so, the guy upstairs wants to turn the air conditioning on when it's a high of two degrees. i'm an open-minded person, but that's really a signal that it's time to lose some weight for your own health. and i see no option but to turn the heat up to 25.

i get the feeling that the window is going to be open all summer.

i have no way to confirm or deny her claims, but this is precisely the same argument we heard about the humanitarian mission into afghanistan.

they're preparing us for a second invasion to get rid of the shia heretics. it's been building up for several years. it's hard to swallow, but deal with it.

i want to clarify: this might not be a boots-on-the-ground invasion, and if it is it will likely be an invasion of the whole region: both iraq and syria.

however, it's becoming clear that iraq is on the target list for regime change, however it happens to be done.

*the truth is that maliki has been on the list for a long time*

on the one hand, this is yet more evidence of how companies collude, rather than compete. and you know what? that's what my economics 100 text taught me, too.

in theory, it's in the interests of consumers for them to compete. but, it's simply not in the interests of companies to compete - not even in theory. so, why would they?

on the other hand, it opens up another question: is it in the interests of consumers to have workers compete for higher salaries? i mean, my empathy isn't particularly deep, here.

whole thing's a mess.

there's a bit of propaganda here, but i've been pushing this point: it's about saving face.

but i want to make something clear....

it's become apparent over the last few years that a prime function of these al qaeda groups (or at least some of them) is to stamp out secular and democratic movements. there is a pattern across the region over the last several years: whenever a secular uprising threatens the status quo, these groups appear to stamp it out and create an armed uprising for sharia law, instead. considering where the funding comes from, i can't consider that a coincidence...

so, what is al qaeda? it seems to be that a big part of what it is, right now, is a sort of saudi secret service (something part way between stazi and brownshirts) agency, that stamps out and co-opts threats to saudi hegemony in the region before they develop.

there's five parts to this. if you've been paying attention, it's a good summary. if you haven't, you actually might find it very surprising.

so, what we're seeing develop across the centre of the golden crescent is a fundamentalist islamic state backed by the saudis that is currently at war with both iraq and syria, along with the kurds and *also* militants backed by turkey and qatar, and is ultimately aligned against iran and any proxies (which would include hezbollah). by all appearances, this seems to be an attempt by the saudis to redraw the map of the area, and appears to be being resisted by just about everybody. in point form...

saudis: backing extreme al qaeda type groups that are fighting everybody to establish theocracy and eject iranian influence.

turks & qataris: support the same general goals as the saudis (and israelis) but reject that level of extremism, and back less fundamentalist groups to attempt to contain it. the qataris seem to be concerned about human rights, while the turks seem to be concerned about instability on their eastern border. they are currently in a proxy war with both the saudis and the iranians.

iran-syria-hezbollah-russia: form an alliance attempting to uphold the existing states in the region.

iraq: the saudis are targeting them as proxies for the iranians, while the americans seem to be less accusatory and interested in selling them arms. they're not yet in the russian alliance, but may end up in it if things continue.

egypt: conveniently preoccupied. current military leaders are saudi-backed. qataris (and perhaps turks) believe it to be tyrannical, and support muslim brotherhood.

israel: provided some air support. mostly quiet, though.

civilians, socialists and anarchists: fucked.

americans: nato-aligned with turkey. the turks are the most important military ally, not the israelis or saudis. large weapons supplier to both the saudis (and therefore the rebels) and the iraqis. the cynical way to look at it is that this is a designed policy to get them to kill each other. the americans seem to be arming several sides.

yet, the saudis seem to have greater ambitions than this. even if the americans succeed in containing them through arming iraq (if not syria), that itself is playing with fire. at some point, they're going to realize this, if they haven't already, and then the target once again becomes washington. as a short term strategy, it may work; as a long term strategy, it can only cement the certainty of a long war directed against north america. far from being brilliant, it's actually quite foolish. well, unless you only care about the next ten years...

this is the concern raised here, and it's a valid one.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/patrick-cockburn-alqaidas-second-act--the-full-fivepart-series-9208303.html

there's no doubt plenty of truth to this, but it plays into the same narrative that exists in syria and will - if the saudis have their way - be used as justification for a second round of regime change in iraq.

i mean, this is the first i've heard of these peaceful protestors. it's plausible that i just never heard of them. yet, the story a few months ago was saudi backed militants storming the region. these things hardly contradict themselves (given that the saudi militants' main aim is to stamp out local democratic uprisings by co-opting them into religious ones), but it all just seems very convenient.

look, i'm an anarchist, but it's *because* i recognize the state's right to defend itself. "if necessary"? sure. any state has that right. who could deny that, and defend the individual's same right? yet, this is why we should abolish states.

so long as states exist, i cannot condemn them for this behaviour. rather, i can condemn protestors for their naivete.

i hereby declare this weekend to be....

PASTA WEEKEND.

(preferably stated with some ominous dread)

interviewer: wow, what a great attitude.
frank: it's called rational thinking.
interviewer: so few people seem to be able to get a handle on it.
frank: yeah, it was phased out in the reagan administration.

this might resonate MORE now than it did then. in the end, i think his understanding of post-war culture will overpower the prevailing one, and people will look back and think it was defined by utter idiocy.

deathtokoalas
ok. but can you show us how to cook a potato in a chicken?

"don't egg him on"!

also, can you do a chicken in a watermelon?

of
having fun by yourself? =D 

deathtokoalas
other people are mostly figments of our own imagination, anyways.

reggie
How about an egg (or 2) inside a potato inside a chicken. That would offer a decent balanced meal for you and a friend, or an imaginary friend who's not that hungry and wants you to eat their food ;-) hehehe

deathtokoalas
indeed, that's what i really want, is that depth. ultimately, what i'm interested in is that age old question....

also, it's very true that other people mostly exist in our minds, subjectively. there is an object out there with physical qualities, but personalities are mostly interpreted by outside observers. so, the way i interpret a person is different than the way another person will interpret that same person, the difference being entirely perceptive and existing solely in our minds. i'm not sure if what i meant to say got across, there.

NorthSurvival
No, but a pizza in a potato.

deathtokoalas
now, how are you going to fit a pizza in a potato? unless, you mean a pizza pocket idea...

this is also done right, with a proper amount of key force.

i'm done with rachmaninov for the night....

actually, rachmaninov and angst go well together. under 15, and it's just notes on a screen. but a little older than that is probably the ideal age to get this right.

she's hitting the keys with sufficient force. that's the big thing. and it's a russian thing, consistently. her western counterparts want to over-intellectualize and turn it into some dainty prance, rather than the noisy protopunk classic that it is.

i'm mildly relieved. i suppose that if we end up on the other side of some curtain, we can still rely on the former soviet states (and satellites) to play the russian classics for us properly, without having to endure westerners butchering them.

i have a moderately recent american version and a modded russian version designed for smashing pumpkins fans (creamy dreamer) and what i've found is that the russian muff seems to be designed for better sound at lower volumes. the russian version does sound clearer and more usable here, but that's why. it has to do with the way a muff works. it's supposed to be plugged directly into a tube amp at high volume levels. this test is consequently largely useless.

deathtokoalas
the orchestra sounds good, but she's just not hitting the piano hard enough.

