suggestions to save on heating

jessica
hi.

i want to be clear that these are ideas to save on heating, not requests for maintenance. i've been here long enough to draw some conclusions.

the way i see it is that the basement is designed in such a way that it doesn't really matter what the source of the heating is, it's going to be high. about 70% of the basement is unheated, and the insulation is incomplete. so, there's going to be tremendous heat loss unless the unit is better insulated. i'm not talking about the windows, i'm just talking about the walls bordering the unheated areas. if it's -10 outside the walls, and there's cracks under the walls, that's just going to leak and leak and leak, whether you put a furnace in here or not.

so, insulating the walls (and the place where the walls hit the floors) would be the first thing i'd do if i wanted to cut heating costs down here.

second, i might want to look at putting stops on the doors, as well. for the back door, it's just constant leakage. again: if it's -10 outside the door, and there's a 2 inch crack under the door, changing the source of the heating isn't really going to be the factor that makes the big difference in costs. it's blocking the drafts. with the front door, there's nothing to separate the cold coming in through the entrance, so it's going to suck the heat out as well. it's not realistic to put an extra door in, but putting a seal on the front door would probably also be huge.

third, it might be worth your while to run a vent from the furnace into the currently unheated part of the basement. that would both reduce costs fighting the draft into here and reduce costs fighting the draft into upstairs, and any stacking moving the air up [which i'm sure must exist].

i've had to turn the heat up a little, as the air in the unfinished part of the basement has plummeted. if the insulation through the walls was better, i'd be able to keep it at a lower level...

the landlord
Thanks, I am concerned as you are....I will considered your suggestions and will act on these as soon as I can with timing and financial recourses. Right now I am  not able to act on doors until spring. I want to put new doors. Just keep warm the best you can. I will talk to you when I come by.

jessica
as i'm sure you know, it's going to get freezing this week.

i've crammed some towels in the cracks around the doors. it's obviously not as good as a rubber seal (and that back door is especially, like, *not* meant to keep out drafts), but i think it's at least a good experiment to try to see if it really helps or not. logic suggests that if you can feel a draft through a 2 inch crack up two sides of the door then obstructing it any way at all should make at least some difference. that said, i don't think towels are exactly the best at trapping heat, either. but i'll let you know if it actually keeps the heat in a little better; if it makes no difference, that indicates it's really dominantly a wall issue.

basically, i think this place was constructed with the assumption that the basement would be heated. just consider the walk back to the fuse box. that's a perfect sink for cold air, right. the only way it makes any sense to put a half-insulated wall right there with a bedroom on the other side is if it's taken for granted that the heat is on in the whole complex. otherwise, it's just a structural nightmare: the unit is heating a cold air sink.

so, let's hope the towels make a noticeable difference and the doors can consequently provide a noticeable decrease in cost.

(pause)

hi.

i don't want to bug you about this too much, i just want to update on the effects after blocking the doors and turning the heat up a little.

it seems to hold the heat in pretty well just about everywhere except the second bedroom, so i think putting weather stripping around those doors is a very good idea.

the second room has ceramic baseboards, and the first room has wood baseboards. the walls are about the same temperature in both rooms, so i think the walls are probably ok but that the baseboards in the second room are leaking. now, i don't want to jump to conclusions about conductivity because i think the situation is complicated by various factors, i just want to point out three observations:

1) the wood baseboards are closer to the ground and forming a better seal. so, it seems like they're doing what they're supposed to, while the ceramic ones are not.
2) the ceramic baseboards in that room are much, much colder than they are around the foundation. that is, the ceramic baseboards in the second bedroom are very cold whereas the ceramic baseboards in the kitchen are not so cold. so, there's exposure, there.
3) if you look around the basement, you'll notice that most of the walls have these black, plastic stoppers around them that form a seal to the ground. that black plastic is missing on that wall. it's just paint.

i'd have to *guess* that the cold ceramic is a symptom rather than a cause, and that the causes of the draft are the missing plastic around the outside and the incomplete seal on the inside.

it's of course going to be a lot easier to run some plastic around the wall on the outside than to replace the baseboards, so i'm just pointing that out as a possible approach.

other than that, i think the weatherstripping on the doors is the key good idea, and that the walls themselves are actually not particularly drafty, excepting the cold air moving in under the walls on the far side.

concerned about lack of response

To: infocchc <infocchc@cmha-wecb.on.ca>

jessica
hello.

i need a way to get access to the windsor city health center to confirm an appointment on feb 17th. i do not have access to a phone. can you confirm that i can get access through this address, or deny it?

the only other way i could contact the center is to walk, but it is a lengthy walk and it is very cold out.

cmha
You had an appointment Fe b 2nd but it was a snow day centre was closed. No future appointment was made with the nurse. You have an appointment With the doctor on the 17th of Feb.

jessica
thank you, that's what i needed confirmed. i didn't know if the centre was closed (although guessed it was) and didn't want you to think that being unable to make it on the 2nd cancelled the appointment on the 17th.

i don't have a phone number, but i have a voice mail box. i just don't carry the number around with me and never remember it. contacting me can either be done via this email address or via this voice box, which sends a text message to this email address.

as astounded as i am (as a canadian) by the failure of boston's city services to plow the roads, there's actually an opportunity to organize, here. if the city doesn't want to do what the city is getting paid by taxes to do, perhaps the citizens ought to organize their own councils to do so, and then refuse to pay taxes to a council that is clearly not using them properly...

parking places on roads are obviously not personal property, and can't be treated as such without violence erupting. the source of this violence is the idea, and there's no end but violence should the idea not be abandoned.

however, a council of citizens could do things like purchase a small snowblower and decide to take turns in plowing the roads.

i don't get it. doesn't the city of chicago have a tax-funded snow removal service? up in canada, where it snows a lot every year, this isn't an issue because the city has plows that shovel the streets. if somebody tried to "save their spot" with a chair, they'd probably get fined for littering and thoroughly laughed at by all. and this hustler would probably get hit by a minivan....

"There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact it's all dark. The only thing that makes it look light is the sun."

i've really had enough of cherry and his totally left-wing remarks, too. he's just a front for those peta environmentalists. what a socialist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYXmg_CnaPQ

i've actually never heard this before...

....and, wow, is it bad. i mean, on the one hand, it's obviously aged terribly. but, it's not the problem. i don't have memories attached to it other than thinking it was boneheaded and noticing that the people that liked it were the kinds of douchey thugs that threatened to hurt me (and tried a few times) and repeated grades because they'd rather do drugs and flail aimlessly against an authority they couldn't define than do homework, so i can't say much about what it was like to be a 14 year-old dealing with puberty by projecting an exaggerated sense of douchey manliness or what it's like to look back and scratch your head about it. i can't talk about that. but the way it's aged really exposes it as remarkably simplistic and just....bad. i mean, it makes skrillex sound like a fucking musical genius in comparison. no wonder all the bullies loved it.

you're better off checking out tool, kids.

i specifically remember this one kid that used to try and throw me into the locker every day between classes. his tshirts included rage, slayer and megadeth - and his walkman (at volumes that people across the room could hear, while the teacher was lecturing) jumped back and forth pretty regularly between the "rap rock" and the "speed metal". i couldn't identify much of it. any of it, really. rumour had it that he was on his third try at grade ten.

so, he'd wait until i left the class, follow me around the hall, take a run at me and knock me into the locker. i was the kind of kid that had a knapsack full of textbooks and binders, so it kind of hurt.

i've long guessed that he probably had a crush on me....

now, i could take a hit or two, so long as it didn't become regular. but it did become regular. so, i waited around the corner for him to take a run at me, tripped him and pushed him head first down about 20 flights of stairs. result: broken arm. he got off easy, really.

now, here's the most remarkable part of the story: rather than explain what actually happened (and i was a punk kid myself, although i focused more on what could have been called 'direct action' - vandalizing mascots, that kind of thing), he told the principal he fell down the stairs. why? well, he came up to me in the quad a few days later and promised he'd leave me alone so long as i never told anybody that i pushed him down the stairs. apparently, the story of me - me, specifically, the skinny little faggy punk kid - managing to break his arm was too embarrassing for him to handle. his ego and ability to project himself as a dominant male was the most important thing.

so, that's what i remember about rage against the machine, going to high school in the 90s.

