Like many people, much of my time during quarantine has been spent fruitlessly ensconsed in entertainment. In the continued fiction that has animated this blog since before I even owned this URL lo so many years ago, I will now review a bunch of what I've metaphorically (or in some cases literally) ingested through the course of all this for the edification and perhaps utility of you, The Reader.

This is of course not a complete list; I've wasted far more time than what is implied here. But if I tried to be complete I'd never get around to posting this, frankly maybe I should post it already. Wait it's already over a month since the last time I touched this draft? Dammit, even "don't worry at all about quality, just take any excuse to write something" (which has been my operating philosophy for the past half-year on this blog) apparently doesn't get me to post often.

TV shows

Missions

A French (albeit trending multinational; French is the default but more other languages are diegetically spoken than would be in, say, an American production) sci-fi series that mines the vein of the more philosophical sci-fi of . . . well, frankly a lot of euro sci-fi, so I guess that's not surprising. It opens with the first man who died in space, Vladimir Komarov, and I suppose I just spoiled it a bit if you didn't know your space history but before the credits roll in the very first episode the show has taken a sudden left turn, and it's far from the last surprising swerve the show takes. It's emblematic of the show in general; there's a real, fascinating story here, and Missions tells that grounded story as part and parcel of a tale that gets increasingly cosmic and Ancient Astronaut-y.

I have yet to watch all of it—only the first season and an appetiser of the second—and it is not without faults, but I nonetheless highly recommend at least giving it a shot, particularly not having read any more about the show. Yet another weird aspect of it is that the episodes are mere 25min or less; I think this helps make more palatable both the weirdness and the sometimes languid (or to put it more charitably, thoughtful) pace.

Where: Available on Shudder's bespoke streaming service or the Shudder channel on Prime Video.

Into The Night

Lets get to the other French sci-fi show while we're at it. Chances are decent enough you've already watched it, since Netflix (as it is wont to do) highly advertised it for a while. It's a fun 6-part thriller show that's low on budget but leans heavily on a score that's as unoriginal but enjoyable as the rest of the series. It doesn't quite do as much with its premise (daylight brings death; an airplane has to race away from the sun searching for safety) as I might hope, but if judged by the standards of disaster movies it's a very solid one.

Also, at one point they land in Alberta, in fact in Ed...son?

Oh I see why everyone's talking about this show, it's not marketing or whatnot, it's just the Alberta bump. pic.twitter.com/A0bWeP6BYR

— Phil Urich (@philurich) May 10, 2020

Where: You probably already saw it on Netflix.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes

Generally speaking I hate the long anime shows. Hunter x Hunter? Boring. Inu Yasha? Ughh. Kenshin? The one dark OVA was great, the show was interminable. Dragonball Z? Look, I respect people finding it fun, but it's not good. There are a lot of problems when you pump out a hundred episodes or more, but the biggest for me might be that such shows tend to find a stasis and stick to it. One might argue you can't blame such shows; how could you make so many episodes without keeping to a comfortable and stable premise? But my argument has always been, if the story you're looking to tell isn't that long, then just don't make it that long. And if you do I'm sure not gonna watch it.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes definitely takes its time at points. But it's a novelistic way of passing time, taking detours to explore the setting and tossing characters into entirely different sorts of circumstances. Characters we think will be important get killed; characters that seem like bit players blossom and get their own storylines or entire episodes devoted to them.

And most importantly (at least for me, and particularly in high-concept sci-fi space settings like this one), the macro level plot progresses too. It took Voyager 172 goddamn episodes to get home. Legend of the Galactic Heroes drops us into a war that has been ongoing for over a hundred years, but it starts us at a point where the stalemate is starting to wobble, as are each of the sides. The Empire is a autocratic monarchy slouching towards progressive reforms, slowly relaxing its draconian rules; The Alliance is a democracy founded on laudable principles that has since fallen into corruption and centralization of power. Each changes dramatically as the series goes on, as does the war itself, which is in fact resolved before the series is halfway through its 110 episode run.