Eleanor Gay
Does she need to pound the keys to mke the music? Maybe for you to hear the music.

deathtokoalas
this particular piece needs to be pounded, yes. bourgeois westerners that want to focus on masturbatory techniques have consistently failed to understand that for close to a hundred years. the russians grasp it properly...

go find a russian recording to hear it bashed out the way it's supposed to be, then come back.

shantihealer
Your right, my friend, she not only underhits the piano but kind of smacks it.

SugarTomAppleRoger
You are joking of course. Few can play with such power as she does.

deathtokoalas
i've pointed out a few performances that have the proper level of aggression. she just doesn't sustain the smashing throughout.

Ricardo Macayo
y tú muerte a los koalas si que sabes de música!

deathtokoalas
i apologize if i've mistranslated, but i think you're asking me why i hate koalas.

the answer is that they're revoltingly cute.

valkhorn
I hear nothing wrong with it. The notes are clear enough, and she plays with finesse - which is very hard to do on this piece, esp. the last movement.

deathtokoalas
see, that's the problem - the finesse. this isn't a technical, subtle piece. it's a banger, meant to be played with all the bourgeois sophistication of "tutti frutti".

anyways, i'm repeating myself. thread closed.

ok, this sounds like a solid version. it's likely not coincidental that it's russian, but it does look like the whole concerto is up here.

so i was able to find a proper russian version on youtube, after all.

this is better, it seems to get the point better, but the playing is a little blurry (it sounds like he's using the sustain pedal to blur some of the notes he can't hit in the same way that electric guitarists use a distortion pedal), and the mix is pretty piano-heavy.

busted? lol...

no grit. and, look at 3:23: he's catching his breath? maybe his suit is too tight, and it's restricting his breathing. then he prances through the rest of it like it's some kind of gentle ballet...

this should be beaten down with every ounce of emotional and physical force that can be gathered, as though the police have shown up to steal your last ounce of vodka at 4:53 am and there's nothing you can do about it....

deathtokoalas
his is worse, he sounds bored through half of it. yeesh...

i have a version by the soviet symphony orchestra that owns everything i've seen online so far, but my discs are packed. i can't even find info online. fucking cold war, getting in the way of what really matters...

Concertos n°2 and n°3 (USSR Symphony Orchestra, feat. conductor: Gennady Provatorov, piano: Victor Eresko).

find that one if you want to hear somebody just bash this out.

XaverScharwenka
Or simply enjoy one of the best versions ever, by Earl Wild... but then again, we all like things differently.

deathtokoalas
earl wild does not sound like a very russian name.

perhaps, you'd like to suggest a wonderful slavic folk version of 'the entertainer' while you're at it? grigorii does gershwin? on balalaika?

fucking hipsters.

1231CarrieCheuk
your profile pic is so frightening

deathtokoalas
that's only because you can't see the muppets dancing around me.

South Texas Piano
Please tell them to save you

deathtokoalas
i believe that request ought to be formed in terms of a question, but you forget that the average muppet is a monster!

12x12surface
Can you post it on YT?? 

deathtokoalas
i don't have muppet copyright access.

deathtokoalas
i agree with those arguing that she's butchering this. i've always interacted with the piece as a blaring romp, written by an emotionally insecure male that is releasing all of his anger and frustration. she's playing it in a soft and sensuous manner that invites a sultry lounge singer.

the notes are flawless, but there's just no rage or sadness or frustration in it.

deathtokoalas
i mean, maybe she's trying to sex it up. fine.

...but this really needs to be played by 40 year old virgins (ok, i'm exaggerating) to get the maximum feel out of it.

Tim
your understanding of the composer's work is clearly limited if you think anything he wrote is devoid of lust or passion. also, wang's artistic conviction and integrity are what make her performance so remarkable. interpreting a piece in a way that deviates from the norm (or, in this case, your personal preference) is not indicative of poor musicianship.

deathtokoalas
did i not point out that she played the piece flawlessly? but if you understand where the piece is coming from, and all the self-doubt and insecurity attached to it, you'll realize she's completely missing the point.

i mean, if i want to listen to shmaltzy, upper class nonsense i'll go listen to mozart or shostakovich or something. what makes rachmaninov special is the social anxiety in the writing. you take that away, and it's just another delve into aristocratic masturbation. there's plenty of that for those that want it, without needing to ruin that which stands away from it.

i kind of held back a little bit initially, but does she look to you like somebody that has ever experienced the kind of shit rachmaninov went through? young, beautiful, rich. she'd need a brain transplant to get her mind around this. it would be remarkable if she did understand this emotionally, that is as something more than notes on a page - which she does clearly understand quite well.

Vlad
eugh...welcome to music, blessed art it is, where each comes with their own interpretation.

deathtokoalas
this is scored music, not jazz. personal contributions should be kept to an absolute minimum. the performer is a worthless intermediary between my ears and the composer's mind - a necessary evil. i don't care what she thinks.

Vlad
Scored music is still subject to interpretation (not talking about improvisation). Any two people will feel to play the same piece differently

deathtokoalas
completely wrong liberal bullshit. if i want to listen to yuja wang, i'll listen to one of her compositions. i'm here to listen to rachmaninov. the moment she brings her individuality into the process is the moment she completely fucks up. you need to get your head out of this relativistic gallow before it comes down. there are correct and incorrect ways to play a piece.

i don't want to continue this into perpetuity, so i'm just going to be clear about the non-relativistic reality of things before i close off further comments.

there are two ways to perform a scored piece of music:

1) the way it was written
2) incorrectly

this slutty performance is not capturing the piece the way it was written. it's a "modern interpretation" that replaces the tortured soul of the piece with vapid and gratuitous sexuality. therefore, it's wrong. there's no further worthwhile debate on the point, unless you want to resort to the idiocy of "it's just your opinion".

it's not. and that decadent attitude is destroying our culture and our civilization.

out.

benchmark disc.

benchmark disc.

benchmark disc.

i realize i'm interpreting something in translation, but what strikes me as more interesting is the way the dude is pandering to her. it wouldn't happen if she were running things? he won't argue with the idea of nuking russia? there's a few sections where it seems like he should insert "your highness". he knows he'd better not piss her off, and seems to be aware that she's temperamental.....

oil princess, indeed.

there's been some suggestions that this is so outlandish that it could only be something she leaked to boost her popularity with the crazies.

....but those that have been following things since the orange revolution know that this woman is the precise stereotype of the mentally unstable upper class daddy's girl, who will do whatever absurd thing is necessary to get her own way.

cray-cray.

that's why they jailed her.

that's right. it's about preventing democracy.

that's right. the conflict between qatar and the saudis is a consequence of saudi support for the egyptian military, rather than the cause of events in egypt (excluding the coup itself, of course). and with the ruling we see why emotions are so high.

you want to know why we can't have another cold war? because i can't find any decent recordings of rachmaninov. no, i don't want to listen to some asian child prodigy that can hit the notes but has no emotional investment because she lacks the maturity. i don't want to compete over who can do it better, either.

the best version i've heard of the second piano concerto (by far) is by the soviet orchestra, which i found as an import from france (you can keep your freedom fries) in a second hand store several years ago. it's nowhere to be found online. and, it's not hard to guess why. instead, we have versions by west germans, koreans, jews from chicago...WESTERN VERSIONS....

none of them compare to the soviet version.

what is important in life is not which set of bankers controls which oil rig. what is important is the ability to listen to high quality renditions of universally recognized russian classics. likewise, russians have an inalienable right to access american renditions of american jazz.

