i’ve said over and over that i have a zero tolerance policy for censorship, but:

- i’ve stated repeatedly that i don’t think this is about google because google has shown me what they do to censor files, and it is a process that allows for review. these posts are not just deleted, but the backups in my email are also deleted.

- that means i can’t prove anything, which is of course the point of it. how can i justify shutting down a massive site like this on a hunch?

- because i think it’s law enforcement in some abstraction, and on some order, i have little reason to think that moving somewhere else will make any difference, especially given the sheer size of this site.

- so, it’s more like i’m using this method to try to catch them, first. i keep saying i’ll react if i catch them. but, i have to catch them first......

even if i’m completely imagining things, this is still a far safer algorithm, and i suspect i may find it’s far ore efficient as well.

i’m going to do another blogger backup for now and wait it out.

right now, i really want to get that diet document updated....

i think we should plan for daily updates for now, but intend to phase it out a little.

yes, this is going to take some getting used to, and i may even end up in dopamine withdrawal or something.

alright, then. this is the first post directly to the archive.

pros:

- no delays on the servers, which was starting to get a little bit annoying

- full range of basic word formatting choices, from the start

- clears up resources on the chromebook

- i have a local copy that can’t be edited distantly

cons:

- the machine is completely offline, so i have to search for things and use the internet on one machine and type into another

- no direct hyperlinks or embeds

- this is fucking stupid, however necessary it obviously is

now, as it is, the focus of this blog is currently mostly on archiving, so posts here may acually even lay dormant until i catch up.

my immediate goal is that dirty run through the diet journal.

it's crystal clear that my master copy needs to be local, so it's out of the reach of the police.

and, the only reason i'm doing this is that they're deleting things - across platforms - and not even telling me about it.

what i'll need to do is just create a temporary word document and leave it on the usb key, and type right into it, using the format i've been archiving with.

every once in a while, i'll:

1) copy it to the master and

2) posts weeks worth of posts here at a time

i've been moving in that direction, anyways - i'm making archives, not blogs. the blog is just a step in between. so, this is more like a catalyst.

i want this space to continue to exist as it does in some abstraction, but this is the consequence of censorship - people evade the censors.

unfortunately, i can't read this external drive in xp and the chromebook can't read the codecs used by the camera. so, i can either copy the data from the external to a usb key and put it on the xp machine, or i can just upload it to youtube.

i need to reimage my busted up windows 7 laptop before i can even consider repurposing it. so, i'm just uploading it as a playlist to youtube..

and, i can start setting up the production machine for typing, while i'm waiting.

regarding the ram/board issue on the 32-bit system...

i took a known good stick and tried it in all four slots, and there was one that took a few tries, which isn't entirely unusual with old boards - they even just get dusty, sometimes. so, i'm going to try to leave it on with just the known good in the dusty slot and see if it halts or not.

these asus boards don't die (i have one from 1998 and one from 2006 that are both still running, and a third in a box from 2016), but they do get dusty and need to be reseated. let's hope it's that easy.

and, i'm going to have to start typing on the production machine, instead.

so, what that means is that posts to this page will no longer be in real time, but will instead occur in the form of backdated posts and in large chunks every few hours or even every few days.

blame the fucking pigs.

i am going to repeat this request to the listener, whomever they are:

1) please identify yourself

2) please give me back the data you've stolen

3) then, fuck off

i'm going to do the write-up, now.

again: i don't understand why somebody would delete a reflective post about bicycling to leamington, but i have vlog footage and i should be able to reconstruct the day relatively well.

i can't reconstruct reflections or feelings that were lost in the government's censorship, which was done under the cloak of stealth, and neither gave me the opportunity to respond nor informed me of what the complaint was. those are lost, and all that can be done is rightfully accuse the state of engaging in the barbarity of book-burning, under the tyranny of religious zealotry. this is why all religion, and the self--righteousness of moralism and religious zeal in greater abstraction, even without a bankrupt theology, must be opposed and eradicated. this is why we have to fight - they will erase your memories, and they will be arrogant enough to think it's some twisted concept of justice. they cannot have any power, for that reason. and, i don't even like letting them worship in quiet rooms by themselves, as the threat of them enforcing their values on others can never be eliminated until they are eliminated themselves.

this applies across the spectrum - christans, muslims, jews, hindus, and this new conservative moralism masquerading itself on the fake left, through the cover of corporatist domination. the lot of them, they must be destroyed.

that said, my best guess is that a cop somehow got access to this, and just went trigger happy with the delete button, in order to try to delete a lot of evidence; about the only thing that makes sense is that these posts were, in truth, deleted without reading them carefully, because the cops wanted to cover their trail as much as possible. i'm just guessing - they've provided me with no information to go upon. but, to suggest that these particular posts were targeted just doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. the posts had to be deleted as a part of some broader scrubbing process, and this has to be some kind of collateral damage.

but, however they got access to my site in the first place must reduce to a concept of religious zealotry, of overbearing self-righteous moralism, of the insistence that their perception of reality is correct and every other's needs to be deleted. and, i will repeat a claim i've been making for some time, now: identify yourself, you fucking cowards.

if you don't like something i've posted, address me about it so that we can have a debate about it. don't use some legal backdoor to sneak into my account and delete my memories, and then not even tell me about it. that's not just an invasion of privacy, and an invasion of rights, it's all of the above done in the most cowardly and childish manner possible.

now, what does that mean going forwards?

i've been posting here as a temp space, and sending backups to my email address. the intent has always been to archive it over time and rebuild it as required. but, i seem to have some kind of fucking pig listening to me at all times, and they seem to just delete things at random - including backups.

so, i'm going to have to flip this over - rather than post here temporarily and archive it later, i'm going to post directly to the archive, and build it up here over time. and, that shift is going to be almost immediate.

and, i'm gong to have to keep the archives in my pocket when i'm out.

we're really walking down that path in what is supposed to be a free society. but, when even your email isn't safe, it's time to reapproach the internet.

that will be difficult to make sense of, at first, but i'll figure it out.

i'm not very social right now, i'll have to wait until tomorrow to make those calls.

this is also the period when i launched legal action against the hospital for refusing to treat me, and accused the doctors of being transphobic bigots that were basing decisions on their religious beliefs rather than on science.

so, does it have something to do with that?

something very unfortunate happened some time after mid-june, 2020 that affected posts dated from about june 20,2020 to about july 30, 2020 and there was substantive data loss across the blogger platform, and in two of my email archives for posts dating to that period. it might not have been a singular event, but it was worse over that period.

i did not detect any data loss when i was "catching up" over august, 2020.

somebody then tried to cancel my account in nov, 2020 - which is when i made the backup closest to the date, by which time the damage had been done.

so, that's the time window i'm look at for some kind of destructive action, presumably by some police agency - fall, 2020.

and, now i'm too sad to eat breakfast - i'm going to take a nap, instead.

so, i'm trying to build a file that documents the substantive research i've put into fixing any dietary deficits i've had, something i've been doing for the last several months, and i'd like to include a write-up i'm sure i wrote about a bicycle ride to leamington to pick up brand name estrace in june of 2020.