It's not perfect; for example personally I found the Alliance's complications far more interesting than the courtly drama of the aristocratic Empire for much of what I've seen so far. And the main protagonist on the Empire's side isn't as interesting to me as the one on the Alliance's side either, although they make for interesting foils: the Prince wielding increasing power within the Empire based largely on his military victories is counterpointed by a similarly military-genius young officer on the Alliance's side, but who shares none of the Prince's taste for glory in battle. He'd rather do as little work as possible, kill as few people as possible, and hopefully get his pension and return to his dream of being a historian, thank you very much.

So in some ways this plays like many a classic 1v1 anime story of two young male geniuses pitted by circumstances against eachother. But the setting is complicated and realistic enough that it's rarely anything even approaching a direct contest of wills, like one might expect from, say, Death Note. In fact in many respects the show is about the intersection of theories of history; can one person really make a difference? Even if they seem to, was it just inevitable that someone was going to come along at that time? And then even if we presume that such a Great Man theory of history could be correct, what happens next?

Where: Good question, seems to be hard to find legally.

Movies

Becky

I feel like this is quickly becoming a genre, and I can see why; all you need is a single compelling lead actor and a large house and you can make a compelling film on a modest budget. I didn't like it nearly as much as Ready Or Not, but it's different enough to have its own charms; less stylized and more grounded, with a score that verges on rythmatic breathing or a pulse. So, worth watching when you can crank the volume up and feel it, like you're water tubing down a blood vein, which is a very random metaphor to try and use here but I stand by it, particularly since it alludes to this film's at times very gory nature. Which is another caveat I suppose: don't watch it if you're squeamish about gore, it's by no means constant but it's pretty visceral (pun not intended, except I left it in so who am I fooling?) at times, for example at one point someone's trying to cut through an eye stalk with safety scissors. If you just went "oh hell no", do know you can just avert your gaze a bit and such scenes don't last too long, but the film is probably best enjoyed if you're a fan of a deliberate pace where graphic violence occasionally breaks out.

Oh and with my above description you may be somewhat surprised to learn that Joel McHale is a main character. A lot of aspects and threads of this movie that seem a bit surprising but also never quite go anywhere, never add up to anything greater than the sum of the parts. But we're grading on the scale of movies here; it's not as substantial as a well-done TV series but it's a lot more substantial than the last Disney movie I saw, which I can't remember if it was a Star Wars, or maybe a Marvel thing? Case in point, I guess.

Where: You can rent or buy it on Google Play Movies or on YouTube, which are confusingly different although also kindof the same (anything you buy on one will show up on the other too).

Color Out of Space

There are a few threads in this movie that I don't feel ever fully connect, and I do kindof wish the titular color wasn't just variations of purple-y pink. But beyond those quibbles it's a fun, solidly-constructed movie that knows how to use Nicholas Cage in a way that lets him go quite unhinged without having to make the movie entirely about him. (And if you're thinking "man, but I'd want the movie to be entirely about him!" well then you're in luck, there's a movie from 2018 with very similar color scheme called Mandy that you should check out.) Not the most Lovecraftian of Lovecraft adaptations, but not the least so either, with a more deliberative and existential horror to it than most.

Where: I could have sworn it was streaming for free on Prime Video, but it seems like it's only available for paid rental/purchase (ex. on Google Play or YouTube.

Planet of the Humans

Sparser when it comes to solutions or cold hard facts, but as a documentary about the ways in which the big Green organizations in the U.S. have been coopted by capital and how many of the proffered 'solutions' to the impact of fossil fuels on the world are little more than greenwashing it's solid, not to mention well-paced and entertaining.

Where:

Radius (2017)

Featuring That Guy From The Blacklist and a co-lead whose acting seems to fluctuate a lot (but I mean hey maybe it's a series of choices, it's a pretty extreme scenario after all), this is a movie that left me with a lot to think about, although it's not necessarily very good. But it feels like it *could* have been, condensed down to an episode of an anthology series. Which is a confusing conclusion for me to come to, since I don't like anthology series's. So I'm really gonna be mulling that one over for a while in my head!

