's what i'm saying - there's a bottom of the market here that needs something smaller with storable memory, and that doesn't currently have a product marketed towards them.
so, as mentioned, i do this every once in a while, and they never really have what i want, although they're getting closer. i certainly cannot justify spending hundreds of dollars on a device of hat sort, at the moment. but, the reusable notebook should actually be rather helpful to me, i hope.
22:41
monday, april 11, 2022
and, is it time to get a new chromebook?
it might be.
this chromebook was intended to be used as a mobile device, because my two laptops were both screenless. the screen works on it, but the battery doesn't (i think it's been forcibly broken by the firmware, but i can't find a way to unlock it) and the keyboard and mouse don't, either. it's also become fragile around the power button. i can't take this anywhere.
while i'm not using it right now, i think it's imperative that i have a mobile device, of some sort. so, i need to replace it with something i could take mobile, if i need to.
my backup laptop is not actually broken; the backlit is burned out, which could be replaced, if it was worth it, but it will boot just fine into an external monitor. rather, i've kept it off the network because i was sure it was getting hacked, and because i've been waiting to build that windows 7 image. i just haven't needed it - i've been using the chromebook for network access. but, i want to get that back up, soon. i want to mostly keep it off the network, though...
i've given up on the 90s laptop as a television, but have repurposed it as the phone. it would be helpful to me to have the phone and the tv on the same computer, but if i can't do that, so be it. and, to that end, i've finally purchased an old timey cisco voip phone, which i've been waiting for the price to fall on for years. i got a Cisco 7941 Series CP-7941G V, probably surplus from some out-of-business call centre, that i can just plug in between the 90s laptop and the (wired) router. so, i can stop calling out through a usb web cam. i'm sure the sound quality will come up dramatically. cost: $10 + shipping.
but, that means i need a new tv, and it's going to be what happens to this chromebook.
so, to recall.
- 90s laptop (xp) : voip phone centre, complete with incoming actual 90s voip phone. i'll set this up in the other room.
- compaq laptop (vista/7) : i should be able to get windows 7 back on there soon, with a fresh image, and hope i can use it to do a couple of things i can't do on the production machine, for various reasons, for now. in the long run, i like to have a typewriter near my bed. that's what this will be for, in the medium term.
- hp laptop (7): it's telling me the bios is missing. if i can reprogram this, it's the faster machine, and i can put 8 gb of ram in the board. i'd like to use it as dedicated video processing machine, but i have to get it to boot, first. i may be able to get a fairly cheap system board replacement, but i have a lot of things to try before i get there.
- chromebook (expired at chrome 69): it runs html5 in guest mode, which is more than good enough to be a television set, for the foreseeable future. it's a dual core processor with four gb of ram, but i can't upgrade the os in it without hacking the chip. i tried once and it didn't let me. for now, if i just use it as the television set, it should be fine. in the long run, i may have to hack it to install linux on it, in order to upgrade the browser.
- new chromebook: access point, for now.
i like the idea of maintaining an easily wipeable chromebook as an access point, for now. i'm hoping the cops fuck off sooner than later, but i think they're still here, for now.
so, yeah - it's time for a new chromebook. let's see if i can find something cheap.
that leaves the three pcs in 16/32/64 modes, all off the network, and all for music production.
2:24
speaking of which, the production machine remains stable, and i'm wondering if i want to try with a 4th stick.
2:25
and, that all came from wondering how to print off an html table for my grocery list, which was a loose end.
2:27
yes, i have 4 laptops and three pcs.
three of the laptops are broken; the one that isn't broken was manufactured in the late 90s. two of the broken laptops boot, but one of them requires an external monitor. none of them are worth more than $50. the new one won't be worth much more than that - i'm going to spend $100, max. i can do that because i have some extra money for groceries this month.
my oldest pc came with windows 98 on it and my main pc has a "vista ready" asus board. the third pc has not yet been built, but will be built soon.
i'm a nerd, but i'm poor - i can find ways to use technology that you can't, and i hold on to things most people would throw out. don't get the wrong idea.
2:37
you could think of it like this, too.
- i don't have a phone, i instead have a 90s laptop that has been converted into a phone.
- i don't have a tv, i instead have an expired chromebook that's been converted into a tv.
- i don't have a typewriter. well, most people don't have typewriters. but, i am converting a windows 7 laptop into a typewriter.
- i have a broken hp machine that i want to turn into a video editing machine.
- i have a very old pc that i have used as a typewriter [2007-2013]. a tv [2013-2017] and that now exists as a 16-bit recording device.
- i have been using the same machine to record since 2007.
- i do have a new pc to build
- and, i need a cheap mobile device.
that's not exorbitant, really. it's resourceful. it's nerdy, but it's making due with what i've got, it's not an extravagant pile of expensive hardware.
well, i save a lot of money. right? enjoy your government job and your $8000 imac, which is just a rebranded $800 dell. i'll take an expired chromebook and perpetual free time, thanks.
2:45
stated another way: i've been a nerd since the 90s, and i've never thrown a computer out.
2:47
in the long run, am i just going to buy a cell phone and use it as a tablet?
it's possible.
but, it remains the case that i'll need to pay quite a bit for what i actually want.
2:59
this is so ridiculously naive.
the reason we had an election in the first place was so they could get a majority so they could push through austerity budgets.
7:07
so, around 14:00 this afternoon, i bought a dell chromebook 11 3120 for $115, including tax, from factory direct, in windsor. it comes with a 90 day warranty.
the model is expired, but it hardly matters. i bought the one i'm typing this on already expired in october, 2018 and it should last another several years before i have to hack the os. if i get 3.5 years of internet use out of this access device for $115, it's more than worth it. what i've learned is that all internet devices expire, by the nature of the modern internet. i have a perfectly functional 90s laptop that i can barely browse the internet with because the sites won't let me, not because the device isn't capable of it. so, you can upgrade your internet device for $1000 or $100 - you're going to have to upgrade it, whether it really needs it or not. the expiry date on the chromebook is consequently more of a formality than anything else.
however, this model doesn't have an ethernet connection, so i then spent all afternoon looking for a usb-to-ethernet cable. they had one at best buy for $40, which defeats the point. nobody else had one. i just bought one on ebay for $15 and hope it will be here by the end of the week.
these devices were manufactured for public school use, so, like this thinkpad, they're fairly rugged, for cheap tablets. this one has a decal for a public school in montana on it, but it doesn't look like it's ever been used. it's likely been sitting in a box since 2015 or 2016. it's the same size as this thinkpad and has the same amount of ram but has a 2.5 ghz dual core, whereas the thinkpad has a 1.4 ghz dualcore. the thinkpad (which was manufactured in 2013) runs perfectly fine, but i can't update it and websites are starting to tell me i can no longer access them. the dell won't update either, but it comes preloaded about 25 versions of chrome forwards and it will likely be several years before i run into problems with it.
it's a brand new laptop with decent specs with an operating system dated to september, 2021. for $100, i think that's a good deal.
i will no doubt eventually run out of things to do with these old laptops, but, for now, each one has a use. and, when that connector gets here, i'll move the thinkpad into the other room and set it up to connect strictly to youtube as a tv.
what that means is that i'll be back to watching a viewing schedule when i'm eating, and will likely pick back up at stanford where i left off.
21:14
this chromebook is 15 years newer than the 90s laptop i tried to use as a tv previously, and will run flawlessly for years to come. so long as the device continues to boot, i will not have tv-while-eating access problems for years to come, which is a long time coming. it's been some time since i've had a dedicated device for that reason that functioned well enough to actually utilize.
in the mean time, that device will work great as a phone.
21:16
if you want to spend money on a top of the line computer, you should really spend it on a desktop, and then you should probably airgap it. if you're going to do things in the cloud, you don't need a fancy computer - you need a dumb terminal like this chromebook. you're going to travel with it, you're going to break it and you're going to need to replace it. if you want to do any sort of serious thing - like make music or video processing or graphic design - you want to leave your computer in one place so that it lasts. further, connecting to the internet has no benefit and many drawbacks.
so, the rule should be to aim for cheap for mobile, internet devices and spend your money on desktop computers that are intended to stay put for decades at a time.
it's the truth: you can spend $5000 on a top of the line desktop and have no really serious reason to update it for 20 years, if you just keep it off of the internet. but, anything you put on the internet is subject to shifts in design architecture, in encryption technology, etc that you just can't sit on for more than a few years at a time. you will need to upgrade your hardware or your software or both, and that's going to cost you money, one way or another. if you don't have it, take the path of least resistance and refrain from splurging on anything you intend to connect to anything at all.
the way i've been doing it for years now is that i just move finished projects back and forth from the terminals using usb. usb drives are huge and cheap. that separation is valuable, in terms of prolonging the lifespan of your serious computers.
i could, in some sense, have a reason to get irked for paying $100 for a processor upgrade that i don't really need, and a software update i've been artificially banned from accessing, directly. i don't see any reason that this thinkpad couldn't run the newest version of chrome. but, as stated, the battery is dead, and i've spilled water on it, damaging the keyboard. it's no longer mobile, which is what it was intended to be. so, i had to upgrade it, regardless. but, that's just the point, right? you're going to break your mobile devices. i bought it cheap ($160), and i replaced it cheap. together, i paid $275 for the two of them, including taxes.
three-four years from now, i'd suspect the out of print chromebooks are going to have quad-core processors, touchscreens and 8 gb of ram, and you'll get them for $50. i guess i can look forward to that, and the need to swap some of the functionality around - i may need to replace my typewriter.
right now, i need to clean a little in here and get back to loose ends.
21:57
the newest processors have 9 16 cores in them.
i don't know what the hell you'd need nine sixteen cores for.
22:16
listen: i have yet to run into any serious problems in cubase, running a 32-bit windows xp with 4 gb of ram (less than that, really) and a dual core pentium d from c. 2006.
and, i'm running 100 track projects with multiple plugins.
the newer sample libraries require more ram, which means i have to upgrade my operating system. but, i have no limitations in music production on a 15+ year old processor.
these things they're selling are just crazy.
22:25
to be clear, my d's are fast - they're both 3.6 ghz. the reason they moved to more cores was because you can't get much faster than that, you have to increase speed through parallel processing. they were pricey, too. i bought a good processor and it's lasted a long time.
but, that's just the point.
you don't need an i9.
you don't need an i3.
22:28
actually, i just realized that xp was only picking up one of my ds because i had acpi turned off.
i wonder if that had to do with anything.
well, it's back to picking them both up, again.
23:34
i just updated my video card drivers, as well. now, i have to see if it made a difference or not.
23:43
the error in cubase reappeared on reinstallation of videocard drivers.
what happens if i uninstall them?
23:53
tuesday, april 12, 2022
it's fine if i uninstall them.
the error is the video card drivers.
let me get the newest version, then.
i don't remotely give a fuck about the graphics display, in any way at all. it just has to output a video to the screen. that's it.
0:07
the newest version was the version i had.
see, this is new...well, not anymore, but it was new. it didn't do this before.
i'm tempted to conclude that the card is physically damaged.
that's fine, i can run it without the drivers. the refresh rate is a little slower, but that actually just improved a lot by getting the multiprocessing back.
i'm tempted to reinstall, but it wouldn't be helpful at the moment.
0:19
yeah. lol.
i thought it was choppy because there weren't video card drivers. it was choppy because it was only using one cpu.
i'm going to put the other ram stick back in, too,
0:21
so, those video card drivers were added in 2014. i certainly did quite a bit of work with them running, at least i think. but, what were the drivers i had before that?
i have a cd from 2010 but it won't read.
it's fine. i'll just forget about it for now. and, in fact, i still need to really prove that the machine is stable with everything except the video card drivers.
but, it now has the full four gigabytes of ram, it's reading the dual core, it has all of the hard drives running and it's got the firewire connection turned back on in the bios, too. usb is fine. the chipset drivers are updated. all of the sound cards are installed.
i'm running a big search on an external, which is the behaviour that caused it to crash. cubase seemed ok, and the search seems ok, so far.
like i say: i'm tempted to run the script, but i still need to do things one at a time, and i don't really gain anything from that just right now. for right now, i can reinstall things one by one. and, honestly, there's a fair number of things i don't use and can probably skip, anyways.
let me get back to loose ends and try to finish this soon.
right now, i need to sleep.
1:15
this is a loose end.
everything else aside, the primary reason i had to stop recording was that my recording machine wasn't working correctly and i couldn't figure out what was wrong with it.
video card drivers are not an unusual cause for halting, but the issue is recent, and it doesn't make total sense - unless, like i say, the card itself is damaged, and i'm avoiding the problem by not turning on the part of the card that is damaged.
1:17
i may continue to have some issues scrolling and, if i do, i'll want to go back to an older driver package.
i have to prove the point, first.
1:28
so, i got a response in the case.
what i asked the court to do was pull the file from this hokey tribunal called the oiprd and just work the issue out themselves. i don't like this system of tribunals and "independent bodies" that are set up in ontario, as they tend to not really know what they're doing. i find them broadly incompetent and borderline corrupt and want a return to a normal judicial system that applies common law properly and knows what it's doing. the purpose of the oiprd is to cover up issues for the police, not to objectively analyze issues the way a court would. i have a constitutional right to have the issue heard in a real court. but, the issue at hand existed in a loophole in the rules and i might have been able to get a normal court ruling out of it.
the panel sidestepped all of that, which gives me an opportunity to appeal if they do it again. i was asking the panel to make decisions that should perhaps be made by a higher body, and that i might have to appeal to a higher body to get a more independent decision on. this panel sort of has to follow instructions.
so, what they did was send the issue back to the tribunal. the technical ruling was that the tribunal did not rule on the question as to whether the arrest was lawful or not, which was "unreasonable". therefore, the tribunal has to do it again.
i think that the tribunal really did rule on this issue, but the way it did it was informal. certainly, i can predict the outcome, and they can expect me to appeal it. this is what i said in the reply factum: while perhaps somewhat unorthodox in application, the oiprd's position on the legaliy of the arrest is entirely clear, and i would appeal the result. so, why not save time and just get to the appeal?
as mentioned before, the court made a technical, bureaucratic ruling. it really doesn't make sense, but it's technically and bureaucratically correct. i have no legal qualms with the decision.
so, what i expect to happen now is as follows:
- the oiprd will rule the arrest was legal
- i will appeal that
- the divisional court will uphold the oiprd's decisions, as they've indicated they won't act independently
- i will need to appeal to the court of appeal on the question of the basis of review (correctness or reasonableness), and see if i can get an independent voice at a higher body
so, this isn't done. rather, it's just starting. i'll get a response in a few weeks, and this will be back in divisional court by the fall.
i will need to send an email to the karen's lawyer.
10:18
there is a big difference, though, and that is that the oiprd will now have to consider the evidence i won admittance on: the issue of whether the karen's role as an employee of the crown created influence over the officer and the question as to whether the karen lied on the report or not.
10:46
to be clear: i refer to the karen as the karen not because it adds flair to this writing, although it does, but because i would consider it inappropriate to state the karen's name in this space repeatedly.
this is my blog and i have a right to type what i want in it, subject to being allowed to do so by the owners of the web space. but, i need to show some due diligence and responsibility, as well.
i don't need to type the karen's name over and over.
10:48
so, did i win?
i don't think this is a ruling, it's a deferral to a future ruling. i think the court indicated that it agreed with me, but the actual ruling was more along the lines of that it felt that it shouldn't be ruling directly. and, i think i should expect that a second time: if i have to appeal the new decision, i may find myself able to convince the judge that i'm right but unable to convince the judge to overturn the tribunal. i find that situation - where a judge agrees with you but won't rule on it - to be atrocious, and something that must be fixed at once.
if a judge agrees with you, the judge should not be restricted from stating as much. that reduces the court system to an empty shell, while placing all of the power in these extra-judicial kangaroo bodies with no constitutional power. and, that is not the intent of the legislature, in ontario.
the new precedent is, itself, an affront to the rule of law. and, i'll be happy to take it to the supreme court and throw it in wagner's face, if i need to.
right now, i got a technical ruling, and i have no grounds to complain about it. but, i feel the precedent underlying the ruling is also undermining the credibility of the judicial system, and the role of the judiciary, itself.
vavilov is not sustainable and must be overturned.
11:08
my understanding is that bodies like the oiprd, the human rights tribunal, the tenant board, etc were not intended as bodies of expertise or to have greater authority on issues of legal concern than the court, but rather to reduce case loads in higher courts by offloading commonly heard cases with clear, stable precedents. it wasn't a question of deferral, but rather of delegation. the intent of the legislature is that the court is supposed to have unimpeded authority over tribunals of this sort, which were delegated with mundane tasks seen as taking up resources used by the court. so, the intent was never that a superior court judge should defer to some hokey civilian body on a rule of law issue - that's utterly preposterous, and completely absurd. the intent was that the court should delegate certain routine issues, and only look at them if the tribunal fucks up, somehow. all cases of this sort should be heard on a correctness basis; the idea of reasonableness is incoherent, in context, and an affront to my constitutional right to put an issue before a common law judge.
if we're going to have rulings like this as a result of vavilov, they need to go to the supreme court to have the precedent corrected, as the precedent puts the administration of justice in...this isn't even disrepute. this is the abolition of actual law in this country, and a collapse into a policed state.
if the judiciary cannot overrule the police, it is no longer able to do it's most basic constitutional function and we're in a constitutional crisis, in this country.
11:34
like i say - for now, the ruling is technical. the oiprd didn't do a formal report on the legality of the arrest, and must do so before the issue can carry forwards. i think it's a waste of time and would have rather skipped that step, but ok.
but, the feeling i'm getting from the court is rather ominous - that it's been reduced to some pontius-like figure, stripped of independence and forced to uphold a decision it disagrees with. and, that opens up questions that are bigger than this case and that i feel are worth fighting to correct.
i can't be told by a judge that they agree that the police acted illegally, but cannot state as much because they have to defer to a civilian body, that has no expertise in the matter and was intended to deal with mundane issues. that is unacceptable - that is a collapse into complete backwardsness.
11:38
ok.
they seem to get it.
i don't think the policies announced do nearly enough, and they are predictably geared towards the very wealthy and, to a much lesser extent, the desperately poor - which i don't qualify for because i'm not desperate enough. i mean refugees and indigenous people. i'm as poor as they get (in this country), but i'm not as desperate as somebody fleeing a war. i realize that, while my situation is tenuous, i'm not in direct threat of homelessness.
but, it's been a long time since the government was talking like this, and cluing in that a problem exists is the first step towards fixing it.
https://globalnews.ca/news/8752309/canada-home-prices-intergenerational-injustice-chrystia-freeland/
12:36
so, as the inside of a mango is very sweet, it actually overpowers the taste of the peel if you eat them together by just leaving the skin on the fruit. but, to be honest, i actually even sort of like the taste of the mango skin. so, the taste is really actually pretty pleasant.
it's a good boost of vitamin e.
as mentioned, this variety is not that thick - a little thicker than an apple, but not much. it's less thick than an orange.
so, these are the peels/skins i'm eating:
guava
berries (cherry, blueberry)
kiwi
tomato
red pepper
chili pepper
carrots
limes
oranges
these are the ones that are too heavy to eat, although i'd like to eat them:
banana
avocado
garlic
these items don't have skins:
strawberry
raspberry
kale
broccoli
13:40
seems like dhimmi joe just put a saudi puppet in control in pakistan.
the democratic party's recent embrace of extreme forms of conservative islam threatens to have profoundly negative consequences for the region and the world. they seem to be facilitating the rise of a fascist muslim empire centered in riyadh.
13:53
i did an independent research study project on this specific topic when i was in high school.
ethanol has some potential as a gap fuel, especially considering the large amount of nutritionally useless corn grown in the midwest, but the major draw back is that we make pesticides and fertilizers out of oil.
as oil is a major input variable into the production of "biofuels" via pesticide and fertilizer use, i actually would not expect this move to reduce gas prices by much, or to decrease emissions by much, either. more concerning is that biden may be relying on advisers that don't really understand how biofuels work.
i think that the state policy should be to drive the price of oil up to force people to adapt to using less of it. subsidies should be targeted at things like vouchers for public transit.
14:02
there's some value in using items like used cooking oil as fuel, but an economy based around the production of ethanol for fuel consumption is just a step sideways.
14:05
ridiculous subsidies for corn farmers aside, i would expect the cost of corn to go up over the next several months far more than i'd expect gas prices to come down, if they even come down at all.
so, if you eat a lot of corn, i'd brace for that.
i might advise you eat something more nutritious. but, whatever.
14:18
see, people think this has to do with the jews, but it doesn't.
dhimmi joe isn't like the uppity obama; he will follow saudi directions on isolating iran.
let's hope he's the last president that remembers the opec embargo, or is still stuck in the geopolitics of the 1960s. it's the last thing the world needed, and it's the flip-side of his return-to-the-cold-war policy in europe, that's responsible for an unnecessary and entirely avoidable russian invasion of ukraine. we need to move on, and the world can't afford electing another baby boomer fossil.
if you want a comparison to the soviets, that really seems to be it. everything else aside, a gerontocracy took hold in the soviet union in the late 70s that couldn't see past khruschev. they just got stuck. the same thing is happening in the united states. which can't move past reagan and consequently can neither understand the present nor the future.
certain elements of the democratic party may want to sell you on this as moving past the "forever war", which is a stupid phrase. that's a spin. the truth is that what biden has done on file after file is dust off the policies of the 60s, 70s and 80s, which he seems to think should have never been left behind.
a modern superpower can only survive for so long under that kind of backwardsness before it collapses under it's own weight.
so, don't worry about the israelis. biden is still fighting against the loss of anglo-persian company iranian oil reserves, and aligning with the saudis to punish the iranians for being independent.
i bet he remembers the iranian revolution like it was yesterday.
the israelis may be in for a serious wake-up call a few years from now, but they have little to fear from dhimmi joe and should turn off the fox news propaganda telling them they do.