but, the post has completely vanished, along with any email references to it.

and, sadly, i therefore cannot do that.

the only way out of this would be to start typing into a word document instead of posting it to the internet, but that defeats a lot of the point.

nonetheless, i'm nearly there.

right now, all i have are very strong suspicions that posts are missing and a strong desire to have them returned. but, should the evidence become strong enough, the place i'm going to migrate the blog to is offline - and i'll post monthly updates to a file at google drive or something, instead.

there's no ulterior motive. there's no angle. there's no master plan.

it's just where i record what i'm thinking, with the purpose of organizing it later.

and, because i think the issue is law enforcement rather than google, i don't think moving platforms would be worthwhile.

rather, i need to request that law enforcement contact me about why they're doing this, so that we can put together some steps to get it to stop. listening in on what i'm doing and filtering my thoughts is exceedingly invasive, and i can't begin to grasp what an end to such a thing would actually be.

if you think i'm a russian spy or something, then present me with the charges and allow the process to work itself out in a court of law - or fuck off and leave me alone.

and, give me back what you've taken from me, which is of no monetary value, of no legal worth and of no sentimental value to anybody but myself.

....and i don't want them to be worth anything to anybody but me.

i don't want to charge a fee to read this, because that's not what this is.

these are my personal thoughts; they're not worth anything to anybody except for me.

i can't recreate the memories by staring at the screen.

but, i need to plead with the person doing this: give me my posts back, so that i can place these memories where they belong in my journal.

it's of no consequence to anybody but me. but, it's invaluable to me.

well, what else am i supposed to do to archive this?

i'm emailing it to multiple inboxes and checking that every post shows up in the inbox. what else is there to do? 

should i screenshot it every three seconds, and carry the screenshots in a lockbox around my neck, or my pelvis?

i mean, really.

somebody wants these posts deleted, and is going to extreme steps to be thorough. and, the things they delete make no sense to me....

i remember talking about how everything was wilderness in every direction, growing up in ottawa...

these are just memories.

they mean nothing to anyone, except me.

i also remember talking about county road 34, and how it was a very old road....

i can't grasp why anybody would delete these kinds of things. 

and, these are consistently the types of things that get deleted, too - thoroughly. with no trace....

please give me back the memories that you've stolen from me - in my email, at least, if not in this space.

i won't ask questions.

i just want them back.

the other thing that's just baffling to me about all of this is that the things that disappear are just consistently trivial.

what i'm looking for is just a write-up of a day that i went for a bike ride across the region - a simple thing that is really of no value or consequence or remote meaning to anybody else, but is invaluable to myself, as the person writing it, as a memory, as a historical record. to a nerd like me, that write-up is like taking a picture - that's how i remember things, through stories and writings, and not through visuals.

why would anybody decide to erase somebody's memories like that?

i don't understand.

it's one thing to delete something from public view; i may oppose it on principle, but we can debate and discuss that.

it's another thing altogether to go into not one but two separate email boxes and delete the files.

and, i strongly suspect that that is actually happening - but i can't prove it, because the email record is the backup.

this is my life.

i want anything that is taken from here to be put back where it belongs, please.

i also remember pointing out that i made it home before dark, and also talking about the little towns on the way there.

but, the write-ups for the ride to tilbury and amherstburg are still there. so, why would some government agency delete the writeup for the ride to leamington?

it's just this constant feeling that things are missing, and never being able to find any trace of it...and, if there's any truth to it, if i'm legitimately under that depth of monitoring, there's three things i need to understand:

1) why?

2) can i get it back? like, if whoever is doing this just restores everything, i won't ask questions about it, i'll just carry on.

3) is this permanent? that is, is this going to continue to my death and past it? why?

if i'm right that the post was deleted, it was also deleted from two separate email boxes.

yes - it's hard to take that premise seriously.

but, why am i so sure i wrote it up, then?

see, again...

i'm almost certain i did a write-up for the bike ride to leamington in june, 2020. i remember talking about how it doesn't really feel like you've left the city, i remember talking about avoiding trucks and biking through dirt, i remember mentioning the wind and i remember narrating the places i stopped to smoke at.

there's no trace of this.

but, why, exactly would somebody want to delete a post about bicycling to leamington? i don't understand that...

so, am i imagining it? is it that i talked into the vlog, instead, and am confusing myself?

there should be a post talking about the bike ride, at the least. alas.

so, what is a right-wing perspective on the encroaching islamicization of western society?

well, the answer is this: read edmund burke, who actually called for the kind of "religious tolerance" that we associate with bourgeois liberalism, nowadays. but, then read marx and put it into perspective as to why.

this spectrum flip isn't unique, but it's endemic.

if burke was writing today, everybody would call him a liberal, and republicans would smear him as a socialist. but, he wouldn't be - he'd be the actual conservative, and the actual conservative position on religion is to be tolerant of it, so long as you pay your taxes and do what the queen says.

the formatting here is awful, but we've got up until the end of may done.

if marx (or bakunin) were alive and writing today, the media would label him a far-right extremist.

today's post is the first rabit is wolf recording with the alternate singer, sean, but it's just a tease, until it becomes my primary focus to start 2002 (which is only actually a few months, even if seems longer in the sequence). pretty much all of the tracks that i finished over 2002 were started in mid to late 2001, but only this track actually gets a release date in that space, as i was finishing up other loose ends and really waiting for the guitarist that initiated the thing, jon, to engage (and he never did). there were other things happening that fall that were distracting, as well - as anybody that lived through it no doubt remembers.

i at least had a larger base of commonality with sean, and had at that point known him for a lot longer, as well. we were in the same group of friends, but we went through most of high school without talking much. the commonalities were always defined by contradictions. so, for example, i was a giant nine inch nails fan at that stage, whereas he was huge into marilyn manson - a commonality, but quite the contradiction, too. we both spent all of our times in front of computers, but i was doing music and reading (and excelled academically), whereas he played tons of video games and did very badly in school. we were both exceedingly introverted, but i was a legit loner and he pretty much always had a girlfriend. i was into tortoise; he was into mogwai. i liked early industrial; he liked early post-punk. etc.

i talk about this a little more on the bandcamp pages, and the story will develop there, but i'm only stopping to take note of this because the presence of an alternate singer - in fact of anybody else in the recording at all - is something that dramatically sets these recordings aside as very different than my mostly instrumental output, or my often tertiary vocal additions, later on. the fact that i was writing for a singer also sets the tracks aside.

in a few moments of honesty, sean admitted that he was often trying to emulate the vocal tracks from my inri period, as he was one of the few people that ended up with a copy of the cds (iirc, by his request). he's also admitted that several of the tracks are actually about me. so, there's something deeper to allowing sean to front these pieces than may be initially apparent.

but, this phase is different, and requires that explanation - i am not singing on this recording (except in the acoustic demo, where the vocals are just meant as a placeholder for sean to eventually pick up on). that's somebody else...

this is catalogued nowadays as inri049. that's how long it took for me to get somebody else on a recording.

