SomethingMusic
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User ID: 181
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
I may be missing something, but I can't tell if people replied to my comment and cannot follow a chain of discussion from that, Am I missing something?
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
I found myself trending to individually check subreddits anyways, so I found that except for a bookmark which I already had on my toolbar my habits haven't changed much. As I've seen the more interesting subs constantly get maligned or removed for one reason or another despite their intellectual and milque-toast (seeing /r/itsafetish get banned was a travesty) posting rules I think it's ultimately for the better that Motte is proactive on migrating to a new forum instead of being eventually quarantined or banned with no preparation whatsoever.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
My request is a ban on direct links from Substack. It was getting kind of bad in the former subreddit but I've seen a lot of people posting their substacks to this website and I don't want this to be a repository of wanna be SCC-types trying to promote their hobby. It removes integration from the community and creates a division of members from integrating and interacting with the community instead of posting pre-baked blogs for views or hits.
Thou Shalt Always Kill - Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
My Favorite Things - Sound of Music
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
I don't remember but has the sub talked about the TV show Devs? It was made in 2020 and was a small-budget sci-fi show using about AI as a predictive algorithm. There were some elements of disbelief, but I think it raises some neat questions regarding the application of advanced AI and it's ramifications. It's just a single season as well but it's rather well made though definitely small budget.
I'm probably late to the party, but I found it enjoyable, so I thought it's worth checking out.
There are a few reasons why protest music fails to capture an audience that it used to in the 60s through the 80s. While corporatism/consumerism wants music that captures the widest audience to be marketed the most aggressively, the biggest part of it is that there is simply so much music being produced at any given time. The volume of music being produced at any given moment is staggering, so the largest and most promoted voices are focused on capturing the biggest share of music possible. Any protest songs will find a comparably niche audience. As @greyenlightenment also eluded, popular cultural leaders can simply post on social media rather than making specific music about current events. This allows consumers who like their music to not be ostracized by political statements in music while at the same time claim to support the latest cultural zeitgeist.
One of the other problems is that we have lost our understanding of harmonic and musical language. Take Shostakovich's 9th symphony for instance(https://youtube.com/watch?v=16MIEhqoHNI). If you listen to the piece, you may have some understanding of the harmonic and melodic choices that he chose when writing the piece. However, unless you know this piece was written as a celebration of Russia's success on the Eastern front and purposefully subverted the Soviets expectations of bombastic and nationalistic success, you might be hard pressed to understand the cultural impact and relevance of the piece. Most of us have forgotten that the music itself used to be a form of revolution, not just the lyrics. Most people do not understand it because they have become ignorant to how music can subvert and commentate on cultural relevance and still be timeless.
Speak of national commissions, the lack of national involvement in the arts, and the lack of promotion of this in western media beyond the Proms in England and maybe the Presidential Inauguration, there is a distinct lack of public artistic works being commissioned and promoted into mainstream culture. The NEA in the US is essentially a blind pool of money partially sent for National Orchestras and for other personal pet projects of the political elite which rarely if ever reach cultural relevancy. Likewise, the lack of national and public broadcasting beyond NPR makes new works incredibly difficult to spread, and NPR's audience is not that large beyond it being considered a propaganda arm. Likewise, NPR and PBS have separated their musical efforts from NPR proper (or have at some point) further removing music broadcasting from cultural relevance.
This leaves individual songs and artists with much less impact on cultural discussion than any previous generation and makes musical genre as the way to define political alignment rather than individual artists or songs. Too much music is a stronger entropic force than too little music.
I've stalled on reading Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography by Harlow Robinson which is, well, as named. What's fascinating is the time period that Prokofiev 's life occupied (along with many of the other famous Russian composers like Stravinsky) which tertiarily documented the end of the Royal line and the rise of the Bolsheviks into Lenin's rise. and how it impacted the arts and the decisions composers made in regard to their musical and personal choices- to either reintegrate with the new Russian society or expatriate to new countries. It's helped me realize something about historical communist revolutions which I would like to write about here, but my schedule has made it too difficult to devote any significant time to research.
The book itself is interesting and well-written, but I find time to be my current short end and right now I prefer to spend what limited free time I have gaming over reading. Sad, but true.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
I think any type of diet like this ends up being effective just like any other diet - calorie restriction. Processed foods are frequently high calorie. Replacing them with other similar foods will frequently be less calorie dense, therefore healthier.