The movie itself is alright, solid low-budget genre fare. I wonder if Manitoba wants their money back, because this movie makes the province look pretty bleak.

Where: As I said, Manitoba, and not terribly flatteringly.

Sea Fever

A nice grounded film that plays like Alien on an Irish fishing vessel. I don't think it really sticks the landing, but it's definitely a cut above the schlock and jump-scare reliance of most horror movies, particularly ones with budgets this low. Watch it if you want a short vacation off the coast of Ireland with some looming dread.

Where: Sadly doesn't seem to be available for streaming or even for purchase here in Canada (can't buy it on Play Movies, for example), even though it seems to have premiered in this country. So pirate it, I guess.

The Willoughbys

Particularly if you're looking for some kids-y entertainment for whatever reason (I mean hey, if you're old enough you're still reading blogs, maybe you're old enough to have a kid, for example; or maybe you're just looking for something comforting), you could do a lot worse. Burtonesque, but brighter and yet with maybe more of a bite to its comedy. A more interesting modern animation style than the shit you normally see (looking at you, shitty new Stand Alone Complex) makes it fun to look at. Somehow Ricky Gervais adds to, rather than detracts from, the movie, which is itself an impressive accomplishment in the year 2020.

Where: Streaming on Netflix.

The Vast of Night

I'm very conflicted on this movie; I like the style, and I like the story, but I feel like they're at odds with eachother. Although maybe that style layer is papering over the limitations of a modest budget? But even there, I feel like the tale may have played better being done fully straight, without the (admittedly fun!) nondiegetic flourishes. Still, a fun (if sedate at times; don't watch this if you're looking for quick thrills) movie that has me hoping for more from all involved, because the talent is clear even if it never quite coalesces, and with a mere fraction of a budget of a big studio flick they accomplish a lot more.

Where: Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Beverages

Annex Ginger Beer (non-alcoholic)

The can's text touts not being "some weak, watered-down ginger ale" but rather claims to be "real ginger beer, packed full of as much lemon and ginger as chemistry allows". This is demonstrably untrue, as it lacks the immediate ginger kick of Royal Jamaican (the gold standard) or even Reed's Extra-Ginger Ginger Ale; out-gingered by one of the "ginger ale[s]" this Calgarian company scoffs at, not a good look.

That being said, it sure does seem to be very lemony, and if it's not the peak of ginger science it's also nicely unsaccharine. So if you were looking for a soft drink that's decently gingery, very lemony, and not too sweet, well here ya go. Overall more of a bougie Sprite than its ostensible category of beverage.

Royal Jamaican Ginger Beer (non-alcoholic)

Okay technically I have drunk non-alcoholic Royal Jamaican brand ginger beer before, but it was always with alcohol added, so does that really count? I don't think it really counts (although it is definitely a good way to make a dark & stormy). So, now I've had it. Maybe too sweet, was the alcoholic Royal Jamaican always this sweet? Maybe a little of some bitters would be nice as a final touch, add a little of that je ne sais quo.

Giffard Banane du Brésil

If you're looking for a liquer that isn't just "banana flavoured" but rather is actually bananas as a liquer, this is the one. I mean there might be others out there, but this one is so delicious, so much like if your banana bread turned out really good but inexplicably liquid and alcoholic, that I'm not inclined to go searching for alternatives.

Giffard Abricot du Roussillon

Harsher in some ineffable way than their Banane du Brésil (the theory from Neuffy was that some of the 'junk alcohols' normally present were absent from Banane du Brésil but present here), but still delicious I think. I particularly appreciate the tartness of it; the sweet/sour balance apricots have is preserved in this liquer.

Books

Yesterday's Man: The Case Against Joe Biden by Branko Marcetic

There was a lot in this book I knew already, but it was interesting to read it all in context; there was also a lot I didn't know, in part because a political career as long as Joe Biden's is bound to have more details than any casual observer will know, but also just because of the sprawl and interconnectedness of the world. For example James Blunt makes a brief appearance, possibly saving the world from World War 3 (the connection being that Biden would later try and help the bloodthirsty general in question run for President).