KGB Ill
rage againt the machine told those kids to bully you

deathtokoalas
of course, it's more that it was the other way around. but, i think the attitudes expressed were reinforcing.

Levi
As an avid Tool fan whom was also one of these generalized youth you seem to have some pent up hostility towards I can say your probably lucky they didn't listen to Tool during that period of their lives. They obviously didn't have the mental fortitude or cognitive grace to understand the messages in their music. Pairing that with Tool would be a deadly combination, considering the anger and sexual violence found throughout Opiate and Undertow.

We all grow up with a different kind of fire. Some of us get forged strong as steel while the rest get caught up in an ego they can't control and burn up into nothing. The thing that binds us together is the rage. We can feel it on the inside that something is wrong and we want to fight it, too correct it. We look inside and see it's us. We are the problem. In our short sighted youthful ignorance we disbelieved the nature of change and became the hate and authority we so passionately fought against. We lashed out at this and hurt people around us. But while we tore down others we were tearing down ourselves, silently screaming for a helping hand. All we ever wanted was to feel like we belonged. RATM showed a generation of youth to take these feelings and try to produce a positive change by giving us a target other than ourselves. We took the weapon of our rage and all together we let the angst rain down against an unjust, hypocritical system. In that glory we found our purpose, our oneness, ourselves.

I can't apologize for the things others have been done to you. But I will spend a lifetime paying penance for my own ignorance. People like you weren't the enemy. It was our own insidious insecurities. But connecting this music to the unbridled actions of teenagers is a bit short sighted. I can only guess to their motives, but I would have to say that probably more than one of those people that hurt you either had a crush on you, or maybe at least one was gay and stuck in the delicate ballet of self loathing and denial. This isn't a justification, merely an explanation. You don't have to forgive them. But it seems your harboring a feeling that is best let go, a feeling that restricts the way you view this music and tints ever so slightly the way you view the world.

deathtokoalas
i want to be clear that i'm not blaming the band, so much as i'm pointing out what i actually saw around me.

see, it's one thing to say what you're saying. but i think a moment's reflection - as adults - should make it clear that nobody is going to attract the kind of fan base they wanted to attract with the music rage was making. i think that refused experienced the same basic point of failure a few years later. i mean, in hindsight, it's not hard to extrapolate the kind of teenager that is going to be attracted to fuck you, i won't do what you tell me - which is a very different teenager than is going to be attracted to learn to swim. you don't get the smart kids with that kind of messaging. they're going to roll their eyes at it.

the tool fans were markedly different. they were a type of hippie, really.

i got into tool a little after aenima, undertow didn't really hook me, and enjoyed both aenima and lateralus but was never really a diehard fan. really, i just respected and enjoyed the songwriting and musicianship. a passive fan. the type of music i really related to and identified with was more along the lines of nine inch nails or the smashing pumpkins. but i had a friend that was a diehard tool fan and did connect to it on an identifying level; in fact, it was largely the basis of the friendship, as i was the only person around that he knew that was into tool, at least a little. the way he explained it to me was that tool was about abolishing aggression, which set it apart from stuff like rage or korn which was about releasing it. rage makes you want to break stuff. tool makes you want to break the cycle that makes you want to break stuff.

based on what i saw around me, i'd say he was on to something.

again: i don't want to finger rage as the cause of anything. but, i think they acted as a catalyst to a set of problems they didn't foresee, and that future political-minded rock bands ought to learn something from it.

Levi
I'm sorry if I indeed came off as shunning you for targeting the band, as this was not my intention. I just feel that your selling their message short due to your experiences with a small demographic of people. Saying RATM was a "lowbrow" instigator of nothing more than anti-authoritarian behavior is like saying Aenima is about the west coast and Hollywood, or Pushit is about an abusive relationship; it's a generalization that harms the inherent message these artists were trying to convey.

Where Tool succeeded and RATM failed was the ability to show growth beyond their original message. Tool started out exactly like RATM, railing against what they perceived as an unjust authority and an over compromising, slowly homogenizing world. But while Tool was tempered through their endeavors, showing personal growth as artists and moving from one experience to the next, RATM embraced the very passionate fire that eventually consumed them. I think its important to remember RATM was about personal strength, and the ability and responsibility to change what may seem like an impossibility. After all "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me..." isn't so different from "Think for yourself, question authority."

In the closing of this I would like to thank you for choosing to have an enlightened, civilized conversation in this bastion of childish name calling and music minded sycophant elitists. I hope you'll remember that you just had this with a RATM fan ;P

RR racer
I'm sorry you had to deal with pieces of shit like that when you were growing up. Those people are pathetic, especially since they would rather fail than succeed just because they have a warped idea of what it means to rage against the machine. It's all about EDUCATING oneself so as to NOT be taken advantage of by the powers that be, and of course... KNOW YOUR ENEMY! This music is especially powerful for those who understand the nuances of government corruption. Put those memories you have of douchebags from your past aside and give this music another chance. If you think that our government has gotten too big, too corrupt and too manipulative, then you will like it!

GANASHER
jesus never have i met someone who has talked down so hard on a band before XD

deathtokoalas
the point i'm trying to make is that this approach was unsuccessful, and people looking to raise awareness in the future should be aware of this and tweak their approach..

funny that embryonic isn't up in full...

i'm not exactly a flaming lips fan. i think the inconsistency of the discography is a pretty widely held view. even the records that are nearly universally acclaimed tend to hit me the wrong way; i'll acknowledge that most of the discs are well produced, even if the writing often veers into bad taste, but even the best of it just doesn't really push my "excite" buttons. embryonic, though, is a different story. i'd argue that it really towers above the rest of the discography, and even that it's one of the best records released so far this century.

i suppose that, musically, it's significantly darker than anything else they've done, which intersects with the often dire subject matter. it really hit me at exactly the right point, as i was coming to a set of conclusions regarding what i now refer to as "the futility of existence". i've more or less been an atheist since i was born, and have never really wavered in it. but it's a step in abstraction and maturity to actually come to terms with it, with the finiteness of existence and what the best way to approach it is.

unfortunately, the dominant philosophical approach to this over the last century or two has been to try and neutralize it. to make up stories in order to find ways to hold to a set of ideals that are more or less delusions. the left and right take different approaches, but they agree on this fundamental point: the masses cannot understand that existence is meaningless. they must be convinced otherwise, or society will collapse.

but, this is not sustainable. the truth cannot be unlearned. we need revolutionary politics that break through this line of abstraction and come out to a maturation point on the other side of it. the world we live in must fall; it's a question of understanding how to get beyond this. the longer we lie to ourselves in pretending that we can uphold the delusions, the more disastrous the fall will be in the end.

it took something like three months from the launch of the beta of this thing for the future of virtual reality to be reduced to porn.

and it was the most predictable thing possible.

what bugs me about this is how oversimplified it is. i don't like the focus on "accountability", as though it's some kind of virtue. but, that's secondary. it's the oversimplification that's annoying. why? because now people are going to start spreading it around and misapplying it. this happens all the time.

i mean: yeah, sure. sometimes.

...but sometimes somebody else is at fault and deserves to be called out on it. denying that leads to backwards philosophical positions, like objectivism.

you can't take complicated things and condense them into universal statements over the course of three minutes in a youtube video. i really wish people would stop pretending they can and stop doing it...

i think lindsey nailed it. people expect the market relationship to hold, for free to mean worthless and expensive to mean valuable. it's psychological, and bluntly wrong, but it's massively enforced. and it's connected more to the presentation than it is to the content. it's not really new, either - people used to have the same reaction to independent music and independent film (which youtube is in some weird way filling the void on, despite being one of the biggest companies in the world). one of the things that kind of reversed that was for indie labels to pick up major label marketing techniques.

is the content on youtube shit? largely. but, most films are shit, too. and the music industry is just beyond salvation. i don't think the good parts of youtube are proportionately of a lower quality than the good parts of the film industry or the music industry. if anything, youtube is pretty much the sole major tool to get around the idiotification of the entertainment industry, nowadays.

it sounds stupid - and it is - but i think if youtubers were to integrate something goofy like the 20th century fox logo at the front of their videos, just something to make it "seem expensive", it would have a big effect. on the other hand, i'm not sure that's really a goal worth working towards...

i think a more important question moving forwards is how much longer youtube is going to be free and open like it is. how much longer are they going to continue to host trillions of gigabytes of data with no significant advertising stream? how much longer before it is hollywood?

untitled (orchestral mix)

i wanted some orchestral textures in the final mix, so i started playing around with some midi files and decided to do a full blown orchestral version. mix finalized on feb 7, 2015.