"we have bitches brew, too. dmitri play trumpet through superior delay system. better quality big muff for vladimir's guitar."

it's not the same, dammit.

we need to put this into perspective before we revert back to that fucking bullshit all over again.

i couldn't condemn the russians for moving into poland or the baltics to dismantle that offensive weapons system before it comes up. the world might not really understand, but that falls under the rubric of self-defense in my estimation. it could actually prevent a catastrophe.

nato has a mutual defense clause, though. so, any invasion would have to be engineered to appear to be a local revolution, so as to not invoke the clause. crimea may be something of a model. it was so fast and smooth that it seemed to be a contingency plan. so, that's something to keep an eye out for.

one of the reasons the neo-con propaganda in iraq was effective was that the idea of preemptive war is indeed justifiable as self-defense. the problem was that the rhetoric didn't meet the reality. saddam wasn't building weapons. he wasn't a threat to anybody. russia, on the other hand, is coming up against the possible necessity to truly move preemptively. the united states is building weapons, and is a threat to the existence of russia.

that being said, i'm having a hard time taking the reports of an imminent russian invasion of eastern ukraine seriously. i'm just having a hard time imagining it, after so many years of russian complicity.

but i was speaking before about a pandora's box. the base in crimea is so strategically imperative that it is tempting to think of it exceptionally. eastern ukraine? not at all. there's some factories, but factories can be built elsewhere. if they move into ukraine, it will dispel all questions as to whether this box has opened, and it will signal russia's intent to shift strategies and aggressively move deep into europe.

...and it *is* america's fault. all of this militarization has created a situation where seeming russian acts of aggression are entirely rational, as they are rooted not in aggression but in defense.

americans do understand this, even if they don't immediately realize it. it's the same logic as the cuban missile crisis. again, people don't know about turkey, so for the sake of the example let's forget about it. how many americans would argue that kennedy should have just shrugged off missiles in cuba? how many would condemn preemptive action against cuba? so, how can they expect putin to just ignore this provocation?

i'm not trying to draw attention to the double standard. that much is obvious. i'm pointing out that if the americans don't change their policy, they are going to be held responsible by history for provoking the russians into a major conflict. at this point, abandoning the missile shield may be the only way to prevent that conflict.

but that will be determined by the severity of russia's next move.

we've all been watching american presidents produce this speech for so long, that maybe it's easy to forget that beyond the rhetoric lies the basis of american foreign policy.

what he's doing is waving around the benefits of american empire and hitting them over the head with it like an anvil. never forget, indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVZWLqkBtf0

his history is largely propaganda, though. well, he's marketing the empire.

you don't believe the advertisements you see on tv, do you?

the doublethink is also impressive.

he talks like this, and then rejects a cold war immediately after. it's remarkable.

we should really rename "midlife crisis" to that period that exists between pretending you've outgrown yourself to realizing you haven't, because outgrowing one's self is an incoherent idea.

the clinton segment of this is worth rewatching a few times. pegged it...

this is how you do this. maduro doesn't have the same military status that chavez did. in the end, whomever gets military backing rules the country.

if i was running things, i'd invade saudi arabia and steal *their* oil.

rt needs to do a better job separating the three aspects (grassroots hippies, fascists, establishment conservatives) from each other.

ok. but, what factor did the authority in the right sector play, given their integration with the conservative party?

ok, but is it infighting, the authorities trying to stamp out a threat or a putsch?

“you'll be the first to go"

good.

a test of his popularity?

the country elected a socialist to reverse the disastrous policies of sarkozy, and got sarkozy 2.0 instead. kind of like bush/obama.

now, he's despised, and the country is practically boycotting them...

in the medium term, that means social unrest is a virtual certainty. the country has given up on the ability of the political system to accomplish anything.

sure. the socialists get elected and act like conservatives, leading to widespread voter apathy.

memo to the pseudo-left: if you want people to vote for you as an alternative to the fascist right, stop behaving like the fascist right.

wow.

these are all such meaningless changes. the program launcher gui as a selling point? well, they're an operating system, sure, but it's being a little literal. for years, now, it's like they've been making operating systems the same way they design xbox games.

and how many people are going to turn this all off and go back to a windows xp desktop within ten minutes of powering it up? and, who can blame these people, given the difference in performance?

what about driver support? take a flip through some forums. they broke things as simple as file operations moving to vista (ten hours to copy files?) and never really fixed it in 7 or 8. how about creating a version with an optimally compiled kernel, designed for speed rather than appearance? stripping xp to the core and calling it "windows lite" sounds like a waaaaaay better idea to me....

the share of xp users is actually around 30%. that's more than apple and linux combined. the reason they've stuck with xp is because it's fast and stable, and the "upgrades" are flashy and obtuse. that's a huge share of the market that's going to walk the other way if they don't get something concrete and without frills that they can actually use for terrestrial purposes.

the headline made me lol.

actually, i think we should open a national discussion on pragmatic uses of dead bodies. we waste so much good organic material by dumping it in boxes. it's madness, really.

incinerating isn't as good an idea as composting, granted. but, it's better than burying it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10717566/Aborted-babies-incinerated-to-heat-UK-hospitals.html

i'm mostly not a bentham advocate, definitely not a utilitarian, but he had a point on this topic. robert newman's pope example is not likely to happen, but it would be nice to see some prominent people stand up and advocate for recycling human tissue.

we understand now that a lot of the things we need to exist are finite. it's just good resource management.

the chechnya thing...

the primary reason the chechnya thing is a bad parallel is that it isn't really a populist movement. the fairness of elections is always suspect, but the official results of elections in chechnya have consistently been to stay in russia.

i don't want to present the fallacy that i'm an expert on this complicated conflict, i am not, but my understanding of the dynamics is that it's a conflict between what are basically local tyrants (mostly western-backed islamic extremists) and the centralized state in moscow, with an ethnic group that identifies as neither. that is to say that there really isn't a significant independence movement there, but rather that there are two equally oppressive forces fighting over control of the region. for moscow, it's a slippery slope problem - let one small area break away, and deal with western-backed insurgents at every crossing point. for the west, it's destabilization. for the local tyrants themselves, there may be some religious aspect but it's just mostly about control. and for the people that live there it's about trying to escape...

chechens are caucasians, which are thought by linguists to have existed in the region between the caspian and black seas for upwards of 20,000 years. geneticists may point out that there has been large amounts of migration from arabs (and other semitic groups, like assyrians), indo-europeans (alans, greeks, armenians, persians and plausibly hittites), turks (including contemporary azeris), mongols and others, making the area more of a cultural melting pot. but, one of the arguments for this being the urheimat of the caucasian languages is the diversity of languages in the region. these languages are thought to all be of the same family, but sometimes it's hard to draw the connection. there's no really serious understanding of how the caucasian languages, turkic languages, indo-european languages and basque are related, but one idea is that they all split off roughly the same time through geographic separation some time around the last ice age, but that indo-european and caucasian may share a closer derivation. that is to say that the chechens (along with the georgians and some of the other groups in the region) seem to be the descendants of the ice age humans that lived in the caucasus mountains. it's probably not a coincidence that these isolated language isolates are mostly in remote, mountainous areas that have been able to withstand or ignore colonization happening around them; the colonizers would always argue it was easier to let them be, so long as they didn't bother them. the area was still considered uncrossable, uninhabitable and controlled by savages (i.e. not part of the civilized world) deep into the roman period.