20:30
i'm realizing that sony is a major investor in the company that bought bandcamp. ugh.
remember this?
23:37
i think there's a good chance that bandcamp is going to get shut down. that's what the majors do to smaller labels: they buy them and dismantle them.
it might be helpful in the long run, even if it's a major annoyance in the short term.
my advice is to diversify and be ready.
23:38
on looking at the jjjjjjjjj 2xlp a little closer, there are actually only three tracks that need to be remixed to reintegrate the vocals - clarity, fuck boxes and running out of time. clarity was rebuilt to remove the vocals in such a way that was intended to be identical to the original master, so i was considering just using the 2002 mix that is on the rabit is wolf demo lp but i'd like to turn the vocals down a bit and maybe remove a few lines. spin & untitled don't have vocals. i can just drop the vocal lalalala in.
for fuck boxes and running out of time, i'll absolutely need to mix the vocals into the new mixes rather than use the old ones, but, for these particular tracks, it's arguably something i should have done, anyways. the rabit 6 track lp demo also had me, myself.., psi and the vocal version of trepanation nation, which will not be updated. of the three, only the last could be updated, anyways.
and, i can revisit whether i want to do vocals for spin, after all, as well.
ok.
i'm going to upload a skeleton for inri085, like i did for inri084, it'll hopefully be done in a few weeks.
23:44
wednesday, april 13, 2022
what am i going to call this?
well, it's a jjjjjjjjj record, with guest vocals by sean on three tracks. two of these three tracks were intended as inri reboot (trinri) tracks. the other one was collaborative in the abstract, but the fact is that i recorded it entirely by myself, minus the vocals. the other 12 songs are either instrumental or have me singing on them.
i am going to do some production on the vocals as well, to fit the aesthetic in the remixes. some vocal parts will be removed altogether. this is consistent with the kind of vocal rebuilds i did for the inri period.
i will note in the liner notes that the tracks have sean singing, and were intended for use in the rabit is wolf project. but, i otherwise just don't see the utility or value in relabeling it.
it will be presented as what it really was, which was a solo project with a guest vocalist.
the rabit is wolf demo will always exist, and will always be labeled as what it is. these alternate lps exist strictly to plug a conceptual hole, so that there ate alternate vocal versions of the instrumental recordings, in completed and finalized forms, rather than strictly as demos.
0:00
these tracks had sean singing in the initial releases, so the alternate lps have to have sean singing, too. it's that simple.
i wanted to avoid this because i didn't want to cut the vocals up, but this particular application is relatively benign, and the use of his vocals is actually going to be relatively minimal, in comparison. i'm not rebuilding the demo, which is the thing i wanted to avoid - that is as it was left in 2002. rather, entire sections will be left out. i'm going to need to really flatten a lot of it out, as well, because the tonality...it was always bad, but it mattered less when i hadn't written over it.
that's the fourth of the four, so the last thing is to get the vocal version of {e} going.
remember: the idea is to have a series of my official records packaged in 2xlps, as alternate lps, so that it fits into a sequence that (for now) ends with my 8th record, which is a 2xlp itself.
the alternate lp sequence is then inri/inriched, inrimake/inridiculous, deny everything/ftaa, jjjjjjjjj/jjjjjjjjj^2, {e}.
jjjjjjjjj^2 will have three songs with sean as a guest vocalist. it also has three songs with myself as a lead vocalist, and a number of tracks with minimal vocal parts by myself. i may do lead vocals on a fourth track, i have't decided yet.
so, that's coming, soon.
0:15
ok, so this one is a little bit different.
inri082 and inri083 mixed vocals back into records they were removed from, to recreate an approximation of the initial recordings, but with all tracks updated to their final versions, musically. inri084 added samples (and minimal vocals) back to the records, as they existed in 2004, but with all tracks updated to their final musical versions. to complete the pattern, i'd want to add vocals to the jjjjjjjjj discs and set the tracklistings to what they were in 2001/2002. however, the two jjjjjjjjj discs were not released until 2014/2015, so there is no initial tracklisting or record to reconstruct. in 2001/2002, these tracks were a collection of outtakes, midi compositions, still-being-worked-through ideas and demos with sean. so, what to do?
instead, i've updated certain tracks to contain the maximal versions, which maintains the concept of the alternate lp sequence:
- a vocal mix for the first track was added after the record was released. that appears in this sequence.
- the intersection... is updated to include the version used in the 2016 remaster of inri, which contains the 2014 mix on the jjjjjjjjj record mixed into the 2015 string orchestra mix and modified further with digital effects processing to thicken it up. this is the maximal version of this track.
=============
- to spin inside dull aberrations may have a vocal track recorded in 2022 or may remain the same as the album mix
- clarity, 9:46 and time (unstuck) will have reconstructed vocals by sean. not yet. 9:46 will also include the dub guitar part.
- untitled was replaced by the saturated mix, which is the maximal version. lead guitars are updated in place of lead vocals, instead.
- lalalala is replaced with the vocal mix on the single.
in the end, either 5 or 6 of the tracks on the second record end up maximized and 2 on the first do.
4:01
ugh.
0th record - inricycled
1st record - inri
2nd record - inriched
(unofficial covers disc, inrimake)
3rd record - inridiculous
4th record - deny everything
(outtakes disc, inrimoved)
5th record - jjjjjjjjj
(the wave)
6th record - jjjjjjjjj^2
7th record - ftaaa
the cassette demos are not listed as official records. they're listed as pre-release demos.
11:33
- there is a 0th record released in 1997 that has material from 1996 and 1997.
- there is a first record released in 1998 and a second released in 1999, combined into a double. this is mostly material from 1998, and a little from 1997.
- there is a third released in late 1999, combined with the covers disc. this is 1999, with a bit of 1998.
- there is a fourth record released in late 2000 that is 2000.
- there is a fifth record released in late 2001 that is 2001.
- there is a a sixth record released in late 2002 that is 2002 and a bit of overflow from 2001. together, that's 2001/2002.
2003 gets skipped.
- but, there is a seventh record released in 2004 that is a collection of material dating back to 2001. really, it's 2001-2003.
- and, there is an upcoming eighth 2xlp released in late 2004 that is the proper 2003-2004 disc. that is, the 2003 and 2004 records release together at the end of 2004.
the doubles, then, release in:
- 1999 (for 1997/1998)
- 1999 (for 1999)
- 2004 (for 2000 + 2000-2004 experiments)
- 2002 (for 2001/2002)
- 2004 (for 2003/2004)
the 2005 and 2006 records take a sharp turn towards harsh, electronic noise, while leaving the guitar work mostly in demo form. that could conceivably come up as a double.
the 2007 record will be more like {e}, but it's not a double.
and, what i have from 2007-2011 is mostly scattered ideas that i'm not sure how to combine, yet. that was a long time ago, now, but it wasn't when i sat down to finish this in 2013.
15:03
and, i spent the afternoon filling in the bundles, dated to 2004.
if you start here and follow the link list forward to "bassist for hire", it has everything integrated, now:
that's the minimal csis records catalogue, followed by all of the alternate 2xlps, interspersed with the instrumental 2xlp bundles of the alternate lps (much of it historical), the actual 2xlp bundles of the instrumental versions and then a bunch of specialized bundle lists like ambient and vocal works.
what actually existed in 2004 was the csis records catalogue. but, if what exists today and is dated to before 2004 had existed in 2004 then the catalogue would have been larger.
the idea is that i want the items in the link list, because if i'm going to do the bundles for the instrumentals as reflections of the alternate lps then the bundles for the actual pairings should exist, too. and, then, i'd might as well do all of the pairings - and the extras, as well.
18:26
thursday, april 14, 2022
so, what is the objectively correct response to bliden blithering on about "genocide" in ukraine?
the first thing to point out is that the language is actually likely quite deliberate, as that is how the united states justifies it's military adventures: it accuses it's opponents of genocide. it hardly matters if it's true or not. the united states will accuse anybody at all of genocide, however flimsy the pretext, if it decides it wants to start a war with them. and, for that reason, those words should be taken with great alarm: it signals an intent for intervention in a conflict that is none of our business and that we have no self-interest in.
that said, it's important to put it into context: the russians have been accusing the ukrainians of carrying out a genocide in eastern ukraine for almost ten years now, and have cited it as a reason for invasion. so, it's sort of predictable to have the americans accuse the russians of genocide against ukraine because the russians are accusing the ukrainians of genocide against russian-speakers. what it does is warp the discourse: instead of talking about the reasonable russian accusation of genocide against ukraine (the ukrainians have been legitimately targeting russian-speakers for extermination), english media is now given bait to talk about rather outlandish suggestions of russian genocide against ukraine, whatever that even means, or however that can even be defined.
they'll tell you one day it's indiscriminate, and the next day that it's genocide. which is it?
as far as i can see, the truth is that the russians are primarily targeting the military infrastructure in most of the country and a handful of nazi paramilitaries in the south and east, but aren't trying particularly hard to avoid civilian casualties, either. indiscriminate killing seems closer to the truth than genocide. but, the right concept is really an american one: civilians are dying primarily as collateral damage.
so, i'm going to give biden ten pinocchios for the idea that the russians are carrying out a genocide, and suggest that what he's doing is projecting. the russian claims that the ukrainians are carrying out a genocide are evidence-based; the projective american claims are dangerous rhetoric that should be avoided.
16:28
there's some off chance that i might start using twitter if elon musk buys it, but they'd have to get rid of the stupid character limit, first.
16:37
that's not the first thing that went through my mind when i heard that biden accused the russians of genocide in ukraine, though. the first thing that went through my mind was that there's really no such thing as ukraine, so how can you launch a genocide against a people and a culture that don't exist?
would a war to prevent the southern united states from seceding be a genocide, for example - or would such claims be met with the explanation that the southern united states were not a distinct society? what of texas? of california?
of diagolon?
if wisconsin decided tomorrow that it wants to be it's own country because of it's unique approach to cheese and started militarizing, would the united states be accused of a genocide in stamping out wisconsinonianism with force?
ukrainian nationalism has absolutely no credibility, and the premise that stamping it out may be some kind of genocide is consequently absurd on it's face.
16:44
so, the chair of the house committee on oversight and reform is one carolyn baloney.
figures.
16:54
so, i came in on monday night after getting the new laptop and biking around looking for an adapater, decided to stay in on tuesday in hopes of getting groceries done on a warmer wednesday, got my settlement in on tuesday, did some loose uploading on tuesday and wednesday and then finally got out wednesday night...
yesterday was disappointing, weather wise. we only got about an hour of summer in the morning, and then had to wait until the evening for the rain to clear out. it's just timing. if the system would have come in three-four hours later, it would have been a gorgeous day.
i got most of what i wanted done yesterday in one walk out to the close store, but i couldn't find any fresh avocados (the ones at the store were all rotten and brown) and the kale available to me was not very good. so, i tried to hit a number of stores at the last minute, between 9:30 and 11:30 (6 in total), biked to the edge of town and came back empty-handed...
it was actually very nice to bike around last night - 16-18 degrees,and fairly humid. but, i ran out of time. there's one store open past 11:00 in this town. i would have biked for another 2-3 hours if i could, but there wasn't any point as there wasn't anything open. i may get used to night biking in town this summer, if i can't do it in detroit.
this morning was very different - half the temperature and a very annoying wind blowing directly at me. but, i needed some kale, which i got in lasalle. i took a walk out to the store after, picked up a burger and have been typing since.
i don't like syncing accounts - i want a different account on every device. it helps reduce clutter. the account that i'm using on this chromebook will transfer to the new one, so i've set up a new account to use on this device, for the purposes of just watching tv on it.
the koala oversight committee may have to discipline the koalas at some point. but, that's the channel i'll be using for youtube comments for a while.
it seems like youtube reduces the amount of freedom you have to use the site when you get more views, so it's in my interest to continue to jump profiles, to minimize views.
in the mean time, i will use the fake account to upload:
(1) previews for the inri records store an
(2) temporary vlogs, which could continue on for a while
i hope to have the windows 7 box back up in some form by the end of the month.
19:31
i've also decided that frozen mangoes probably make more sense than fresh ones.
they were, actually, on sale, yesterday. so i bought some more.
strawberries are also now expensive, but they're more affordable frozen. the rule for me is that i buy them fresh if they're on sale, and frozen if they aren't. i've given up on fresh raspberries & blueberries, and think they're better froze (where i am), anyways.
so, i'll need to set a price with the mangos and go with it.
the other thing is that mangos are huge. i get the small avocados, and take two. there aren't small mangoes. actually, let me rephrase that - the ones i'm buying are the small ones, and i'm getting 250 g of mango out of them. that's unnecessary. buying them in frozen cubs can cut me down to 100 or 150.
i take 100 g of strawberries, 70 g of kiwi and 150 g of avocadoes. so, should i go with 150 g of mango?
i think the main thing is the e, which i want to set to higher than i did before i realized i might have crohn's, so let me check that.
19:44
i don't understand why people think that a post on the internet should be uneditable.
i didn't sign up for that.
i freely admit that i edit these posts, and do so routinely, and i can't counter the point because i don't understand why you'd oppose that. it just strikes me as a ridiculous position.
authors retract, edit and expand their writing all of the time - that's a normal part of being a writer. this isn't evidence for some future trial, it's a creative outlet. and, i have every right to clarify or alter something if i feel like it.
time doesn't really exist in the form that classical physicists thought it did. we don't have pasts, presents and futures - it's a naive, unscientific way to look at time. time can be expanded and contracted; it's malleable, alterable. time travel is difficult, but i keep pointing out that vonnegut really got this right - time is not a linear flow, but something that exists simultaneously, on top of itself.
kant was a retard, basically - history is constantly being changed. it's the least reliable thing in the world, and the thing subject to the most uncertainty. i'm told the holocaust happened, but i have no way to know - and no way to challenge it. i just have to accept it. that's the least reliable form of knowledge, and the lowest form of thought. but there's no solution when presented with history: you take the sources as they are, and have to bullshit it if you don't like them. which will happen - what you accept as history today will be bullshit tomorrow.
but, this isn't the annals of history, it's my blog.
and, i do not see any reason to apologize for rearranging my thoughts, if i choose to - and would tell you that you're expecting something from this space that i don't intend to provide, if you find that disagreeable.
once again, i'm confused by the recent writing in this space, and cannot prove it's been altered. but, i don't understand what the purpose of doing so is, given that i'm just going to edit it back when i find it.
22:06
friday, april 15, 2022
yeah, i can't say i find this particularly unbelievable.
the russians are not fighting ukrainian hockey dads that found guns in dumpsters. these paramilitaries are very trained, and we know there were recently canadians there training them.
i've wondered about this previously in this space - and i wouldn't jump to labeling this "propaganda", or be to keen to believe that the pictures are actually doctored.
of course, i'm not there. i don't know. but, i find the idea plausible - and the idea that it's "disinformation" to be bluntly conspiratorial.
that said, if there are canadian forces there, you can be certain they're not alone. i think there are probably us marines on the ground, too.
1:44
14:20
listen, i don't know how many times i have to tell you this: i am neither a supporter of the liberal party nor of the democratic party, although i have voted for the liberals a few times. i do not live in the united states, but there is really no democratic candidate for president i'd have actively voted for since fdr.
i'm exceedingly critical of bourgeois liberal politics.
i am not on their side. i am not rooting for them to succeed. i do not think they're a lesser evil.
16:47
you can't really see my new decal at the youtube site.
here's the koala central command, which has occupied my youtube site and is chasing me down. don't tell them where i am:
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and this is the koala oversight committee, which may have to write some scathing reports about the koala central command.
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is there more coming?
well, do i need more accounts?
17:03
as mentioned here previously, the swedish decision to avoid joining nato was a consequence of the fact that sweden was never conquered by rome. sweden does not fall into the ancient boundary running through europe that divides latin from greek and, as such, does not identify as a part of the east or a part of the west but rather as a pat of the north. this is often ignored in christian histories, but there are in truth three distinct cultures in europe: the latin, the greek and the germanic.
a swedish decision to join nato would consequently be unstable, and lead to an eventual swexit. nor are the russians likely to be particularly concerned about sweden joining nato.
finland, however, is a different question. one of the ideas floated around to resolve the ukrainian issue was "finlandization", which means the construction of an independent state in ukraine that is not aligned with nato or with russia. this is an almost impossible idea to actually enforce, as finland is a legitimately distinct culture from russia, and ukraine and russia are really two halves of the same east slavic nation. ukraine cannot be neutral the way that finland can be, it's just impossible.
but, the fact that the issue was brought up indicates how the russians view finland. finland has an ethnically uralic population (migration models are unclear. it was once thought that the finns were likely related to ancient indigenous europeans that actually migrated to the urals at roughly the same time as the indo-european expansion into europe, and that seems to be backed up by the genetics, but recent linguistic models suggest that they just flat out came from asia. i think the genetic arguments take precedent over hokey paleo-linguistic theories.) that was repeatedly colonized by vikings as far as history records, and was swallowed up by an expansionist russian empire. the finns have something else in common with ukraine: they had to align with the nazis in world war two to fight the russians. as finland is a colony built on top of a colony built on top of an indigenous group with little representation in government, the premise of finnish independence has always been tenuous. and, finnish integration into nato would open up a very large and very dangerous land border close to st. petersburg. the russians might not let that happen.
what the swedes do is less important, albeit unsustainable, but i would call on the finns to avoid making the same mistake ukraine made.
18:00
so, my new handheld phone came in on thursday. i haven't tried it yet. i was hoping the usb-to-ethernet cable would come in on thursday as well, but i'm going to have to wait until tuesday, at the earliest. fucking christians...
i also just bought a brand new ethernet switch for the other room for $15, so i can plug the phone-laptop and tv-laptop into the same port on the router. it's five ports. if i understand correctly, that means that both of the laptops should show up as separate ips on the router.
and, i got a brand new independently powered 7-port usb 2.0 hub for $9.00. i could have upgraded to usb 3.0 for an extra $10.00, but i really don't see the point; if i'm copying anything to the chromebook, it will be small and if i'm uploading anything, i'm restricted by the network, which i want slow on purpose. if you're going to try to hack into my network, be prepared for excruciatingly slow speeds. listen - i don't need the speed, so why give it to the fuckers for free? it's pointless, to me.
but, this new chromebook only has two usb connections (one 2.0 and one 3.0) and one of them will be used for ethernet so it needs usb expansion. the hub i'm using now is really intended for the windows 7 machine.
so, total cost to switch chromebooks:
the chromebook itself $99 + tax: $115
the usb-to-ethernet cable: $15
usb hub: $10
====================
$140
+ costs to convert old chromebook into tv:
25 foot cat-6 cable: $15
5 port rj-45 switch: $15
========================
$30
+ costs for new "landline" internet phone:
cisco ethernet phone: $30
total: $200
that is coming directly from money saved on groceries this month. and, there's more coming, although it's not clearly what i'll use it for.
22:26
you think i'm joking.
i don't want you to phone me when i'm at a concert or doing groceries. you can wait until i get home.
i'm not:
this is what i actually want. so, it'll be set up soon.
22:30
how much do you pay for your phone?
voip is $0.99/month.
22:33
ugh.
i have ~50 power adapters, including a universal power adapter.
none of them fit into the cisco phone. and, it didn't ship with an adapter.
fuckers.
the seller that sold me the phone sells the adapters separately for more than the phone. but, they got me - the ad said there weren't adapters, and i didn't read the fine print.
it's $30. i shouldn't complain too much.
but, i can't plug it in until the cord gets here...
23:28
the other answer is a poe switch.
i just bought a switch...
it's not poe.
hrmmn.
can i reverse course on this, still?
23:34
just looking strictly at ebay, i could get a poe switch (by the same manufacturer as the non-poe one) for $55, after taxes.
my non-poe switch was $15. the cord was $30.
so, it would cost me $10 more, and...i'd rather have the cord.
23:37
it's partly because i'm looking at legacy items, though.
i could save $10-15 on the poe switch if i go for a gigabit switch, instead of the legacy model i bought (10/100). but, then i'm introducing a fast connection on a network i want to be slow, by design. and, i'd have to ask for a refund.
the other thing is that i got free shipping on this. if i buy the item at walmart, it won't qualify for free shipping because it's under $35. if i get it at amazon, i have to go to the store and buy a pre-paid debit card because they don't take paypal.
it's funny how you can fall into a trap like that, sometimes.
i'm not talking about a lot of money here, and i should probably not get upset about it, but i wish i would have tried to plug the device in before i bought the switch. alas.
i am no doubt better off with the adapter than without it, and i really explicitly do not want fast components in the network. the only thing i'd ever need to transfer at 1000 mbit/s is government surveillance or some hacker trying to bot me for bitcoins. and, if they ever tried, they'd just fry these old motherboards.
23:49
i think what i can guess is that buying an old switch with poe is top of the line, whereas buying a new switch with poe is sort of standard. so, that $55 legacy poe switch was probably $2000 at some point, whereas the $25 gigabit switch has always been cheap.
even looking at the cheaper gigabit switches, it's still going to cost me around $40 after shipping and taxes at walmart and around $35 after i pay the activation fee and taxes at amazon.
for the $5-10, i'd rather have the cord.
23:53
saturday, april 16, 2022
listen, if i want to use this device for a while - and i do - then having the adapter is exceedingly useful, even if do switch to poe, one day.
i assumed it came with one. sloppy, on my behalf.
0:05
so, if i was entirely sure that the problem was the video card, i'm 99% sure i've fixed it.
the symptoms - freezing - are most frequently associated with bad ram. my system ram is fine. my soldered in video card ram may not be. installing the drivers may be triggering a damaged section of the internal ram, causing the machine to halt.
this is my fix:
=========
1) this motherboard has blue and black slots. the issue occurs in both. i'd advise using the black slot, if you just want it to work without driving your board.