Another factor is costs. Speciality foods cost more, so people will buy less to follow a particular diet, causing them to eat less and lose weight. Gluten fanatics eat less carbs which tend to be calorie dense. Etc.
Basically if any diet replaces high calorie low nutrition foods with low calorie high nutrition foods its probably going to be effective. If someone wants to do that with eating no processed foods and it works I think they should be empowered to follow the diet, even if they misunderstand how the diet is benifitting them.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
I am convinced NET Neutrality was a push by FAANG companies because they were attempting to monopolize the internet through preventing any company besides themselves to sensor content, the ISPs were the top concern because they controlled the end user experience. Ajit Pai should be recognized by congress as being smart enough to see through corporate greed and went along with his notion to repeal Net Neutrality, especially since the FCC was hardly the correct agency to control the internet anyways.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
Econtalk recently had an interesting discussion about the Argentinian government, its people, and how inflation affects them in their day to day lives. One of the biggest factors is how Argentinians essentially find ways around their failing currency to maintain wealth; any payment in pesos is immediately converted to other stores of value more readily capable of holding its value ranging from hard goods such as bricks, to US dollars, to Crypto. The day-to-day table talk is almost always about how to maintain what limited wealth they have. The average US citizen, for example, probably has no idea what the current exchange rates are of dollar to other currencies, be it CAD, Yuan, Pounds, Euros, etc. while every Argentinian knows a few different currency exchanges and their rates. The exchange of currencies to goods almost all run through black markets instead of through government approved exchanges to the point where 'breaking the law' isn't just about endangering others, but necessary to survive in the country. The government simply doesn't have enough power (as well as being too politically damaging) to create and enforce basic monetary tightening methods be it taxes or having a central bank so it simply keeps printing more and more money to pay for whatever spending the government needs as they do not receive enough capital through taxes to actually self-fund the government.
With the US midterms around the corner, it made me think about effective governance and what that actually looks like. A lot of the difference between Democrat and Conservative (and yes, I mean the political parties and not the Red/Blue common usage here) ideological divergence predicates on social dilemmas. Abortion, Trans rights, Race issues, etc. are all social issues that we can focus on because most people in the US simply because the general gears of governance in Western Civilization is, despite the 'gross incompetencies' and 'brainless politicians', stable. The taxes generally get collected, the Fed generally will adjust interest rates depending on economic forecasts, and people generally have a decent quality of life. These are things the average American don't think about because these aspects of government are done competently and effectively enough that the real implications of a government who cannot finance itself is not one of regular pressing concern for the average person.
One of the reasons why I want to point this is that it explains why many Latin American voters are seemingly leaning Republican. It is not social issues that change voting allegiances, it's protecting their investments, jobs, and assets. The paradigm and reason for party allegiances is not equality and certainly not about government handouts, considering how every citizen of their home country sidesteps the government to black markets where exchanges are made at better rates. The current Democrat party is actually damaging their bottom line through their fiscal policy.
https://www.econtalk.org/devon-zuegel-on-inflation-argentina-and-crypto/
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
No I'm American, I just don't bother proofreading and prefer to get an idea written down overusing proper terminology. As long as my general idea is understood I don't worry too much about proper nouns.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
You're correct that this is conjecture, I am hypothesizing as to reasons why Republicans like DeSantis would be preferred by Latino voters over Democrats who would generally be considered the favorites of ethnic minorities. The podcast shared an interesting perspective of the functions of government, and I was extrapolating without evidence in a thought experiment.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
Does anyone here fiddle with AI art in their spare time? I need to make some fliers in a concert I'm playing, and I want to generate some AI art for them. I'm very limited on time this next week and don't have time to learn and generate images for it so I'm looking to outsource some of the work.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
I'm thinking of a cubist styled picture of a clarinet, oboe, and bassoon. If people are playing the instruments, they should be pretty undefined. It fits with the style of music we're playing along with the time period a lot of the pieces we're playing were composed.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
I really appreciate it! I think a few of these will work well - This is a small enough concert with a short enough timeframe that I'm not too concerned about quality or artistic accuracy. I like the surrealist nature of a lot of the generations thought I can see your point that it seems a lot of images have the instruments interposed over the cubism instead of being integrated into the image. I'm not an art (or at least this type of art) aficionado myself so my understanding of cubism is probably as pedestrian as yours. I'll message you for higher res in a bit.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
Yes the innate resolution was fine, im just putting on standard paper.