All together, it's worth going through as a narrative to see all the reasons why the now-presumptive Democratic nominee is in fact a terrible pick to be President, particularly all the ways in which his faults and failings mirror Trump's; for example the almost compulsive lying is easy to downplay until you read it all together and in context. Well-written, and a quick read, although it took me ages because as Biden's nomination became more and more certain each page became harder and harder to swallow. That's politics for ya, though.

Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran

In a lot of ways the genre this book is actually in is . . . I dunno, whatever genre the Anita Blake novels and such are in? (Not that I'm pretending ignorance of such books; in fact I've read countless books of that variety. I just don't know of a pithy genre tag for them.) It's like that, but without all the fucking. Or maybe such novels were always classic mystery novels but with all the fucking and vampires (or werewolves or whatnot) added in? Anyways in this one instead our protagonist just does a lot of drugs. It is otherwise the same tone and structure, with the protagonist hyper-capable yet troubled and with a trail of semi-spurned acquaintances left behind her who wearily go "oh no, not you" when their paths cross again. There's an overarching mystery that is gestured towards but unresolved in this opening novel, which is only spoilers if you've never read anything of this sort before. It's set in New Orleans but narrowly, maybe very meaningful if you've spent some time there but largely failing to convey a sense of place, just a series of details that feed back into the investigatorial story.

So, it's Anita Blake but with drugs instead of sex and detectives instead of vampires and such, basically. I guess I could have just said that at the start and not written that whole paragraph above. Anyways from that description you'll instantly know if you'll like it, and if you find that description mystifying you probably won't like it, although maybe give it a shot if you're just looking for something pulpy.

This post was prompted by, as has not-infrequently been the case, me cutting myself off from a rant and quipping that I could write an essay, only for someone to call me on that maybe-bluff. I sat down this evening to finally write that essay, and here is the result. I give it a B-.

Art lives in the space between novelty and familiarity. This essay will be full of footnotes^[1] but this, this I do not believe requires external substantiation. I'm not even claiming that art requires this to exist per se; my claim is weaker and more fundamental than that. It is merely a twofold claim, essentially of tautology:

• For one, without novelty something is, at best, entertainment or skill or talent. We may respect the practice that made perfect the forgery of a painting, but we do not credit them the same as the original artist.
• For two, without at least some familiarity, no audience can hope to comprehend a work of art, will have no entry point into it, nothing to grasp onto and follow, or sink into. Without finding purchase, knowledge and appreciation of this work won't travel from person to person, won't be noticed any more than white noise drowning out a radio channel. And so something wholly unique and new may or may not "be" art, but it certainly won't live as art; it will be stillborn.

So, this is not to argue for some purity of "art for art's sake". Rather, I'm claiming that the fertile ground that art grows and spreads in lies in the range between such hypothetical purity and crass commercialism. And even from that crassly commercial side of things, rarely is a big hit wholly unoriginal. As Rowan Kaiser wrote while accurately predicting the inevitable failure of it's ending,

Game of Thrones has derived an astonishing amount of power from being both a traditional fantasy story — one where kids come of age, embark on magical quests, and discover that they’re the true heirs to the throne — at the same time as it subverts traditional fantasy story tropes. Ned Stark and Robb Stark’s deaths, the rises and falls of Stannis Baratheon, Daenerys Targaryen’s difficulties in Meereen, and especially Jon Snow's betrayal and murder at the hands of the Night’s Watch are all tragic stories that traditional fantasy doesn’t normally tell.^[2]

Heroes born to rule but cast into exile; dragons and undead raised through magic; prophecies of triumph or apocalypse. All these are longstanding fantasy tropes, and yet many a movie or TV series depicting them has languished in obscurity. That HBO threw an ungodly amount of money at it, and that the worldbuilding exposition was so commonly paired with nudity as to birth a portmanteau^[3], certainly helped. But much fantasy over the years has been expensive, purient, or both, yet failed to find even a fraction of the success Game of Thrones found.