2) if you use the blue slot, in the bios, set peg force x1 to enable. that forces your video card to use less system board resources. so, if there's a power issue on the board, turning the power down might help with it.
3) if you use the black slot, set the south bridge to x2 mode. same thing.
4) if you have monitor drivers, use them. just so the devices know what the monitor is. that probably didn't fix much, but it might have helped. i was able to increase my refresh rate from 60 to 75 hz, indicating it did something.
5) go to display properties (right-click desktop, properties, settings, advanced).
i) note that this card has 512 mb of ram in it, which i think might be part of the problem. i mean, system halting is a bad ram sort of thing, right? you can't replace or test the video card ram in these old cards, i don't think. it's a guess, but i think it's a good one. if you want stable old cards, you should minimize the amount of ram soldered into the card because when the ram goes the card is done.
ii) well, sort of. here's my workaround.
iii) go to troubleshoot and (1) unclick enable write combining and then (2) turn hardware acceleration all the way down. once you've done that, test to see if it solves the problem. if it does, increase it by one setting until it recreates the problem again. while the machine did not crash on the third setting, it started to get a little sluggish with the nvidia software running in the background, and i feel the optimal position is the second slot - disable all but basic accelerations.
cubase is stable like this, and i can scroll in cool edit. fixed.
====
it took me a very, very long time to fix this because i couldn't figure out what was causing the problem. it seemed obvious that it was hardware, but i tested everything over and over again and nothing was broken. i stripped the system down to nothing, and then slowly brought in cards and sticks of ram and i could not reproduce the problem until i finally installed the video card drivers. like, this took months. that it might be some screwy ram in the card is something people should think about it.
these are old cards but there's a lot of them and they're going to be around for a while. you can't do anything fancy with them, and they shouldn't be thought of that way at this point - they should be thought of as basic components in office machines or, in my case, an audio production studio, where graphics are of essentially no concern. telling people to turn the acceleration off could expand the lifespan of these things quite considerably.
at this point. i'm content that the machine is finally running normally again. i don't have any reason to reinstall at this time, but all of the hardware is currently running properly, and the next step will be to bring the scripts back in.
i'll just have to take a note to turn the hardware acceleration off during install.
14:44
if i can get through 3.1 on the machine, stable, i'll reinstall for 3.2.
14:49
on second thought.
the production machine is built to be continuous. what that means is that it's scripted to save settings, back up files, etc. if i'm convinced it's fixed, i should immediately go back into the normal set up because working outside of the script is confusing and might lead to the accidental deletion of data.
so, i've run the script and it seems fine, but i have a number of things to sort out on the machine.
was that really it? did i just need to disable hardware acceleration? well, i'm sure i didn't do that before, so it's...it seems like such a minor concern, but figuring it out was clearly very hard.
this is huge, though. it means i can reassemble it, set up the kvm, organize the desk properly and actually move on. it means i've got software for the electric drum kit installed (which i\'ll need for the lost symphony) and software for the new midi controllers, as well.
i've said this repeatedly: everything else aside, this machine has to work. i can swap out ram and cards if i have to, but the pc itself is the center of everything and fundamentally has to work. i can augment, i can repair, i can expand, but i can't replace.
17:58
so, what i'm doing tonight is carefully setting this machine up, with the intent for it to be permanent. and, we'll see how it goes.
18:41
ok.
so, the machine is running as minimally as it can.
it's ready. let me get through these loose ends.
20:18
so, how about another detour?
when i moved in here, i didn't expect to stay long. it was a temporary escape. then, the pandemic happened, and what next, right? i didn't set the studio up with the expectation of using it, so much as the expectation of sitting on it until i finished the liner notes, and then moving somewhere else. but, i'm still here.
i need to do some drum parts this summer.
so, i'm going to have to reorganize the space to facilitate that.
now that i've been down here longer, it's more obvious how i can do that. i'd say it's a 24-36 hour project. so, that's what i'm doing, now.
when it's done, my studio should be properly reconstructed for the first time since 2015, when i had to start taking things apart to deal with the interference. the issue with the video card was separate. but, the machine seems to be running, so let's get it going.
the mixer is just on the wrong side of the space; the kit connects to the computer via a ton of cords, and it's going to be an impossible mess to try to actually do it.
it's not a big job, but it's going to make a huge mess. i think it's time for a spring clean, anyways.
a few days, tops. honest.
and, i'd might as well move this device to the other room while i'm at it.
22:52
sunday, april 17, 2022
i never really learned how to type, but it's not like i'm using a two finger typing technique. i didn't honestly identify as an anarchist in any serious manner until i was in my 20s, but i've never liked any sort of rules or structures. so, for example, when they sent me to music school, i outright rejected the premise of music theory. i've always strongly supported the idea of individual decision making, rather than this set of universal rules that has to always be followed. i want to approach problems uniquely, by myself, not follow the rules that somebody else made up some time in the past.
so, i just figured it out on my own, and at this point i don't think about it when i'm typing. i'm using two hands, in a complicated way, but it's not stationary - my hands hover over the keyboard and change positions constantly, rather than sit in one place and just rely on fingers moving. i'd suggest that's probably better for my joints, even if i lose 10% in efficiency. i type fast - well, look at the volume posted here. you might imagine that i'm spending hours typing these posts up, but it doesn't take me much longer to type it than to think it. in fact, i can say that that is literal - almost everything typed here is stream-of-consciousness, and i'm typing at nearly the same speed that i'm thinking at. if i have a bottleneck in typing speed, it's that i can't type faster than i can think, and i'm pretty close to the limit on that. but, there is no formal typing application - it's just something that's developed out of many years of practice, and something i no longer think about. i can't remember the last time i thought about it.
i may type exactly the same phrase back-to-back using entirely different finger combinations. see, i don't actually know, though. my right-hand is largely dominant, with my left hand mostly filling in on the left hand side of the keyboard, but the iron curtain between left and right on the keyboard is in constant flux - sometimes as far as the r and sometimes as close as the u. it depends on what i'm typing, really.
so, my hands operate more like a butterfly hovering over the keyboard than a machine operating a printing press, in the sense that they flutter over the keyboard rather than bang out letters for production. it's entirely free form, but it's also exceedingly efficient. is that a more artistically appropriate means of typing?
i was just thinking about that as i was typing something else up.
14:45
so, as mentioned i spent the night re-reorganizing the space i live in. the old chromebook is still my primary access point, so i'm typing from my new eat-in kitchen, which is the same as the old eat-in kitchen, before the 90s laptop stopped streaming, except that i have a phone and stereo system, now. i was able to pull a 15 year old mouse out of a pile of electronics, and it works well enough for this application. i bought a new usb keyboard for this purpose last year, and am unboxing it now - because i could get never get youtube to load on the 90s laptop, after whatever changes they made, server side. well, to be clear, it loads, it's just painfully slow. it really cannot handle html5 videos, but the real problem is the amount of javascript at youtube, most of it ad-related. you get stuck in a loop with these old browsers, in that they won't support contemporary adblocks, which makes them unusable. it's the ads that are slowing down the internet, and the key to reclaiming old computers as (non-secure) internet devices is to cut through the ads, not to minimize the footprint of the browser.
i need to buy a pile of cheap usb and ps/2 mice to sit on for the next 20 years, but i want to test the ones i have, first.
this is a more general re-organization, though, and it takes into account much of what i've been doing for the last year,
when i lived on bronson, i ended up gifted with two stereo systems. my dad used to set up sound systems when he was a kid, and he was sort of a gear nerd, so he just flat out enjoyed searching through garage sales and pawn shops for old equipment, just to find it, and maybe to save it from destruction. i guess nobody does that anymore - people just throw everything out. but, the result is that i have two stereo receivers - a yamaha from the 60s or 70s and a jvc from the 80s or 90s. and, for years, i had two stereo systems - one in my bedroom (the yamaha, for reading) and one in my living room (the jvc, which was connected to the pc, which at the time did all things, because people didn't have a dozen old computers lying around.).
when i first moved to windsor, the systems got flipped over because i had separate recording and eating/living spaces rather than a combined living/recording space. so, the older system ended up in the living room, and the newer one in the studio. i had a laptop in my bedroom with integrated audio, and while the era of optical media had not closed, it was becoming less relevant - i didn't find myself needing a separate stereo system in my bedroom, although i nearly built one in 2017. i intend to continue buying and collecting optical media indefinitely, but i will probably not listen to it, much.
but, when i moved to the apartment, i went back to the old two space living arrangement, so i went back to the old systems breakdown. that reconstructed itself over here, even though i'm really back to having three separate spaces: one for sleeping, one for eating and one for recording. ideally, at least; in practice, my hardware has been a challenge the whole time i've been here, and i've either existed with two or, in most cases, actually one living space. i've tried to set up an eating space repeatedly and been frustrated by the hardware requirements, as the point is that i want to use my old computers. i don't want to buy a high resolution tv to watch lectures on youtube, that would be stupid and wasteful. i have no interest in netflix or hollywood.
so, i tried to set up the eat-in kitchen when i went through the cleaning process in march of last year, but could not get the 90s laptop to stream. i also tried to set up the studio space by cleaning and adding new components, and got a little bit done, but never got it entirely set up because i couldn't really get the computer entirely fixed. i cannot record without the computer, and the purpose of the space is to record carefully pre-written compositions, not to aimlessly jam out nonsense.
the new chromebook lets me fix the tv problem for the next several years. so, if i'm setting up a chromebook as a tv in the eat-in kitchen area, why not set up the rest of the system with it, like it was in the old apartment?
the system was the yamaha (with celestion speakers) connected to a tv, a dvd player, a record player, an old pc and a cassette deck, and the only thing i ever did was watch youtube streaming to the tv and out the celestions. i don't really need the larger screen, and many of these devices are in reality just going to sit in their spaces and collect dust nowadays, but the audio out of the chromebook is often of questionable strength and i'd rather have an audio system set up for that reason. i'm also setting the phone laptop up in that space and have bought a switch for the network for that room. i may eventually add a very minimal wireless access point specifically for the cell phone (i do have an old phone without a carrier that i've used like twice.), but it relies on being able to build a custom android image. my plan with the phone was always to rely on free wifi and use it to connect to services like facebook - i have no interest in a carrier or in talking into a computer with my voice, in generality. but, i don't even use facebook anymore.
that said, i expect there will be a time when i need a wireless device to buy groceries, so that network architecture is being set up for that eventual necessity. the wireless access point would be isolated from the rest of the network by using it's own ip to connect to the main router through a switch. i'm paranoid, but i'm clearly being attacked by aggressive parties seeking to shut me down, due to an apparent misunderstanding regarding my allegiances and motives.
for now, what i've done is move the old 60s/70s receiver into the eat-in space and left the dvd player in the recording space. i've set the receiver up with a pair of yamaha monitors that were again found by my dad at a garage sale, but without the bass subsection - they're not really trebly, but they're intended to strictly reproduce the mid to high frequencies in a system with a separate low end reproduction, that wasn't found with them. that said, i tested the output with an old set of altec monitors that does have a subwoofer - in fact, has a subwoofer that powers the tweeters and that you can't turn off - and the output was too bassy for voice, which is what the system will be primarily used for. they're off to the side of the room, and it might make sense to plug them in if i want to watch a vice news documentary or something that's a little more theatrical than a lecture, but such occurrences will be very rare. really, in the long run, i'd rather plug my celestions back in, but this space is very small, and the smaller monitors are more appropriate for the application and the room. i've left the record player and cassette deck unplugged, for now; while i want to keep them, let's be real - i will only very rarely turn these devices on and there's not a lot of utility in clearing space for them in a cramped apartment. i would be too close to any sort of large speakers in this room to make use of the stereo field, and it's inevitably going to result in the source interfering with itself, as the sound bounces through the room. the space is intended to watch lectures in while i'm eating, not listen to music in.
i could set them up in the recording space, like i used to years ago, but i'd just be wasting inputs into the receiver, really.
really, the more likely use of record players and cassette decks would be in a third system in my bedroom, which i don't have a receiver for at this time, and which i'm going to put aside for a future project that might never complete. certainly, my more pressing concern is getting the windows 7 laptop up, which will give me an audio out in the form of headphones. so, the old devices will be stacked on top of each other, awaiting connection - which is not much different than they'd be, anyways. i plan to do systematic record reviews at some point, and will likely do them from the bedroom typewriter-type device.
so, sorting through that and setting it up was the first part of last night and it's all ready to go in the other room, awaiting the cords that are coming in the mail to finish it up.
15:52
i have a third receiver - a vintage nad - but it has electrical issues and i'm not comfortable plugging it in until i fully understand it. i was actually intending to use that device to power a set of speakers for a guitar amp emulator; i wanted to use it like a head for a guitar amp.
right now, what i do with the other equipment is not important, as i have no pressing urge to spin a record. i just needed to separate the tv out, to clear space in the other room.
i have now taken two laptops out of the cramped recording space, although i'll be replacing one, at least in the short term. that opens up some space for more equipment. so, that was the other thing i did last night / this morning.
16:07
there aren't a lot of pictures of this space, but the way i had this basement set up when i moved in was to put everything in a line along the wall, and try to put the drums around the back of where i was sitting, to build a sort of bunker that i could work in. but, as mentioned, i didn't actually intend to stay down here very long, and really just wanted a place to store things while i was focused on writing. it had to be big enough to be functional, but i had low expectations around actually recording down here.
i've thought this through repeatedly, and there's really no way to avoid the basic topology of the setup on bronson, which was not just optimal but really the only actual solution. i have to have the computer in the corner, the mixer on the other side of the desk, the drums beside the mixer and any midi devices (keyboards, drum machines) on the far side of the drums. guitar effects go under the desk. i can play with this depending on the space - i can put the midi devices behind me, for example, creating a cubby effect, which is what i did in ottawa - but the basic topology is unavoidable. i can choose between different isomorphisms of the basic topology, but the topology itself can't be transcended.
i tried to avoid that in this space because it's (less than) a foot too small in any direction and the shape of the walls and stairs interferes with the contiguity of the space. i can't fit guitars over on the side near the stairs like i did before, and the room is just inches too small to cram the table in the way i had it in the other basement. the only way i could maintain the topology would have been to force my speakers over into the corner under the stairs, which would destroy the stereo field. so, i ended up setting up the kit on the wrong side, and now trying to actually plug it in would create an impossible mess - which is, unexpectedly, now relevant, because i need to do electronic drum parts for the lost symphony.
while the stereo field is a valid concern, and i will certainly reconstruct it in the future, it's of far less importance in this space than reconstructing the topology, which, as mentioned, i'm realizing is unavoidable. the speakers will need to go in the corner, and i'll have to rely on headphones, instead.
so, i'm taking the midi devices out of the corner, pulling the computer into it, putting the kit into the opposite corner (like it was in the other basement) and lining the midi devices up behind me. it's more like a mirror reflection of bronson than it is like the first basement in windsor, but it's also very close to that set up, as well.
i'm bringing a lot of new components in, though, too, so the end result is going to be an update to the old studio that will hopefully transfer to the next space. it's going to look a lot like the old studio, but the main devices in it are actually going to be a lot different. it's massively augmented. i will probably need to move out of this space in the next 12-24 months, so i'm in some ways planning for the next space in setting this space up. but, i also want to seriously get done 3.1 down here, too. part of maintaining a studio is constantly adding to it, and my nature as a multi-instrumentalist/composer/recording artist means i'm constantly looking for new instruments. the studio is really a growing, mutating beast that needs to be fed; if this space is smaller than the last one, the next space needs to be a little bigger to hold it.
it's not smaller, by square footage, though. well, the total space is smaller, but i didn't need a big kitchen or a big living room. the bedroom in the new space may be trivially smaller, but it means there's a foot less of empty space between my bed and my dresser. the closet down here is bigger. the new kitchen + eating space is roughly half the size of the old one, but that's fine; everything fits, if a little tightly. the recording space - which was the second bedroom in the other space and what should be the living room in this space - is actually maybe even a little bigger down here, but it has less usable space because it overlaps into the other rooms. there's a really unnecessary wall in the middle of the basement that is intended to split the two smaller rooms into bedrooms but, for me, just wastes a lot of usable space. further, i now have more things to put in the studio than i did before. there's no lack of total square footage down here, it's just organized inefficiently.
so, the first thing i had to do was test the kvm, finally. the studio space has always had one central computer, a heavily scripted 32-bit xp. the windows 98 pc (which all of periods 2 and 3 were initially created on - period 1 was done on an older windows 95 box that is long gone) was previously used as the tv out, but i've been more recently intending to reconstruct it as a windows 98 recording interface, to finish parts of period 3 on. period 2 needed newer technology to finish, which is now done; period 3 would be better off partly utilizing the technology it was initially created with to finish it. this was mostly set up, but i didn't connect it to the kvm because the xp machine was unstable and i didn't know if i'd be moving cables around. it's now set up in the corner, and the kvm is working, as intended. there will be a third 64 bit machine connected to the kvm, as it is built.
and, i finally put the cover back on the xp machine this morning, as well, only to notice that the fan was going haywire. i just decided to take it apart, clean it and reseat it - and also to close open holes on the tower, so the cooling system is able to work as designed. but, the rubber screws for the chassis fan had been used a few too many times and couldn't be put back in place. no backups. it's fucking easter - everything is closed. shit, right?
it took me over an hour, but i was able to cut up some plastic pieces i bought for my bike to use as rubber screws, instead. fixed. i should buy some on ebay or something....
it's running quietly, for now.
i got my floor plastic for the pod picked up and moved over. i should probably get another tarp for under the kit next time i'm out. and, that's the first step in having things rebuilt on that side - i finally have the switchable two pc set up that i wanted, that lets me record into one pc or the other as desired. that was key for what i need to finish period 3 the way i want to finish it.
i then had to crash.
so, i'm up now and ready to get going. but i'm long overdue on a shower.....
16:37
monday, april 18, 2022
i passed a typing proficiency test many years ago, fwiw.
0:24
so, i got out of the shower, made a salad, watched some lectures, fell asleep (for about an hour), and woke up with a small surprise in my pants and an urge to finish the job. disgusted, i had to throw the pants - which had holes in them, anyways - in the garbage and take another shower to clean myself up.
i would guess this was in the realm of accidental wet fart rather than major bowel movement, but i was asleep. i don't remember. based on the smell and visual appearance, there's little question that it was what i just ate, or, i suppose, the salad i ate on....thursday? it was the salad meal; the vinegar from the hot sauce was overpowering, in terms of smell, and i could visually see the bits of spices.
so, am i dying of cancer? well, my appetite is good, and i'm not losing weight...
i have two hypotheses:
1) i was behind on my vitamin c, so i tripled up on it when i was making the salad. the salad has 150+ g of red pepper, 200+ grams of tomato, 80 grams of kale, 50 grams of broccoli and a large lime, with peel and pith. that's a lot of dietary c. so, i probably just consumed close to two grams of vitamin c, which i keep at high levels through constant dosing. contrary to the popular myth, you can't absorb high doses of vitamin c, and you certainly can't store it - your body just discards excess c when it saturates, and partly via something like a violent bowel movement. it's beneficial to take small amounts of c constantly, but not helpful to take it in large doses, because this is the kind of thing that happens when you try to take too much at once.
2) the chili peppers i've added to the salad are really pretty toxic. when cutting them up, they force me to cough and sneeze. and, i noticed the hand that i used to wipe start to burn the same way that they did when i didn't use dish soap to clean them, the first time. i may have violently expelled the chili peppers.
how normal is this kind of thing? look it up, actually - monthly incontinence affects about 10% of the population. as disgusting as it is, this happens to everybody once in a while. so, i dare you to tell me you've never woken up with shit in your pants - you're lying.
if it happens again within the next few weeks or months, i'll need to react to it. but, for now, i think it's a gross thing everybody deals with, periodically, whether we like to talk about it or not.
i've got my sheets in the dryer and want to finish setting the place up by the time the sun comes up.
1:55
he's obviously senile and not fit to govern. that's not a republican talking point, it's a clearly demonstrable empirical fact. young people can increasingly see that, even if they need to be told it via satire.
but, his numbers with young people were never good, and the reality is that old people decide most elections and very old people like joe biden.
i've stated repeatedly that joe biden is irrelevant, in terms of party polling. democrats don't have to like him to vote for him, as they're constantly voting against the apocalypse. this is in contrast to republican voters, who want the apocalypse.
if the democrats want to do well in the upcoming cycle, they need to completely look past joe biden, as though he's a lame duck, because he is. but, if the republicans do run trump again - i don't think that happens - then they're also going to need to find a way to appeal to older voters, and biden is one way to do that. but, that's not about biden, that's about trump, and what it does is mask the irrelevance of biden.
so, the democrats should not be concerned about young people thinking biden is incompetent. it's true, but it's irrelevant. young people will vote democrat anyways, so long as they have some other thing to focus on. but, older voters are actually in play, and the democrats needs to be mindful of the fact that biden can swing older traditionally democratic heartland voters in ways that candidates that are popular amongst young people cannot.
the bottom line is that biden has never been popular, and it hasn't hurt him in the past.
2:32
the bourgeois media will focus on the scary le pen to try to scare you into supporting macron.
but, the real story is the deficit of real choice, even if you're looking at it from the perspective presented by the bourgeois press, which i'd advise you do not. if your actual concern is for the wretched muslims, macron is not much of a solution. but, you have to understand that the mainstream perspective in france is that a problem really does exist and some policy of enhanced integration really is necessary. france values it's secularism in a way that a country like canada (quebec, notwithstanding) is unfortunately currently very naive about.
if you put that issue aside as largely irrelevant to most people, and not something most people should be basing their votes on, there's a strong argument that macron's neo-liberalism is more frightening than le pen's proposals to reintroduce the welfare state.
french voters may not like either choice, but they need to weigh this out; is it more important to protect the wretched muslims from policies that are really in their best interests, broadly, even it causes them to complain in the short term, or is it more important to discard those concerns as mostly irrelevant, and vote to reverse the decay of neo-liberalism and for a return to the welfare state, instead?
i can't vote from here. but, i would prioritize a vote for the welfare state as more valuable than a vote against restricting the bourgeois "religious freedoms" of muslims, who really need to be separated from their beliefs, for their own good.