Thank you so much, some of those are exactly what I was looking for!
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
I only drink socially. This weekend I (middle age past 30) did a bar crawl with coworkers and I certainly got to the point where I shouldn't drive, but I ended up not having any significant hangover as 1) I ended early and b) I started adding water between drinks to prevent cell dehydration.
Getting completely wasted was something I stopped doing in college because I hate having my weekends stolen from me as they're too useful to be squandered on alcohol recovery. Working a full workweek makes the weekends more precious since it's the most time you can dedicate to self health, hobbies, persona development, etc. Also, being able to remember the night with a group of friends is just so much better than getting plastered.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
I think he's fast failing monetization methods beyond pure advertising. The $8 for a blue checkmark represents the money twitter makes per customer from advertisers a month, he's outsourcing and replacing advertisers with paying customers. The walled garden might be a way to create an ecosystem which doesn't send users to competitors media systems. Because of the sample size and data analytics just a few days of implementing policy can easily analyze changes traffic patterns. Maybe hold twitter hostage to other corps. They want twitter traffic? Those corps need to pay Twitter. Not a bad idea.
The question is if 1) I'm right, and he believes in his methodology enough to hold see it through even while all the whiners on twitter complain at him and hurts his popularity and 2) If he can find a successful model quickly enough to recoup his investment costs successfully.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
Instead of going down the path of tablets I have switched to two in one laptops. I like the horsepower and relative flexibility of a full-fledged laptop but also enjoy the touch input and mobility of a tablet. The only downsides I've experienced so far is worse battery life than a dedicated tablet, the general jank of Windows 11, and the increased weight of having a full computer instead of just the tablet.
For my use case as musician, I've found it very effective with a pen for notating and using it for rehearsals without having to lug heavier and bulkier folders around and to keep music organized.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
You're not wrong about the woke diaspora, but I enjoyed the first movie simply due to the opening string quartet. I wish it was expanded into a full work, but it pretty much meant I was going to enjoy the movie even with the heavy-handed anti-white overtones.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
The prime reason why I'm avoiding the steam deck is battery life and the fact I really don't have a reason to buy one. From what I've read, the battery life can be from 2.5 hrs to 6 hours depending on what it's being used for. As for power - it pulls 38W at 15V. If a plane can charge/hold power for a laptop, it'll be fine for a steam deck (which is basically a very tiny laptop.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
Trump's decline from the public eye proves how effective the medias, government, and ancillary business can coordinate to effectively silence someone, even a former United States president. His biggest problem was not that he was popular but rather he was unable to convince the congressional R elite that he was someone worth listening to. His manner and persona which made him popular with the plebians made him incredibly unpopular with the congressional elite. The way they straddled pro and anti-Trump positions shows how they're willing to quietly maneuver political positions as necessary to get what they want and how simply ignoring a president is as effective as lashing out against one.
Trump is a populist, and his support came from the ground up rather than from the top down as is conventional from the Republican nominees. The sad part is the established R's were incapable of harnessing Trumps power to amplify their message - either he was too stubborn or the R's were unable to coordinate enough to use him as a mouthpiece - something R's desperately need.
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
My main motivations for working out are to improve my mood, and vanity. I'm not interested in getting "huge" or "shredded", but I would really like to get rid of my beer belly and look generally leaner and more toned. I'm also planning on running a marathon at the end of this year, so any exercises which would assist with that are also welcome.
If that's your goal, getting to the gym will increase your cardiovascular health but won't do much for that beer belly. To tackle excess fat and weight it's all about calorie intake. I find these steps are great for starting weight loss:
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don't eat out
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don't drink alcohol
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all food is made from scratch - minimize prepared frozen meals/pizzas, etc.
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when you make food, portion it out into meals
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switch grains for veggies
SomethingMusic
1yr ago
The problem isn't that conservatives don't want to actually achieve anything, it's that they are much less ideologically consistent than liberals. Just from seeing people post 'what conservatives value' in this thread indicates the wide spread of ideological differences that conservatives align themselves left, from libertarian types who believe in individual liberties to evangelicals who desire a God-centric government to business owners looking for less regulations to lower middle class complaining about taxes. The modern conservative group is more against anti-woke ideology than they are a cohesive voting block; this makes actually constructive policy much harder to pass (see the recent McCarthy voting fiasco because conservatives congresspeople could not agree on a vote).
Test post pls ignore
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