what i'm getting at is that a greater caucasian state is an impossibility. first, you've got iranians on both sides of the mountain. second, you've got turks all over the place. third, you've got armenians, assyrians and various other types of indo-europeans and semites to the south. then you've got the russians to the north. but worst of all is that every city in the region speaks it's own language and has it's own identity. these are very insular people, that *culturally* prefer the idea of withdrawing to isolation to the idea of fighting for independence.

that makes a real separatist movement almost impossible to develop organically. they're more likely to want to define themselves in opposition to the city 50 miles down the road than work together to build a common identity. it's tribalism to the extreme. but, mostly, it's isolationism to the core.

what the chechen people want is autonomy, in the sense of being left to live alone without being forced into any kind of national framework. that is cultural anarchism that is inherently opposed to nation-building types of independence movements and is likely to see a local warlord as a greater threat than a distant oligarch. the results of the referendum are constantly reasonable, in the context of that desire for autonomy. as an anarchist myself, i can completely understand the preference for russian tanks over islamic extremists; one is a more or less benign military occupation that ultimately doesn't care about how i choose to live, while the other wants to enforce laws and dictate it's conception of society.

so, again, election results anywhere are difficult to take at face value, and the context makes them particularly difficult. yet, the idea that chechen citizens would prefer autonomy within russia over independence in an islamic emirate is entirely believable, given all the things i just typed.

so, it's a bad comparison.

hardly commie propaganda:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/1440823/Most-Chechens-want-to-remain-part-of-Russia.html

it's so surreal. it's based on a cnn program that may or may not still be on, called crossfire. identical, just competing propaganda...

makes you realize what we're really subjected to.

predictable. the existing pq regime has been horrific. see, they're trying not to "split the vote" by swinging right to accommodate (pun intended) a rising right-wing separatist movement. this is not going to work (when will the establishment learn that the right is impossible to swing because it's tied to symbolic, hierarchical change?); rather, it's alienating both left and centrist separatists, as well as soft separatists.

a certain subset of quebeckers has been complaining about "the ethnic vote" since 1995. it can be xenophobic and astute at the same time. but, it's the modern world, where national identities are no longer correlated with geographic areas.

fuck nationalism.

http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/quebec-liberal-party-races-ahead-in-the-polls-1

i'm getting the msn links from the weather network, btw.

the best thing that could happen to quebec would be for the pq to renounce sovereignty and merge with the ndp to create a local soft-left party. the quebec liberals are not left of centre. but the pq have swung to la-la land to dismantle the adq, and there needs to be a solid rejection of this by the quebec mainstream, let alone the quebec left.

it's rooted in the priority of separatism over governance. quebeckers have the right to expect local governance first, anachronistic declarations of nationalism second (wherever they stand on the spectrum). getting that backwards is a fail that ought to have serious reverberations.

as much as i may disagree with the adq on the issues, they are correct that a sovereign quebec needs to have a spectrum of sovereigntist parties. otherwise, it's on the path to a one-party dictatorship. the americans are actually perfectly reasonable in their rejection of this possibility.

so, it's pointless to keep pushing 50+1. when there are three separatist parties in quebec and they dominate the spectrum they will work together on the issue. that's what a real democratic expression of independence would look like.

might doesn't make right?

i said something a few months ago about this area being shielded from nasty southern movements of cold air due to being nestled in between the great lakes, and that i'm going to have to get used to understanding the weather in terms of warm air moving north from the greater mississippi/ohio basin, as that's what was going to dominate it. i was trying to understand why it was so much warmer here than it was a few degrees to the north in ottawa. well, then we had an extreme/unusual push of cold air that just obliterated everything, south to florida....

but, this is a fast forward to thursday, and one can see that the cold air is being beaten back by warm air coming up from the valley. i think that's a season-changing event...

my stomach remains quiet, though. sorry.

lol. no...

when somebody with an identity of some kind challenges your preconceptions, prejudices and stereotypes that doesn't mean you should question their identity.

what it means is that you should question your prejudices. 'cause that's what's got you confused, you see?

you humans...

it's actually a science v. philosophy argument. evidence v. reasoning. empiricism v. deduction.

the individual that challenges your prejudices is evidence that your prejudices are wrong; the idea that they are not as they identify because they don't fit your prejudices is medieval logic.

found my troll twitter account.

still think it's stupid.

https://twitter.com/dgkfgjklgjkgjka

ok. so, that cd drive doesn't read anything. it just spins. lol...

i think it's the only actual *cd* i have. i have two dvd ides, and two dvd satas. that was the initial cd-r i saved up to buy when i was in my mid teens. you know those reasons you get a job when you're 15? i wanted a cd burner, to make demoes with. but it seems to be cooked...

it doesn't sound good, either.

couldn't be more than $5 on kijiji. if i can find one...

this is some progress:

if i put in a cd-r (not a dvd) into a cd-rom (not a dvd-rom) connected via the master ide cable, with the jumper to master (not cable select) it indicates drive activity that is otherwise not present.

unfortunately, i burnt the motherboard cd on what seems like my last cd-r. i thought i had a stack of lightscribe cds, but it turns out they're dvds. i'm not sure why i bought lightscribe dvds, but whatever. and i was silly enough not to put the amiboot.rom file on it.

so, now i'm searching for a cd-r to burn a 1 mb file on to. *sigh*.

why aren't they seizing production? do they need to wait another three years before it clicks in that the "democracy" they live in is a sham, and the only response they're going to get is an escalation from tear gas to live ammunition?

fighting over roads just plays into the state's narrative, giving it a justification for "security". they can't beat the cops, and if they did? they win a sewer grate. hurrah! talk about pyrrhic...

their society has literally collapsed and they still don't get it. what's it going to take? and, in spain, of all places....

the cops always start the fight, because they understand the class war and the hippies don't.

if you can't translate the signs, they say SLAVE LOOKING FOR OWNER.

so, instead of seizing control of production, they gather together to demand more jobs.

#brainwashedslaves

actually, i had connected my floppy cable upside down in the process of swapping drives around, which is why the light was solid :|. put in the right way, there seems to be no power to the drive at all. no seek from the boot block. bricked...

reason: there's no power to the board. hotwiring it isn't going to get the read info. shorting things would only be useful if it's not reading from boot block at all, which i'm not convinced is it.

see, i may have two damaged drives. the pins on both are bent all around. in contrast, the cd-r powers up, through ide or through sata. i'm not convinced it's reading anything, especially through sata, but it spins and flashes and turns the fan on and stops. it doesn't seem to matter what disc is put in...so that seems more like firmware...