2:50
i am not losing my vitamin c.
my privacy, on the other hand? well, i'm not protecting my privacy.
4:15
i want to be clear what my view on this is.
le pen, for example, wants to outlaw halal meat. i don't have any specific prerogative to do that; if anything, it seems more humane than factory farming.
but, i would consider that irrelevant, in terms of political issues. i ultimately don't remotely care if halal is legal or not. i wouldn't vote explicitly for outlawing halal, but if a candidate that wants to outlaw halal is also promoting an economic program i support, i'm going to vote for the economic program and discard the halal thing as a meaningless distraction.
and, what do i say to muslims about it?
well, to begin with, muslims should be decreasing their meat consumption, like everybody else. halal or not, meat consumption is environmentally unsustainable. the carbon footprint of meat consumption is an important political issue to me; whether or not people are allowed to say a magic spell before they kill the animals is not.
but, at the end of the day, i'm going to tell them that their beliefs are not important and that a modern society based on science should give no deference whatsoever to religious superstitions. the bottom line is that i think their concerns are juvenile and specious, and i don't care if they can practice their archaisms freely or not.
that puts me in direct conflict with bourgeois liberals, but i'm not a bourgeois liberal, i'm a libertarian socialist. at the end of the day, we can't have socialism until we do away with religion, and the future will need to be one without religion, not this nonsense about co-existence and multiculturalism. you can't be tolerant of the intolerant, it's just an algorithm for self-destruction, and these religious groups do not extend the tolerance to others that they demand of the broader society. i'm not willing to give it to them. in the long run, they will need to cease to exist.
but, i want to support humanitarian programs that help people see the errors of religion and leave it in the past, where it belongs. we need to educate the religion out of the religious, not pass laws that ban things.
it's just not an important concern to me, and i'm not going to vote against my self-interest to protect the bourgeois rights of silly people to practice some backwards, childish anti-science concept of belief.
in the future, we will live in a society dictated by science and discard religion as backwards. those who drag their feet on this are not properly labeled as liberals, but rather properly labeled as conservatives that want to maintain obsolete systems of thinking. a progressive, forward thinking vision of the future cannot make place for religion within it and that contradiction needs to be realized and we need to move on from it.
so, no - i don't consider a ban on halal to be a policy that i'd support, but i ultimately don't think discussing it is a substantive policy concern, and i ultimately think whether they want to do it or not is a triviality. i would not vote for it, but i see no urge to vote against it, either.
no leftist coalition will be able to integrate the religious without collapsing into reactionaryism. the premise has no future, and these arrangements will inevitably decay into fake left coalitions of "progressivism" or bourgeois liberalism. these are not allies of the left.
14:05
laws that ban wearing scarves in public might not be my preferred approach to getting rid of the hijab, but, in the long run, i do support social programs that separate women from systems of religious oppression. what i want is not to pass a law that orders them to take the scarf off, but to educate them to make the choice to discard the belief as....hijabs are not just stupid scarves, they are legitimately a symbol of oppression. in the 60s, we had bra burning; i want to see a massive hijab-burning, by the muslim women, themselves. that's when secularism has won the war against religion, when the religious discard their beliefs freely, when they release themselves from the shackles, when they overthrow the yoke and embrace their freedom, as autonomous individuals. government can help people make that decision through enlightened policies of forward-thinking education, but laws that order people to do things are more likely to backfire.
but, ultimately?
it's just a stupid scarf.
who fucking cares...
14:31
i slept more than i wanted last night, but i've got the shape of the space set up, now, and it's just a question of plugging things in. i'm going to post some pictures soon, because the new setup is stable for as long as the hardware is, even if i have to move.
it's obvious that the main guy that lives here isn't the problem, but whenever he leaves - and he's frequently gone for long periods - the smell of marijuana comes in very strongly. i initially thought it was his daughter, but i'm now certain there's a cop upstairs smoking drugs. welcome to canada, the truth north mentally weak and half-retarded. my options are limited. i may have to launch another complaint and test the market - i can't work in the presence of drugs, it's impossible, i need clear thinking and the ability to operate in a physically coordinated fashion. marijuana makes me stupid and uncoordinated and intellectually and musically useless.
after moving things around, i actually think this room is almost exactly the same size as the last one - it's within centimetres. i lose some of this space to the walk-through, but it's area i had left empty in the last space, anyways. more frustrating is that i lose the wall because of the stairs, but i've found a way around that by putting my old shoe rack (a custom wood cabinet i found on the road years ago) behind me. if i put guitars in that space initially by stacking them up on the wall, and it made sense to do so, i can't do that in this space, and i now have several more guitars, as well. so, i'm going to put the guitars where i put the guitar effects before (under the table) and the effects where i put the guitars before, except on the shelf instead of stacked on top of each other. the keyboards will get their table back, which is the reason i actually bought it.
that leaves me with an extra table that i initially bought to put the stereo system on, but has since become a utility table. i have technically replaced that with a walmart table, as well. so, i'm going to use it as a work bench for gluing and soldering, replacing components in laptops, etc.
but, i wanted to post to point out that the switch came through very quickly and is set up and working as intended, with two separate ip addresses into the router. great. i have to wait for canada post to go back to work tomorrow, or maybe the next day, for everything else to get here, but the courier worked the holidays, it seems.
20:36
tuesday, april 19, 2022
i ended up focusing a little more on specifics than intended, but it's almost done, honest. i just woke up; it should be done very soon.
no mail today.
annoyingly.
16:36
on second thought, i did get some mail in today. i guess it was just right at the end of the day...
i didn't get any of the other items i ordered over the weekend, and my rocketbook is still coming, but i got my usb to ethernet connection, which let me boot up the new chromebook, which i'm typing from. i had to reset the firmware to get around some kind of child lock on the device (it's registered to great falls public school, which is in montana), but it's now updated to chrome os v 93, which is current to sept, 2021.
these devices also do not have sim card slots in them, which might have been a custom design decision. that's fine - i don't want a sim card. at all.
it seems a little faster to load - it has a much faster processor - but we'll see how long the ad servers let that last for. there has to be an inflection point around this, eventually - at some point, the ad servers don't get any more annoying, and the machine doesn't lose speed. but, then they start integrating ai to track you, instead, right?
i checked youtube and didn't get an "update your browser" message for the first time in years, so that's nice to see.
i'm going to try to stick with the onboard keyboard to save space on my desk, but i can't deal with a trackpad, i need a mouse. one thing i noticed immediately is that the power button is where the delete key is on most laptops, and that's going to take some training to deal with. the device doesn't seem to even have a delete key at all, which is weird.
that means i can migrate the other device to the new account.
i'm very close to being set up in here, but i suspect this is going to be a difficult night because it's going to be retard night in retard land. i'm just focused on finishing cleaning in here tonight, including cleaning toilets and get garbage and recycle out for the morning.
i had ten days to test this, but had to wait for the connector to come in. i don't see any immediate concerns with it. in fact, the onboard keyboard is actually fairly smooth, and it's consequently rather pleasant to type on.
20:24
ok, so, apparently, on newer laptops, you type alt-backspace instead of delete.
i'd rather have a delete key. maybe i can set that up, actually.
20:28
reclaiming the delete key from something less useful like the esc key does not appear to be a configurable option. hrmmn.
i can always plug a keyboard in if it starts to piss me off.
20:34
wednesday, april 20, 2022
so, here's a rough panorama of the new space, which is topologically isomorphic to the previous one, but which i'll draw attention to differences within.
the space in between the two bookcases goes into my bedroom.
as before, the kit is in the opposite corner, and it has to be - it's unavoidable. i have it here on a tarp that's intended to prevent condensation in the summer, and which worked well last summer. i am going to get another tarp and some kind of carpet for the hi-hat controller on the floor, to keep it put. behind the kit is a plastic organizer full of cords, organized as follows: a/v cords up top (rca cords, hdmi cords, dvi cords etc) below it is guitar-effect linkages, below it is usb & firewire cords, below it is midi cords and at the bottom is regular strength shielded guitar & synth cords. i intend to get a second organizer and get rid of the rest of the boxes of things like power adapters hanging around, as well as to further separate the above items. that fan is on constantly, nowadays. frank zappa and each of the four members of the beatles remain on the wall. that pair of headphones was purchased for use as walking phones, but now needs to stay inside as a pair of low quality monitors, due to damage from normal use.
the next space in the panorama is and has to be the desk. those are the old kefs, connected to the old jvc, the same as before, although i had to use the tables from the other room because the shelves they were on belonged to the previous landlord and had to be left in that space. i am using the extra table space to put computers on on both sides, but, in the long run, i'd like to regain the height, in a slightly larger and differently shaped room, to reconstruct a stereo field for listening. in this space, i'm forced to monitor with headphones, and that's ok, but it's not ideal. what i'm going to want to do is put shelves on top of the tables, eventually.
this is the same as previously, even though it's a lot blurrier: guitar effects under the desk, driven by the pod, and out to the mixer and/or the 32-bit tower, which now goes to the kvm on top of the dvd player, the dvd player was not there previously, either, but is here now because the space is a living room. the white tower in the corner is the 90s pc that i was previously using as a tv to stream youtube; it's a pIII 500, now running windows 98 because the drivers for the soundcard in the device never worked propery on windows xp. the monitor will display one or the other of these two signals, depending on the switch in the kvm.
you can see the problem here, which is the stairs. so, my right-hand kef is directed at the back of the stairs, and i'm just a foot too small in the space to prevent it. but, space under stairs is also ideal to store boxes. up against the stairs is a table i bought in the previous basement to initially replace the stereo cabinet, which i cut up to turn into a kind of laptop night stand, and which didn't work out in the end. so, that table was supposed to have a receiver on it. it's now a little mini-amp station (there's an ancient 15-watt cheri practice amp underneath it that came with my very first guitar, a hondo telecaster copy that is long gone, but....), with an extra addition: the dx100 in the back is the old synth controller for my long keyless jx-8p that has the curious functionality of a breath controller input and is perhaps ideal for the universal midi controller i intend to use as a guitar-to-midi transformer. so, the station has four small guitar amps and a midi guitar interface, all of which will be used on the lost symphony, which is what this is all about.
and, this is my new franken-jx.
i brought the table in from the other room as well, because it didn't make sense to put the tv stand there. there is an electric/acoustic guitar in a hard case under this table, and i will put the takeharu under there, too; the guitar in the soft case is a mini washburn telecaster copy made for hannah montana fans. i wanted a tele to get a certain sound, but wanted it cheap, and that worked out for me. that table was found in the lobby of my grandmother's apartment, discarded as garbage, and was intended as a "charging table" in the other space. that function has been superseded. i always intended to get a "guitar table" in the other space and did not. the rewired ibanez will take it's space here, afterwards.
that second mini classical guitar is new; i bought it for the case for $25 at value village, then put my old epiphone electric-acoustic in the case. it's a cheap noodle guitar. i got that bookcase for $15 on kijiji, then had to haul it home on a shopping cart. it means i finally got my cds on a shelf. there's two bookcases in my bedroom now, as well, so my books are on shelves, too. but, you'll notice i have a pile of manuals on that shelf.
this is the corner of the room, which opens up directly into my bedroom, because it's technically the living room:
the space in between the two bookcases goes into my bedroom.
in the previous space, this table (which i bought for $20 and which has developed an unfortunate bow) was located in the same corner of the music room and housed electronic gadgets like keyboards and drum machines on the top, while housing guitar effects underneath. this equipment connected to the mixer via long cords running behind the kit, to the side. i was intending on reconstructing that same relationship, except to reverse the place of the guitars and the guitar effects in the room, but i've since purchased a new usb controller that doubles as a midi interface, so putting my synthesizers and synthesizer-like gadgets so far away from the computer no longer makes any sense. instead, i'm going to use the table as a work bench and general storage space for equipment that has worked it's way out of use, like my very dirty tascam 4-track from the 90s and a tape mastering system that i think is actually broken. i also intend to put a sewing machine on that table. while the amount of space available to it is less than previously due to the walkway, that classical guitar is precisely where i intended to set up a small practice space. the brown bookcase behind the table was purchased for cheap in the previous basement, and was intended to house kitchen supplies in the space; here, it holds things like empty jewel cases and printer cartridges, for the production of physical media. on the table are two guitars that need some work, an acoustic that needs the bridge reglued and an electric that needs to be resoldered. there is glue and a soldering iron on the table. under the table are an electric bass and three working guitars, the new one being a mini red squire that i got for the strat pickups. because in all my guitar-playing years, i've never actually had a strat with skinny strat strings, and it's a hole in my sound...
on the very side of the table is a small box (it's actually a lid of a grand and toy box that my parents favoured for moving boxes, and they moved very frequently) with drum sticks and some kiddy xylophone mallets. you can see the xylophone as well, which is something i picked up for a few dollars from a local seller last summer.
a silver mt zion, pink floyd, jimi hendrix and kurt cobain remain on the wall.
as before, the kit is in the opposite corner, and it has to be - it's unavoidable. i have it here on a tarp that's intended to prevent condensation in the summer, and which worked well last summer. i am going to get another tarp and some kind of carpet for the hi-hat controller on the floor, to keep it put. behind the kit is a plastic organizer full of cords, organized as follows: a/v cords up top (rca cords, hdmi cords, dvi cords etc) below it is guitar-effect linkages, below it is usb & firewire cords, below it is midi cords and at the bottom is regular strength shielded guitar & synth cords. i intend to get a second organizer and get rid of the rest of the boxes of things like power adapters hanging around, as well as to further separate the above items. that fan is on constantly, nowadays. frank zappa and each of the four members of the beatles remain on the wall. that pair of headphones was purchased for use as walking phones, but now needs to stay inside as a pair of low quality monitors, due to damage from normal use.
the next space in the panorama is and has to be the desk. those are the old kefs, connected to the old jvc, the same as before, although i had to use the tables from the other room because the shelves they were on belonged to the previous landlord and had to be left in that space. i am using the extra table space to put computers on on both sides, but, in the long run, i'd like to regain the height, in a slightly larger and differently shaped room, to reconstruct a stereo field for listening. in this space, i'm forced to monitor with headphones, and that's ok, but it's not ideal. what i'm going to want to do is put shelves on top of the tables, eventually.
the black tower is the 64-bit machine, which has not yet been built, but which will connect to the kvm on the receiver and go into that square monitor, which is essential for older software, there's a mic stand i got for very cheap last summer behind the kef. my sennheiser 440-iis are on the tower, plugged into the alesis mixer, as before. but, none of these computers will connect to the internet anymore like they did in the previous panorama, so i need the new dell chromebook (which i'm typing this on) somewhere in the middle of the space, either on that desk or somewhere close to it, to allow for internet access in the space. that usb hub will replaced by a new one, soon, and the cord should be less awkward. you can see the usb-->rj-45 connector humming blue on the other side.
you'll notice there's a cardboard box nailed over the window frame, which is a result of the second hand smoke in the neighbourhood. it seems to be coming from upstairs, but the landlord continually denies it and i have no real further answer about it. but, it helps. a lot.
this is the same as previously, even though it's a lot blurrier: guitar effects under the desk, driven by the pod, and out to the mixer and/or the 32-bit tower, which now goes to the kvm on top of the dvd player, the dvd player was not there previously, either, but is here now because the space is a living room. the white tower in the corner is the 90s pc that i was previously using as a tv to stream youtube; it's a pIII 500, now running windows 98 because the drivers for the soundcard in the device never worked propery on windows xp. the monitor will display one or the other of these two signals, depending on the switch in the kvm.
eventually, it may make sense to send these out to separate monitors, but it does not now in this cramped space. on the side where there are currently three mini amps (orange, marshall & vox), there were once guitars, which are now where there were once effects.
you can see the problem here, which is the stairs. so, my right-hand kef is directed at the back of the stairs, and i'm just a foot too small in the space to prevent it. but, space under stairs is also ideal to store boxes. up against the stairs is a table i bought in the previous basement to initially replace the stereo cabinet, which i cut up to turn into a kind of laptop night stand, and which didn't work out in the end. so, that table was supposed to have a receiver on it. it's now a little mini-amp station (there's an ancient 15-watt cheri practice amp underneath it that came with my very first guitar, a hondo telecaster copy that is long gone, but....), with an extra addition: the dx100 in the back is the old synth controller for my long keyless jx-8p that has the curious functionality of a breath controller input and is perhaps ideal for the universal midi controller i intend to use as a guitar-to-midi transformer. so, the station has four small guitar amps and a midi guitar interface, all of which will be used on the lost symphony, which is what this is all about.
my router and modem are up in the corner, but only the chromebook connects to the network in this room.
and, this is my new franken-jx.
many years ago, i noticed my jx-8p had developed sticky keys, which is a common problem with juno series rolands from the 80s. the jx-8p was the last juno, and is a hybrid digital/analog machine - technically the superior to the others, although some may subjectively disagree. i had no choice but to take it apart to clean it, and i ruined the physical connection on the keyboard in the process. i could spend a thousand dollars to get somebody to fix it, or i could just plug a midi controller in - which is what the dx100 was for. but the dx100 is a smaller keyboard, and i wanted a full-scale set of keys that also had some knobs (like an oxygen type affair).
that's a behringer umx61 with weighted keys (like a real piano) that has 8 programmable knobs and one slider, which i figure is more than i can actually deal with. i won't miss the sliders on a smaller type controller, but i am planning on getting a dedicated unit for velocity sensitive pads, which i used to have on my ry30. i have taped the umx61 - which has both midi and usb outs - to two pieces of wood, which are likewise taped to the jx-8p. so, the behringer is now physically fastened where the keyboard used to be on the jx-8p. and can drive it via a simple midi connector.
but, i also get the usb out on the behringer, so i can plug it into the computer and use it to drive the various software synths that were a central part of finishing period 2 - arturia emulators, for example, that can create classic analog synths in software, or weird concoctions created in reaktor that have never existed in the real world. i shouldn't be going out of my way to explain this in 2022, but i've been waiting to set this up since 2005, and it never got prioritized because i'm not technically a keyboard player and i'm pretty handy with a scorewriter - i just hardcoded everything, instead. but, this should help as a creative aid, a lot - if moving more into period 4 than finishing period 3.
i have also taped the drum head that came with the kit, an alesis dm5, to the franken-jx. after i bought the kit, i upgraded to an alesis dm pro, leaving me with an extra drum head. i can hook that up to the behringer, or potentially connect it to the pc over channel 10 (although that would seem unnecessary, i think). this is really as good as any velocity sensitive pads, truly. but, the studio consumes all, and it is likely imminent.
and, lastly, i taped my old zoom 1010 on the front, which i use as an outboard effects processor for the jx. this is a bottom of the line digital effects processor that i got with christmas money at the end of 1995, when i was just about to turn 15. but, it's been attached to the jx for years - it's the only thing i'll plug the jx through, and the only thing i'll use the zoom for. so, it's now physically connected as an outboard processor.
as mentioned, that had to be closer to the pc, because it has to connect in both directions, and the only way to do it was to use this old shoe rack i found on the curb when i first moved to windsor, there's three layers to the shoe rack, and what i have on the two lower layers is mostly an assortment of old guitar effects and accessories, along with the printer on the far side and two other boxes: one is full of microphones (including a new condenser mic) and one is full of wind instruments, which currently only has a harmonica and two wood flutes. i plan on getting some further wind instruments in the upcoming months, as i learned how to play the flute (the recorder.) in school and wind instruments have always been a part of my art, from the wood flute parts recorded in periods 1-3 to the clarinet and oboe sections composed for the more developed pieces, after 2014. there's flute parts on most of my records, if you care to look.
i brought the table in from the other room as well, because it didn't make sense to put the tv stand there. there is an electric/acoustic guitar in a hard case under this table, and i will put the takeharu under there, too; the guitar in the soft case is a mini washburn telecaster copy made for hannah montana fans. i wanted a tele to get a certain sound, but wanted it cheap, and that worked out for me. that table was found in the lobby of my grandmother's apartment, discarded as garbage, and was intended as a "charging table" in the other space. that function has been superseded. i always intended to get a "guitar table" in the other space and did not. the rewired ibanez will take it's space here, afterwards.
these are a few more shots to finish the panorama:
that second mini classical guitar is new; i bought it for the case for $25 at value village, then put my old epiphone electric-acoustic in the case. it's a cheap noodle guitar. i got that bookcase for $15 on kijiji, then had to haul it home on a shopping cart. it means i finally got my cds on a shelf. there's two bookcases in my bedroom now, as well, so my books are on shelves, too. but, you'll notice i have a pile of manuals on that shelf.
i bought the second bookcase for cheap with hospital settlement money and it's just full of cds. at the moment, my impossible-to-use-for--recording-because-it's-too-loud fender bass amp is being used as a tire stop, but i could potentially use it as a cab for the orange. we'll see about that. that other space in the back is where i eat.
so, that's the new studio - actually set up to use, not just as storage until i could get to another location. a lot of the basic relations are the same, but there's some big changes, partly brought on by new instruments, and i think the new setup is more efficient. the putting the keyboards behind me in a cubby effect is something i've done before, albeit not for many years. i could potentially rotate the franken-jx, especially if i plug it into the 64 bit pc, but there's not enough room to get into the kit if i were to do that, here. hey - this works. it's tight, but it's functional, and i can only hope i'm productive with it.
i will explore the new components - the three new electric guitars, the new acoustic guitar, the new mic and stand, the new xylophone, the new mini amps, the new midi controller and the guitar to midi interface - in separate videos at the fake account as i get through the rerun over the last year, as previously described. and, as mentioned, there may be a few new items coming as well - a couple of things i didn't pick up last year, but meant to.
i want to and need to be production-focused in the short run. i may have to stop to fix or build things, but everything is ready to go, now, to finish period 3. and it's a long time coming, too - almost 20 years,
4:36
the jx-8p was bought in a music store and was expensive, even by the metrics of the time.
but, the dx100 was found for nothing at a garage sale, at a time when such items were out of fashion. i've used it quite a lot. it wasn't more than $50, but i don't know - my dad would just buy anything he could find for nothing and then gave it to me for free.
i understand that these items are worth quite a bit today, but they weren't at the time - people couldn't get rid of them.