====

rabit is wolf arose accidentally from the cynicide project (inri048), but produced far more material in the end. what happened was sean and i showed up to a few jam sessions and the guitarist (jon - it was his band) didn't, so we started writing some material without him... 

initially, the intent was to include rather than exclude jon but he quickly developed a disinterest due to a variety of obvious if never fully articulated reasons. i was playing guitar parts on the demos, which he couldn't deal with. we were doing joy division songs, which were outside of his sphere of interest. we were writing without him, which made him feel unimportant. we were talking about songs without drums, which he wasn't interested in at all. etc. however, he did record a guitar part (that i wrote) that was never replaced. 

upon release in 2014, this was a collection of demos from the first month of rabit is wolf, which included multiple versions of the title track and a joy division cover. in the end, none of this would be released in the form it's in here (which was only available for download), but it created a cohesive (if short) introduction to what followed that was self-contained in a historical context. stated differently, this was the first (post-punk) incarnation of rabit is wolf. 

in oct of 2017, this release was expanded to act as a comprehensive exploration of this track and made available for physical purchase. seven further versions were added: three from 2002, three from 2014/2015 and one from 2010. disc finalized on oct 21, 2017. 

i don't analyse sean's lyrics, but the subject matter is clearly that of contemplating suicide - i believe from the perspective of an imagined character. 

written and recorded in the fall of 2001. released on sept 6, 2014. expanded, re-released and finalized on oct 21, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

the album version of the track (track 11) appears on the rabit is wolf demo (inri057): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/rabit-is-wolf 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2001, 2002, 2010, 2014, 2015, 2017). 

released october 15, 2001 

j - bass, guitars, synths, programming, writing, production 

sean - vocals, writing 

jon - guitar performance (6-8, 10-11, 13)

chew on this point: if you wanted to convert a godless, uncontrollable population into obedient slaves to a dominant system of religion, would you not start by co-opting the left with trojan horse politics by blurring the narrative?

well?

wouldn't you?

the leftist analysis here is not that the muslims are coming to kill all the christians and replace you with them.

the leftist analysis is that the atheist elite need to replace christianity with islam and convert you to it, because you've managed to emancipate yourself from christianity and are no longer under their control as a consequence of it.

this equation is not muslims v christians; it's muslims = christians. and, the fight is not between different religions, it's between the religious right and the atheist left.

maybe you'll eventually see through the conditioning. or maybe you won't.

this is why i worry about the elite pushing islam down.

it's not a right-wing position - it's a marxist analysis.

and, i've been as consistent as consistency can be about it.

you're not just confused about this - you're brainwashed into it. your consent has been manufactured. the conditioning is gramscian.

they need a religion to control you with, or the whole edifice of their system of control begins to fall apart - which is what we saw happen in the 60s, before they started to crackdown in the 70s. and, christianity just doesn't work any more. islam is a more violent, more direct, more hierarchical system - and it is still effective as a tool of control, in many parts of the world.

now, i don't think islam is likely to be any more successful than christianity in controlling the population, not in the west, and not in the long run, but that's not what they think. and, we're going to have to fight all the same battles against the muslims that we fought and won against the christians, if we stand back and let them do this.

we need to get ready for this, because it's coming.

and, the far right will welcome it, when it does - leaving a collection of fake left useful idiots strung up in trees, and crucified on front lawns, to show for it. they'll be the first to go - even before the atheist queers like me.

====

And now came the triumph of British respectability over the free thought and religious laxity of the Continental bourgeois. The workmen of France and Germany had become rebellious. They were thoroughly infected with Socialism, and, for very good reasons, were not at all particular as to the legality of the means by which to secure their own ascendancy. The puer robustus, here, turned from day-to-day more malitiosus. Nothing remained to the French and German bourgeoisie as a last resource but to silently drop their free thought, as a youngster, when sea-sickness creeps upon him, quietly drops the burning cigar he brought swaggeringly on board; one-by-one, the scoffers turned pious in outward behavior, spoke with respect of the Church, its dogmas and rites, and even conformed with the latter as far as could not be helped. French bourgeois dined maigre on Fridays, and German ones say out long Protestant sermons in their pews on Sundays. They had come to grief with materialism. "Die Religion muss dem Volk erhalten werden" – religion must be kept alive for the people – that was the only and the last means to save society from utter ruin. Unfortunately for themselves, they did not find this out until they had done their level best to break up religion for ever. And now it was the turn of the British bourgeoisie to sneer and to say: "Why, you fools, I could have told you that 200 years ago!

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/int-hist.htm

so, my 32-bit recording pc (which i'm still filing, periodically) has developed some kind of ram and/or board issue that i'm also troubleshooting this week. it just freezes randomly.

these asus boards just don't die, so it has to be the ram, or something else plugged into it.

i've unplugged some of the front panel connectors and, now, it seems to be stable with one stick of ram, so i'm going to rotate a different stick into the slot i took out and try it from there... 

the republicans have every right to throw liz cheney out of their party if they don't think she holds their values.

so, i had what i used to call a normal but now seems like a long - 20+ hours - day yesterday, which was good. but, it meant i had to sleep all day.

is the iron finally working?

i don't know. i know i'll need to make those calls tomorrow, instead.

i should hopefully get a good chunk of that rough diet run through finished today.

it's hard to abstract an idea of what the region needs, because the logical analysis is that the israelis simply wipe the palestinians out, and then that's the end of the conflict. 

somebody like a gandhi is a poor analogy, for the reason that the indians had dramatic numerical superiority, and the palestinians do not. gandhi would not have won if it wasn't for the perceived implication of violence. his tactics are not well understood in the west.

but, the palestinian culture - which is a warrior race culture - is a dramatic hindrance to their likelihood of survival moving forwards. their pride will be their undoing, if they can't put a serious check on it and accept the reality, as it exists in front of them.

israel may have all of the power, but that's just the point - it is the palestinians that need to accept a subjugated position, if they wish to survive at all. and, if they choose not to, they will die.

why would yang even post something baffling like that?

because new york has a large jewish community that can swing votes. and, that's all there is to it - an empty suit of a politician saying absurd things to try to win an election.

you should not trust him, and that is the reason you should not vote for him, everything else aside.

it truly is a delusional statement, there's no question.

i'm a realist about this: the palestinians have no path, here, besides trying to outbreed israel, which they have a time window to do. but, i don't support societies that are rooted around religion, language, nationality or ethnicity - i'd like to see a singular secular state, where both religions are marginalized as archaic. both israel and palestine should be abolished, and some concept of greater lebanon or broader phoenecia should be erected in their place - societies where religion and ethnicity don't matter, and people can live modern existences in relative freedom.

as it is, this is the kind of imbalance in technology that has manifested itself repeatedly in history, and which the more primitive society always loses, every time. israel has some of the most advanced technology in the world; the palestinians literally throw rocks at tanks. they have no chance of winning that fight. like, at all.