--

i just finished this orchestral piece. but it's going to be an even longer wait for the next video, because i've decided i must work this into a zappa/keneally style guitar concerto. i'll then take those guitar parts and put them into the final mix. but it pushes it back at least another week.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/untitled-orchestral-mix

i think this is the only coherent tv interview that i've ever seen on this topic.

the context he's missing has to do with the sofa that maliki wouldn't sign. america is now in the region on the invitation of the iraqi state. that's what all this is angling for, and what the long term strategy is: a permanent troop presence. they just need the iraqis to sign the right papers; papers maliki refused to sign.

honestly? i'd have a hard time giving them immunity after some of the reports coming out. i really think american soldiers ought to be accountable under iraqi law.

but, when you're the empire you get to break the rules.

missed the appointment today..

To: infocchc@cmha-wecb.on.ca

hi.

my legal name is jason parent, but i go by jessica parent or jessica murray. i refuse to pay extra for a phone on top of the internet; i consider this to be an unnecessary and frankly obsolete expense in the internet era.

i had an appointment today at 11:00 am with the nurse. i intended to make this appointment, but fell asleep around 8:00 am and have only just woken up now. my normal sleeping pattern is to fall asleep early in the morning; i was trying to pull an all-nighter to make the appointment at 11:00 and unfortunately failed to do so. so, i apologize for not informing you, but it wasn't intended.

now, i suspect that the nurse was unable to appear today due to the weather. that is, i suspect that my appointment was cancelled, anyways.

i have an appointment with a doctor on the 17th. i'd just like to reiterate that i have every intention to get to that appointment. further, if the nurse would like to reschedule the "check-up" that was scheduled for today, my schedule is truly wide open.

i'm not certain that this is going to reach the proper audience and would appreciate some acknowledgement that it has or can not.

jessica

nine of the ten most popular videos on youtube right now are advertisements, and the other one is the katy perry halftime show.

the corporatocracy/idiocracy is not science fiction. it is the existing reality.

rip edgar froese

a large and influential generation is entering it's twilight. the whole world will be different soon....

deion is a ridiculous person.

it was second down. he catches the ball, the game is over. he drops the ball, the clock stops. it didn't work out. but here's the thing, and deion knows it: that call wasn't spontaneous. they have a goal line offense. they've been practicing it for months. it was already set.

go track down videos of teams with the ball inside the five on first or second down. what you're going to see is that something like 80% of the teams throw the ball on first or second down. third, fourth? you're going to see that 90%+ run the ball on both downs.

it's easy to attack the call as stupid. but it's really pretty common.

Glachs 
+deathtokoalas nah if you have the top 5 RB and your on the 1yard line you run it in, they werent on the 5yrd line, they were on the 1, just had to give to Lynch or do a QB fake and take it in yourself, if you don't get it you can clock it or call a TO

deathtokoalas
+Glachs they were at about the five yard line on first down, which clicked in their goal line offense. they ran a running play on first down that got them a few yards. so, it's second down. the whole world expects you to push the line. that's not a lynch issue, it's a line issue. and, of course, a lynch can't get the yards he gets without being behind a strong line. but it's a different issue. it's not about lynch's talent level, it's about who has more muscle up front. you've got three chances at this, but if you get fucked on a strong blitz and lose yards then the whole calculus changes.

so, you're going to see a lot of teams run a little pass route in this circumstance, to try and catch the secondary on a blitz. the intended play was probably on the wide side, and meant to catch the safety out of position. but (and it might be because the passing play was actually so predictable), the defense didn't buy it. i'll agree with deion that the ball was questionably thrown, but you can't throw the ball into the crowd when you've got solid coverage anymore. the clock was ticking, he had to let the ball go.

if he catches the ball, the game is basically over. well, i guess the patriots can try and run it back. and, note that ticking a few seconds off the clock is a good reason to run the passing play on second down, too.

if he drops the ball, you ideally get two chances to push through the line.

it wasn't a bad call at all...it was mostly just good coverage.

i think, in that situation, you want to make sure you're throwing the ball deep into the end zone, so that an interception would create a safety.

yeah, but then you sent a bunch of nutcases and kooks to ransack the country side so you could boot the guy that wouldn't sign the sofa and send the forces in that you didn't want sent home in the first place. would you like to talk about that or would you prefer these "right-wing talking points"? yeah, that's what i thought. it's theatre, people...

i feel this is the best place to post this...

if i actually end up killing myself over the next few weeks, please note the following requests/instructions.

- NO RELIGIOUS CEREMONY. this is extremely important to me. no superstitions in disguise, either. the best way to ensure that you avoid all religion is to just not have a ceremony at all.

- so, no ceremony at all, please.

- i do not want a gravestone or any other physical memorial.

- i don't care what happens to my belongings.

- i would prefer to be composted. if this is not possible, or too expensive, then cremation is the second best option. if it's cheaper to just toss me on some logs, and cook some marshmellows on me then i'd prefer that option; there's no use in supporting the cemetary-industrial complex. no, seriously, just find a cheap way to burn me, i don't give a fuck as long as there's no markings...

- i don't want to be left in an urn or something. not because i particularly care about what happens to the ashes, but because i want all physical memory of me to be abolished.

- i would request that my internet presence not be disturbed. should it look like suicide is imminent, i will contact somebody regarding this.

============

these are all longterm goals, anyways. i suppose it's useful that they exist somewhere.

it's easy to understand why i don't really care about the details. the key points are:

(1) no religion
(2) no physical place of remembrance
(3) i would like to be recycled as effectively as is cost-efficient.
(4) my online presence must remain undisturbed.

it's true.

he's the most right-wing american president since jfk.

Lord Voldemort
Looks fake,there are no frozen fish,and also if sun is shining on that ice so hard that we can see stones under it,why didnt it melt ,and why is there no sound of mountain wind ?

deathtokoalas
the lack of fish can be explained by the fact that slovakia is directly in the dead zone caused by german (and russian) industrialization. clear lakes like this are a common result of acidification caused by acid rain.

Remo Drake
There are no fish in lakes that high.

deathtokoalas
as a broad statement, that's just simply not true, although i have to admit that i'm not aware of the exact level of biodiversity in the slovakian mountains. while you may see specific adaptations or localized populations in specific areas, it is broadly true to state that some type of fish or another can survive at just about any altitude.

Shekinah
The ice in the video is an example of congelation ice, which is also known as black ice because of an ability to see through to the color of the water underneath. The congelation ice forms underneath an existing layer of ice, building off of the bottom. When the top layer is melted, the crystal-clear layer is revealed. The incredible clarity of the ice is a result of freezing with no air bubbles, snow, and impurities present.  When impurities or air bubbles are trapped in ice, it causes the light to scatter as it travels through and results in a cloudy appearance.

deathtokoalas
i think you're half right - the explanation of the mechanism is correct, but i don't think these conditions can be observed nearly as dramatically in a normal, healthy lake.

Pink Guy
The water isn't tainted as well, and it looks like the water is completely frozen through, making it clear. You can tell because of the refraction of light, if there was water underneath, the light would change it's course through water, ice and oxygen.

(deleted response)

deathtokoalas
i think what i'm reacting to is the misperception that the world is "clean" unless humans touch it. that perception is going to create the idea that water in untainted sources is crystal clear. but, in fact the opposite is true - the natural world is a very dirty place, partially because it is full of life. it only becomes "clean" when we modify it.

water running through a stream is getting filtered, but "untainted" lake water is generally pretty dirty. sulfuric acid , however, is a pretty strong cleanser. that's why dead lakes are so clean looking.

MGK
What do u have got with that "healthy lake" "Czechoslovakia" and "acid rain" ?

That lake isn´t healthy because it's +-2000 meters above sea level then there aren´t fish, plants and who knows what else. Czechoslovakia doesn´t exist since 1993 (now is Czech republic or Slovakia/Slovak republic), and that acid rain....I don´t think so that we have got acid rain in High Tatras. and from SOUTH Germany and from Russia ???? WTF ??? Those countries are far away except Germany,that is closer, but not so much.