5:27
there are a small number of items in here that were expensive when they were bought, in some cases over 20 years ago. they're not expensive, now.
but, it's primarily an array of gear purchased half-broken and salvaged, or found for cheap somewhere and sold by somebody that didn't know what they were selling.
5:30
this was truly built carefully and slowly, and often on very low budgets; it didn't fall out of the sky, and it's not the result of or a display of wealth.
5:32
the sound out of this dell is unexpectedly high end.
:)
6:47
thursday, april 21, 2022
so, there's a survey out showing that the majority of canadians consider religion harmful to society, and the bourgeois press is predictably reacting in an entirely backwards manner, by suggesting that those that consider religion to be a negative influence on society are in some way being oppressive.
i'm going to try to explain this with a concrete example. it shouldn't be necessary - it should be obvious - but religionists seem to be particularly retarded on this point; they are so lost in their zealousness, in their self-righteousness and in their moral superiority that they are fundamentally unable to understand why people might consider their morals to be harmful. that doesn't make sense to them - they don't understand it.
so, a concrete example is abortion.
to the religionists, abortion is this grand moral concern that needs to be corrected, as it leads to the deaths of innocent children. and, they use this ridiculous language entirely explicitly: they speak of the murder of the unborn, of the genocide of foetuses. the language is outrageous, absurd and offensive, but they hold to it because they know they're right.
but, what do most people think about abortion?
well, to begin with, most people think forcing women (not to mention men, who get lost in the conversation) into a non-consensual relationship with a child is unjust. the religionists may say something about god's will, but most people think that's idiotic and that the ramification of it - that you have to raise this child you don't want because some imaginary abstract concept called "god" said so - to be an absurdly oppressive infringement of their basic human rights. then, you have to deal with the social consequences of children that were raised poorly because they weren't wanted, including high levels of social assistance (a concern that is perhaps less relevant as we shift out of the socialization of production and into the mechanization of production), high levels of crime, over-population, etc.
that is a concrete example of why people would find religion to be harmful to society - because it seeks to turn back the clocks on abortion. it's one of a great many examples. we could be talking about homosexuality, as another example.
the thatcherian concept of religion as a replacement for government in the role of social services is normalized in the minds of bourgeois society, but it is not accepted by the people, who want government to maintain this role, and not offload it to the churches. governments are bound by charters of rights, and churches are not. the neo-liberal consensus will not discuss this; it frames the church as a distributor of goods, rather than as an oppressive institution.
that contradiction needs to be more aggressively exploited by the left, which needs to be more forceful about expelling religion from government.
1:11
so, this is the eat-in kitchen space i mentioned:
i think this is technically intended to be a second bedroom, although it might have actually been intended to be the first bedroom. from what i understand, this space was sectioned off from the upstairs of the house by the previous property owner to create an apartment for an older relative that valued their privacy. these two "bedrooms" both have sliding doors that i haven't closed once, but this one makes more sense as an actual bedroom, and note that it's closer to the bathroom. but, i find the other one more useful for that purpose, because this one is closer to the kitchen, which you can see in the back.
as mentioned, this is clearly a much smaller "living room" - i can barely fit the couch in here, and i have to put everything on the coffee table. but, it hardly matters much to me, in context. there's a large number of boxes behind me, and an enclave with my old chair (which is peeling and probably going to be left here) and my second bike, which i bought for detroit and has been sitting there since late 2019. it's about the same depth, although it looks smaller because the walkway isn't there. if you were to take that enclave and reposition it to the other side, the difference in space would be that foot or two you're seeing here on the other side of the table, where you'd expect a tv and speakers to be. as i live alone and don't want anybody else down here, ever, the difference, for me, reduces to the question of stereo speakers being able to create a proper spread - listening to music in this space is just going to create a blurry, bouncy mess.
so, it doesn't make sense to set up the stereo system in here like i did before, but you'll notice the tv is gone - i left it in the apartment i was in for less than a year. i didn't turn it on when i lived there, i just watched the 90s laptop, which is the one that's turned off, instead....and i got used to it as preferable. i decided there was no reason to stream the laptop to an external tv, and that i actually preferred to have it right in front of me than watch a screen across the room.
in that space, the celestions still made sense as an audio out, but they don't in this space because it's too narrow. the answer is that i'm using the little yamahas instead, and they sound great for what they're being used for. as you can see, they go out to the same ancient receiver. i could set that receiver up to the record player, cassette deck, etc, but i see little functional use of such things in this space. this apartment is more conducive to headphone listening, which is fine - it's how i've always listened to music, and how my art is intended to be consumed in real life.
but, if i were to expand this, i'd set up the extra inputs into the ancient receiver and hook them up to the celestions. i'd bring the dvd player back in, and i'd add something like a thirty-inch led monitor. and, then i'd never turn any of it on, and use everything to watch lectures on youtube, instead.
i can't use the 90s laptop to watch youtube anymore because it can't handle the javascript to run the ad servers and ad block won't run on older browsers for "security" reasons. technically, i should be able to, but there's too many artificially placed restrictions. i keep looking for appropriate mozilla forks, and there isn't one, yet. i'm sure i could get it to work, if i expended the time into it, but...
see, as the machine appears to be indestructible, i may yet be able to reclaim it for watching uses in the long run, but, for now, i'm just using it to run the cisco voip phone beside it and for some other utility uses. it's a perfectly good laptop, it's just very old.
i happen to have that (now) older chromebook, which needs to be used gently due to having broken connections, but connects to youtube without problems. it can't leave the house, it needs to be put somewhere and left somewhere. so, the easiest thing to do is to convert it into the tv set. for now, i don't have any particular drive to attach it to a bigger screen, but we'll see how i feel about it as i move forward with it, and how much it costs to get a larger screen, moving forwards.
if i do anything to do this eating system in this space in the short term, it will be to get a bigger screen, but i'm not particularly driven to do such a thing at this time.
5:34
you can't see it in the pictures, but the switch is between the speakers. my zoji cell phone is also behind the cisco voip phone, which is in disuse until i'm able to re-image it.
i just don't currently see any utility of walking around with a phone, and a lot of liability attached to walking around with a tracking device. you're going to have to force me to do it, eventually, and i'll make it frustrating, when we get there. so, that's ready to go, but it's not in use - i'd rather use the voip phone, for now.
i only intend on turning the laptop on when i'm planning to call out, so that doesn't mean you can call me, now, either. i suppose i can accept calls i'm expecting, but i don't want a device in my house that rings at me when it wants my attention, like i'm a slave to it. yuck.
5:51
so, having the tv set back up means i'm going back to watching all of the lectures at stanford, in order. i have forgotten where i left off at, so i'm just going to start over again.
i started watching the first part and there was a comment suggesting i should watch a later lecture first, so i did. we're starting with quantum entanglements, first, as suggested by the professor.
when i did this the first time, it was with the caveat that i'd never taken a course in quantum physics, explicitly, so i'd never been through the topic, formally. i'd taken first year survey type courses, i'd taken a course in relativity and i'd taken a lot of relevant math (a lot of linear algebra, a lot of geometry, including some weird stuff like projective plane geometry and non-euclidean geometry, complex analysis, harmonic analysis, wavelet design, etc), and i knew i wasn't happy about the foundations of quanutm theory (i'm quite pro-einstein, in general), but i wanted to actually take a formal course in quantum physics and shut up for the first dozen lectures to see what i thought about how it was actually formally built. i posted some conclusions here, but only vaguely recall what they were.
i didn't intend to rewatch these, but i am now, so i'm going to do a running analysis instead.
this is my comment on video #2:
====
i'm not plugging my ears.
i watched this once before and then my computer broke and i forgot where i left off, so i'm just starting over again, and i'm going to pick up on my critique from the start. i know this is an intermediate type course - not for beginners, but not for experts - but, as far as i can tell, it's at least standardized. that is, the ideas are conventional. so, i'm left to conclude that quantum physicists build their theory in euclidean geometry, then get confused as to why it's full of contradictions.
he went over this briefly, but the great insight of einstein was realizing that space is curved. that's not a deduction of relativity, it's an assumption preceding it. you don't get the famous formula with the e and the m and the c squared without the assumption of curvature. now that we know this, how can we justify basing the foundations of quantum physics in assumptions of orthogonality? it's daft.
the only reason it would work out approximately is that you're dealing with distances so small that they can approximate orthogonality. but, that's just replicating the error of newtonian physics, and it relegates something like this to a course on "quantum physics for engineering students".
as i now know what he's doing that's bothering me, i'm going to present a solution upfront and see if i can build a parallel model as i'm going through this. listen: we don't have this quite right. our theory of quantum physics is really based on a lack of understanding. the math works, but only in aggregate, because it's just a probability distribution. it's not a physical theory, it's the absence of one. so, there's nothing wrong with going through something like this repeatedly and trying to identify oversimplifications in the math, in hopes it might lead to a more complex model. and, whatever the truth is, we can be sure of that point: it's very messy, it's not symmetrical.
so, he's using a theory called vector spaces which i learned in second year algebra, and a specific application of it called linear algebra, which i learned in first year algebra. he's presenting the theory abstractly, and it can be understood that way, but the fact is that vector spaces are the general theory underlying linear algebra, which is a modern way to do euclidean geometry. he went to great lengths to separate the two different ideas of a vector, but he really shouldn't have; everything he's going to do with these vector spaces has a clear meaning in euclidean geometry, and all he's going to do for the rest of the course is easily interpreted in terms of euclidean geometry. the inner product of the vectors is the square of the euclidean distance between them. when he normalizes, he should divide by the norm, and he won't do that - he does a thing physicists typically do, which is just ignore the constant. in context, that is very bad, as it relies on an unjustified assumption of euclidean orthogonality.
what he actually wants to do is generalize the idea of vector space to a metric space, which we learn in third year "calculus" and is a stepping point to advanced calculus, which is called topology. so, we learn vector spaces first, then metric spaces and then topological spaces. a vector space is insufficient here because it doesn't have a distance function, it assumes euclidean distance. if we were to go to the next step and talk about metric spaces, we could introduce hyperbolic concepts of distance, and correct the naive underlying assumptions of orthogonality.
my understanding is that these concerns are understood at the margins, but there has been no movement to rigorously re-evaluate the concept of space in quantum mechanics. this is long overdue. even at an intermediate level, we cannot be ignoring curvature any longer. this needs to be addressed and reformalized, so i'm going to keep a running total as we go.
for now, note that his use of pythogoras' theorem as a distance function is naive, at best. he should be using a distance function that better models physical space, and his attempts to hide between the abstraction of vector spaces are not sufficient to undo the error of assuming euclidean orthogonality.
this is important because the weirdness in quantum physics seems to be intrinsically tied into our concept of space. there's a lot of very complicated ways to try to deal with this, but the bottom line is that trying to figure out what these particles are actually doing seems to be very closely connected to trying to understand how the curvature in space is interacting around them, much as einstein proposed with gravity. simply addressing the actual model would perhaps be a lot more helpful.
i actually wonder if this might be better formalized using the language of group theory in the projective plane. susskind would like that, i bet.
i actually wonder if this might be better formalized using the language of group theory in the projective plane. susskind would like that, i bet.
6:16
the new account will very consciously not be connected to the blog. but, i will post comments here, as well.
6:18
the yamaha cr-420 is late 70s, not 60s.
6:22
so, i just have a little bit more cleaning to do in here.
my thirty degree day last week was a bust, even if i got some nice biking in after the rain cleared. it's been more seasonal this week, but we're looking at a beautiful weekend, here.
i want to get the windows 7 machine up before then, which means winliting a custom installation media and hoping the thing lets me install it. so, that's next.
the studio is ready to go, but that means i can't hotswap into vista any more, if i need it. i need my 7 box back up.
7:26
so, i cracked on the keyboard for the new chromebook, but i've had to come up with a sneaky way to do it.
so, that means i can pull the keyboard tray out to type something longer on it, if i want to:
...and i can put it away when i'm done, or am recording in the space:
after typing this up, i'm content with it.
if you look at the pictures i've posted, i've never had a keyboard tray on the desk - not in the updated pictures, and not back in the old apartment on bronson, either. the desk i had in the studio on bronson did not have a computer tray because it wasn't a computer desk; it was, however, the desk i'd been using as a computer desk since roughly 2000, and was actually the desk i used to use as a keyboard and drum machine table, going all the way back to 1997. so, i had that desk for a long time, and had been using it as a computer desk for over ten years before i had to leave it at bronson, along with a large amount of other furniture, due to my dad being a complete asshole.
the desk i have now was packaged in a large amount of furniture that ended up on the truck to windsor and that i presume must have been my father's. it is a computer desk, and had a tray, but i dismantled it because i found it difficult to type into it because i was used to typing on the desk. and, i'm certainly going to keep my main keyboard - the one connected to the kvm - on the top of the desk, like i always have.
i don't remember what happened to the piece of wood that was in there. i may have ripped the wheels off and used it for something else; i have no specific recollection of it, if i did. but, i don't have the tray.
i can use the laptop keyboard most of the time, but i want to be able to type into the chromebook using a normal keyboard when i'm writing longer posts, like this one, which is a test post, so i've built my own tray. sort of.
i'm actually lucky i had a piece of wood that fits, but i do. i wanted to use this as a shelf for a bookcase, but it's too big; it fits perfectly, here. but, the problem with these trays is that they're always rickety, so i fastened a smaller piece (another piece intended for shelving that was not the right size) on top of it with packing tape. that way, i can cut the larger piece for shelving at a later time, or otherwise reuse the wood. but, it was still rickety, so i screwed some extra l-brackets in and this solution seems to be quite stable.
so, that means i can pull the keyboard tray out to type something longer on it, if i want to:
...and i can put it away when i'm done, or am recording in the space:
after typing this up, i'm content with it.
i mean...i'm going to usually just stick with the integrated keypad. but, there's some things about the keyboard i don't like much. this restores the option to type normally, again.
one more vacuuming run and then i'm stopping to eat.
9:55
how are my oranges doing in the quinoa?
the first time i tried it, i picked a very sweet orange, and i didn't like it much. the second time, i picked a sour orange, and it tasted far better. so, the key is making sure i get the more sour orange, before it converts too many vitamins into icky fructose.
13:23
fwiw, in openly endorsing macron over le pen, i think melenchon has outed himself as a bourgeois fraud, although there were a lot of hints to that effect, already. he could have refused to pick a side, but his argument seems to explicitly be to prioritize bourgeois "religious rights" over actual rights for actual workers. that's not a left-wing perspective, it's a concession to neo-liberalism. marx would have ripped him apart over it, and the french left should take it for what it actually is.
he should not have endorsed a candidate, but, in doing so, he's told us what side he's truly on, and that should be reflected in voting decisions in future cycles. you can't undo a thing like this.
14:03
in an explicit two horse race between macron and le pen, i think there is little question that marx would endorse le pen.
14:16
"Freedom of conscience"! If one desired, at this time of the Kulturkampf to remind liberalism of its old catchwords, it surely could have been done only in the following form: Everyone should be able to attend his religious as well as his bodily needs without the police sticking their noses in. But the Workers' party ought, at any rate in this connection, to have expressed its awareness of the fact that bourgeois "freedom of conscience" is nothing but the toleration of all possible kinds of religious freedom of conscience, and that for its part it endeavours rather to liberate the conscience from the witchery of religion. But one chooses not to transgress the "bourgeois" level. - karl marx' critique of the gotha program, which is nearly literally applicable to melenchon's endorsement of macron.
14:43
friday, april 22, 2022
it's funny how i can lose so much time eating salad...
i've got a coffee and i'm back in my normal spot, in the studio, for now. the tv room is set up now, for as long as the computers remain functional, which i can never be sure of. i watched some of the lecture as i was eating last night, passed out for a few hours, finished eating, washed my face and it's...6:00 am? what?
having that space stable again will be very helpful to me, in terms of workflow. it means that i can separate my thoughts, physically. i've always found that very helpful to ensure i can focus. it lets me leave the eating things in the eating room, and focus on the recording things in the recording room.
so, the last thing of that sort to do is get my 7 box back up again, so i can focus on the reading things in the reading room, which is what i'm doing this morning. i took a look at the hp last week (which is a faster machine) and deduced it was going to be a difficult process to...it's basically bricked, from what i can tell. i don't know how that happened, but it seems to be the truth of it. i know that there's been a bios virus on a number of my machines for many years, and am kind of deducing that it got that one. i was able to unbrick my production machine using the bus pirate, so it's not necessarily dead. i might be able to do something similar to the hp, given enough time and with enough drive. but, it's a more difficult problem, due to the architecture of a laptop, and my mind is elsewhere. it's a shame.
for now, i want to put it aside, as i have the compaq machine i can run, instead. the hp machine does not have a screen (the backlit burned out) and i would prefer to use it strictly as an offline video processor, because it is fast - an i5 - and has 8 gb of ram. i don't need a machine like that for anything besides video editing. but, it's bricked. :(.
if i can't unbrick it, i can either buy a new system board or potentially try to find another cheap computer. an i5 would be the fastest computer in this space, but it's not new technology anymore, and would likely be available at a reasonable price, second hand. i dunno, though - i'd have to look. what i know is that i've decided that i want a dedicated video processing cpu, and i'm not doing any video editing until i have one.
if i just want the typing machine up for now, with basic windows 7 functionality, i'm better off getting the compaq running. i turned the compaq machine off completely at the end of 2020 because i became convinced it was connecting remotely to some kind of clandestine cia network, through an undocumented wireless chip, that was attempting to bot me. i don't have the system resources on any of these machines to suffer through the lags due to nsa spying. i've been using the thinkpad, which doesn't have a boot sector in it and can be easily flashed, ever since. that has restricted what i've been able to do, for obvious reasons, although i've sort of gotten used to it, as well. i think the attempts to bot me have stopped, but they might come back again, if i plug in another computer with a hard drive.
that sounds nuts, but i am thoroughly convinced the compaq machine was the target of some kind of organized attack, led by law enforcement at some level, in some country. my hp is bricked, somehow. that's not random. i have no idea what country or what level. i don't understand what they think, but it seems to be along the lines of that they think i'm some kind of spy or something and that they're basically jamming me - shutting me down, preventing me from spreading propaganda. all hail putin! as stupid as it is, it's had real consequences, and i'd love to sue the fuckers if i could just figure out who they actually are.
the exact behaviour of the machine is that it was rebooting when i was in the middle of typing things, which could be a lot of things besides an attack by government thugs - it might be a bad hard drive, or bad ram, for example. it's sort of similar to the production machine, though, in that i can't quite figure out what it is.
i've tested the hard drive enough to be convinced that there's nothing wrong with it. i've tested the ram fairly thoroughly, and it seems fine. it only crashes when it's plugged into the network. so, does it have a network virus (how?) or is somebody shutting me down remotely?
whatever it is, i decided quite some time ago that i was going to approach it by installing a minimized winlited windows 7 install that wipes out most of the obscure networking functionality that is really just a security concern. it's long past time to build my minimized winlited windows 7 installation disc, in the same way i built my minimized winlited windows xp installation disc, which is something i did over the summer of 2007. that minimized winlited windows xp installation disc has been deployed to several machines, and has been tweaked in multiple ways for multiple purposes in order to be deployed to those several different machines. these laptops (as well as the 64 bit pc) are both past the point where i can install xp on them. i need a new minimized winlited install disc for deployment.
why not upgrade past 7? the first reason is that (1) i have windows 7 product keys and (2) i've never installed windows 8, 10 or 11. i remember looking at the ui on windows 8 and being horribly turned off by it, then deciding it didn't offer any functionality that was of any use. i also remember being weirded out by the chromebook-like app store, which i've never used on the chromebook. i decided i'd wait, and i think that's the standard advice for windows users - we skipped me, we skipped vista and we skipped 8. so, that means 10 is now stable and i should go for 10, right?
the fact is that i've never used it. like, at all. that might be the right choice, but i'm very uncomfortable with the premise of modding an os i've never used. i have experience with windows 7 and suspect it will remain my go-to windows x64 system, at least offline, for quite a few many years. even if i end up putting 10 on these laptops, i suspect i'll eventually put 7 on some of the other systems. everything else aside, the way that windows 10 deals with hard drives is largely incompatible with my hardware, and i should mostly stick with 7 on the hardware i have for that reason. 10 also seems like a strictly internet-focused os, and i have to keep in mind that i keep most of my computers off the network, and that they eventually all end up off the network, but, there's a difference between xp, 7 and 10 as stable iterations - as we're not likely to move to 128 bit cpus any time soon, the only reason to upgrade past 7 really seems to be for security patches and for internet functionality. you'll likely be technically able to install windows 7 on the newest, fastest hardware for the next 20 years, and any restrictions on it's use will likely be strictly artificial. so long as you keep your machine off the network, windows 7 may very well be the final version of windows worth installing.
ever.
i have keys for 8.1 from carleton that should work, but i'll probably need to buy a 10 laptop to get keys, and it's a last resort, for the moment.
so, i should have a minimized winlited windows 7 installation disc, regardless. i may eventually put a version of xp 64 on the current production machine (as i currently have a version of xp dual booting with windows 98 on the 16 bit machine), but will probably eventually dual boot into 7 on it; i don't, however, plan on seriously upgrading the main os past 32-bit xp. i've just taken it (and the 16-bit pc) off the network; i will never connect the 64-bit pc to the network at all. i haven't decided on an operating system for the 64-bit pc yet, but will probably use windows 7 (with an option to dual boot into linux, one day). keeping things a little behind is useful in a music production environment, because you want stability, you don't want to experiment with the latest gadgets. i mean, maybe you do, but you want to do it outside of your primary system, which you want to be rock solid and always reliable. the difficulties i've been having with my production machine for some time now demonstrate the concerns around such things. so, i should build the minimized winlited windows 7 installation disc for use on the pcs, even if i don't use them on the laptops, or, unfortunately, have to throw the laptops away. thinking about windows 10 is getting ahead of myself, a little.
i'll probably start looking at 10 sometime around the point that microsoft is announcing a replacement for windows 12, and after i've actually used it for a bit - but that might also never happen. i might find myself sticking with chromebooks for the internet, and just taking my typing machine offline.
how long can i keep a 7 machine online for? this chromebook got it's last update in sept, 2021; the other one got it's last update in oct, 2018 and cannot access most secure sites. the turnover time is quite minimal, even if the computer can still do basic things. but, i'm not using a fake account on the 7 box. when i integrate the updates into windows 7, it's going to be up to the start of 2020, although we'll see if i can push it. how long is that useful for, before i have to look at 10, or forget about windows if it's really that bad? will it make more sense to buy a new computer at that time? i don't know, and i don't know what the best thing to do with these old laptops will be, if i can even get them to boot for much longer.
what i need is an answer to the laptop in that room. i think i can fix at least one of them. if i can't, i'll have to find another answer.
for now, the first step is better understanding the hardware and the second step is building a minimized winlited windows 7 installation disc for it. this machine also has a burned out backlit. while it should boot, it doesn't display until well after post, so it's hard to understand what the bios is doing.
i guess the first question is whether or not i can fix the backlit? how much?