so, what the palestinians are doing is, tactically, pretty much retarded. they need to find some way to deal with this besides violent retaliation, as it just continually creates pretexts for further israeli expansion. so long as they act like dumb barbarians, the israelis are obviously going to continue to treat them that way - which includes repeatedly tricking them into doing dumb things to advance their own causes. they need to smarten the fuck up, or they're going to end up wiped off the planet.

but, a statement like wang's simply doesn't exist in reality. and, it should make anybody considering voting for him exceedingly apprehensive about how he's willing to discard anything resembling truth to advance his self-interest.

you could see this with his fake ubi, as well - that was never going to happen, and would have been a disaster if it had. that was literally a politician bribing you to vote for him in a demagogic, dishonest manner.  and, it's baffling that anybody was dumb enough to fall for it.

great!

let's do it immediately.

we're not going to win the war against carbon with conservative, incrementalist policies. this is exactly the kind of economic shock we need to force us to change.

just don't landfill your car - find a way to recycle it.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7853729/line-5-pipeline-shutdown-canada-impact/

today's post is the absurdly layered inri048, which i strongly suggest you listen to through a good system with full range headphones, in order to get the detail on the bottom end. the mp3 compression doesn't help. at all.

i can't even hear the bass guitar at all through laptop speakers, and while that wasn't intentional, it's not an accident either - they can't reproduce the range.

so, this is one of those pieces where you just need to find good enough speakers, or you shouldn't bother.

there are actually....other people....on track 9, foreshadowing the next phase.

===

this track represents somewhat of a refocus, but it never found itself to fruition in the way it was meant to. 

over the summer of 2001, a friend of a friend decided he wanted to start a band and asked me to play bass. now, we didn't really have a lot in common besides both being musicians. i was spiralling out into obscure independent music, and he was into all the mainstream rock bands. 2001 was the point where grunge was losing it's last bit of mainstream potential, and giving way to nu metal and various watered down, corporatized offshoots of hardcore. so, i was sitting around listening to tortoise and writing jazz compositions and he was sitting around listening to limp bizkit and writing mtv/radio rock. how could this legitimately work? 

there was a small amount of overlap, centred mostly around tool. it so happened to be that tool had just released a new record, we were both listening to it and neither of us really had anybody else to talk to about it. so, something formed out of that. 

now, when you're an isolated twenty year old that's never been lucky enough to meet another musician you can start a band with, you take what you can get. it seemed implausible that it was going anywhere, but wasn't that the case for every other band that ever went anywhere when they first started off? i don't think either of us thought we were natural creative partners, but we had a set of common goals and if we could put aside our differences... 

see, the thing is i knew that the only way anything was going to happen is if i sat down and recorded a bunch of stuff. but, i also knew that this is a guy that defines himself in terms of his oversized ego and that the whole purpose of it from his perspective was to give himself a way to explore it. that's not the worst trait to have if you want to start a band, either. my overwhelmingly shy introversion hasn't exactly got me filling stadiums, has it? nor is it ever going to, and i realized it even at that stage. so, a natural role would be for me to play the producer (along with the bass guitar) while he throws some stuff at me. if that meant i'd be doing 90% of the actual recording, that would be ok, but i realized i had to let him provide the actual song structures or he'd storm off and pout about it. 

so, i waited for him to provide some material. and waited. eventually it became clear that he didn't actually have any serious songs. we did a few demos, but he could barely play what he was trying to demo and the tracks were not of a gigging quality level. 

in the mean time, he'd recruited a guitarist. he kept saying he was talking to a drummer (no drummer ever appeared), and he also recruited another friend of a friend as a singer. so, we had what seemed like a full band, if you include the imaginary drummer. what i saw was an opportunity. if he wasn't going to write some songs, i guess i'd have to... 

the other guitarist almost immediately dropped out, and the whole project really fell apart rather quickly when the guy that initiated the whole thing stopped showing up to practice. it was several weeks in a row that only the singer and i showed up. i had a few songs i had written, so we started working on those instead and that became rabit is wolf. predictably, there was much pouting. 

that leaves this particular song in an isolated limbo. when it was reworked for rabit is wolf (inri057), it took on the epic and experimental nature i was exploring at the time and lost the crux of itself as a stadium rock song. i feel something valuable was lost in this process, if for no other reason that this is so dramatically different than anything else i was doing at the time. 

thankfully, i still have the original drum files, and i remember how to play the guitar part, so it's simply a process of recreating it. the raw mix sounds exactly as the track did in 2001. the complete mix takes it to it's final conclusion. 

a number of literal remixes were added on oct 16, 2017, including the electronics only mix for the ry30 disc, from dec 27, 2015. 

the ep also includes some files from 2001 that are attached to the initial cynicide project. 

written in the summer of 2001. remembered over july, 2014. completed august-september, 2014. released sept 24, 2014. expanded, finalized and re-released on oct 16, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

the album version of the track (tracks 1+2) appears on my sixth record, jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj^2 (inri063): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj-2 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2001, 2014, 2015, 2017). 

released september 16, 2001 

j - drum programming, orchestral sequencing, guitars, effects, synths, electric bass guitar, digital wave editing, sampling, loops, equalization, vocals (8), production 

the rendered electronic orchestra includes tuba, saxophone, flute, clarinet, orchestra hit, piano, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and various full string sections. 

sean - vocals (track 9) 

jon - guitar (track 9)

google has only ever notified me of it's intent to censor a single post in this space, and it reversed it's decision upon review. so, i have to think it's not deleting posts, randomly.

my bigger concern is that some vigilante group, which includes an intelligence agency,  is doing it...

but, there's thousands and thousand and thousands of posts here. trying to find something is always going to be challenging, if i can't remember the exact term.

i should have everything backed up in a few different places, and i can never find any evidence of anything being missing when i look. but, i have good reason to think that some of these spaces were hacked, and somebody's been in my room.

as mentioned repeatedly, they don't go after the posts you'd imagine they would. when it seemed like somebody was slaving my machine, the thing they seemed to want to do was disable adblock, first and foremost. i've noticed that music review posts frequently evaporate. and, the issues that always seem blurry are issues to do with trudeau, or some obscure leftist political issue, or issues to do with muslims, making me think it's a canadian intelligence agency - and that they're being absurdly thorough.

or, maybe i'm imagining it.

or, maybe the point is to make me think i'm imagining it.

somebody seems to be watching me - but i always say that you'd never actually know that orwell was right, if he was. you'd just have to guess it...

again, there's this constant feeling as though posts are missing, ad though i'm reacting to thoughts that have disappeared - but if somebody is doing this purposefully then all i can conclude is that they're being exceedingly thorough, because i can't find a damned bit of evidence for any of it.

if i didn't know any better, i might wonder if the colonoscopy industry successfully lobbied the government to set restrictions on fit accessibility.

....which isn't supposed to happen, here.

this article at harvard (which is available in google's cache) is an exact summary of everything i've posted so far.

- fit tests should be available on demand

- colonoscopies should not be done randomly or routinely

of course i'm right - that should surprise nobody. what's frustrating is how...