And of course this power of strong familiarity is by no means unique to television. As one set of preachers panicked over rock music wrote,

As a language, however, music has the capability to communicate only to the culture which produces it. It often confuses outsiders, even as people with different languages sometimes fall prey to misunderstandings and frustrations due to communication failure . . . For those who do understand a particular style of music, there is a sense of belonging, a sense of shared identity and purpose.^[4]

Later, in the same book's instructions for innoculating kids against rock music (presumably one of the few types of innoculation such parents would be wholly enthusiasitc of), the writers suggest parents

begin purchasing top-quality Christian contemporary and wholesome secular music. Although your young adolescent may not appreciate the music at first, start playing it occasionally to acquaint him^[5]

And here we start to slide into the jaws of familiarity; there is a deliberate trap being advised for construction there, one not unlike that thing from that movie we all know in hoping to trap and slowly digest someone. And familiarity is, to one degree or another, always such a trap. While it may sometimes (as is claimed proverbially) breed contempt, it perhaps more often breeds acceptance or even dependence.

Okay, you say, but what the hell does any of this really have to do with chain letters and such? Fine, lets try to get into those and loop back around. While there are many facets of chain letters, their history is long and perhaps the key feature of them is that innovations propogate quickly and naturally. To quote at length from a study by Daniel W. VanArsdale:

Texts that appeal to superstition to encourage their copying or publication have circulated for over a thousand years. For English language letters, beginning around 1905, copy quotas and deadlines appeared and claims of divine authorship and magical protection were removed. These innovations probably began in other languages and were translated into English. The resulting "luck chain letters" eventually spread worldwide, and in over four thousand generations of copying (with variation) they accumulated ways to sustain and increase circulation that challenge our understanding.

Using a collection of over 900 dated paper chain letter texts, I have identified types and variations that appear and disappear over the years. Unexpectedly, it was discovered that, repeatedly, a single letter bearing some new innovation had propagated so abundantly and rapidly that within just a few years its descendants replaced all similarly motivated letters in circulation.

...

Most successful variations first appear as deliberate innovations; but often the reason an innovation had an advantage over competing letters was likely not anticipated. And some highly successful variations first appeared as copying errors (for example, the demand for 24 copies instead of 5 copies within 24 hours). By testing hundreds of thousands of variations, chain letters have discovered and exploited our secret fantasies and vulnerabilities. In addition to this relentless probing of the human psyche, chain letters have an internal and irreversible history marked by fortuitous changes that emerged from the deadly competition between variations . . . Chain letters are "designed" to replicate . . . anything that increases replication becomes part of the tradition.^[6]

Viewed through this lens, the lack of a monetary component to the recent spate of Facebook chain posts does not at all disqualify them from being part of the same lineage as chain letters. And even within a strict and recent lineage, this transformation isn't new.

When chain letters migrated to the internet in the late ’90s and early aughts, they changed; their purpose went from get-rich-quick scheming or harvesting email addresses from suckers to something more playful, and social media was the architect of that change.

. . . Chain letters, naturally, proliferated [on social media] because they were uniquely suited to the format . . . they’re popular enough there that there are chain posts to protect users from… the ill-effects of chain posts.^[7]

That article dallies with the question, as comes up in other reporting and studies of chain letters, of the superstitious nature undergirding much of chain letters. But while that is certainly a huge portion of why I've loathed chain letters as far back as I can remember, that's not actually at issue much with the modern format (particularly the type that prompted this essay in the first place). Instead, I'd like to focus some ire on another aspect of these chains. The article cited above concludes with the claim "participating in a chain is really about the act of sharing. Which is one of the things that makes us human." And, sure, I can see the argument there. But.