7:47
so, i plugged the thing in and it doesn't seem to have power issues. i put a 2 gb stick of ram in, and the lights stopped flashing. but, the screen is stone dead.
i've avoided dismantling this thing, but i think i have to, now. i can use the bus pirate as a multimeter to test it. an inverter is inexpensive.
i bought the compaq refurbished, and for all i know it's had the inverter replaced before. it's a presario cq60, c. 2009, that came with vista pre-loaded but has been running windows 7 since i had to swap the drives out.
for right now, i want a windows typing device, but, in the long run, if i can save the screen on it, maybe i can turn it into a guitar effects processor, after all.
8:53
so, i didn't realize the voltage coming out of the inverter was that high. i'm going to refrain from using a cheap multimeter...
this is a blog post from nov 19, 2017:
good news and bad news.
the bad news is that i just lost my screen on my backup laptop. it's been flickering for a few days. so it's not unexpected. and i can see the screen if i look closely enough, so it seems to just be the light that's out. this is essentially the same thing that happened to my main laptop, so i'm suspecting that it's a power issue in the unit. i may learn, once i've moved, that a lot of the problems i've been having down here are from bad wiring.
when i rebuild my access point, it's going to be on a desktop. but, i'm going to need to have a laptop of some sort. i was hoping it would be this one...i'll have to see what it costs to fix it...
for right now, there's not much to do besides send the signal out to a monitor.
=======
so, that sounds like it's actually probably the screen.
the screen is going to cost me $100 to fix, which is more than the device is worth, by a good margin. the inverters are $10, but i'll have to wait weeks for one to get here.
it makes sense to buy a new inverter. if it fixes the problem, great. if it does not, i have a backup inverter as i try to figure out what to do about the screen.
the reason i don't want to install blind is due mostly to the bios, which i want to get into, first. i'd actually like to flash it. so, i'm going to put it back together and see if i can shine enough light on it to install it, before i plug it into the external monitor.
and, maybe the connections were just loose - maybe i'll get lucky.
so, i should expect the inverter here some time next month, but i want to get my minimized winlited windows 7 os installed today.
11:14
no such luck, on any front.
so, i'm going to shift to focusing on building the minimized winlited windows 7 installation disc, instead.
this laptop should boot, if i can give it the right operating system.
12:02
there's people dying on the streets in the united states, and the idiot president is sending billions of dollars to europe to protect a white supremacist movement from a reckoning it deserves.
it's not that i really care about a conflict between the dumb yankees and the naive russians, with the caveat that i'd like to avoid a nuclear war. if you fellas could make sure you don't press any buttons, that'd be nice.
but, the guy is totally tone deaf.
americans don't give a fuck, and he's going to lose the next election if he thinks he's going to fight it on preserving "unity" in nato, while he bafflingly blames inflation on the russians.
but, this is what happens when you elect an out of touch octogenarian president, and the country should learn from that mistake and not make it again.
12:08
joe biden has been waiting his whole life for a final show down with the russians, and we're going to have to endure his schizophrenic, senile delusions for the rest of his term, presuming he lives through it - and presuming the rest of us do, as well.
12:10
so, i stopped to sleep this afternoon and slept a little too much. i've now eaten and am ready to finish this. sort of.
i wanted to get the laptop to boot as a proof of concept before i bought an inverter. i was previously able to get it to boot into the previously installed instance of windows 7, but it had all of the relevant drivers pre-installed in the os. i don't have a pre-loaded os to drop into the drive anymore, so it's not clear to me how the bios would actually react. nor do i recall if i have a password on the bios.
so, i went to build the minimized winlited windows 7 installation disc instead and realized i have to do it in a 64-bit os.
i want the minimized winlited windows 7 installation disc to exist by the end of the night, or to at least get a start on it, so i'm going to have to boot into the 7 drive on the production machine to do it in there. the chromebooks can't run windows programs and the 90s laptop and both the working pcs are 32 bit. only the broken laptops are running 64 bit windows operating systems.
if i slipstream the install, i could maybe get the laptop to boot more easily.
there's just a lot of functionality i'm sitting on that i cannot do in any of the machines i have running - these chromebooks are fine for minimal browsing, but they are not serious computers. i need the option to boot into windows 7 available.
23:44
saturday, april 23, 2022
so, i can't get it to boot, but i was able to find a sweet spot in the glare to see what the machine is doing when it tries to boot, and i can understand what the issue is - the os was installed on my production machine, and can't find a bcd entry for the laptop. fixing it actually likely wouldn't be very hard, if i could only see the actual screen. but, i can't, so there's really no way out.
what i did before was copy the files that were installed to the drive back to the drive, but, as mentioned, i can't do that, now, because i deleted all of the files; i'm trying to reinstall from source, and set it up so i can rebuild it from source on the fly. what it does is launch into the startup repair, do something, reboot and then go back into the startup repair again. i can see the screen well enough to see what it's doing, but not well enough to actually use the startup repair process.
so, i'm not worrying about that until i can diagnose the screen, at the least. i'm going to build the minimized winlited windows 7 installation disc for the rest of the night, instead.
the dvd reader in the device is also not very good, so i'll have to check to see if i can boot from an external usb drive - or just a key, i guess.
the part i need is 6002058L-B, and they're only ten dollars, but i'll have to wait a month for it to get here from china. i'm not going to find this item in north america, in any condition. so, what i'm going to do is sidestep the issue and buy a universal ccfl test inverter, instead. such a thing would not be intended for long term use, but i could potentially use it until the actual part comes in, if it actually is the inverter that's broken. so, the value of the tester is that it will tell me if it's actually the inverter or not. further, it's a tool i can re-use, which justifies the purchase, regardless.
actually, let me test to see if i can boot it from a sata dvd connected via dvd before i build the minimized winlited windows 7 installation disc.
3:38
sorry, i just want to clarify: i'm not ghosting my hard-drives, as was standard amongst it professionals in the 90s. i don't want to time capsule anything and would never approach anything i'm doing in that fashion; i'm going to add and remove hardware in the future, and i'm going to add and remove software, as well. these machines are living creatures; none of my computers will ever exist under glass, like that. what i'm doing is building a customized installation media (and i've always used optical discs for this, but i might not have that choice for this exact laptop) that has large parts of the windows operating system removed, all of the security updates slipstreamed, many programs pre-installed and all kinds of install scripts tweaked into it. when i did that for xp, the install disc triggered an install script via the runonce, and that install script went through and installed whatever was specific to the machine, and then finished the job in wiping down the os. this was a lengthy process that took many months to complete, which is a part of the reason i haven't done it for 7. so, i don't expect to be as thorough, but i'm also expecting to take the 7 machines off the network relatively soon, if not immediately. if i'm going to do something like that, it will be for the desktops, and i'm not thinking about that right now (although the core of these slipstreamed and minimized isos will be used for it when i get there).
so, if i get sloppy and use the term "image", please forgive me; i am building a minimized winlited windows 7 installation disc that will automate a new, fresh install that will be attached to a series of scripts that will be under constant revision. i am not ghosting or imaging anything, and would...i don't want to say i wouldn't recommend it. what i'm doing is superior, but it has a learning curve,
i'll remind you that i completed the operating systems component of the msce program when i was doing training for employment with microsoft (as a vista support agent) in 2006/2007. the job didn't last long, as it got shipped out to the philippines when the canadian dollar went up. microsoft wanted to experiment with call centres in canada when the dollar was low because canadians speak english relatively well, dare i say even better than americans do. but, it made no sense when the price of oil drove the dollar up. it's only half of what is required to do this; i'm really making a lot of use of knowledge of ms-dos from being a nerdy kid, too.
it's not super challenging stuff or anything, but you probably don't have 30 years of experience working in dos. nowadays, the reality is that almost nobody would have that kind of experience with dos, at all.
7:18
also, i was able to date the cq60 to the summer of 2009 by examining the stickers on the components inside of it.
the hp appears to be dated to 2011.
my 90s laptop actually has stickers dated to 2002, so i might be exaggerating. it has a few broken keys, but has dramatically outlasted the windows vista and windows 7 machines. i didn't start using the hp until early 2014, and it was dead by early 2017 - that's barely three years for what was a relatively fancy laptop that my dad gave me. i purchased the much less expensive compaq refurbished in 2009 for extra cheap, and it was on for twice as long before it burned out, in late 2017 - so i at least got almost ten years out of it, and i think it's still fixable. but, can we get 30 years out of the evo, or even longer?
7:33
we've had some normal weather as well, but, overall, it's been an unseasonably warm spring in southern ontario with multiple days in the mid to high 20s - something you don't expect here until mid to late may, and which came in this year in early march. i am going to get out to enjoy the weather today.
i had to sleep this morning, right about the time i said i was going to test the dvd. so, i'm not going to get this windows 7 installation disc minimized and customized like i wanted.
but, let's test the dvd this morning, at the least.
7:55
you wouldn't expect large amounts of hot days in april anywhere in canada. it's sort of the opposite of november; in november, you might have latent heat, but the days are just too short to build warmth. you might get some hot air blowing in once in a while, but it's going to be cool, most of the time. in april, the days are starting to get longer, but there's no heat in the ground, so you have to be patient. the norm is not a meaningful metric in april, where you expect the numbers to fluctuate. what an early summer means is less about an end to those fluctuations (which you'll almost never see) and more about the number of warm days early in the season.
so, the new climate won't end cold days in april, but it will create more hot days in april and that's what we've seen this year and what we can expect in the future, especially in the short term as the solar cycle brings us into a period of greater warmth, in line with accelerating levels of global warming.
in the new climate, though, the spring ends in april, in the southern great lakes region. it might not sustain itself into the week, but this warm weekend at the end of april marks the beginning of summer - as the first weekend of november now marks the end of it.
expect sustained warmth starting in early may.
8:04
so, i couldn't get the drive to boot from an external dvd drive (via a sata to usb connector), and i can't entirely see what it's doing, but i at least got the drive to spin. i don't know if that's going to work or not. how much is a new dvd player nowadays? let's not get ahead of myself, and let's stay focused about what i'm doing and what is worth doing on a machine i bought for less than $200, refurbished, from best buy, 13 years ago.
if i can get the screen working on this again, it's end point is as a guitar effects processor, as i find some other hard drive typing solution. the dell may not leave the house much any time soon, but it is intended as a mobile device - and i do realize the need to have one. so, the dell cannot be the bedside typewriter. for the bedside typewriter, i'm almost certainly going to linux rather than windows 10 and, as mentioned, the question of keeping up with hardware is less important than it used to be. i can probably buy a 10 year old vista or 7 laptop, put linux on it and be happy with it for the next 20 years as a typing device, so long as i can put linux on it (fuck bios blocks.) and so long as i can keep updating it. the fact that the thinkpad is in rough shape now aside, there's no good reason i shouldn't be able to update it, nor is there any good reason i shouldn't be able to update this dualcore dell. but, the dell was cheap, and it's meant to leave the house...so it's only going to last so long. computers that have understood minimal timeframes for outside use should be cheap, and i don't really expect any serious difficulties with the device over the next couple of years that i can actually use it. if i can get the typewriter 7 machine set up fairly quickly, i will probably just put this chromebook away, and probably swap accounts with the other one. all hail the koala central command!
then, how much does a barebones linux laptop actually cost, for longterm use as a typewriter? if i can get something comparable to this dell for the same price, it means i can put the cq60 aside for the guitar processor, as i initially wanted to. the cq60 is a 2 ghz dual core, which is basically the same as this dell. but, of course, it has a hard drive in it. so, i'm thinking about that.
if i want the compaq to boot without an external drive and actually work, the best thing to do for now is probably to get through the initial part of the install on the production machine and then transfer it at the point it reboots for the first time. so, i'll format the drive and copy the files on the production machine, then let the installation process pick up the hardware on the cq60 when it reboots from the drive. that should avoid the messy problems i was dealing with, regarding the bios working with the annoying boot process in post-vista windows machines.
so, i've got the nlite ("ntlite") program installed and am disappointed that most of the features are locked. i'm going to have to find a license for it, or use some other program, instead. i've at least found the windows 7 iso at the microsoft site (with appropriate sp1 slipstream), along with the sp2 rollup and am downloading it. so, i've got some progress on that.
13:35
it seems as though you can actually still download windows 7 updates manually, and they even still roll them up for us:
https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=security+monthly+rollup+for+Windows+7+for+x64
this iso will technically be up to date to april, 2022, and i can always slipstream new updates in later.
i just want to find a comprehensive list.
13:54
ok.
so, what i need to do is patch the hole between the cumulative rollup and the monthly rollup.
16:30
sunday, april 24, 2022
monday, april 25, 2022
tuesday, april 26, 2022
so, where was i?
i did intend to get out for a bike ride on saturday, but the logistics fell apart: i need to take my iron on an empty stomach, so i would have had to wait to eat until i came back. it was the end of the day, as well. on top of that, the heat only really peaked very briefly. so, i got out of the shower in the afternoon, realized my windows 7 iso was still downloading, noticed the day didn't unfold as planned and decided i'd be better off going out for a ride on sunday afternoon, instead.
so, i was up in the evening, got breakfast, watched the rest of the lecture (there's a big post coming probably by the end of the night), took an early morning sleep, got my plastic bags together for drop-off and biked out to the edge of town and back, just to get some exercise.
the sobeys did not have any strange or hard to find fruit like fresh cherries, but they get the better produce by corporate dictate (sobeys is the upper class store so it gets the grade a produce; the freshco is the budget store, which gets the grade b produce. while the stores may organize their own excess purchases, my understanding is that the bulk of the produce comes into town in one place and is sorted for further distribution at that centralized location.), and that fact was obvious. so, i may find myself biking out there to get larger limes, for example. it's a good distance and there's only one in town, so it's going to depend. this sobeys is comparatively small; in windsor, there are several zehrs, which appears to be their direct competitor, and they tend to have larger produce sections. but, i need to prioritize going to sobeys or freshcos for a while.
if cherries are not available here some or most of the year, that shelves that plan. cherries are like bananas - i just like cherries.
the way back was a little more challenging, as the wind was mostly hitting me at an angle. i shouldn't say i'm out of shape if i can do 50 km on a bicycle with minimal effort without stopping to break, but i felt it a bit coming back. i may have gained around 5 pounds, so i want to get out a little bit more frequently now that the weather is going to be consistently warm.
as sunday was not merely mild but was the first hot day of the year - and it was hot. it hit 29 degrees, according to one thermostat on tecumseh. - i got burned, as i do around this time of year, every year. it'll clear up in a few days, and i won't burn again until next year.
when i came in, i had to sleep for a few hours. i was hoping to stretch it out to get my blood taken early monday morning, but that didn't unfold as planned, either; it was still pleasantly warm (high teens) on monday, but i wasn't confident in the forecast and didn't want to get stuck in the rain on my bike, something i'm actively trying to avoid. the bike was given to me by my grandmother around the year 2012, and is probably coming up on 20 years of age. i recently replaced the brakes, which has reminded me that bicycles are not infinite. it's essentially still in good shape, so i want to make an effort to keep it that way by avoiding any sort of interaction with any sort of water. as i was intending on going back out in the morning, weather permitting, i avoided logging into my machine for the night, and ate my salad while doing research on the other machine, instead. i kept the option open until the end, but decided against it at the last minute, opting instead to take a shower early on monday and then finish the day by actually sleeping.
the research i did sunday night was related to a long term solution for the typing machine in the bedroom. while i haven't had one recently, and i think it's a substantive cause of my decrease in productivity, i for many years had a dedicated typing machine in my bedroom that was separate from my production machine and was used for all email and web browsing. separating that function out was very useful to me in terms of ordering my time. when the i5/hp lost it's screen in 2017, and then had a power issue after that (it is currently telling me the bios is missing), i just moved to an old compaq, which also lost it's screen, but has otherwise held ever since. i was lucky enough to have two laptops that i could use interchangeably when i only really needed one, and just kind of shrugged off one breaking, deciding i'd fix it later. i strongly suspect the inverter will fix the problem, but i'm sort of tired of dealing with laptops that break easily, that have finicky electronics that make opening them to do basic repairs dangerous, etc. supposing i get one or both of these running again, how long before i'm in the same situation again?
modern laptops are designed to break. for any other purpose than as a cheap mobile device - or a mobile guitar effects processor - spending money on laptops at any price grade is foolish. if you don't need to travel with your computer, you shouldn't bother. buy a desktop, instead.
this isn't a new deduction, on my behalf. when i was building systems in 2017, i intended to move the old pc into the role of the typing machine and put the new pc in the recording space. but, then things changed when i moved, and changed back when i moved again, and by then i had already decided on the three-pc break down in the studio. the fact is that the compaq worked fine as a typing machine and didn't need to be replaced, until it didn't work and did need to be replaced. i think i always intended to get something else in there, it just wasn't a priority so long as the compaq actually booted. then, when i realized the compaq was connecting via a backdoor, the thinkpad became sort of ideal, and i moved to it on purpose, because it didn't have a hard drive for the cops to target.
i remember looking at surplus desktops in 2017 and almost buying one, but deciding to wait. at the time, surplus meant something like a dual core 32-bit pc with 3 gb of ram - good for typing, in theory, but unnecessary, in the breakdown i had intended upon, at the time. they were just going to get less expensive, right?
at this point, i can flat out replace the i5 laptop (which i was using as the typewriter from 2014-2017) with a comparable surplus desktop that i can actually service properly for less than $200, so it doesn't actually make any sense to even try to fix it. i mean, i am going to try to fix it, eventually, but it wouldn't have any actual use, if i can just get a desktop and do video editing on that, instead. extra laptops are never useless, but if i'm going to have to spend the money to replace the board, i'd rather buy a desktop with it, instead. that's a far preferable answer. so, i mentioned the other day that if i couldn't get the inverter to work for the cq60 then i'd just buy something cheap and throw linux on it because it'll last the next 20 years before needing a hardware upgrade, but i didn't realize the quality of technology available for the price it's available at, today. i have a few extra dollars at the moment, and should use it to attend to this issue, and fix it once and for all. i will need to wait until the first of the month, but that is what the surplus may money from not needing to spend money on groceries will be spent on - finally getting a long term solution for the typewriter function. and, this intended to be long term, too - perhaps permanent.
i wanted to get that sorted out before i made decisions about customizing the windows 7 installation media, which i also realize i'll have to do in two versions, as i have separate keys for pro and home premium. this wasn't an issue with xp, because i have an ancient volume license key that doesn't require activating. right now, i want to just focus on slipstreaming the updates in, but how many do i need to build, and for what goal, in the end? when i did this for xp, i did it in stages, and kept snapshots of the process so it would be easy to build further custom images for further purposes, by picking up at a series of different starting points. for 7, i need to know how many machines i am looking at deploying this to, and in what combination i am intending to deploy them.
if i can get some kind of volume license key workaround so i can install the same key to multiple machines (and, if microsoft is listening, this would be a useful legacy tweak for windows 7, which you're no longer selling), that will be ideal, in the long run. for right now, i have one home premium key that came with the bricked laptop and one professional key that i downloaded from carleton on a student license. if i'm building this with the 64-bit pc in mind, i'm going to want to use the pro version for that machine (which will build with 16 gb of ram) and the home premium version for the compaq, leaving the bricked machine technically without a license key and the 32-bit machine without a 7 license key (i have an xp-64 key). i haven't checked in a few years, but linux has traditionally not been the best os for music production (although i might want the option to dual-boot into it, especially long term). i was initially intending to put osx86 on my 32-bit machine, and got pretty far with it, before realizing that there wasn't any actual benefit to it: everything runs in windows nowadays, anyways. there may be some isolated counter-examples, but it's nothing actually substantive or that doesn't have a comparable alternative. the idea of macs being better for music production may have been briefly true in the very late 80s and very early 90s, but it's long been an absolute myth. nonetheless, i had to exorcise that and prove it to myself by building the dual-booting machine, and then literally not booting into osx86 even once for years. i just had no reason to, at all.
that said, i'd still pick up an old (pre-intel) power mac if i could find one for the right price (and note that apple is currently transitioning away from intel once again, which may one day eventually justify the difference in price, and may again lead to situations where apple-only software is no longer developed for intel machines), although i'd actually rather get an amiga. really. i actually think i still have a version of logic for windows that i could never get to run without freezing on windows 95. i bet it would run fine on my maxxed-out windows 98 pc.
that's actually a good question: how much would it cost to get a last-gen os x style ppc mac, nowadays, just to run weird plugins over garage band? anything normal and useful and day-to-day written from 2006-2022 (2025?) should easily port to both, because x86-64 is x86-64 and everything is written in c on linux, so it doesn't matter, anyways. your fancy macbook is just a rebranded dell; it's made in the same factory and has the same parts, it just has a different logo on it. but, those old ppcs were legitimately a different beast, and there's always going to be weird, old stranded software that is never going to run on anything else. i actually think it would be a useful, functional addition to the studio to add a late ppc period desktop tower (i don't want an integrated monitor) that i can place beside my 90s desktop as a way to get into the apple os, from time to time, and run old software that never got ported or upgraded.
the answer is probably less than $100. i could bite on that. really. i have a fourth slot on the kvm...
but, i'll look at that later. for the windows 7 image, i have five potential machines i might want to put a 64-bit windows os on and need to figure out how to license them before i customize the installation media:
1) the 32-bit production machine. i was thinking about using 7 professional, but only if i can get a volume license key hack; however, the reason i stuck with xp over vista on this machine is that intel never wrote kernel-level drivers for the chipset, leaving the model stranded with xp. when i installed vista on the machine, copy operations were so slow that i went back to xp to fix it. it seems to be better in 7, so maybe the drivers skipped an os after all, but i haven't really tested it and i doubt it - i expect that it will break if i push it. this is a known issue that i have an inside take on and that i don't think was ever fixed; the companies blamed each other, and microsoft does deserve some blame for not telling anybody what they were doing until the last minute, but it was technically a problem with the drivers that many manufacturers decided not to fix on hardware that they just left behind and moved on from. so, the machine will work best with windows xp and i should stuck with xp-64 pro, which i have a key for from carleton. maybe. i'm still using 32-bit xp, for now. this is distant. it was always intended, but is there any point, now?