...is how behind the system is. that's the truth of it - everything in canada seems to be ten-twenty years behind. we get everything last. it's like a cultural stunt, and that's frustrating in what is supposed to be a global economy, given how far we went to embrace it.

the bottom line is that i don't understand why my doctor can't order me a fit test, based on my age. that's ridiculous, as an absolute metric.

they can't screen you over 85 either, which is just as baffling.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/cancer/dont-wait-until-you-turn-50-to-screen-for-colon-cancer

the age of 50 is really legitimately arbitrary, it seems.

people 40-49 are apparently at higher statistical risk than people aged 50-59.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26905605/

that wasn't how i planned to spend the afternoon, but so be it.

i need to stop to eat.

$60 just seems exorbitant. the internet suggests something in the $8 range is more reasonable, and the at-home kits are in the $25 range.

it could ultimately be a good excuse to take a bike ride. and, any excuse for a day on the bike is worth it.

they're extending the lockdown to june...and i don't expect it to lift until late summer, at the earliest.

so, i'll need to call around in the morning, but it seems like there's probably only really one option in windsor.

i should call around for the lowest price.

i may have found something in windsor, on second thought.

so, they want to charge me $59 and are suggesting i don't use the mail.

the at home kits are cheaper.

so, i called the cancer check program and, after giving them shit, they gave me a number in brampton to call...

i might have to pay for it. that's fine.

it is far more important for me to get my iron stores up to correct for the obvious absorption problem than it is to check for the infinitesimal probability that i may be bleeding somewhere.

and, that is exactly what i will do, if forced to choose.

but, i shouldn't be forced to choose - i should have access to this test.

all the literature just instructs me to do the other fecal test.

but, i can't do the other fecal test until i go off iron, and i'm not going to go off iron for another 2-3 months, potentially - meaning i won't have an answer for the fecal test for another 3-4 months.

yet, the purpose of denying me access to the test is supposed to be to prevent delays in diagnosis. but, that's exactly what they're going to get - a huge delay. because the colonoscopy is simply irrational, without some evidence that it's actually required, of which there currently isn't any.

why are medical professionals so fucking irrational? like, this is consistent, it's endemic. they may have large knowledge bases, but they can't solve simple fucking problems. they're all fucking idiots.

again - universal healthcare sounds great, right?

i can't even buy it. it's not for sale. there's no way to do it. it's ridiculous.

the lab has the tests, they do them regularly, but there's an arbitrary age restriction on access, and nobody can get around it - you have to order it from another country, instead.

the official position from the ontario government appears to be that people under the age of 50 should get colonoscopies instead of fecal tests because fecal tests take too long to process, which makes no sense in context.

there's a higher chance of complications resulting from a colonoscopy than there is that i have fecal bleeding, and i'm going to play the probabilities and deny the scope.

so, i apparently can't order a fit test unless i'm 50 because it "may lead to delays in diagnosis".

but, there's a 0% chance that i'm going to get a colonoscopy without a fecal test to justify it.

so, we're going to have to wait to do the fobt test, and if i die of cancer in the mean time, however unlikely, we can all blame it on the government for being stupid in it's testing criteria.

the gastro-enterologist is only working thursdays and fridays. he might be able to get around it.

but, it looks like i'm going to have to order an at-home kit from somewhere in the states, instead.

i understand the need to test for this, truly.

but i'm in the lowest possible risk category for colon cancer that you could abstractly imagine. you couldn't produce a character in a fictional series with a lower risk. really.

i eat a fibre-dominant diet and almost no meat.

i couldn't be kinder to my colon, truly.

but i'll do the damned test.

poop update.

i skipped the salad for a few days and noticed the poop firm back up again. i had a giant salad last night for the first time in a few days, minus beets, and in two courses, and the result was a return to the mushy poop, but without the reddish hue.

i'm totally convinced.

but, i have a phone appointment very soon to talk to the gp about a fit test, to be sure.

the irony is that ford was elected on a sort of libertarian mandate pushing for small government, with all the typical arguments about how government interference just fucks everything up.

and, this is an example of where these arguments are actually useful - when the government is too incompetent to do anything right. but, it's a reflection of the quality of the ruling party, rather than the value of government.

so, you can understand why they'd make those arguments, when you see how they actually legislate, themselves; when you put that mirror up against their own (lack of) competency, it makes sense for them to think nothing can ever be done correctly via collective action.

and, that's the reverse irony of it - i'd certainly rather not let conservatives interfere with the market, at least. 

i need to be clear: what i'm saying is that you'd expect flu transmission to begin decreasing around this time of year in any other year. so, while it's very easy to jump to conclusions and declare that the lockdown is working, the reality is that doing so is completely specious and entirely unscientific.

in science, we don't deduce causal relations by observing correlations; rather, we produce hypotheses and test for them.

it's entirely reasonable to argue that transmission is falling along with rising temperatures, just like it does every other year.

now, try to make sense of a government policy that orders people to stay inside over april and may, given that context.

science is fun.

somebody tell that to the health authorities....

this is as rough and dirty as it gets because i decided many months ago that i don't have time to analyze poorly collected data, and nobody's listening anyways, but here you go.

this is 2018/2019:

the broad shape of the curve is that the flu peaked twice - in late january and again in april. there's two ways to think about this. you could argue it's the weather, and that the dip is due to decreased contact in the coldest months. conversely, you could point to christmas and easter as increased transmission events.

this is covid data:

while the peaks are exaggerated - which makes sense because healthy, young people are getting tested for covid and wouldn't bother in a normal flu season - the shape of the data is essentially the same.

so, here's your homework assignment - test significance against the null hypothesis and tell me what it says.

but, i can tell you what the answer is without doing the actual math.

in most of ontario, winter-like weather starts in mid-september and ends in mid-april.

the null hypothesis is that the curve documenting the temporal spread of the virus has more to do with the weather than with government actions intended to control it.

and, you should take that graph and compare it to yearly flu stats to check it against the null hypothesis, before you jump to unscientific conclusions.

april 20, 2020

the response in ontario has been bungled on purpose.

first, they don't do enough testing to pull out anything meaningful from the data. then, they put that fragmented data into the models, which just produces garbage results. then, they base their policies on the garbage they got out, by putting garbage in.

sadly, the sitting ontario government is so stupid that it seems to think the primary issue in front of it is limiting the number of cases that are reported, in order to skew the reporting - because they think you're too stupid to figure it out. and, if you voted for these fucking idiots, then maybe you are.

the data on cases is of limited value much of anywhere; it's absolutely worthless in a jurisdiction that refuses to do enough testing. if you can't see it, it's not there, right doug? you fucking idiot...

that said, given that the infectiousness of the disease was dramatically underestimated, and that it's mortality rate was dramatically overestimated, i don't think that shutting down society is helping minimize the spread of the disease at all. so, i don't oppose reopening.

but, has the data peaked?

the initial response from the federal government was the correct one, which limited spread in the community by encouraging openness. community spread does not appear to have sunk in here until they brought in counterproductive authoritarian measures to stop it. as such, we are months behind the curve in the united states.