...but it powers up. neither floppy does.

i've also determined that at least one of the floppies i was using is unstable. i could have several bad floppies. the copy operation seems fine for about ten minutes, then seems to evaporate. like, i'll do a format /u and copy the rom over and three hours later will get read errors on that disk in that drive.

it's tedious, and i don't think it's the problem, but i have to determine the integrity of the floppy disks before i give up on this approach.

i then have to try every cd-r/cable combo i have.

however, i am currently resigned to reprogramming the chip.

http://www.oocities.org/rrbhaius/recoverbios.pdf

i suppose i could still try some older roms.

the floppies could be damaged.

but i don't seem to be getting read/write access.

i mean, the light is on. and it spins. but it's not reading.

it's a better idea every single one than to short. so, here i go on that...

i mean, it seems like they're perfectly describing the situation....

yeah, that still doesn't turn the power on the mobo on. i wasn't sure if usb needed it the same way the older connections do. apparently, so.

i can't see how a drive would work where a hub doesn't. so, i'm leaning more and more towards shorting.

actually, my hub has a power in. i don't use it, but....hrmmn....let me test this, anyways, see if i learn anything from it.

precisely whether the short works or not depends on if the information needed to get power (rather than instructions) to the peripheral i/os on the board is accessible somewhere outside the bios (proper), which the proposed recovery process (through boot block) suggests is actually the case. otherwise, i can short it all day without accessing the power info in the bios that doesn't exist.

nope.

i'm not getting any power to the board past a certain point, which is a different problem than i dealt with the last time i did this. see, but it's a bit deceptive, because the externals all take power from the psu. so, the cd spins when you put something in it and the floppy lights up, but neither are able to communicate with the cpu, so the emergency bit doesn't come in.

one of the things that made me understand what's happening a little bit better was plugging an mp3 player into usb. i wasn't expecting power from the board, but i was hoping the power on the key would be enough to get over the hurdle. unfortunately, the key is programmed to turn off on the physical connection, rather than an electronic one. so, no good.

that leaves me with three remaining options:

a) i can try and short the chip, but i think this is unlikely to work.

b) a better idea is to try an externally powered usb connection. and, thinking back, i think that might have been what i did last time, too. i need an external usb drive for two other reasons now so it will be top priority next monday...

c) i can try and use a jumper to replace the bios. i'm going to have to wait until monday for this, too. it's an excuse to get the soldering iron that i probably should have inherited but, for whatever reason, didn't.

so, my gst money on the 5th is basically going to computer repair. that's mildly irritating, but ok. i don't budget that. it's all stuff i should have around, anyways.

i'm not going to short the chip unless i can find a precise set of instructions. see, i don't think the boot block isn't kicking in, i think the board needs power to communicate with the devices. the short might reset the power along with the force, which shouldn't be missing in the first place, but it's not the intent of the process, so i'm a little cautious about messing with it. as it is, i have no keyboard commands, because there's no power. i have no video out because there's no power. yet the fans are all spinning so it's clearly that the bios crashed before that point...

if i can get some power to the board, i think it should go into recovery and flash off of any media it can read. but, i need to be careful with that.

i could do this with a screwdriver, and conceivably have it up in a few hours. in the back of my mind, though, i'm thinking that, if i wait, and the usb trick works, it won't be necessary - and that the jumper is a safer way to force it. it's simplicity v. safety...

if i can find exact instructions, i will do this. if not, i'll wait for at least the external usb.

there's always reading to catch up on.

actually, i'm realizing the emergency iso i downloaded doesn't have the right file. i have to try that...

yup. i've tried every possible combination and the boot block is just not setting in like it should. i'm rather confused, though. that should be there.

i'm going to have to wait a few days before i can get the materials for a jumper.

the floppy isn't doing what it's supposed to, and the cd isn't either. the flash shouldn't have fucked my boot block, but i'm not even getting beeps with no ram.

so, it's looking like i'm going to have to jumper this. ugh.

it was indeed one bad bios, along with at least one drive of questionable integrity, and i'm irritated i spent so much time with it. there wasn't a way to reset the cmos, but a "set to default" got the floppy working properly in freedos. sort of. it's still sketchy. i'm going to have to flash...

first, to find a disk that i can actually format. i'm confident that this should get the main pc's bios in.

well, i found a bios, and i can't see how one version of dos is really better than the next...

there doesn't appear to be a way to clear the cmos, besides "shorting" it. like i want to do that...

so, dumbass move #2 this month was flashing my bios. i thought it would be a good idea, moving up to 64-bit. my recording machine has been unable to post since friday evening.

a stuck bios chip is not an irresolvable problem, in theory. these particular chips have something built into the firmware that checks the floppy drive. there's also a cd utility i've used before, but cannot locate right now. i'm hoping the floppy works.....

...but i've been having difficulty finding an operating system that will read a floppy drive. there's a known issue with xp (the workaround is to use server 2003, because home users shouldn't need floppies, apparently). my copy of 98 is broken, in general, and won't read it either. i've tried three specialized recovery linux live cds that won't mount...

so, i'm resorting to installing freedos. and then real dos, if that doesn't work.

worst case scenario, i'll have to go in with a parallel cable and reprogram it manually. so, there's a few more days lost....

i know the drive works and the discs are good, if for no other reason than that i just installed 98 with a boot floppy (even though the os won't read, and it won't read from funny windows 98 dos).

so, i either have two bad floppy cables, two bad floppy drives or one bad bios. i can't get the floppy to do anything at all on this backup motherboard.

the bios hasn't been flashed since 1999. i doubt it supports any method besides a floppy flash. ironically. nor do i suspect asus still has bioses for this thing around...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HarZg-G0ZLw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFyHEtQuXug
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00NE21sas9I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoQUrdKfDPc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e8SHChbKh4

the cold war never ended in the first place. it's just a name for a specific period of moscow's rivalry with london for global hegemony, a rivalry that began centuries ago, namely the phase where moscow was experimenting with unusual approaches to capitalism.

the panama comparison is a good one.

there's also the suez canal.

he has the left/right thing backwards, though, as it pertains to ukraine.

(that doesn't really affect his point)

i was half asleep last night (at the end of 36 hours of computer frustrations); that's the bloc that were tories, not the pq. the basic premise remains. as a populist party, the pq has and will continue to swing around to appeal to what it perceives as popular opinion.

it's about this.

http://metronews.ca/news/canada/980165/parti-quebecois-leader-pauline-marois-warns-of-splitting-sovereigntist-vote/

i'm going to be careful about what i say about this. the important thing to take away is that resistance has been growing for nearly three years. it's integrated with some of the other protests, like some of the anti-fracking protests. the people that keep an eye on these things are well aware of this.

paul is correct about land claims, but for a more jaded (and i think realistic) view of the situation, seek out pamela palmater. in theory, it's a better approach. in practice, not at all.

but this is the argument, certainly. it's not an accident that these lines ran through native communities when they were built. sure, the pipelines are already there, but they either run natural gas or much lighter crude. the reversal and similar lines through the general area will spill, and they will spill in indigenous communities. so, it's natural to think they should have some say in the matter - due to questions of sovereignty or just basic democracy.

the coalition is being built around what could be called progressive community activist groups - the type dominated by white liberals that have substituted socialism as an atheist reaction to what is fundamentally a deeply rooted christian value system. it's nimby to the core, just like in bc.

it's going to come down to the politics, of course. unfortunately, militant tactics - coerced or not - are going to harm the activists on a pr front, even as it helps them in court. beneath the upper crust intelligentsia, canada does not hold up to it's reputation as a social left paradise. the news will talk about development producing jobs and violent savages and most canadians will buy it.