2) the 64-bit production machine. i will put a customized windows 7 professional on this certainly, now, while maintaining the option to dual boot into linux, eventually.
3) the compaq laptop. if i can get the screen on it back, and i'm using it as the guitar processor, i could and should actually put the windows vista that it came with back on it, to save keys. but, i was intending to put home premium on it, as the typewriter. unfortunately, the key is scratched out, but, i have an enterprise key. are they the same? is the key in the bios? hrmmn. i should wait until the inverter comes in....
4) the bricked hp, which came with 7 home premium. should i save the home premium key for this device that may never work, or should i use it for the compaq? let me wait that out. i'll need to get a guitar to usb mini soundcard as an input, and then check to see if vista is really sufficient or not.
5) a potential typewriter desktop, to replace the bricked hp. but, after looking into it, it's obvious that all surplus pcs ship with windows 10. i can't slipstream drivers, etc until i'm able to get the thing in front of me, and i should wait to see what i think when it gets here.
i'm not excited about upgrading to windows 10 and may not stick to it for long before installing linux on it, or even downgrading to windows 7 home premium (using the key from the bricked hp). but, i should commit to at least trying it before i uninstall it, and i think having a license key for windows 10 is likely useful, in the long run. i'll admit i am somewhat interested in the android emulator, which would require updating to 11, although i suspect i can do it on 7, using virtualbox. i see no other enticing features.
so, then, i should just build the 7 image for the 64-bit production machine and leave the rest for later, but, then, i don't need to do that right away after all, if i'm not using it for the typewriter, at all. i just need to get the pieces together for later. i should be able to build the images in the new typewriter pc as well, so i won't have to do it on the production desktop, like this. so, i can actually close the production machine back up and think about this later, then.
one more question: as i haven't built the 64-bit production machine, and i'm looking to buy a new typewriter, and the prices on these machines is less than $200, can i even get a new typewriter pc with a faster processor, and switch roles? the bricked hp has an i5 in it. i mentioned that that's the fastest processor in the house, but how does it compare to the one in the unbuilt 64-bit production machine?
the answer to that is firmly no. i should stick with what i bought in 2017 for the production machine and buy a cheap typewriting pc as a dedicated typewriting pc.
first, the motherboard i bought is intended for servers; it's rock solid and can take up to 32 gb of ram in four slots. i bought two sticks of 8 for now, so i have the option to upgrade immediately, although i don't imagine i'll have much urge to. i'm going to get some dell or ibm motherboard for $200 which is probably the weakest link in the machine, but we'll see. second, i bought an intel i3-4370 which, is the beastiest i3 there ever was - two physical cores that you can overclock past 4.0 ghz + hyperthreading up to four cores. this was intended initially to replace the pentium d, which was the precursor of the precursor of the i3. the d has two physical cores at 3.4, each, but it doesn't have virtual cores and the technology is just generally older. the idea was that the i3-4370 was the best direct upgrade i could get to the pentium d, for a reasonable price, at the time; the i3-4370 was intended to literally replace the d, so i got similar specs: two powerful cores for direct use, rather than a weaker core with more parallel power. musicians want to get the most out of their physical cores due to the way that daws assign channels in the mixer, not rely on parallel processing, which is better for video editing. so, if i was going to put an i5 in the 64-bit production machine, i'd want the cores running faster than 3.8 ghz, and there's only a few models like that. they're not the ones that are going to be in these cheap surplus machines, although i'll look out for it. hey, if i find one...
the i5 in the bricked hp runs at 2 ghz, and i don't think it was actually faster than the pentium d, in any meaningful sense. the d booted faster, as per one metric. if i can get the new typewriter desktop to run at about the same speed as the bricked hp for less than the cost of fixing it (so, an i5 ~ 2 ghz with 8 gb of ram), that's an ideal solution, but i'm not going to find something with the specs of the machine i bought in 2017 for $200, and won't for a long time. i'll then be able to use that for video editing and typewriting, which is how i used it before the screen burned out, and how i would have kept using it, under ideal circumstances. the only reason i wanted to separate the functions was that i wanted to actually use all of the devices, and that i was apprehensive about connecting the machine to the network. in the long run, i could still split them back off, but it should be fine, for now, with an updated os.
so, that's what i spent sunday night thinking out, before i got in the shower on monday morning, and went to sleep when i got out.
i was up on monday afternoon, made some coffee, sat down to type this and ultimately didn't stay awake, but rather fell asleep again until a little after midnight. i then woke up and finished typing this. and, now what?
well, let me do some housekeeping on the 7 laptop drive, put my 7 files away for later and get back to the loose ends i was dealing with before.
i still need to get some blood work done, but now i want to wait for my sunburn to heal, meaning it might not be until later in the week.
4:05
wednesday, april 27, 2022
another day with no posts. it means i'm up doing something else, in this case too much sleeping, but i have a little bit of progress to report. you might want to note that i do much of this typing while i'm eating, so i will be typing here a little less with my dedicated tv set back up, which i need to post about. i really just want to keep track of what i'm doing for my own notes.
it took me a while to find the right drill bit and the right screwdriver to get those in, but i got them flush, in the end.
i stopped yesterday morning to clean up my windows 7 drive and in the process copied some video files for the vlogs from one external to the other, as my new chromebook also doesn't read avi files. that problem will be fixed with the new desktop. the reorganization of the machines is going to mean a reorganization of some of the usb keys i keep on me, so i will have to organize and file that over the next few days.
i then checked to see if my appspot site (on the side) is still up (it is) and realized that the bandcamp link on the side went to an "index page", which is something i hadn't noticed before and was in some serious disarray. i have no memory of ever setting an index page up at bandcamp or linking to it from my appspot site. as always, the local file in my records is consistent; it is dated to feb, 2015, which was when i was working on untitled. i'm actually going to want to fix that the next time i try to upload, if i still can. i believe i need to upload from a windows computer, ironically, because i need to install python. i could maybe do it from the chromebook in developer mode, but this machine just simply isn't intended for the minimal amount of coding i may do, periodically. that will be a cursory function of the typewriting machine: typing means documents, email, blogging and a minimal amount of coding. for now, i spent some time cleaning that up so that it will eventually just backwards-enumerate the inri records catalog. i don't remember setting the index page up, but i'm going to want to keep up to date on it, now that i know that it exists.
from what i can tell, this is a sort of a secret setting. if you have a bandcamp site, you can investigate by adding "indexpage" to the end of your domain:
if you don't set it up, it seems to go directly to your most recent release.
mine was set up to list releases chronologically backwards in terms of when they were uploaded to bandcamp, rather than when i've set them to release. sort of. it was filtered by some kind of algorithm, apparently. i don't know what picked those tracks, or why, but i've asserted control back over it, and it will be logically presented from this point forwards.
i then stopped to eat (with the intent of finishing up with the last susskind lecture) and realized there was a new video at the fall of civilizations podcast, which i'm caught up on and am following. so, i stopped to watch that, instead. unfortunately, the video exhibited this strange characteristic i've been seeing in youtube history videos recently, which is that it is narrated strictly from an explicitly muslim historical perspective. this is unfortunate, because islam is consistently on the wrong side of history - islam is one of history's greatest villains, as it is responsible for some of it's worst carnage: genocide, colonialism, imperialism, book burning, intolerance, totalitarianism, enforced ignorance, slavery and, in the end, i suspect nuclear war. islam will destroy us all, in the end. narrating history from a perspective that attempts to cast islam as a victim - even when it is burning hindu villages to the ground for daring to challenge it's imperial dominance - is not serious scholarship and cannot be taken seriously, in the long run. what it is is propaganda to advance islam, which is the functional role of history in the islamic system of totalitarian despotism. but, it's become normalized on youtube, and i'm grappling with trying to understand why, beyond deducing that somebody is paying for it - and there does seem to be some kind of shady organization that is orchestrating the ideology underlying these youtube history videos. i'm not going to comment on this further here, comment on the video at all (it's not useful.) or post a link to the video here, but i'll be keeping an eye on the podcast to see if the author has been brainwashed (or bought off...which is what seems to be true, in general: there's a lot of rich arabs trying to reassert the primacy of their obsolete religion by paying people to do it) like the narrators of these other sites. i'll give him a grace period, but not a third chance. unfortunately, i fear that you're looking at the podcast being reduced to telling stories about islamic military victories, framed in juvenile moralistic language, for pay. that's what the pattern is.
what is the benefit of the doubt, here, so it's defined? see, he has a tendency of narrating things from the perspective of the sources he finds, often uncritically. he seems to be more into telling stories, however fictional of an account they are, than he is concerned about history as a science. there's this idea in history departments that i don't like that cultures should be allowed to narrate their own history, rather than have their histories subjected to an objective level of scrutiny or scientific analysis, to try to determine actual facts. i don't like this perspective, but i know it exists, and i know how to identify it. so, i can sort of deal with narrating islamic myths and legends, to a point. is that all there is to it? no, because the history he was narrating from an islamic mythological perspective was not islamic but south indian and there were even a few points where he explicitly suggested the islamic narrative had primacy over science, which is simply not acceptable - that must be condemned. he also seemed to suggest that the hindu cities deserved to be burned to the ground for challenging the imperial dominance of islamic colonialism in india, which is the red flag - no sane person would think any such thing via any sort of objective analysis. surely, there are sufficient south indian sources to narrate the story from a south indian perspective and then try to balance it; surely, there is no need to rely so heavily on islamic court histories that are universally regarded as unreliable islamic propaganda designed to advance the religion's cultural hegemony and imperial domination, in an area it has clearly brutally colonized. i'm sure it's the money - that's the problem. when a perverted system of thought like islam ends up with wealth and power, it uses it to advance it's own interests in subtle and subversive ways that you have to be very careful about identifying and opposing. they will use all manners of psychological manipulation to advance their aims. as a devoted secularist, that makes them public enemy #1, and i would strongly urge that there needs to be resources dedicated to undoing the propaganda, lies and disinformation that they seem to want to use youtube to advance; i'm just a nerd at home that can see through it, i can't mount a counter-attack, i can just point it out. they're not doing this for fun, clearly. skewing history like this is a serious crime against the future, and one that needs to be taken very seriously, in understanding what their motives really are. but, if you know a little about islam, you know that what they want is cultural hegemony, as that is what the project of islam is and always has been really about.
the bottom line is that he crossed clear lines of objectivity, but he might have also been siding with the abrahamists against the polytheists, and i might be looking too deeply into it. i've noticed a pattern, and this fits into it, but that's not sufficient to diagnose a bias or a motive...yet. we'll have to see over time if my perception is correct or not. if it is, i'll have to unsubscribe. to be clear: my suspicion is that there is money in the background that is directing historical narratives for the purposes of a centralized project to manipulate media to assert an islamic cultural hegemony, and it becomes a problem when it attempts to skew or distort history by going over the heads of academics to appeal to mainstream audiences, instead, at which point it strictly becomes propaganda. propaganda of this sort is not aimless, it is being done with an endpoint, and that endpoint could only be mass conversion, to assert a global islamic cultural hegemony. secularists need to be vigilant in opposing this, and reasserting the primacy of enlightenment values over those of religion and spirituality.
so, i guess that's my review, and note it is very different in tone than my previous ones, and that i hope that tone lifts for the next one.
anyways, i ended up dozing off near the end (it was around noon) and then stopped to actually sleep for a few hours. i've been stuck in this piecemeal sleeping pattern this week, which means sleeping in 2-3 hour shifts, 3-4 times a day. it's annoying because it screws up my schedule.
i was up late in the afternoon, finished watching the documentary and noticed that my coffee table had developed a bow in it, which i decided i'd have to fix. i didn't notice the bow when i set the thing up, which means that either somebody damaged it when i was out or the weight on the table was too great. frankly, i suspect the first option, but the outcome is the same, either way; i have to fix it. so, that was last night's detour, which wouldn't have been so bad, if not for the annoying sleeping. i've got coffee brewing...and am now drinking it....
i want to be clear about this coffee table: i think it was broken when i bought it for something like $10 not long after i moved to windsor. what i remember is buying it on kijiji and carrying it home from windsor ave, and i remember it being hot out when i did it, so it would have either been late summer 2013 or early summer 2014. all the coffee table had to do was exist so a wireless keyboard and mouse could sit on it, along with the odd plate and cup, so it didn't really matter if it was broken or not.
it didn't look broken when i picked it up; that's not what i'm saying. it appeared to be fine. but, it seems that somebody glued the support on one side on, and it snapped back off within a few weeks, i didn't actually notice it for quite a while, though, and i tried to fix it by rebuilding it with wood screws, without noticing that the wood was warped.
you can't just glue it back on, because the wood is warped, but it didn't matter so long as it was just your average coffee table. it could hold a cup of coffee, and maybe a laptop. fine. now, though, i've got a lot of stuff on it, so i want to fix it to ensure that it lasts and that the table doesn't cave in, taking everything with it.
as the main problem is the warp, i need to find a way to flatten it, so i've got it upside down with some heavy boxes on it. i've done this before and it's worked out well, but i've also let it sit for long periods, and i don't intend to let this sit - i want the system set back up within a day or two.
remember when i bought c-clamps to fix the bridge on the takeharu guitar? well, i've got one here to clamp the support back together, which had split open along the seam - it's literally splintered. i need the pressure on the other side to even line it up, but the splinters on the break at least make it obvious how it should fit back together.
glue is clearly not going to hold it together unless i can flatten the board for weeks first, and then it probably won't hold for long, anyways. so, i've brought in two screws, instead:
and, now i need to wait that out:
how long?
the internet wants me to use a damp cloth and is ultimately concerned about the effects of humidity on the wood. well, that might be relevant for restoring antiques or fancy furniture pieces, but i'm really relying on the brute force of gravity, here. i really suspect that humidity had little to do with the top bending, in the first place - it looks more like somebody dropped something on it.
the last time i did this was to fix a table that bowed under too much pressure placed on top of it. i just flipped it over, put the pressure the other way and let it sit for almost a year. then, it was as good as brand new.
i'm not as optimistic about this (because it literally ripped apart) and ultimately expect the screws to do most of the work, so i'm going to give it a few days and see what it seems like, afterwards. i should at the least be able to tell if i think letting it sit longer will help or not. i may flip it back over and leave it assembled with the c-clamp for a while.
hey, it's long overdue; if it works, i've extended the lifespan of the table (and saved a little wood from being cut down) for nothing and if it doesn't then it's time to find a new $10 table. i don't care what it looks like, and the break was facing the wall, anyways. but, once i noticed it start to bow, i had to deal with it.
when i finished with that, i went to reassemble my production machine, which currently has every usb key and two usb drives plugged into it, for sorting. i realized the other day that i have four extra usb connections via my monitor, so i don't think i need to worry about an extra hub on that machine; i've got six in the back, two in the front and the four on the monitor. so, that's six in the front, for flexible use. that's plenty, really, as i've just demonstrated; my 7-port usb hub also came in (along with the plug for the phone, which works). i was going to use that hub in here and put the old hub (bought for the production machine, initially) in the bedroom with the cq60, but any typewriting pc should have lots of usb ports, and i'm actually preferring the longer usb cord in here after all, after reflecting the set up along the middle of the desk, so that actually leaves me with an extra hub. i'm sure i'll figure out something to do with it. it didn't cost much...
and, that also means everything is in, except the inverter.
once i got that all set up, i went to wash my face and make some coffee, but i got very tired again and had to sleep. i didn't wake up until the morning, then got to making that coffee and typing this up.
so, here we are, with that.
for today, i want to finish my thoughts with this re-organization of the space and get back to loose-ending.
10:20
it doesn't matter what the flag represents. it's not up to the state or the judiciary to try to analyze what symbols mean or do not mean, and it's of no relevance if people are offended or "feel unsafe" (whatever that means.) as a result of it.
the legal question is whether the flag produces actionable harm, and i can't imagine a convincing argument that it does.
that doesn't mean that the concerns of residents are not valid, in terms of being included in the community, but taking the flag down isn't any sort of effective anti-racism strategy, it's just an infringement on freedom of expression. it's not against the law to be racist. nor is a system of state repression against individual expression going to eliminate racism. if people are being discriminated against, taking the flag down isn't going to end the discrimination; nor is the flag the cause of the discrimination. you can, however, be sure that targeting people for their constitutionally protected opinions is going to lead to resentment and backlashes.
the mistake that the people complaining about this are making is confusing a social problem with a criminal problem and looking to the wrong systems to deal with it. the police don't solve social problems, and you don't eliminate social issues by criminalizing them.
if you don't like the flag, you'll have to ignore it. but, there are more productive approaches to eliminating prejudice than showing up with guns and ordering people to think differently.
10:58
i might tell you that the stars and stripes represents imperialism and genocide. you might tell me it represents freedom. there isn't a right answer, and there's no utility in trying to decide what response is correct.
the bottom line is that it doesn't matter how you might interpret a symbol, what matters is whether it might objectively harm you.
11:24
so, i have a picture of that table that seems to be dated to sept 12, 2014, but i don't seem to have any kind of post that is associated with it archived anywhere.
i think the date is roughly correct.
12:37
remind me not to do any business in canada.
this is outrageous, and it should nosedive our credit rating to junk status.
the government of canada very well might just steal your money, because it feels like it.
12:41
listen: the reality is that the conservatives won the popular vote in both of the last two federal elections. both andrew scheer and erin o'toole generated more votes than justin trudeau. the greater popularity of the right in this country has been an open secret for many years.
pierre poutine should really be in jail, not running for prime minister, but what you're seeing on the ground will not help him win an election, whether he has generated a populist movement, or not.
the reason that justin trudeau is prime minister is that the ndp's leader is not a serious candidate, and the liberals will continue to win elections until the ndp address their non-viability, via their clownish leader.
the liberals are winning ndp strongholds, and they're doing it because traditional ndp voters will not vote for jagmeet singh. they might have voted for erin o'toole, but they won't vote for pierre poutine, either.
where pierre poutine might challenge trudeau is not on some populist right, but rather in the middle class. he might win ridings in places like nepean and missisaugua, where voters in the middle of the wage spectrum may want to pay lower taxes.
but, this will be offset by the absence of a substantive split on the left. the conservatives simply cannot win an election in this country without a strong ndp to split the vote.
i actually think that jean charest is the front-runner, but i will predict the result of a pierre poutine victory in the conservative leadership race, so long as the ndp stick with jagmeet singh: a liberal minority. again.
13:02
thursday, april 28, 2022
what a bunch of retards.
living in canada right now is embarrassing. we're the laughingstock of the world.
1:32
"Renovation loans so that younger people could move in -- because young people have affordability issues as well -- and not do formal caretaking, but just keep an eye on the older person living there. So that would be a great, cheap intervention,"
no. the idea of prioritizing the old over the young is completely backwards and utterly thatcherian bullshit.
we should not condemn our young people to become slaves to their grandparents, and the suggestion should be condemned as outrageous.
i have a better idea: let's create a seniors tax, for people over 65, and use it to pay for more apartment buildings for seniors. we should then compel them to sell, to make more space for younger people. further, the people doing the work of caretaking should be unionized and paid living wages to do so.
the young are more valuable and more important than the old. we need to organize society so that the old serve the young, not so that the young serve the old - lest we collapse further into backwardsness.