in ontario, i don't think the epidemic has even started yet - all we've seen is background. those numbers are likely set to ramp up in a week or two.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-begins-working-on-plan-to-reopen-as-modelling-data-suggests-cases-have-peaked-1.4904027

at 16:07  

ok, i'll bring out my crystal ball.

abracadabra! oopa loompa!

what's going to happen here is that they're going to reopen before the epidemic even starts. then, when the epidemic starts here on time, we'll blame it on reopening too early - when the reality is that we shut down too early, and then reopened before it even hit.

i don't think we should have shut anything down at all - i think we should have put the vulnerable in lockdown camps until it passed. but, if we were going to shut down, we should have shut down starting now, not starting last month.

it's a confusing mess, i get it. so, what should we do? we should reopen, yes. but, not only have we not peaked, we haven't even started. so, when we reopen, we should not get jittery about it.

but, we will.

hey, if their attempt to suppress the data just makes idiots out of them, i guess there's an upside of that.

but, it hasn't peaked. it hasn't started....

at 16:16 

doug ford is alpha idiot.

he's the counterexample.

and, ontario is going to come out of this as the perfect demonstration of how to do everything completely wrong.

let's hope it buries him.

at 16:21 

the ford government has refused to test, thereby limiting the number of known cases to a few thousand.

but, we've had almost 600 deaths, here. the observed mortality rate in ontario is over 5%, which is nowhere close to reality.

we know, now, that the actual mortality rate is under .1%.

that would suggest that there are more than 600,000 cases in ontario, already. but, that's not the end - that's just the start.

so, the ford government's focus has been to distort the numbers by refusing to test. it seems to be afraid that it's going to face bad media if too many cases are uncovered. then, they argue that the deficit of observed cases implies the epidemic has passed, when the truth is that they just haven't tested for it.

then, they put the bad data into the model, and conclude it's not happening.

no, you fucking idiots. you're not testing...

at 16:31 

if they were to run the models with a case count that was derived from the death toll, which is going to be a better metric than the testing anyways, then they'd get very different results.

guessing parameters is messy, and nobody is going to nail this. you need to expect large amounts of error.

but, this is certain: if you feed the model bad data by suppressing the testing, you're going to get the same garbage out that you put in.

and, it will not be the models that will be wrong. it will be the government that botched the response...

at 16:35 

if this is too much, just remember this: what's about to happen in ontario is not a "second wave".

the epidemic hasn't started yet.

at 16:36 

it's the perfect example of what happens when you elect a fucking moron.

at 16:37 

how many dead people should you expect in ontario when this is done?

well, there's about 15 million people here.

15000000*.666*.001 = 9990.

that's an exceedingly crude calculation, but i'd argue it's better than the ones the state is producing.

we're a long ways from getting there.

at 16:46  

"but, social distancing is working."

even if it was working, that wouldn't suggest a lower total death count, in the end, unless we stay locked down until (if.) we get a vaccine.

remember, there's only two ways to stop this: mass vaccination or herd immunity.

and, there's no way to get to herd immunity without experiencing a lot of death, because it's going to work via trial and error.

so, even if social distancing was working, that wouldn't imply that you could cut the death rate to a tenth of what it would be, otherwise. it would just mean you could slow it down....

at 16:49 

we should not be talking about peaking in ontario until we get a minimum of 5000 deaths.

and, i'm sorry if the government confused you, but maybe they were right to talk down to you, at least.

at 16:50 

"we can't stay locked down until we get a vaccine."

you're right, we can't.

that's what i told you in the fucking first place.

at 16:53 

why did we do this?

was it to reduce the total death count?

no. that's wrong....

the reason we did this was to slow down the hospitalization rate. you've forgotten already, haven't you?

remember all those charts you saw on twitter?

remember?

no?

at 16:55 

the initial modelling had a death rate around 1% of those infected. we know now that that's about ten to twenty times too high.

it also had r-not values around 1 or 2. we know now that that's 2-3 times too low.

those are the sources of error in the models, and we can fix that to come up with better projections.

but, the focus of these policies was never to burn the virus out, it was only to slow it down.

we were never going to save anybody, we were only going to prolong their death by weeks or months.

at 16:59 

so, how will we know if this is done before we get a vaccine?

we're getting decent bounds on the mortality rate, now. 

we'll need to calculate herd immunity based on mortality - that's how we'll know it's done.

and, we'll measure the body count in ontario by thousands, not hundreds, when it is.

unless you want to live like this until we get a vaccine, that is.

at 17:05 

i'd like to call for doug ford's immediate resignation.

he's not intellectually capable of dealing with this, and should realize it and step away.

at 18:21  

what the ford government is claiming is that social distancing rules had the effect of accelerating the peak.

this is perhaps the single most ignorant statement i've yet to hear in regards to the situation.

i'll repeat my own position, which i think is the consensus position - community spread in ontario doesn't appear to have started until march, weeks after italy or new york. if we are ~6 weeks behind new york, we shouldn't expect to see death tolls in toronto that are comparable to the peak in new york, which happened at the beginning of april, until the middle of may or the beginning of june.

you should expect toronto to peak at the end of may or the start of june.

but, what if social distancing is working? would you expect it to accelerate the peak?

no. the purpose of social distancing was to slow down the peak, in order to protect health care resources.

if you wanted to accelerate the peak, you should have increased transmission rates.

it's just a constant stream of anti-science bullshit from queen's park. and, this man needs to go. now.

at 19:55  

if toronto were actually at a peak - and they are not. - then the proper conclusion would be that social distancing had no effect at all, and the virus has a mortality rate that's drastically lower than 0.1%,.

we can calculate that.

if we're at peak, that means we're at herd immunity. no, that's what the peak is - there's no other way to peak.

if we have 600 deaths with .666 infection, what is the mortality rate?

let x be the mortality rate.

15 million*.666*x = 600 <----> x= 600/(.666*15 million) <---> x= 0.00006006006

so, if we're at a peak than the mortality rate is .0006%.

that's comparable to what? the common cold?

we're not at peak, and the mortality rate is not that low. the premier is just an ignorant buffoon.

at 20:01 

to be clear...

if what we've done is working after all, then the intent of the policy was to push the peak forward along the axes of the graph, meaning we'll need to wait even longer to peak.

so, i'm suggesting that toronto will peak at the end of may, because i don't think these policies are working. but, if they are working then that means that we'll be pushing the peak to a later point in time - july or perhaps august.

does those make sense to you?

do you understand?

do you understand why what the premier said today is complete rubbish?

at 20:08 

ok.

it would be impossible to find stats on deaths due to the "common cold" because there's no such thing as the common cold - that's a term we use to describe dozens of disparate viruses that create similar symptoms.

but, any of these viruses might kill you if you're 110 years old, or if you have aids.

the comparison is not that bad, actually. but, nobody thinks the numbers are that low. or, not yet, anyways.

we don't have flu-like coronaviruses, though; coronaviruses are the common cold, and that's the best comparison we have to this one, as well, even if it's in it's beginning stages. a number that low might be realistic in a few years, once it's really run it's course.

for now, the correct answer is "no".

at 20:24 

i don't suffer idiots very well. you might have noticed that.

but, we'd better at least learn from this, because if you think i'm being intolerant now....

at 20:29 

you are not a child, and the government is not your guardian. you will not be rewarded for good behaviour, and if that's what you're thinking then you need to snap out of it.

if social distancing is working, it means that the more you comply, the longer you will need to comply for.

you won't get a reduced sentence for good behaviour, here; it's the opposite - if we all comply perfectly, we'll be stuck with this for the next two years.

if you want to speed this up, you should be supporting policies that increase social interaction, not those that reduce it.

do you understand that?