....and i don't honestly think the western pipe is even dead yet. keystone will be approved when it's politically viable. this is all of the above, not one or the other.

something else they'll try and trick us with is the idea that it will reduce gas prices, which of course is not true - it's for export.

worst of all, the ndp is supporting it over the western pipelines because it will create union refinery jobs (and the western stuff would be refined offshore).

the courts may save the day in the end, but the canadian people will certainly not.

also...

the party on the streets was quebec solidaire. everybody in the protest movement saw what was coming.

it's a little known fact that clinton had the airforce on standby back in the last referendum. that wasn't something that was actually going to happen. is peladeau less crazy than bouchard? different kind of crazy. the contingent plan has no doubt changed little.

as for where the pq stands on the political spectrum, the truth is they don't. they're opportunistic. it's a thing in canada, where parties represent the positions they think define the way the winds are blowing.

they're not creating this wave of white nationalism (and that's what it is), but co-opting it away from other forces, like the adq, who took a good run at power. it's horrific, and the liberals are being spineless about it - a really sad show, all around. but this is a reaction to hold the ground to keep the movement together...

...just as their previous swing to the left was. let us not forget that the pq was formed primarily as a split from the progressive conservatives, who (outside of social credit) were the most right-wing of the serious parties at the time.

just to preemptively counter some textbooks that may be overly idealistic or flat-out out of date...

consider the following four combinations:

a) properly written kernel mode drivers written in an os with weak kernel mode security (xp, with most hardware combinations).
b) kernel mode drivers written for an os with weak kernel mode security being run in an os with strong kernel mode security, and that expects almost all drivers to run in user mode. (vista/7/8, with some hardware combinations)
c) badly written user-mode drivers written in an os with strong kernel mode security, and that expects almost all drivers to run in user mode. (vista/7/8, with some hardware combinations)
d) correctly written user-mode drivers written in an os with strong kernel mode security, and that expects almost all drivers to run in user mode. (vista/7/8, by design)

the reality will agree with the textbook in stating that a is faster than d, on the same hardware - meaning xp is faster by design, but less secure (that's the trade-off). again, windows 7 on faster hardware may seem faster than windows xp on slower hardware but that's an apples and oranges comparison that reduces to an actual comparison of the hardware.

but the situation i'm talking about is with either b or c, which are both going to be slow and buggy and which is still the reality with some hardware.

if you think back to '06, vista had a horrible reputation. this is the actual root of the problem. microsoft understood it perfectly well. it's support agents (one of whom was me) understood it perfectly well. the hardware companies understood it perfectly well. but part of my job was confusing people into blaming intel or nvidia instead of microsoft. which isn't to say that they didn't share the blame. but that was microsoft's official strategy - fuck the issue, lie to the customers. they saw it as a pr game.

i can't count the number of times where i nearly broke down and just leveled with the poor bastard on the other side of the line. but, given that everybody understood that the problem had no solution, my job was to ensure that the person walked away from the conversation blaming the person that made their board or chipset or video card, rather than the company that made an operating system that changed all the industry standards without proper documentation or sufficient warning.

again, though, it's eight years on, now. there's no excuse for it still being a problem.

so, that's actually something else to take away from this: if support agents can solve your problem, they will. if they can't, they will lie to you - and get promoted if they're really good at it.

going back to the usb test, i should point out that my pc actually has a faster processor, surprisingly, given that the chip is from 2005. my pc is a pentium D @ 2x3.6. the laptop is an i5 @ 2x2.4. the difference between ten minutes and 30 seconds is still incredible, though, and can't be explained purely by the processor speed. especially given what i know about the way the drivers work...

listen: i worked support for microsoft. i'm telling you the story from the inside. from microsoft training. from documents written by microsoft engineers. it might sound incredible, but it's the actual, blunt truth.

i'm transferring files around right now, and this is a good example. it took almost ten minutes for me to transfer a few gb of files from my laptop (which is running a 64 bit windows 7, with a core i5 and 4 gb of ram - certainly better hardware specs on paper than my desktop) to a usb key. it took 30 seconds to transfer the same data from the same usb to my pc's hard drive, which is currently running an xp x64. if i were to do that on a fully patched vista, it would take ten hours.

ten hours!? yes. ten hours.

...because intel won't update the chipset to conform to the very different driver signing standards. the way windows handles drivers was a huge update from xp to vista.

i'm willing to accept that a lot of hardware manufacturers initially didn't understand how to rewrite their drivers for vista/7/etc. but, they did eventually figure it out. and there's really no excuse for not doing so, other than driving the hardware market.

it's a very widespread problem.

https://www.google.ca/#q=vista+slow+file+transfer&safe=off

all those answers are dead wrong. it's the change in driver framework.

(specifically, chipset drivers)

windows 98 is no longer useable for a number of reasons (for me it's mostly sata drivers), but it would be way faster than xp, too.

generally speaking, the older an operating system is, the faster it is (when compared on the same hardware). of course, it's going to have less functionality. it may be less safe to access the internet with, in theory if not in practice.

this may seem counter-intuitive, but it shouldn't. making something more complex makes it work slower. what doesn't make any sense at all is the idea that upgrading your os will make your machine run faster.

this is a brief explanation.

"If we're only using two isolation rings, it's a bit unclear where device drivers should go-- the code that allows us to use our video cards, keyboards, mice, printers, and so forth. Do these drivers run in Kernel mode, for maximum performance, or do they run in User mode, for maximum stability? In Windows, at least, the answer is it depends. Device drivers can run in either user or kernel mode. Most drivers are shunted to the User side of the fence these days, with the notable exception of video card drivers, which need bare-knuckle Kernel mode performance. But even that is changing; in Windows Vista, video drivers are segmented into User and Kernel sections. Perhaps that's why gamers complain that Vista performs about 10 percent slower in games. "

https://blog.codinghorror.com/understanding-user-and-kernel-mode/

this explains a bit about the actual problem, without getting into it. i don't really want to spend any more time looking around about this. it's something that nobody seems to want to be published. i wouldn't know this if it weren't for reading internal support memos that said DON'T TELL THE CUSTOMERS THIS all over them.

but, as i've stated, this is irreversible on some hardware, without getting the manufacturers to update their drivers. what's happening is that the drivers are running in kernel mode, when microsoft wants them to run in user mode. this is producing huge amounts of security checks (by design) that slow the fuck out of the file operations. what intel needs to do is rewrite their drivers to run in user mode, like microsoft wants them to do. but they'd rather blame it on vista and tell people they have to upgrade their hardware, as microsoft blames it on the hardware manufacturers (at least internally).

https://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/hardware/drivers/wdf/user-mode-driver-framework-frequently-asked-questions

the result is unusable hardware, on any windows version beyond and including vista.

but, the design changes in how vista uses drivers make xp faster (by design) anyways.

you can think of it as a trade-off between speed and security. xp is all speed, weaker security. vista is all security. now as the hardware has caught up, it's evened out (in terms of perception). but xp remains inherently waaaaay faster.

i mean, this isn't entirely microsoft's fault. it's as much on intel and others (my problem is with intel, i don't know how much others have caught up. initially, nvidia was dragging their feet on this a whole lot.). but, what the hardware people were saying at the time was that microsoft didn't give them enough warning. their engineers had to go through a lengthy retraining process. it's apparently not the kind of change you can gloss over in a weekend. the retraining required was substantial.

how much of that is an excuse, i don't know. but there's a reason that microsoft is widely acknowledged as incompetent. and the whole driver framework switch from xp to vista really demonstrates it.

even so, there's no excuse for this still being an issue, 8 years later.

just a note that if you're still geek enough to be using xp (and i and others have very good reasons that will not change soon, if ever - i'm more likely to move to linux than a post-vista windows system, because they're really legitimately awful on a lot of levels) - support ends on april 8th. so, it's a good time to track down all the updates. if, for example, you've been relying on an sp2 disc and then running windows update whenever you reinstall, you won't be able to do that anymore.