(Sorry for my english I´m still learning.)

deathtokoalas
yes, the tatras are one of the worst acid rain regions in the world, due to the effects of emissions from neighbouring regions. this is well understood. generally, acid rain falls a little bit away from it's emission source. the acid goes up, travels a bit through the air and then comes back down again.

it was a long time ago, but let me think back to what i remember learning about acid rain in the third grade.

1) acid rain is primarily caused by a reaction of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide inside of clouds, which falls as sulfuric acid and nitric acid.

2) the sources of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide are mostly factories.

3) canada's acid rain problem is largely caused by heavy pollution floating northwards from the area now known as the rust belt. pollution from heavy industrial areas like detroit and cleveland enters the atmosphere, moves north and falls in ontario, where it kills trees and creates dead lakes.
4) eastern europe also has a substantial acid rain problem, with the worst hit areas being poland, sweden and czechoslovakia (as it was then called, for a few more years). this is also caused by emissions moving into the region from neighbouring industrialized areas - primarily the heavily industrialized regions of germany. i distinctly recall learning about damaged statues in poland and dead lakes in sweden. this was presented as a test case, and a warning of what might happen in canada if emissions are not reduced.

as it turns out, the rust belt collapsed as a result of nafta, and emissions did decrease. europe took a more pro-active approach.

however, the effects of acid rain continue to linger in the region. again: if you don't believe me, look it up.

(deleted response)

deathtokoalas
ugh.

"Congelation ice is often referred to as black ice because it has a high optical depth that permits significant light transmission to the underlying water."

once again: you've explained why you can see through the ice. you haven't explained why you can see through the water.

somebody really ought to ddos the lot of these pop science sites. they post garbage.

black ice is black. or at least looks black. because of the water.

normally, you wouldn't be able to see through a body of water with a layer of black ice on it. rather, it would create a reflection of the surrounding area.

Nightmare Music
Wake up to what? What "truth"? You people already know the fucking truth. You're so worked up over NSA, even though Facebook has been doing same thing NSA has been doing for years and they do it a lot better. The truth is the rich look at you like cattle. No one is coming to get you, they are already there with Facebook and Google and EBay and Apple and whatever else on the internet. That's the "truth" and you know this but refuse to listen.

deathtokoalas
this is pretty much spot on.

i just want to add a comment about how badly bush' words have been abused by the conspiracy goofs. bush was articulating a vision of american dominance that largely operates by co-opting global governing bodies, and it's a vision that's turned out to be prophetic - but not in the way it's generally used. there was some commentary at the time that realized this, but it's mostly been buried.

"i'll buy the torture cos you pay for the rent".

al nailed it...

ganiniii
the NWO "plan" (don't want you to call me a delusional conspiracy theorist) - when I say plan I refer to the idea that the whole world should live together in peace and ruled with the same sort of freedom and juridical laws and cultural resemblence - exists at least since the 80's. It was developed by retarded geeks that have weird sex habbits and work for the UN.

deathtokoalas
see, this is what i'm pointing out is incorrect. this is literature that stems from the middle part of the 20th century, where you had a lot of crazy people on the right-wing fringe (organizing in groups like the john birch society, which was co-founded by the koch brothers' father) arguing that "nwo" was some kind of code for "communist world government".

but, that's not the way that bush used the term. bush was co-opting and redefining the term in an attempt to get out in front of the inevitable wilsonian reaction that would have come from the collapse of the soviet union. to bush, the new world order meant unopposed american imperialism - and a set of ridiculous neo-con and liberal interventionist arguments to uphold that american imperialism.

when you heard people argue in favour of invading iraq to "spread democracy", that's the new world order bush wanted put in motion. and it did get put in motion. it's the world we live in today.

of course, it's nonsense. but...

put another way, the collapse of the soviet union meant there was no longer anybody capable of reigning in american hegemony - if the soviets ever could, and they couldn't really. the new world order that bush spoke of was the process of taking advantage of that new reality.

the primary nwo document became the project for the new american century, where a set of neo-cons and liberal interventionists came together to devise a plan to reduce russia back down to the principality of moscow.

a lot of the conflicts we see today around the world are a consequence of this new world order working itself out.

of course, there's a lot of propaganda that obscures this. but, the idea that there's a secret clique running the world from the un doesn't square very well with the votes that you see there.

including the one that declared the war in iraq an illegal war.

the reality is that the power elite in the united states ritually curses the day that the institution was created and does just about everything that it legally (and illegally) can to avoid and subvert it.

ganiniii
wouldn't you say that what you just said is a bit conspiracionist?

deathtokoalas
no. in fact, it's very academic.

Egle Vilciauskaite
dude you should have lived in USSR to realy know how bad it was

deathtokoalas
i think it's an open question as to whether life in the "free world" is any better. that is, i'm not questioning whether things were bad in the soviet union - they clearly were. but, i'm wondering out loud whether things were really better in the west (for the average worker) in any kind of really meaningful way, or if it's really just a lot of propaganda. it wasn't that long ago that going on strike would get you shot. alas, i was personally eight years old when the berlin wall fell. i have no first hand experience and no way to get it.

regardless, that's not really the point. the cold war wasn't really a conflict over ideology. it's pretty established at this point that that was just propaganda. the conflict between washington and moscow carried on pretty naturally from the anglo-russian conflict that began in the napoleonic era, and it didn't end with the coup in moscow. it was a conflict between the two dominant imperial powers to decide who got to control resources for the benefit of their respective elites. once you get your head around that, the idea that the collapse of the soviet union simply provided washington with an opportunity to tighten the noose begins to make perfect sense.

again, it's not like i'm making this stuff up. the bastards have not been remotely shy about saying it themselves, either. i mean, when mitt romney said russia was america's greatest enemy he got laughed out of the room. but the reality is that what he said was pretty much accurate - it's just that you're not supposed to talk about it during elections.

heart of darkness
+ganiniii I don't talk about middle class Kids who have got everything middle class Kids dream of. I talk about a time when the middle class will be gone. The Kids of tomorrow will be poor. Some will be lethargic. Lethargic  trash. But some will turn into predators. It's these predators who count.

deathtokoalas
yeah, that's working out well in the middle east...

poor people are easily manipulated, because they lack access to education. if your scenario plays out (and i don't think it will; rather, i think the near future is dominated by mechanized production evening out wealth disparities a little, and the point of crisis lies in the ability to generate energy), you'll have an army of dipshits that will be easily converted into tools of imperialism. as the intelligence of the population falls, the tools needed to control them falls along with it. look at the way the saudis create groups like isis to carry out their geostrategic goals in the region. that can't fly here because our people aren't illiterate. but, you take that away and the christian right becomes dominant.

there's of course no such thing as "the illuminati", but if you take it as a code word for the capitalist elite then you need to resign yourself to their continued existence and try and work out ways to exist in freedom that more or less ignore them. i mean, at the end of the day do i care whether or not there's somebody in a yacht docked in miami eating caviar? i don't. what i care about is my life in front of me, whether these people exist or not.

ideas like the temporary autonomous zone develop out of this thinking. not a revolution, exactly; this is probably impossible. the people that financed hitler profited from his destruction.

heart of darkness
+deathtokoalas"i mean, at the end of the day do i care whether or not there's somebody in a yacht docked in miami eating caviar? i don't. what i care about is my life in front of me, whether these people exist or not."

You really mean this? Call the People on top Illuminati, call them top plutocrats, call them top super rich - it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that you and me are slaves to these top parasites (a few hundred families). They believe they OWN us. Suggest you read some stories about slavery in ancient Rome, Egypt or Arabia. That's what we'll end up if we don't fight them.  Better be dead than a slave.

deathtokoalas
+heart of darkness
whether they exist or do not exist doesn't really have a substantial effect on my life or the tasks i need to carry out to exist in a complex society. there is work that needs to be done, whether there's a plutocracy or not.

i think it's more important to be wary about these good v evil narratives. that's how the fuckers get us. you might find the odd psychopath that wants to blow up sand niggers, but the average us soldier thinks he's joining the good fight, not protecting a pipeline. it's only through experience that they realize they've been lied to - hence the high suicide rates.

i read a report a while back that suggested that there are entire divisions of "syrian rebels"  that were recruited to join the palestinian resistance, were shipped off to the battle lines in covered jeeps and spent weeks or months thinking they were shooting at israeli soldiers rather than the syrian army.

i'd rather focus on what's in front of me than get caught up in these collectivist struggles, struggles that are more often than not tied to some strategic objective by some equally evil bastard. i mean, surely you don't think the russians would topple the government and pull out...

again: the grassroots response in new orleans was actually quite inspiring, especially considering the inept and often downright criminal behaviour of law enforcement.

heart of darkness
So enjoy your robot life. Work, buy, consume, die.