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/03/30/should-governments-give-an-end-date-for-social-distancing-covid-19-study-says-theres-a-catch.html

at 20:55  

is social distancing actually a cult?

i'm for real eating, now.

think about it.

at 21:05  

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2020_04_20_archive.html

as i'm working through this, what are the results of my dietary shift?

- the number of migraines i've had recently is greatly reduced. in fact, i haven't had one all year, i don't think, and have only had a few since last fall. i've tied this mostly to a b5 deficiency, but i may have also been having some issues with b12 absorption that may have been resolved with the nutritional yeast. that said, i've also taken great steps to keep the smoke out of the space, and the air quality in here has improved rather dramatically.

- i'm not less tired, at least not yet. if anything, i wonder if the more balanced diet is actually making me more tired. that said, as my diet has been in flux, i've been drinking a lot less coffee in an attempt to prevent it from interfering with absorption, to the point that i've started to recently notice something i haven't experienced in many years: coffee buzzes.

as i stated previously on several occasions, i'm at an age where i need to make sure i'm eating well, regardless. even if i end up having to take other approaches to staying awake for longer periods, and even if the lack of tiredness was actually a consequence of malnutrition, this is long overdue and necessary, regardless.

today's post is the proto-symphonic piece (it's more like a chamber work) initially known as symphony #0 and currently referred to as "the intersection of two identical particles moving in complete opposite directions", which is a concept i applied to the piece as i morphed it from one thing to another. this single documents true evolution of the piece over a long period of time, from 1998-2017. and, this is inri047.

=====

ok... 

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

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

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

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

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

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

which is where art belongs. 

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

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

in 2001, i ran the midi file through my soundblaster live!, which as primitive as it is, has a much nicer wavetable in it than the primitive soundcard i used in 1998 and 1999 (i don't remember what it was). this is track 21. i also slowed it down by about 20 bpm and allowed the full file to "intersect", which let it breathe more; this is track 22. i've previously not done anything with this mix other than append it to some mix cds. the guitars on the soundblaster are notoriously bad, so there wasn't a lot to do with it.... 

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

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

now, the place to work out the actual intersection is rather arbitrary. i had initially cut off the entire section of pure whole notes, back in '98. what i wanted to do in '01 was create a sequence where it's cut off incrementally, creating shorter and shorter pieces. i didn't actually do that then, but i did do it in july of 2014. 

as for the piece, i haven't changed it much for the 2014 reconstruction. i've doubled the guitar with a pizzicato string section, and put it through a better guitar synthesizer (and amp simulator, and effects). the sound fonts are otherwise identical, just updated mildly to a better synthesizer. 

a string orchestra mix was added at the end of may, 2015. a new album mix for my first record was created at the beginning of jan, 2016, but not added until october of 2017, along with the failed 2013 remaster and solitary forwards and backwards versions built on the 2016 mix. the release was also split into two discs at this point, with the first disc containing only the process piece. 

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

written one day in june, 1998. re-created on another day in june, 1999. reimagined on yet another day in june, 2001. a failed remaster occurred at the end of 2013. slightly rearranged and re-rendered at the end of july, 2014. released in a single volume on july 25, 2014. re-released in a single volume with a new string orchestra mix on may 30, 2015. this release was split into two cds on oct 15, 2017, with the first disc being composed solely of the process piece. four new tracks were added to the second disc. re-released in two volumes and finalized on oct 16, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

the 2014 version appears on my fifth record, jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj (inri052): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 

the 2016 version appears on the final remaster of my first record, inri (inri015): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-3 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1998, 1999, 2001, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017). 

released june 18, 2001 

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

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

it's approved for some eye conditions, apparently.

i should probably bring it up with the doctor when he calls back about the surgery.

https://www.cnet.com/news/crispr-gene-editing-tool-used-inside-humans-for-the-first-time/

so, i'm in the same quandary as i am with my teeth.

if i can wait this out, converting my testicles into ovaries using gene editing is a far superior approach than cutting them out and staying on estrogen pills. that would literally turn my testosterone production into estrogen production, negating the need for further medication - and probably working far better than any other option available to me.

but, if i wait too long....

ugh.

could i even get an ovary implant? is that possible?

the science appears to be here, but clinical applications are still at the phase where scientific illiterates and religious zealots get together to try to decide whether gene editing is "ethical" or not.

i don't even fucking care if it's ethical or not...

but, it looks like i'd have to fly to somewhere like thailand to get this done, at the moment.

hrmmmmn.

https://scienceblog.com/504175/male-mice-grow-ovaries-after-single-gene-tweak/

that's got me wondering, though.

even better than removing my testicles would be to convert them to ovaries. how far are we from that?

the takeaway is that the chemistry facilitating sex reversal is not particularly obscure.

so, it's not immutable. deal with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM0JwIQYvGw

you could potentially even do it with gene editing in a live human.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/one-gene-stops-ovaries-from-turning-into-testes

fwiw.

sex is not an immutable characteristic. that's where people go wrong with this - they don't understand the science properly. what they do is they get this religious idea that we're assigned a gender at birth mixed up with the science - which says no such thing - and then deduce it must be science because it's "common sense".

so, what does the science say, here?

i'd imagine most people will tell you that you're born with xx or xy chromosomes and that determines your biological sex, but that is actually biologically, scientifically incorrect. the chromosome is actually just a bit that codes for the hormone, and this is repeatably demonstrable and very well understood. so, if you take an xx embryo and flush it with testosterone, you get a biological male; conversely, if you take an xy embryo and flush it with estrogen, you get a biological female. so, let's put the question of chromosome editing off for a minute, because it's secondary to the point - biological sex is not defined by chromosomes, it's defined by hormones. and, from time to time, errors occur and you get exactly this outcome.

it follows that the definition of a biological male is an individual that is testosterone dominant, rather than an individual that is born as xy; likewise, it follows that a biological female is estrogen-dominant, and not somebody born as xx. 

and, once you get the definitions correct, it is easy to see that hormone therapy can, indeed, change a person's sex - which is a hormonal, chemical thing and not something embedded into the dna.

now, you can argue that while it may be true that embryos are not sex-specific, the introduction of one hormone or the other to the embryo produces an irreversible process. but, that position is incoherent in the fact of a set of surgeries that can, in fact, reverse it. i mean, if you want to be empirical, there's your evidence - the surgery that replaces one physical vestige for another.

but, it's missing the point in the broader context, about physical sex organs being consequence of the hormones and not definitions of biological sex, itself. if you have this flap of skin or that one, it's still just some flaps of skin - it says nothing of the chemistry defining the concept of sex. 