somebody will no doubt do this and torrent it, but trusting them is another issue. better to do it yourself while you can.

there are hardware issues that jumped up in vista that never got solved. the only solution is to buy specific hardware. i mean, if you're running a pre-built system then you probably won't notice any of this. but, as deep and valid as the criticisms of apple are, you're better off with a mac than a dell or an hp....

there's a lot of fixes that don't work floating around. i actually worked support for vista and i will authoritatively tell you that microsoft's response is to blame it on the hardware.

yet, the same hardware works flawlessly with xp.

so, there's conspiracy theories floating around that probably have a lot of truth to them.

around '06, microsoft started loading it's operating systems up with meaningless services that are designed solely to require faster hardware. there's almost no functional use for any of this, except to coerce people into upgrading their systems. that much is really not debatable.

but you can turn that off. that's minor.

one of the bigger problems is with copy operations, and while it may be true that this is at it's core a problem with user-mode drivers (that is to say that the hardware people never made drivers that work properly with the security aspects of windows, post-vista), there's still this lingering question of whether the thing is by design.

what that means is that people with certain types of fairly modern hardware are stuck with xp, unless they want to upgrade central aspects of their system or deal with cripplingly bad file operations.

that's a very good reason to either stick with xp, or move to linux. microsoft isn't going to make an exception - they're going to blame it on the hardware manufacturers. and the hardware manufacturers are going to tell you to buy new hardware - and you'd better do the research to make sure the drivers work right.

for me, the precise issue is my board. but, i mean, it's a perfectly good asus with sata connectors that can handle up to 16 gb of ram. there's no good reason to upgrade this board. intel just won't fix the chipset drivers to work properly with the way windows does, post-vista.

but if i stick with xp, then i get full use of the board.

worse, the truth is that xp just performs better at core os functions for the simple reason that it's doing less things in the process. getting the drivers to work right will speed up file operations, but it will never be as fast as xp on the same hardware. that would defy basic logic; it would require doing more things in less time. nor does a home user need to care about the security functions that slow everything down...

so, again, it goes back to the conspiracy theory: were the security updates really necessary and were they really buckling to pressure to idiot-proof the os, or are they just driving the hardware market by literally introducing billions of empty cycles?

i'm hoping microsoft decides to do a final platform update or something that pulls everything together. that'll make life easier. but, i suspect that they won't. so...

april 8th.

i'm surprised that i was able to log into my school account, but i was. i was looking for a way to download 7, home premium due to the extra key i have. the links that are all over the internet are all corrupt. i've tried four times, and have given up.

they did, however, have a 64-bit xp, with key. well, that's the best option, really.

i should be able to reimage a 32-bit version based on an old compaq corporate image from about the year 2003. it's all patched up, and ready to be ripped apart.

so, i will come out of this with a 32/64 all-xp dual boot that i will plan to slowly transfer over to 64. first, i need to focus on replacing the dead hd. and i still need to know if i can get the script off.

getting a few more sticks of ram will help act as an incentive to the switch.

probably not today, but almost certainly tomorrow.

bad iso.

ugh.

i won't do this a third time.

i'm going to end up mostly running 32 bit software. 32 bit software on a 64 bit os is a bad idea. i mean, it works, but it's pointless to upgrade if your key programs are 32 bit.

i was going to maintain a dual boot, anyways. but i'm thinking old xp - even broken - will still be dominant for the near future.

i built that machine - and this was many years ago now - to get up to 64 bit xp in time. expandable to 16 gb on the board was pretty advanced at the time, although i've never put in more than 4.

contrary to claims otherwise, moving to 64-bit from 32-bit with 4 gb of ram can get extra resources because 32-bit will inevitably ignore one of your sticks to fit the total (including the ram from your video card) under 4. it's not a max of 4 + bios + video + whatever else. it's 4. max. total. so, if i upgrade then i get another gb...

...but the reality is that setting the pagefile to 10 gb is just as good. the system may have to dump stuff to the drive here and there, but you never have to use more than 3 gb of ram all at the same time and if you did your system would crash because it couldn't.

i'm standing here all these years later and sort of laughing at myself. 64-bit is still a niche market. and i have to admit i don't see any real reason to upgrade, either. there's nothing i can think of that will work in 64 that doesn't in 32.

it's mostly the lack of evaluation software. there's lots of software i could buy. i can't afford to even think about that. so if i'm running everything in 32 anyways because it's all i can find then it's meaningless.

but it may be useful to have a non-broken system, from time to time.

yeah.

the problem with running 32 in 64 is that you're constantly converting it. what you're actually doing is running through a virtual machine. that's a net loss in speed (it may not be measurable, but it's a downgrade). considering the amount of drivers in use in sound production, that's bad news waiting to happen.

i just realized i installed the wrong version of 7 on my laptop. it's a home premium key on the back. i have a pro version i got from school, that resulted from a wipe on the recovery console. i can't swap the keys out without reinstalling, so i'm going to download home premium and try that for my 64 bit escapade, instead.

it's what i should have done in the first place.

(i could call them, but it's not worth it. they never really fixed the copy issues in vista.)

a google search suggests it's still a problem with 7. well, i'll find out.

i highly doubt there are 32-bit linux drivers for my mixer, let alone 64-bit ones. it's not feasible.

currently reminding myself why vista is the wost operating system ever...

i mean, i can handle a little bit of performance degradation from an optimized xp to an out-of-the-box vista, at least for now. but my windows 98 computer (currently running xp) can transfer files faster. it's preposterously slow.

i don't have the interest in stripping it down the way i stripped down xp, but i'm going to try to vlite it before i essentially give up and stick with what is a half-broken xp. the cd install is the broken part. the scripts i lost in the hard drive crash were what fixed them...

....and then this no good, third rate os has the nerve to reject my perfectly valid product key. fuckers...

you are SO getting formatted, windows vista.

i actually worked vista support for a while, believe it or not. i wrote some of those kb articles. it was a fun job with good pay, even. canadian labour can't compete with labour in the philippines, though. and alas...

sssssso, the president just took advantage of a non-situation that most americans don't care about to give himself more power to authoritatively act unilaterally in dictating sanctions.

given that sanctions are an act of war, isn't this the kind of thing that congress should be doing?

then again, yet another power grab by obama is really just a pretty average thursday.

good point near the end.

note that parubiy is one of the people that the russian media has identified as a fascist, and that observers have carefully agreed is actually one.

i'm actually wondering if ukraine was partitioned, ala molotov-ribbentrop.

note, though, that he just gave himself the power to unilaterally slap sanctions on russia. that's a huge power grab. let me see what the order says...

this is actually very weak, on both sides. it's for show.

as for a lack of media coverage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSltb2vzCNI

also, al jazeera and al arabiya are state owned media.

the independent media *does* focus on this.

this is a better analysis. cockburn is a high-end analyst, it's nice to see him on camera. i'm mostly just "newsing" when i eat nowadays...

there's an unusual narrative that is worth at least understanding. back in wwI, there was an agreement between the british and the saudis that the arabs would get a centralized state in return for their aid against the ottomons. instead, they got a lot of little countries and a century of pointless conflict.

there currently seems to be an alliance between the white house, the saudis and what is left of al qaeda. the re-establishment of a caliphate was one of the demands of al qaeda, and while you'd have a hard time getting american or saudi diplomats to use that language, it is clear that they want hegemony over the arab world.