The Russians won't topple the Illuminati (the "government" are just actors, accomplices and stooges as are the media). But the Russians could provide some AK 47s. Actually I think, the Chinese will topple the Illuminati.

deathtokoalas
+heart of darkness
there's no other way to exist in a complex society. the question is not whether we should work and consume, but how we should. and, by denying that, you're really demonstrating the kind of luddite extremism that needs to be eradicated. i mean, if you're going to make me choose between the status quo and some backwards thoreauvian primitivism, i'll pick the status quo, thanks - and have no problem supporting people that want to bomb you. freedom does not mean abolishing progress, it means taking control of it.

as soon as you "topple the illuminati", you become the illuminati. if you want to talk about learning things from history, that's the primary lesson.

it's actually a theme in al's music, going back to twitch. one of the more obvious discussions of this topic is in the track apathy.

heart of darkness
+deathtokoalas"you're really demonstrating the kind of luddite extremism that needs to be eradicated"
lol. "eradicated". stopped reading after that one. How do we call this when an extremist calls other people extremist? rofl

Hambone Jones
Now that's the truth if I ever heard it.  I always get a laugh out of the idea that the US government has a "secret" agenda that they operate under in a diabolical plot to dominate the world and its' people.  But the truth is there is no secret whatsoever, the US government basically works its' "evil" deeds right before our eyes and they're well aware nobody is gonna do a single fuckin' thing about any of it.  The reasoning being in order for the people to really, really revolt successfully, they'd have to sacrifice the comfort and convenience of their everyday lives.  Americans could never be bothered to do such a thing.  No government means no housing to live under, no oil and gas for your automobile, no food to eat, and no jobs to pay for any of the aforementioned necessities of our lives.  No nothing.  It's the hard, sad truth of human existence; we're stuck in a vicious circle where whatever the powers that be say, goes.  Liberating ourselves from that vicious circle only leads to the imminent demise of our species.  What else can we possibly do but be prisoners to our own lifestyles?  It disgusts me to say it, but we're better off being slaves to the system.  These current generations of people couldn't handle living in the anarchist caveman-like "utopia" that many of them assume they could live in.  It's one of those things that unfortunately looks better on paper than it actually is.  God, I really can't stand admitting that.  I really can't.  But like you said man, "truth".  It's inevitable.

If the people wanna fight that, I say all the best of luck to them, I mean that sincerely.  I just hope they can live with the end result which would be a charred, desolate wasteland run on a barter system, where everyday could be your last due to the extremely unsafe, lawless living conditions.

deathtokoalas
i rather think that no government means nobody to force me to pay rent, nobody to charge me for public transportation (when it's too far to bicycle), nobody to put me in jail for "stealing" food and nobody to force me to go to work to pay for any of that bullshit in the first place.

Hambone Jones
Yes you would get all those things, but don't you realize the cost of that freedom?  You'd live in an apocalyptic wasteland where day by day you fight tooth and nail to survive.  Roving packs of murdering, raping, starving monsters who formerly were good people would rule the land and take from you what you claim is yours because there's no longer a structure in place to force laws on them to protect you from anything as such.  There's a reason life isn't like that in Western culture because we're lucky enough to be given a right as human beings to live safely.  Far too many of us don't realize this.  You don't have anymore rights in this world I'm hypothetically speaking of.  Just face it, you wouldn't want to live in that world.  Or better yet, you couldn't.  You wouldn't have the energy to live that kind of life on a daily basis.  Hunting and gathering repeatedly, everyday, bartering for food and supplies with what little you have, and sometimes even going as far as to use your body to get what you want.  What about cleaning your own drinking water, which you'd probably only be lucky to have once it rains.  I guarantee you'd kill for those things as well.  You'd have to.  Could you live like that?  Look at everything you have, step away from the computer for a second and take a good look at however many, or few things you have.  I'm assuming you do appreciate those things, I'd hope.  If you don't, you would once they're gone.  You would once everything from heating/air conditioning to in-door plumbing and running water are a thing of the past.  Grocery stores and food outlet chains are extinct and now you truly, truly work for that food, if you're lucky enough to come across any.  Can you hunt or farm for yourself?  Could you construct a shelter good enough to protect you from harsh summers and winters once your current home is decimated by an unforgiving world where no more services exist to fix any and all housing issues?  There's a reason you pay to have these things.  If everything was free; it would've disappeared long ago because human beings would've used it all up like the selfish, greedy latent savages that they are.  You must not realize how dependent you are on this way of life.  Like I said before, I hate having to admit it, but there's a reason the government exists.  No matter what, you need the government to control people.  They're animals.  Their morals would disappear instantaneously if there were no social guidelines to govern them.  What we need is a government that doesn't abuse its' power, not a government that doesn't exist.  People take for granted the society and order we have put in place because they're so distracted by trivial bullshit like having to pay for public transportation.  You wouldn't even have transportation in the world you're possibly envisioning to be better than this one.  Wake up; this is it.  We don't live in a perfect world and we never will, but this is a close as it gets.

deathtokoalas
lol. no. i don't think anything like that would happen at all. that sounds like a hollywood film designed to uphold the status quo through a series of scare tactics. or maybe a hip-hop record, which is more or less the same thing.

but it doesn't matter what you or i think. if you look at the evidence of what happens during periods of collapse, it's clear that communities come together to collectivize basic services. the tyranny of property is only possible through state violence. once that violence is removed, people tend to revert to a communal instinct very quickly.

your hobbesian reality is a fairy tale, or a nightmare; either way, it doesn't actually exist. all evidence suggests the exact opposite.

Hambone Jones
Right whatever you say.  I think you're the one who believes in a fairy tale.  The idea that people will live in harmony without law is totally laughable.  If we already have a problem living civil in a state of law, what gives you the delusion that we would when there's no law whatsoever.  Where's this evidence you speak of?

deathtokoalas
government is not law, it's violence. it's a property rights relationship built on top of slavery. the only way to establish a system of actual law (which exists in our minds as a set of norms and is enforced through social relations, not in a book downtown and enforced by thugs with guns) is to get rid of the thugs with their guns and property rights. government does not enforce law, it upholds a state of lawlessness that enables one class to exploit the others.

one example of many is the reaction to hurricane sandy. look up occupy sandy. this is repeatably demonstrable human behaviour, as determined through observation - not worthless philosophy some monk shat out in pre-modern england.

Hambone Jones
No, the government is law, there's no other way around it.  I do agree that there is a certain social class of people who are above obeying those laws, but they still do exist and the reason they exceed their due justice is because the people are too lazy, uninformed, and unaware of the power they have to change that and bring about that said justice.  The evidence is in how people vote for our Presidents and if you ask the average voter why they vote for who they choose, their answers are usually appallingly basic.  Regardless, it sounds to me like you're in favor of a more communist system to be put in place of our way of life.  Maybe you should educate yourself on the great USSR and how far that got them.  Not to mention that the founder of the communist ideal was nothing but a spoiled rich kid who never even worked a day in his life.