to my knowledge, we can't yet exchange testicles with ovaries or vice versa, but some species can, indicating how closely these structures are truly related. and, it's really just a matter of time. and, then what does empirical evidence state, clearly, in front of your face?

conversely, if there is a biological process to change one's skin colour, i'm not aware of it. but, i mean, it's a triviality regardless - and not defined by functional hormonal differences that alter how reality is experienced. sex is at least chemically, biologically real - race isn't.

the problem is that the server is constantly reformatting it in ways that are dumb, and there's simply no way to disable it.

so, i just need to get the data together in one place first and format it offline where they can't mess with it.

it does mean, unfortunately, that you'll have to wait until i'm done before i can post it.

i got through may, 2020 this morning for the diet build before the machine crashed, unfortunately. the microsoft servers are unreliable for the purpose to say the least, but at least the software actually works.

what i'm going to have to do is download it in docx format, convert it to doc format, format it properly in 2003 and then upload it as pdf.

i was hoping i could format it well enough in real time, but the server is just awful.

so, i'm now spending no time formatting it, and it should be quick.

i stumbled upon this randomly last night and i'm going to quietly watch and subscribe to it, as it's sort of interesting to see somebody like this put up a channel like this, and who knows how long it even lasts for.

it's clearly not intended to get into too much depth, so much as it's intended to present ideas for future research or thought, and the most common reaction i've had so far as "yeah, i do that too. huh.". but, i can't stumble upon something like this and not watch it.

so, we'll get back to the harvard thing after.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjLd6862BxCe7Dd6ukj3zEw/videos

i don't want this incarnation of the liberals to get their majority back until they actually do something to earn it. i haven't read the ridiculous budget yet, but i think the consensus is that it's a political document that promises everything to everyone in a desperate attempt to get a majority. let's force them to do a bit of it, first.

while the liberals could call an election before ford does, they'd have to engineer it. unless he cancels it in a fit of fascist domination (which is looking increasingly unalarmist week by week), ford will need to call an election on schedule about a year from now.

the federal ndp will also benefit from a reduction of anti-ford kneejerking.

so, it's in the opposition's best interests to just wait it out and prop them up until mid-2022 at the earliest, and the pandemic gives them the perfect cover to do it.

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2021/05/10/never-mind-justin-trudeau-conservative-insiders-fear-erin-otooles-toughest-election-opponent-might-be-doug-ford.html

it seems to be the conservative political groups that are pushing for online schooling, and it's easy enough to figure out that it's mostly about getting rid of teachers. we know liberals wouldn't like something like that. what would socialists think about that?

at the end of the day, teaching is a shitty job - it's why i avoided it. you spend half of your time babysitting kids with useless parents that should probably be placed in foster homes and half of your time teaching them the most trivial, basic, boring bullshit - how to count, how to read. as you move to higher grades, it gets a little more interesting, but the necessity of ensuring that a teacher is advanced enough in a topic to teach it requires that they resign themselves to teaching trivialities, from the first grade all the way to graduate school. it's only researchers teaching post-graduate topics that have some opportunity to engage in something interesting to them, as a teacher.

so, teaching is a shitty job, any way you look at it - and most teachers are miserable, which is why most teachers are terrible. you'll find the odd one that really loves it, but the university is truly a sad place, full of people that settled for existences they didn't truly want. again: i got out for a reason. i saw myself in a bleak future, there - wealthy, perhaps, but horribly unhappy, helplessly in debt and with no escape mechanism. they're all enslaved to the institutions they exist within.

socialists are supposed to be about eliminating shitty jobs, and they should support anything that leads to the abolition of teaching, for that reason. so, if what they were doing would create less teaching jobs, that's something socialists ought to support. but, it's not clear that that's really the case - it seems more like they're getting ahead of themselves.

as an anarchist, i also always disliked the classroom/grade/group-learning model, where you stick a bunch of random kids in a group and expect them to advance at the same speed. most of the emphasis has always been on trying to help the slowest kids keep up to the group, as though they're going to end up astronauts if they just get enough attention, but i'm really more concerned about stopping the system from preventing the smartest kids from moving ahead. to me, that's the more functional part of removing the teacher from the process - you eliminate the group learning, and let kids move at their own pace, whatever it is. so, some kids that love sitting on the computer and reading ahead (ahem.) may get through the schooling at a much faster pace, whereas other kids would rather tune out and play video games - and i don't think that's a bad thing, or something that society should seek to prevent. to me, trying to smarten up the dumb kids at the expense of the smart kids is just an inefficient use of resources. let the smart kids run ahead, and let the dumb kids die young. that's fine.

but, they don't seem to really be doing that, either.

the existing models clearly aren't very good - both canada and the united states have terrible test scores for kids across the board, on science, on reading and on math. something needs to be done about this, clearly. most of it is about bad parenting, which is primarily a social problem. but, it's a cyclical one with few really good solutions besides letting the dumb kill themselves off, in whatever way they'd most prefer to. and, we really need to let the smart kids get out of the catastrophe, and maximize their potential as young as they can.

this is the biggest problem i had with school in the grades 5-10 years - i just got bored with it. i probably would  have finished high school well before i was 15 if they would have let me, and i probably would have approached the school system from an entirely different perspective, when i did. instead, the system restricted my development in order to push a concept of conformity, which slowed me down, tuned me out and left me looking towards music, instead. so, you ended up with a really smart kid with a ton of potential that was totally turned off by the groupthink in the school system, and couldn't be bothered with carrying through with it.

some people like the group learning. good for them. they shouldn't be discouraged.

but, as there should be a way for adults to escape the market, there should be a way for kids to escape the classroom, as well.

i'm consequently tentatively in favour of exploring options around the elimination of teaching, but i realize that these right-wing governments are more likely to just screw the whole thing up.

today's post is the absolutely ridiculous symphony of psilocybin induced madness.

did i really write this on a mushroom trip when i was supposed to be studying for a calc 101 test? yes. sort of. i mean, it's a little blurry - i actually spent most of the night sort of comatose, as one does on large quantities of magic mushrooms. the walls become very intriguing, stuff just kind of floats by in the air...

but, at the end of it, i really did have this collection of notes pasted together in noteworthy composer - albeit in a much less coherent way than ended up presented in the end.

as mentioned, the piano part was written much later, and without the aid of hallucinogens. and, this is fundamentally a piano concerto.

=====

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

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

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

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

i now consider this my fifth symphony. 

written in the spring of 2001. lent out for a different project in jan, 2004. reconstructed in the first quarter of 2006, especially over march. released as a one track single on april 1, 2006. expanded with alternate mixes and re-released on july 23, 2014. the vst mix was added on jan 10, 2015 and the two guitar mixes were added on may 29, 2015. re-released on may 29, 2015. finalized as symph005 on oct 15, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

the album version of this track appears on my fifth record, jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj (inri052): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 

the divine amoebas version also appears on my seventh record, ftaa (inri079): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2001, 2004, 2006, 2014, 2015, 2017). 

released may 15, 2001 

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

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