so, this all ties together through that hundred year old promise, in conjunction with the world being broken into trade blocs.

the eu, the sco, mercosur, the au, nafta. these are the types of organizations that really define sovereignty in the 21st century.

there seems to be a view that an arab league type bloc is the right way to set up the area, just as was promised in the great war. for whatever reason, the saudis are acknowledged as the hegemon in this bloc.

ok, so, read between the lines. heist? i think not.

what it exposes is that currency is the root of corruption, not the way that currency is produced.

https://news.vice.com/articles/over-100k-in-bitcoin-was-stolen-in-a-ridiculously-low-tech-heist?trk_source=homepage-in-the-news

this is the kind of doublespeak that's useful in understanding what they're up to.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/8710/World/Region/Gates-Libya-turmoil-could-destabilize-Egypt,-Tunis.aspx

this analysis is prevalent, and i don't want to say it's wrong, but i don't think it gets to the point.

how can the issue be discussed without mentioning the uprising in egypt? libya was mostly opportunistic. i understand paul's confusion in regards to the timing, but it just had to do with a window of opportunity.

a more interesting question is why he wasn't bombed previously. why wasn't there an invasion as far back as lockerbie? even clinton could have theoretically pulled this one off without a duck in approval ratings. but it was tactically problematic, because removing ghadaffi would no doubt destabilize egypt - something that the israelis and americans alike had no stomach for. similarly with syria.

but with both egypt and tunisia already in chaos, the argument against destabilizing the region no longer applied. rather, the window of opportunity could not be ignored. peace through coercion became secondary to an easy kill. remember: these people aren't liberals that use force as a last resort, but rather predators that resort to diplomacy when force is unlikely to be successful. so, the imminent invasion that had been put off for decades was activated.

the russians have been clear that this pissed them off. the way the americans did it showed a complete lack of respect for their ambitions. as we see repeated in syria and now ukraine.

i think there's also something to say about saudi ambitions. he speaks of france, but we know who france speaks for. the other side of libya is algeria, a country we do not hear much about but that may pose a natural boundary in the western extent of saudi influence.

but, it was mostly an opportunistic kill. like the vultures they are....

a different story than snipers on the roof.

that's pretty fascist sounding, too. pretty much brownshirts...

like, what did they do? run a theatrical presentation?

propaganda or not, nato needs to be doing something about this.

if a big part of the problem is stagnant wages, would it not make sense to tax the corporations that are profiting from it, relative to stagnation?

http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2014/03/18/tax_hikes_loom_for_upperincome_earners_in_ontario.html

i happen to have one of those cords from an old phone. i may end up trying this, after i swap out the chips.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZBsf-5iiDE

i have a .10, though, not a .11. the bug that affects the .11s doesn't affect my model.

regardless, if i can't get it to read, trying to hack in through hyperterminal is a third thing i can try.

yeah. i think if i just download everything from bandcamp, and repeat the process of categorizing all the cd-rs and dvd-rs in the box...

it's not worth the amount recovery is going to cost. sadly.

tools or bust. i'll find out in two weeks.

musically, what i've lost is xml files and transitional pieces. parts to build tracks up, but nothing completed.

for right now, i'd rather spend the cash on a good external backup drive.

on second thought, data recovery is much more expensive than i thought it would be.

there are two further troubleshooting steps i can try at the beginning of april, when i can get the right tools, but i think they're both low probability. i've resigned myself to needing somebody to open the drive up. that could take years to save up for...

obviously, i can't leave myself in suspended animation for that long. so, i'm going to take the opportunity to upgrade as much software as i can.

in the end, i'll have to decide if it's worth it. am i happy with a vanilla vista or a vanilla xp? do i really need to recover a few dozen source files for the sake of having them? or is the iso i'm about to reconstruct "good enough"?

i could see the drive sitting in a box for the next ten years gathering dust.

i absolutely must try those fixes, though. and if they don't work, and i'm happy with the replacement, i might get experimental about it.

of course, i don't have the right sized screwdriver.

...and i just spent my last $20 for the month on fruit and vegetables....

 powerless until april. guess i'll grab a book...

well, i guess i can try the store tomorrow. maybe they'll even let me use a screwdriver.

there's no use in installing on the backup drive, because it's going to be wiped out as soon as i get the data recovered. by the time i can use the os, i'll be writing over it.

i have four identical drives.

i'm going to swap out the circuit board, just to see. surely, i can't damage anything...

on second thought, if i hold it up really close to my ear, i *can* hear it clicking. it's just a super quiet drive. that's not what i wanted to learn, but at least it clarifies the problem. and i don't see why i can't get the info off...even if i have to save up for several months...

i'm hoping it's this easy.

i'm going to stumble out to the local store tomorrow and see if they'll just plug it in for me to check.

i wasn't able to try it from an e-sata 'cause i don't actually have the right cable.

i mean, the data is there. i should be able to get it off. it seems like the power is broken. it's not whirring, it's just not reading.

i need it to bypass the bios somehow to determine if it's the power or not. if it's the power, i'm going to have to pay somebody to replace it...

the only other thing i can think of is that the self-test is failing, and that's why it's neither whirring nor being read by the bios. still reduces to paying somebody to swap it out.

it's not that stalin was justified in shipping the crimean tatars back to their homeland to the east of the caspian, it's that western media narratives do not even concede that their homeland was east of the caspian, and that the indigenous peoples of the region were slavic/scythian groups.

i'm a history geek. i understand most people aren't. but in glossing over this, the western msm is actually glossing over one of the greatest atrocities in human history. race politics and geopolitics, unfortunately, have led to the slavic slave trade being something that most people don't even know about.

but the depopulation and colonization of eastern europe at the hands of successive groups of turkic and mongol invaders is, in fact, a crime on the level of the transatlantic slave trade or the depopulation of the americas. and it should be understood in that context.

over a space of roughly five centuries, millions of slavic speaking people were captured by the crimean tatars and shipped south to the ottoman empire. *the slave trade was the basis of the crimean economy*. within the islamic world, the slavic peoples were not treated differently than african slaves.

you'll notice that slave and slav look similar. in english, they are the same word. our word for slave is the same as our word for eastern european. this is due to the slave trade that the tatar khanate in the crimea carried out.

you didn't know that, did you? that's ok, few people do.

but i did and, knowing that, it's persistently exceedingly difficult to listen to the western narrative of the poor tatars being expelled from their homeland. this is absolute, total fucking bollocks.

imagine speaking of the african national congress expelling the afrikaaners from their homeland, as nearly happened. or mexicans expelling texans and californians from their homeland.

it IS that bad.

again, it's not to justify stalin's deportation. one crime does not justify another.

but read this. please....

http://books.google.ca/books?id=Qjwid7xcOPIC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=tatar+slave+economy&source=bl&ots=A4Zwyz67ji&sig=-HoRTHNvj7BNpoG1bmyoj9vk9o0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DfIoU6uwOoTCyAHJzIGICQ&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=tatar%20slave%20economy&f=false

comment elsewhere:

"international law is a type of public relations, not a system that governs the behaviour of states. the major powers trot it out only when they have no further recourse on an issue and instead want to turn public opinion against the country that has won the match. russia does this routinely, as well.

this is the first match russia has won in many years. they get to keep their port. the tables will be turned soon enough."