And I see your Hurricane Sandy and I'll raise you a Hurricane Katrina: an event composed of extreme civil communication breakdown resulting in looting, raping, and murder.  What a harmonious example of human beings coming together to show just how far removed from the animal kingdom they are.

deathtokoalas
i'm not aware of any violent crime coming out of katrina that was a result of katrina (besides disproportionate violence by state agents), but i need to point out that an anarchist would be in favour of looting stores, as they uphold commercial relations. i wouldn't call that "violence", either, i'd call it "justice". the crime in such a situation would be to prevent the distribution of goods by insisting on a payment for it. the city just sunk into the ocean and you want me to pay for that apple? that's the crime, there, and people ought to work together to string that fucker up a tree. so, i think the overall response to katrina upholds my argument, rather than yours.

the question of whether the government upholds or suspends law is partly semantic. by definition, the state exists to uphold property rights. law, in our tradition, is basically exactly that. so, we define law as the process of the state upholding property rights. but, when you compare that to any concept of distributive justice, human rights or what could be called "natural law", the state is not able to do anything but interfere. as a result, we end up with these topsy-turvy concepts of law that put property relations over rights. it's "illegal" to take an apple when you're hungry, but it's not "illegal" to watch a man starve rather than feed him. what "rule of law" is this? it's the absence of law, the absence of rights, the absence of justice - in favour of a class-based system of feudalism, where the rich can (as the op stated) treat us as commodities to be exploited.

Hambone Jones
Oh God no, Katrina does not support your argument at all.  You need to read more about that entire situation.  There was much more widespread murder, rape, looting and overall violence perpetrated there by civilians than there were police and Blackwater operatives, whom I'm assuming you were referring to when you said "state agents".  Go ahead and read about it and leave La-La Land behind.

Also the next time you feel powerless over the "ruling class" I'd like you to read about recall elections and how the people are too stupid to realize time and time again that they can use them to their advantage but are too unorganized and uninformed to do so.  The illusion that we're given is that the people have no power.  However, we do have the numbers.  And power is in the numbers.  We're just too stupid and comfortable with our existence to compromise any of it.

deathtokoalas
i really think that you're the one that's misinformed. new orleans was a violent place before katrina, and a violent place after it. the vacuum allowed organized crime some space to develop, but that's criminals killing criminals over drugs and whatnot, not random violence due to social breakdown. the media had a very racist response that's been ironed into the narrative, but there was actually a very strong grassroots community movement in the region that had to improvise in response to the total lack of any response from fema.

i've been dancing around the point, but the reality is that the apocalyptic future you're describing is what we already have, because it's what the state is designed to do. madison was pretty clear on the point that the purpose of the byzantine structure of government in the united states is to make it virtually impossible for people to use the local state apparatus to actually organize. the existing circumstance is one where there is no law, no social services, no real actual "government" - just a police state that herds people around.

Hambone Jones
So you're telling me that a life-altering hurricane was a non-factor in how fucked up things are/were in New Orleans?  Unbelievable, so that only proves my point further that people are complete animals, even under the control of the government.  Again, whatever fantasy world you're living in where people are these loving, caring creatures who come together to help benefit each other as a species, rather than savages who violently fend for themselves by any means of survival, I'll never understand it.  You can live there if you want; everybody has the right to sleep comfortably at night.  Only time will tell which one of us has our thumb more firmly placed on the pulse of the people.

deathtokoalas
well, new orleans is very deeply divided along class lines, which are strongly racial in character. it has a high poverty rate and a high crime rate. one would expect that already existing gangs would take advantage of the situation, but that doesn't finger the hurricane as the cause of anything. the cause would be the factors that created the already existing crime and poverty problems.

this is a decent summary:

a k
Your heart is in the right place; but it is not the free markets fault. It is the fault of ex Nazi's like George soreos and totalitarians like Bloomberg who give money to people like Obama, Clinton, and bush to put regulations on the free market in order for the existing wealthy people will be the only wealthy people. Because of government regulations on the free market, it is impossible for the younger generation get into doing manual labor.

deathtokoalas
no. the "free market" is essentially an orwellian term for a specific type of statism. the only way to enforce the rules is with force. markets are inherently violent. the market cannot exist without the state to enforce the rules, and will collapse along with it. to even suggest it will collapse with it is confusing; they're identical, precisely the same thing.

i mean, i know that i, for one, would never accept the ideas underlying private property if it weren't for the the coercive threat of violence forcing me to.

Guy Pearson
What is the Hegelian dialectic and dialectics in general?

deathtokoalas
i wouldn't get too caught up in them. the scientific method is far superior to any system of dialectics.

put another way, dialectical reasoning is precisely what is wrong with marxism and precisely what needs to be rejected in order to move the left forward. it's easy enough to look up. but it's exactly wrong.

man, you guys read too much into stuff. i know that's the deal with what you do, but at the same time you're often soooo close. i'm a little (ok a lot) behind on video feed, so i'm just getting to this now.

1) bowe bergdahl was charged with desertion this week. this was the obvious setup. i'm pointing it out here to demonstrate that it was obvious and you guys should have seen it. there's been rumours for a while, now, that desertion in afghanistan is under-reported. and, this is something that goes back to vietnam or further. but, it's really right out of 1984. i don't doubt for a minute that the stories around bergdahl are accurate, or that he was really in detention. rather, i'd point that this is exactly why they needed to get him back. the united states army is not a democratic institution. it's a violent, ruthless, top down structure where rape is rampant as a tool of control. most civilians (and i'm a civilian...) couldn't contemplate how this really works. so, you've got a deserter. what the army is going to do is take the guy, bring him back, force him back to duty [to send the message that you can run, but you can't hide] and then send him to jail. it's been a long time since they executed somebody for desertion, but it's still a possibility. so, is it a "psy-op"? well, sort of. but, the audience is every serviceman or woman who's ever considered just taking off into the countryside. the message is clear: the army will track you down, put you back in service and then punish you for it. there is no escape.

2) this iran/america "detente" is totally overblown. and, i think it's an error to think that the americans wanted to prop up maliki. rather, it's pretty clear that they wanted maliki out. my reading into the situation is that a substantial part of the isis movement into iraq was to force a regime change one way or the other - either maliki steps down, or isis takes him out. and, of course the saudis think any shiite is a heretic that should suffer their equivalent of being burned at the stake, so it's right in line with their interests. what the americans are doing here is creating the situation which they wanted in the first place, which is bringing forces back in. remember: the americans wanted a force to remain in iraq, but couldn't get maliki to sign a sofa. the crux of the fighting seems to be a proxy war between the saudis and the turks, and the americans may be helping to knock out a few undesirable elements. but all i can see happening in front of me is the americans finding a sneaky way to reestablish the presence they didn't really want to terminate. of course, that's on top of an excuse to blow up abandoned syrian military installations...

this is a Big Deal.

forget the stuff about the province and socialized housing, it's a front to get the loan. the purpose of this policy is the financialization of the budget deficit.

what this means is that, from this point forward, the bank will have a revenue stream coming from taxation in toronto. the city will collect property taxes and give it to the bank as interest on the loan. so, shareholders will be directly taxing citizens.

"they can't do that!". you're right - this is illegal in spirit. it's legal on a loophole. it's an abuse of power. hence the front story.

this is consistent with pc policy over the last few decades, which has been to transfer wealth from public institutions to financial institutions. this is just considerably more ballsy than anything you saw from the harris or harper governments. none of them would consider creating a revenue stream out of taxation...

it's again indicative of the contempt that government has for people right now. economists all over the spectrum have been calling for taxes on financial transactions. a "bank tax". well, toronto just got a bank tax. but, instead of being a tax on financial transactions that transfers wealth from banks to public institutions, it's a property tax that creates a revenue stream for the bank.

this is a structural problem, and it will spiral out of control. it threatens to create the same kind of systemic problems that exist in cities like detroit. torontonians can expect to wake up in ten years and realize that their interest payments to jp morgan are so high that they have to sell off public services.

it's sneaking under the radar. that can't happen. this must be challenged. it creates a feudal tax structure that is not consistent with a free society and will have dramatic, third-world type consequences.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/29/john-tory-rejects-provincial-money-will-take-a-bank-loan-to-help-balance-books/

note the allusion to household spending. this is done to create confusion over the nature of public and private debt.

again, the purpose of this is to put the city into private debt. this is an abuse of power, and if it's not fought the city will face severe consequences. the financial institutions will also repeat the stunt in other cities.

i wouldn't count on the province to do anything, either; from what i can see, they seem to be in on it.

the purpose of the post is to get the idea out to residents of toronto to organize to launch a legal challenge. i can't and won't get into the details. it's just a call to action.

this is of course very different than selling off highways and electricity grids. but, it's following the same playbook.