1:58
who is going to pay for the old?
they have all of the wealth. let them pay for themselves. and, let the state tax them to do it.
2:00
again: this is outrageous.
this government has no respect for democracy - they're utterly despotic, entirely fascist.
if you are concerned about the rise of the far right in canada, it is the utter embarrassment that is justin trudeau that you should be most concerned about. the far right is not out there somewhere hiding, it is sitting in the pmo, on the brink of ruining the country.
in the last 24 hours, the government has announced intentions to:
1) seize the assets of individuals on a whim
2) shut down the house of commons arbitrarily
3) severely restrict free speech
4) co-opt the investigation into their abuse of power during the pandemic protests
and, they didn't even win a majority - they got an agreement with the third fourth party to prop them up in exchange for implementing a set of programs that already exists. just imagine what they would have done if they had won.
the far-right and fascism is a serious threat in canada, but the perpetrators of it are the liberal government, with their cronies in the ndp.
2:08
this is why we cannot elect aristocrats.
they are all fascists. without exception.
there should be a constitutional amendment to prevent the children of premiers, mps, senators and prime ministers from holding any public office. at all.
2:13
let me tell you this: if the elderly expect to be waited on by the younger generation, they're going to be in for a surprise, as they starve to death in their homes, en masse.
we will not be enslaved to serve the weak - we will fight, and we will win.
2:20
if anything has been learned from the pandemic, it is that it is foolish to expect the young to sacrifice for the old, in a free society. that kind of backwardsness only exists in despotic societies.
we will not sacrifice. we will not do without.
the old will die like dogs in the streets, and be buried in unmarked, mass graves. it is strictly up to the state to intervene - because we don't care. and, we shouldn't.
let the elderly pay for themselves through increased, targeted taxation on the retired.
2:26
ok, so i misunderstood what the most recent windows 7 updates are about. i thought i could just download the monthly rollup and slipstream it, but i'd need to buy the esu and, no, i'm not going to buy esu. i'm still curious about volume license keys, though, in order to automatically activate during install.
i'm sure there's some way around that, especially given that i'm keeping the machine off the network, anyways. i'm likely going to use the two 7 keys for the 64-bit pc and one of the broken laptops, neither of which are going to end up as networked devices. that means i should script the final update process, but i'm putting this aside, it's not a concern right now.
for now, to get the machine fully up to date to 2020, which is what i'm wanting to do for the install media, i'm going to want to do this:
1) get a slipstreamed windows 7 sp1. you can download it from microsoft still, at the time of this post. in the long-run, i'd recommend archive.org as a backup.
2) you want to slipstream this first: kb947821.
3) then, you need a stack update: kb3020369.
4) the convenience rollup (sp2), dated to may 17, 2016, is kb3125574. this has everything after sp1, except a few obscure updates that microsoft excluded on purpose.
5) the june & july updates are combined together into kb3172605.
6) there is another stack update here, 3177467. i'd go with the 2016 version, here.
7) the august update is kb3179573.
8) i'm going to suggest you now install the whole list of service stack updates: kb3177467, kb4490628, kb4516655, kb4523206, kb4531786, kb4536952. these may not all be necessary, especially in the middle, but it does not hurt to be comprehensive, here.
9) if you want to eventually install further updates, you want to install a cryptography update, kb4474419. otherwise, that might not be necessary.
10) while the monthly updates start in october, the october update also included the september update. so, getting the newest update (in this case, the april 2022 one, kb5012626) includes all updates since sept, 2016. but, the install media needs to stop in january, 2020, which is kb4534310.
i will need to install the newest stack update and the newest security rollup in a local script, afterwards, along with a number of other items, but i'll hold off on that, for now.
for now, i believe that that is your most updated iso, up to stuff you're just going to nlite out because you don't want it, anyways.
12:24
friday, april 29, 2022
why aren't these teachers paying taxes?
it doesn't seem to me like this is a demographic that requires tax relief.
8:29
teachers make somewhere between 60-100 thousand dollars a year.
they should be paying taxes, not getting tax refunds.
8:33
i want to clarify a point, because i think the weather network people are reading this.
while the unseasonably warm weather in southern ontario has been driven by record temperatures in the atlantic ocean, it has been cooler in northern ontario and the prairies. but, this was driven by the sudden stratosopheric warming event i posted about earlier, which broke the polar vortex up until little pieces and caused it to wander out into the subpolar regions, and not by temperatures in the pacific. the reason it hasn't had an effect on southern ontario is that we're too far from the north pole, and it's too late in the year - the very high sea surface temperatures in the atlantic have dominated, as i suggested.
the dominant global observation over the last two months has been record heat, not cooler temperatures. india, for example, is in a record heat wave. it's been hot in most of the united states. and, the effect of the ssw is that the cold air over the arctic breaks up and floats off, meaning those in the far north should expect a hot spring and a hotter summer.
an ssw - which is when the sun suddenly and without warning increases the temperature near the northernmost part of the tilt in the earth's axis - can be an annoyance in the areas directly below the polar regions, which would include places like newfoundland, siberia, scandinavia and alberta. in these regions, an ssw can lead to cold air plunging south late in the year, which then needs to be broken up by brute force, rather than pushed back, which can sometimes take a while to happen.
this is different than what we saw a fear years ago, when the polar winds weakened around the arctic (called a weakening of the polar vortex), which is driven by a decrease in solar energy. remember the news reports about the "strengthening" polar vortex? well, they got the idea backwards. it's the gradient in temperature in the atmosphere that creates a polar jet stream around the north pole that gets weaker in the winter (leading to colder temperatures south of the north pole) and stronger in the summer (leading to warmer temperatures south of the north pole). the cold air flowing into places like texas was due to a decrease in solar energy allowing the winds to weaken and cold air to burst outwards, which was predictable because it was at the bottom of the solar cycle. in normal years, the polar vortex strengthens gradually, until it is pushed back in tact, allowing the yo-yo effect to start over again the next year.
this year, the sudden increase in solar warming ripped the vortex apart, creating a series of little vortices that rippled out like tops spinning on a globe. that has created plunges of cold air south of the north pole, while leaving the north pole itself unusually warm.
that has nothing to do with sea surface temperatures in the pacific, it's strictly a solar phenomenon, and it's expected because we're in a ramping up phase in the solar cycle.
while it may be annoying right now, people in alberta and newfoundland should take note: the arctic just literally exploded. the cold air didn't get pushed back into the arctic, to come back the next year, like it usually does. rather, it just blew up and wandered off all over the place. the sunlight will eventually decrease in the fall, and the cold air will eventually return, but now it has to start all over again. that means that once this wandering cold air gets absorbed into the (increasingly warmer, due to global warming) oceans and neutralized, there's not going to be this menacing mass of cold air sitting above you, at least until next year. that means it's going to be a hot summer in alberta and newfoundland - you just have to wait this out.
down here, it's been seasonal. cold snaps in april are pretty normal, and these cold snaps have not been very cold. in fact, we've had a series of bizarrely hot days, going back to mid-march, as the warmth has pushed north from the atlantic. whether the remnants of the ssw are permanently burnt off this week or next, the setup is for a scorching, early hot summer, here, as there's nothing to block the heat moving up from the south. the arctic is gone until next year.
the ability of a minor temperature gradient in the pacific ocean to affect events this far away is really quite minimal, in the face of these big, dominant phenomena - and that's what we've been seeing here where, contrary to the denialist tone by the weather network, the weather has certainly been unseasonably hot, in totality.
9:06
ssws are random and unpredictable, and we've actually had two in a row, which is very strange, and may suggest that the upcoming solar cycle may be very strong. we have no real predictive understanding of the solar cycle, and the predictions (which were mostly for a weak cycle, and mostly for specious reasons) that were made should mostly be taken with a grain of salt.
so, i did not foresee a second ssw barely a year since the last one, and it did not factor into my forecasts. well, my forecast for this year was just after the last ssw, in mid march, and it did affect that. but, remember: my forecasts are very broad, as i'm not modelling and not doing math, but are rather looking at very general forces as they interact in the atmosphere. i'm not trying to tell you if it will rain tomorrow, i'm trying to pull out major trends in the direction of the climate. the existence of the ssw could not be predicted and will have a minor dampening effect, in the very short run; had the ssw not happened, the average temperature in southern ontario may have been a few degrees higher and the dips in temperature may have been a little less. so, we've had a few cooler days where the temperature has been around 10 degrees, or a little lower; those days might have been around 13 degrees or a little higher, instead. the swings may have been a little less, and the unseasonable warmth may have been more stable, rather than pushed back into periods of seasonableness. that's the difference. but, the flip side is that it works the other way in the medium term: once the cold air is gone, the next step is a scorching hot summer.
what i said was something along the lines of that the southern warmth (more rooted than in previous years, due to the warming oceans) will have little difficulty in annihilating these blasts of cold air and, where i am, that has been correct: the cold air has come, and while it may have sat weakly for short periods, it has then been obliterated by the warmth. the oceans have won this fight, decisively. we might have had huge snowstorms; what we've had instead is seasonable overnights, and mornings where you have to wear a sweater. put it into context, please.
the main point is that the sun and the atmosphere are now moving in the same direction, rather than struggling against each other, and that will usher in several years of extreme heat. it might not seem like it right now, but, even in the medium term, the ssw will amplify that effect.
get ready for a vicious summer.
9:33
so, i guess i lost the week. sort of. it's a loose ends week, i guess - loose ends on loose ends. it means next week will be far more productive. remember: i have my production machine usable again, and the studio all set up, now. i'm not going to get bogged down with windows 7 stuff on the new machine, which should be ordered in the next few days. but, i spent too much time sleeping this week, when i wasn't actually tired, and could have been more productive. it's more that i've been cold down here because the disgusting air conditioner was on and like to warm up under the blankets. in fact, having the typewriter back means i won't need to sleep anymore when i want to curl up, even if i need to find some way to declare war on the refrigerants. i have no patience for air conditioning. i hate it. it makes people fat and lazy.
but, i want to carry through with the narrative.
the last big post was wednesday morning, and the things i had in front of me were the windows 7 stuff and all of these usb keys. i didn't really get started because i hadn't checked the news in a few days; i spent the time ranting and drinking that coffee instead, until i had to stop to take some iron. i didn't plan on sleeping so much as i had to sit down to let the iron digest a little, but i did end up going to sleep.
i was up early on thursday morning, did some dishes, got some cereal, hydroxyapatited my teeth and had to spend the morning doing some legal stuff, which i set early in the morning. i then sorted through the windows 7 updates to get an idea of the installation media i'll want to build for the production machine before i closed the thought and put it aside (now, officially done), got some breakfast and promptly slept all day. like, all day. i wasn't up again until this morning, when i made some more coffee and got to working out the usb stuff.
so, it's been too much sleeping, this week, and it's been related to the weather, i think. we'll see.
right now, i want to get done sorting through this stuff and get back to the list of things i've put aside, which unfortunately means going back to feb 2022 to start - i want to update the music journal, first. this is a quick step, usually.
10:44
so, now that i've got this decided on, i want to post this here, so that the cops....i don't know what they think, but they don't listen. regardless, here's what is actually going to be down here, and they can pretend they're smarter than i am and try to prove me wrong if they want.
there are now five laptops down here.
there are two near the couch:
evo notebook - this runs windows xp. it's intended use is to connect to the cisco phone beside it, and it is not useful for much else. it can function as a backup internet access device. it's a perfectly good laptop, but the internet won't let me use it because it's too old, and there's not much i can do about it. this laptop was my father's work computer at one point and was given to me at the end of it's perceived life, in the late 00s. it connects to the internet.
thinkpad chromebook - this is my tv set. i bought it for cheap at the end of it's life in 2018. it was intended for mobile use, but is now too broken and old for that. it connects to the internet.
there are two more in the studio:
dell chromebook - this is where i'm currently blogging on, and i will likely keep it running in the studio most of the time, but it's actually intended for use as a mobile device, in case i need to type in a coffee shop. i purchased this for cheap last month at the end of it's life and intend it to last for around 3-5 yearsish. it connects to the internet.
cq60 compaq laptop - this is intended to be a guitar effects processor, if i can get the inverter to work. otherwise, it will sit, unused and mostly broken. i purchased this refurbished from best buy in 2009; it's a roughly 2006/2007 model. this will run windows vista, probably. it will not connect to the internet.
there is one on my dresser:
broken hp pavilion g6 laptop - this was given to me by my father in 2012 and has not worked properly since 2017. it seems to have been attacked by the cia, and is currently without a bios; it's bricked. i do not know if i can fix it or not, but will hold on to it at least until i disassemble it for parts. it no longer has a use. if i can get this to work, it will run windows 7. it is not clear if i intend to connect this to the internet again.
i would not have any need to purchase another laptop, at this time.
====
there will be four pc towers in here, soon.
there are currently three in the studio, connected to a single monitor via a kvm:
white pc tower - this is a maxxed out pIII 500 mhz that was given to me in late 1999 as a hybrid birthday/christmas present. i turned 19 at the start of 2000. all music from late 1999 to mid 2007 was recorded on that computer. it currently runs windows 98 and is intended for intentional use in the recording studio. it does not connect to the internet.
silver pc tower - this is a pentium d 2x3.4 ghz that i purchased in early 2007 as a replacement for the above. it is my primary studio device. all music since 2007 has been recorded on that computer. it runs a heavily modified version of windows xp. it does not connect to the internet.
black pc tower - this is currently empty, but parts were purchased for it in 2017. it will build as a 64 bit pc with a minimized windows 7 and will act as a supplement to the windows xp machine. the xp machine will likely remain the central machine in the studio for the indefinite future, but the 64 bit machine will slowly take on more and more duties, over time. i will build this when i complete period 3.2 and focus on a long-awaited matlab project, dated to late 2004. it will not connect to the internet.
i am seriously toying with bringing a powerpc powermac in on the 4th kvm slot. that is not decided upon. if that appears, the purpose will be to run old mac software that cannot be run on intel processors. it's use will be limited, and it's valuable is questionable. it's arguably just a vanity addition. it would not connect to the internet.
there will be a fourth tower in my bedroom that will be running windows 10 (or, i guess, 11). this new tower will be intended for typing - blogging, writing and small amounts of coding. it will connect to the internet.
with the exception of the potential powermac, i would see no reason to purchase another pc.
====
there is a zoji cell phone with stock android that i am not currently using because i can't type on it and i don't like being tracked when i'm out. i would like to install a custom android image on this device and maybe use it to connect to mobile wifi, but would prefer to use the dell as a mobile device, at this time. i purchased this in 2017. it does not connect to the internet.
there is a sandisk mp3 player that i will usually take with me when i go out and that no longer holds a charge well. i bought this device in 2006. it is not an internet device.
ok?
ok.
14:40
i'm just thinking about what the future of computers might be and if there's been any innovative approaches to sound design recently and i think the reality is that the whole process really reached a plateau quite a while ago. i don't think there's been any really revolutionary hardware or software released in probably close to 20 years, there's just been variations on ideas. i don't see that changing, either. so, am i ever going to add a 4th computer, besides the mac? i don't foresee it, truly - not even twenty years from now. it's more likely that i'll have to replace something.
everything i've done since i moved to windsor has been centered on cubase, which is just a really big 64-track. i actually use more than 64 tracks, sometimes, but it's because i can. what i mean is that the environment is infinite, so why not? i could do essentially everything in 32 tracks, probably, if i was more conservative about it. but, the point is that the basic idea is the same thing that existed in a recording studio in 1965, it's just using much, much more processing power, and it's virtualizing things you used to have to do in real space. don't have a violin player? use a vst plugin, instead.
but, i have a lot of more abstract software that i was using more in the past, going back quite a ways. there's stuff from 1998 that uses sound raider, i used sounder and koan and audiomulch in windows 98 and i've had copies of reaktor, reason, max and ableton installed for years that i haven't truly gotten around to using yet. it's just the nature of what needed to be done in completing periods 1 & 2, which was mostly midi sequencing and the creation of real songs using real instruments. all of the sound design dated to the era already existed.
programs i used that weren't wave editors, daws, effects, sequencers, samplers, drum machines, arpeggiators, scorewriters or emulators included sound raider, koan, sounder, audiomulch and coagula, but it actually is mostly dated to 1998-2001. the serious music phase after deny everything was all midi compositions - score writing - and the rock bands i was toying with were just that; the guys i was playing with weren't interested in audiomulch. i didn't really pick up on that again until the trivial group started in 2003, and you can hear me click back into it starting with inri064 in early 2003. even so, it's the same programs: sounder & audiomulch, primarily. audiomulch is used on almost every track after 2003.
the reason i'm thinking about this is that it's what i'm going to be building the new machines around. i'll stick with cubase sx 3.0 and xp as my main daw - really. but, the newer processors will be useful when bringing in programs like reaktor and matlab, which is what the next phase of recording is going to be about, and has always been supposed to be about.
so, are there new design programs to look at? new approaches? new ideas? or, am i really best completing my thoughts all these years later using the programs that were available at the time? is reaktor and max together still the pinnacle of innovation in electronic music?
it's important because i want to maintain fluidity in the discography, i don't want to get stuck with the same tools and start repeating myself. i also want to make sure i'm actually using all of the options that are available to me.
for example, i've entirely uninstalled ableton from my xp machine because it just struck me as borderline useless, for actually recording with. but, if i can get the inverter running on the cq60, ableton sounds like the right tool to use for manipulating live guitar parts - put through both the pod and the dx100.
that's not my immediate focus: my immediate focus is on 3.1 & 3.2, which is actually mostly a live music project, still. but, i need to be looking towards the future, as well, and what i can see is that the ideas i had 20 years ago are still relatively contemporary, and the software i wanted to use to complete them in is still relatively current. i needed the technology to catch up to me to really finish the ideas from period 2, and i might find the same is true for period 3.
so, i can also break the recording studio machines down like this:
- the windows 98 machine primarily uses cool edit, through a soundblaster live interface. that was the dominant recording interface for years. it's primitive and inexpensive, and perfect for a teenager.
- the windows xp machine connects a 16-track firewire hardware mixer to cubase sx 3, and is what everything since 2007 has been using. it's an ideal semi-pro home studio setup.
- the cq60 is going to use a low latency usb or firewire in to connect to ableton and really be focused on real-time processing. the focus is guitars, but we'll set what else it's good for.
- and, the 64 bit pc is going to be using more abstract programs like max, audiomulch & reaktor to do actual sound design with, as well as make more serious use of complex software emulators, like those done by arturia.
16:18
"He also suggested the idea of charging a fee when third-party websites quote or embed tweets from verified accounts."
see, what i'm doing right here is academic - i'm quoting somebody, the way you'd see in a peer-reviewed article, or perhaps an essay handed in to a school. there's no ads on this page; i gain nothing from it. and, i'm presenting the reference at the bottom of the page. that's fair "use", clearly, under a clear clause for academic research.
but, something you'll frequently see at legacy mainstream news sites is that they'll take tweets by people like elon musk, run fluff stories on them as click bait and then smother them in ads. that's not fair use - that's the newspaper industry making money off elon musk' personality rights, and he should be individually compensated for it.
see, and that's the problem with the proposal: while newspaper sites should pay twitter users like elon musk to host their content, i don't see why they should pay twitter itself to do so. i mean, maybe twitter should get 5% or something. but, it's the author of the tweet that should get paid when newspapers steal the content, not twitter.
broadly speaking, that's a general rule that should be followed: newspapers should be paying anybody they interview, and anytime they host words that they speak. they're stealing revenue from the people they interview, which is what people really want to see. nobody cares what the stupid journalists think.
19:09
i can't have a lot of sympathy for somebody that illegally scales a 30 foot wall and smashes their face open, but i can have sympathy for the doctors and for the system.
there really ought to be an agreement with the mexicans to absorb these costs, and even a suggestion that the mexicans should open a hospital in san diego, if they can't police their own border.
i never understand why that solution is never raised. is it not mexico's responsibility to police it's own border?
20:13
america now officially has thought police.
great.
20:20
saturday, april 30, 2022
seems like doug ford is going to run as a liberal this cycle.
that means campaigning on the moderate left and governing on the far right.
don't get suckered by this. i mean, c'mon.
2:18
yeah.
there are maybe some competitors or updates to max, matlab and reaktor, but the same basic idea that existed in 1999 as cutting edge still exists today, so i'm going to sound relatively current as i go through these 15-20 year old sound art experiments and finish them, by upgrading the programs they were written in and using the finalized feature set. so, i may finish a project i started in a version of audiomulch from 2003 with the newest version, for example - but i can still use the same programs and tactics without sounding out of touch.
that is what happened with period 2, as well. these tracks were written into scorewriters in the early 00s and completed with updated software synthesizers between 2014-2018. if i had access to a professional studio, i could have finished them as they were in 2003, but i didn't, i had to wait for the technology to get to me. so, i was able to finish the tracks written in 2001-2003 using updated technology from 2014-2017 without being forced to separate myself from the initial intent and without sounding like i was making outdated music.
i should be able to do that with this as well - this will both sound like it was visionary in 2005 and like it's current, today. and, i hope to convince you that both things are true.
i'll have to revisit that as i go, but it's a question of updating (or not updating) software and not a question of needing to start anything from scratch, and learn something entirely new, to get up to date.
i have a math degree and 19.5/20 credits for a programming degree, on top of 25 years of experience recording & composing. i can figure out how to use these programs (actually use them), and i will.
8:08
one of the programs i've been looking to pick up and actually use is supercollider, although i would guess that just using matlab is more flexible.
listening to this, my takeaway is that use of this tool has not yet been satisfactorily developed.
8:22
everybody wants to use these tools to make boring ambient music that you could do better by letting your cat walk on your keyboard (see: music for cats, cevin key).
i would be more inspired to use these tools to pick up on something like this:
8:50