1) obfuscation. the electricity privatization was sold as a way to reduce costs by opening up a market. but, ontarians know how that worked out. it went through the roof, with no end in sight. they'll blame it on "environmentalism", but the reality is anybody that got through economics 101 saw this coming as clear as day. people are switching to coal and gas to reduce costs, as the climate warms. it's outrageous, given that it costs almost nothing to run a hydro plant. who wins? bay street. likewise, they're running all kinds of plays here to confuse people - pinning it to the cost of social housing, talking about the city like it's a "house" etc. these arguments get rammed down your throat by media, and people just don't have the economic education to see through them.
2) privatizing profits, after you confuse people. but this is really different. this isn't just taking over something that could arguably be a business. i mean, i'd argue that resources ought to be publicly owned, but there's at least a debate there. we're talking about turning taxation into private revenue, here. we're talking about the government collecting money from people at gun point and giving it to the financial sector.

it's different, but it's the same process, and the same end point. which is why it's so transparent. it's one thing to whine about people being fucking idiots. but it's secondary, right now. this has got to be fought.

got the check...

jessica
it's very generous of you, thank you. i was worried there for a bit that somebody was holding it for some reason or another.

if you're curious, you can stream what i'm doing at this page:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com

i think maybe most of it might be a little too "modern" for your tastes. most of it is broadly categorized as "classical music", but it's classical music with distorted and often dissonant guitars, grating percussion and weird sound effects. i like beethoven (and you can often tell), but agree with his dismissive opinions on rossini. so, there's not much of that. it's more drawing from the tradition of varese, stockhausen, cage and zappa - and following that line of thinking as it evolved through integration with rock traditions through the 60s, 70s and 80s.

nana
glad to hear you got it!I am getting many phone calls for you regarding your student loans.Could you please get in touch with them.The calls are all on my answering machine.Yes I am curious to here your music so will stream it.Take care & stay in touch.

jessica
i'm sorry that they're bothering you about the loans. i don't want that to happen.

however, i've been trying to avoid them rather purposefully, as it's not clear what my financial situation is going to be over the next few years. if i could tell them "i'm on disability", it would put me in a no payment status. but, i can't do that until i get that cleared up. so, i've been waiting for it to get cleared up until i contact them. i was hoping that was going to be dealt with months ago, but there seems to be a push from the top down to get people off disability. that means i might have to push back a little harder than i'd like to. i think an analysis of my life history makes it clear that i should be on disability, it's just a question of making that apparent.

the other thing is that i may be eligible for an artists' grant should the disability not work out, and i don't know how outstanding loans would affect that. i'll need to apply for that rather soon.

i'd ask that you tolerate this for a few more months, until i can get this cleared up. i know it's annoying, but i simply can't deal with what they want me to pay. they're expecting $1200/month. my income, with tax benefits, is $1150. so, it's impossible. but i can't claim i'm going to be on odsp because i can't get the papers.

my deadline is on the 13th of april, but i feel like my appointment on the 17th of february is going to let me know whether disability is something i can rely on or not

so, i'll be doing *something* in the next few weeks about this, but it's not yet clear what i can do.

i think i explained this story a few times, but i think i'm fighting against some misinformation spread by my sister. i wasn't supposed to have this debt in the first place, but i got suckered into it by my father. further, my step-mother is not upholding his obligations on the matter - rather, she's denying that the obligations exist. i suspect he may have been dishonest with her, and that the money he was supposed to use for this ended up lost in poker games, horse races or stock options. that is, he may have told her he was giving me money and gambled it away instead - perhaps even with the legitimate intention of winning money to give me. my father had a gambling problem. he kept it quiet, but he never really defeated it. when people have gambling problems like that, it can warp their thinking. that is, if my suspicion is correct, i don't doubt that he meant to use the cash he won to pay the debt down. it's just that it wasn't done transparently with his wife, and ultimately wasn't very smart, and now i'm stuck with the consequences of it.

i've tumbled this over in my mind a lot and have to conclude i'm at fault for putting myself in a reliant situation. but it doesn't change the reality that i got screwed over.

so, this is what happened...

when i got out of school the first time (in 2006) the debt was manageable. i managed to find a decent job that allowed me to get a nice apartment and pay into it. the monthly payments at the time were about $300 - about a third of which was interest to start, but it went down over time. i paid almost $10000 into it from 2006-2008. and i was also able to maintain a little nest egg for emergencies.

near the end of 2008, i was having difficulty finding employment. i still had that nest egg, so it wasn't really imperative that i find employment immediately. my dad was trying to get me to go back to school, but i specifically didn't want to increase my debt and resisted his requests. going back to school would have meant either going into debt or moving home, or both. it didn't seem like a smart decision, given that it didn't seem like going back to school was going to help me with my ambitions, which, at the time, were to simply find a job i could walk to, and focus on recording. i was hoping i could just wait it out and eventually get a job at starbucks or something. the one way i'd think it was worthwhile to go back to school is if he promised to pay both the rent and the schooling. it was offered almost sarcastically - i didn't think he'd actually agree to it. but, he did, which created an offer i couldn't refuse. i mean, if the choice is school or work and it doesn't cost me anything to go to school then school is always going to be the rational choice - school is more enjoyable than work, less scheduled, etc.

so, i applied for graduate school in mathematics and was accepted. at the end of august, though, i had second thoughts. i looked at the job market. i saw jobs in programming. my recent background was working tech support for hp and microsoft. i thought an undergraduate programming degree would be more marketable than a graduate degree in mathematics. i don't regret that decision; i think it was a correct analysis of the job market at the time.

however, a few things happened in the spring of 2008 - the markets crashed, primarily. combined with the higher dollar, foreign firms saw a disincentive to invest in job growth in canada. that didn't really change over the next few years.

the week before classes started, he told me that the market crash made it impossible to carry through with his promise. he encouraged me to take out a loan, and promised he'd pay it back by the end of the year. the problem was that i'd missed the loan deadline. so, i put my nest egg down to pay off the semester, expecting to get it back by the end of the year. i then applied for odsp starting in the winter. *that was the error i made that led to all the problems that followed*. i should have just looked for a job.

several semesters went by, and he kept promising me he'd pay it down, but it never happened. the loans just kept adding up. i had faith in him to carry out his promise. and, he was still promising he'd pay it down on his death bed.

about a week before he died, the three of us worked out an agreement. the step-mother would give me a few hundred dollars a month. but when i got back from windsor, she claimed he was "delusional on his death bed". i could probably sue her for this and win, but i don't want to spend the next ten years in a court battle. and, should i stay on odsp long enough, the loan will no doubt be "forgiven" anyways. i'd rather take this approach than spend who knows how much on court fees and untold amounts of time preparing legal arguments.

i just need odsp to follow through on it...

but i didn't want this mess. i specifically tried to avoid it. but i got suckered in by a promise that was never upheld.

it's estimated that the diet of urban coywolves is about 40% stray pets, and it's generally understood that that number increases in areas with strong feral cat populations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAsjRRMMg_Q

he doesn't know what you're talking about; he thinks you're asking him if he's a white supremacist.

fwiw, the statistics are pretty clear that white privilege does not exist in canada. it certainly does exist in the southern united states. but, statistically, whites are not at the top of the income ladder in canada. they're not even second.

this has largely to do with the immigration system that was introduced during the pearson government, which abolished racial categories on immigration and restricted it to highly educated people. so, there's actually an inversion of the situation in the united states (where people of colour were historically enslaved). canada does have a history of slavery, but the percentage of people in canada that are descendents of african slaves is statistically insignificant. i think it's about 0.2% of the population. almost all black canadians are recent african or caribbean immigrants, and they require advanced levels of education (and in most cases concrete employment opportunities) to enter the country. in canada, our non-white population has a much higher level of education, a much higher window of opportunity and much higher incomes. our white population, on the other hand, is mostly composed of the traditional working class, which has been eased into low income work over the last few decades.

somebody working on a critical legal theory in the southern united states would not have cared about whether their ideas were applicable in canada or not. whatever else you think of these ideas, this generalization is our error, not theirs. a critical legal theory should exist in canada, but it should be developed out of an understanding of the relevant history and data.

what john tory did this week in signing up for a line of credit is heading toronto to the path of bankruptcy, as we've recently seen in cities like detroit. it's remarkable that so many voters continue to be so stupid as to think that conservatism has anything to do with fiscal responsibility. rather, what we've seen from the progressive conservatives in ontario has consistently been a systemic political goal - that is, this is ideological - to transfer wealth from taxpayers to financial institutions. it's a dominant, consistent theme.

the financial institutions are going to make millions from this, while torontonians pay for it for the next fifty years.

you just got sold, toronto.

it's hard to know what the comments here really represent - people naively thinking they have anonymity over the internet and can escape the bounds of political correctness by posting here, or just a lunatic fringe. see, this is why libertarians get weirded out by all this culturally enforced self-censorship. it doesn't eliminate racial bias. it just sweeps it under the rug, where it's allowed to gestate in a way that nobody can really measure until it explodes. i think the fringe idea is more likely. but it's honestly hard to say, because it's just so quieted.

i think there's a deeper concern, from a ruling elite perspective. i maintain a level of agnosticism about this stuff; the reality is that i can't prove this stuff did or did not happen, and the preponderance of evidence is pretty clear that it's reasonable to be skeptical. it's simply not coherent to question the official narratives on syria, yugoslavia and vietnam just to start with (as a fact-based analysis necessitates), but to draw the line on germany as though it's beyond question. that's just not clear thinking. it's easy to paint yourself into this awful space by pointing this out. but this is the fact of it: i have no idea what happened 40 years before i was born, and there's simply not a source that can explain it to me that i can trust. agnosticism is the logical conclusion. one should not attack me for this, one should realize that it is the inevitable conclusion of seventy plus years of american foreign policy built on staged attacks, secret wars and just balls out lies. if somebody lies to you every day for fifty years, why should you believe what he told you fifty one years ago? don't go after me for this, go after the state.....

but, that's just it. whether the motives for invading germany were containing the soviets or not, and whatever actually happened there, the liberation of auschwitz is the year zero of the american empire. whether it's myth or reality, it's the founding myth of the empire. the reason this gets so much attention four, five, six times a year is that this needs to be enforced. it defines the state, as the state defines itself.

for people to increasingly question the validity of the holocaust is consequently to increasingly question the foundation of the american empire. this has deep consequences.

the condescension was really uncalled for and hard to watch. i mean, by the time i was eight i had a better understanding of american foreign policy than lucas over there. if you're going to bring a kid like that in at all, what's the point of being snide about it......

and, it's hardly like resource management is a less pressing issue than war. in terms of consequences, it's the most pressing issue. in terms of war, it's the dominant underlying factor. mallory was right to shift the topic; you adults are all doing this all wrong.

la la la la (2002 mix)

i'm squeezing an extra single in.

this was meant to be rabit is wolf. sean wanted a song that just went "lalalala". i think his intent was to try and simplify my thought process, because what i'd been doing sounded more like FTIeikdTY7isdD7E5dk!. he was just kind of like "how about.....lalalala.".

it got a bit of an eye roll from me, as you could imagine, but i played with it. he wasn't really that excited about what i did, and it just didn't move forward. there were no further sessions, as he became interested in working with a more conventional early 00s "emotional hardcore" (think at the drive in) style guitarist and i got very involved in a relationship

despite his initial suggestion, i'd consider the result to clearly be of my own doing. so, i took the core of what i did and warped it into the first track on the reflections symphony.

as his intentions are clear, i don't have a problem completing the vocals on my own, and it's what i'll be doing as inri043. there may have been a vocal part recorded, but i don't have it any more.

so, the ostrich thing is getting pushed back a release. this is going to be a relatively quick remix, with a simple vocal line. and i'm releasing it as rabit because it's collaborative in the abstract, despite sean not actually existing in the track.

for now, this was the initial forwards version of the song, which is only coming down to me over the space of time via mp3 and a collection of scattered source tracks. there's actual nothing but guitars in this version. it's dated to nov 15, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/lalala-2002-mix

untitled (vst mix) (for thru)

i decided the vst mix is good after all, it just needs volume....

--

this track was initially written as a folk punk song, but i jumped to the scorewriter with it almost immediately. the expanded guitar demo was written in a scorewriter and then performed, rather than vice versa. it was initially less about explicitly creating a techno song and more about ordering the parts in a way that could be deconstructed more effectively.

the taiko drum part was initially just to keep time; it wasn't supposed to be a part of the song. but, as i built it up i began to realize how interesting it sounded as a techno tune and sort of ran with it.

written over the summer of 2002. remixed in december, 2014. this render is from dec 26, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/untitled-3

untitled (intended original mix)

ok.

i've decided to keep the intro guitar part out of the 2002 mix, because i'm going to soundscape the fuck out of it in ways that i couldn't have really done at the time and it just doesn't sound good in raw form.

so, this mix is done. the rss will update. i'm back at the three vst mixes for tomorrow.

when this comes up, crank the bass on it....

carefully. it's potentially speaker-blowing. but it's made to rock the low end hard.

that was the hard part, this should be quick from this point.

this compiles all the 2002 files into a mix that is as close as i can get it to sounding as i initially imagined it back in 2002. mix completed jan 27, 2015.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/untitled-intended-original-mix

this really isn't that new. it's been clear for a while now that there are far too many named species; there was paleoanthropological literature produced in the 80s and 90s that put forth the idea that all these homo *s are just presenting variation, and they need to be condensed into two or three species rather than a dozen or more. you're fighting against the egos of the researchers. this will eventually come out in the wash.

if neanderthals and sapiens produced viable offspring, and it is clear now that they did, then what that means is that - by definition - they were actually not distinct species. rather, what you're seeing in the difference in the bones is just local variation.

likewise, there wasn't a dozen "archaic" species in africa, but merely a lot of variation. these are going to need to be deleted.

now, the next question is regarding erectus. i don't see any reason to rule out interbreeding, a priori, by analyzing bone fragments. rather, it strikes me as entirely reasonable to project a discovery of erectus genes, should they be possible to really analyze.

once you get to more primitive forms, you lose the ability to differentiate. that is, you can place early sapiens (which probably interbred with ergaster) in africa, neanderthalensis in europe, the denisovans in northern asia and erectus in southern asia. but these would all just be local populations, not distinct species. any further hybridizing would exist within these base populations, which would have existed in these regions for a very long time before the out of africa migration.

the result is nothing revolutionary. it's merely a synthesis of the once competing singular and multi-regional hypotheses - out of africa, yes, but what came out of africa interbred with local populations wherever it went, creating continuity in local populations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ScqOVxPHA8

you need to take this stuff with a grain of salt. the reality is that everybody working in the field wants to name a species and is willing to twist any fragment they can find into an opportunity to do so. look around you; human variation is dramatic. we should be reducing the number of named species, not increasing it.

Grant Molyneux
I prefer wombats myself, but what is wrong with Koalas?

deathtokoalas
the nefarious cuteness of koalas cannot be tolerated by any polite society. they must be destroyed.

Grant Molyneux
You should give them a break. After all their brain size has actually reduced over evolutionary time due to the tough food they have to digest. And hey if cuteness and nefarious (comments about defenseless marsupials) are concerned you should be destroyed also. LOL :)

deathtokoalas
you fool. do you truly believe these nefarious creatures have suffered decreased cognitive abilities, or do they merely have you under their psychological control? when a caterpillar loses it's legs, it gains it's wings. their cuteness has served as a distraction. they must be annihilated before they control us all.

he brings up something important near the end, and i'm not going to fill in the blanks, here. if you see this message, do not reply to it or like it or share it. i'm only posting it here, now, because i know my life is coming to an end. just simply read it and understand it....

it was understood through most of the 20th century century that reform, for the elite, was a hobson's choice. they could share their wealth or be sent to the guillotine. and, the grisliness of the consequences aside, most people can realize the justice in the threat - so long as it's used carefully.

but, technology has changed and, because of it, the elite no longer need to live in fear of the consequences of their greed. it creates a dour future.

first, there will be no sharing. that has been decided. there will be war. that is all.

second, the technology will be used to it's maximum extent. riot police. precision drone strikes. surveillance. there's nowhere to hide. 40,000 dead in ohio...

there's always this discussion about tactics. putting 1+2 together means there's not a choice whether to fight or not, and there's not much question as to the outcome.

don't fight. in any way.

flee.

get out....