A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality.^[8]

In forwarding a chain, we remove this element of imagination, and in its place substitute raw evolutionary pressures akin to those of insects. We've excised the human element, or at least minimized and constrained it. The format of forms is, I'll admit, at least better; "List your top 3 etc" still provides some leeway for self-expression. But should we not aim higher? After all by contrast art

finds the necessary rhythm of words for dark and vague moods, it brings thought and feeling closer or contrasts them with one another, it enriches the spiritual experience of the individual and of the community, it refines feeling, makes it more flexible, more responsive, it enlarges the volume of thought in advance and not through the personal method of accumulated experience, it educates the individual, the social group, the class and the nation.^[9]

Chains are a lapsing into unthinking in an unfortunately pure sense, free even from the input provided in art by the serendipitous or the subconscious (which is often referred to as if thoughtless but is in fact the reservoir of much of our selves, with our conscious minds but ambassadors for the sovereign states they answer to).^[10] Chains clutter up our channels of human communication with memetic overgrowth, like water choked in dense mats of some invasive plant species, leaving little room for anything else and stagnating what could be vibrant and diverse.

Or that is to say: chains suck. Pass it on.

I've been slacking a bit; this playlist has remained untouched since late February, when it kindof encapsulated the feeling of knowing winter would end soon but not really feeling it. Oh well, maybe the weather will take a turn for the worse again and it'll be apt again! Or perhaps together, hypothetical reader/listener, we can reconceptualize this as just a reflection upon the winter that has passed, or impatience as we wait for it to fully end.

2018C: No Standing Army

1. Born Ruffians - Forget Me
2. Mothers - It Hurts Until It Doesn't
3. Jom Comyn - Long Life
4. Jom Comyn - Couples
5. Jom Comyn - Stay Inside
6. Groenland - Immune
7. The Twilight Sad - I Was Hoping That Winter Was Over
• Links:
  • Play Music
  • Play Music (2018 ongoing)
  • Spotify (2018 ongoing)

Bandcamp Corner

Speaking of the thaw, thisquietarmy has a new album called "Isbryter", the Norwegian word for an icebreaking ship. Seems like it can't be a coincidence, releasing it just as spring starts to assert itself in the northern hempisphere of our globe.

I'm not going to do that "I'm going to start posting again" thing and then just leave it forever. Nope, I'm going to update my website at least twice this year!

2018B: Peat and Plastic

1. Marlaena Moore - Gaze
2. Dommengang - Color Out Of Space
3. Total Control - Laughing At The System, Pt. 2:
4. Ought - These Three Things
5. Total Control - Luxury Vacuum
6. Suuns - Watch You, Watch Me
• Links:
  • Play Music (this issue)
  • Play Music (2018 ongoing)
  • Spotify (2018 ongoing)

Starting this stretch out with the opening and title track from Marlaena Moore's Gaze, which I've continued listening to incessantly. And Dommengang gets another track this time around, too. Blame Past Keith; I mean, it's a song that sounds like early Everclear that's also referencing H.P. Lovecraft, I'm 85% sure I daydreamed about that in Junior High.

The Suuns and Ought songs are in some respect placeholders. Not that I don't like them, but they're also there because I'm reminding myself to listen to their new albums as they come out. Suuns is promisingly just like Suuns always is, although considering I never really got into their previous album I suppose that doesn't guarantee that this one will grab me. Ought seems to be going in a more synth-y direction than previously, which does give me a bit of trepidation considering how that went the last time an Eastern Canadian band went from guitar-heavy to synth-heavy (that is to say, I really loved The Darcy's Warring and just bounced right off of Centerfold) but so far so good.

Only-On-Bandcamp Corner

Okay, I'm super confused about release dates apparently.

Firstly, we have a new album by Shakey Graves. I got a notification it was released back on the 9th, and immediately purchased it sight unseen (so to speak). But then hey, I can download it all now? So I did, and listened to it after downloading the tracks, and I was all set to include perhaps "Cops and Robbers" (which is really catchy) or maybe something else from the back half of the album like "Mansion Door" or "Big Bad Wolf" (both of which take advantage of the glossy sheen of the production work on the album) on a playlist, but not only is the album not on any streaming services yet, it's apparently just outright not released until May 4th?

Meanwhile, the diving rod of social media gave me the impression that some sort of album involving Motorbike James is coming out, so I went hunting for further clues. I eventually came to believe it's probably a new Royal Tusk album, since apparently they have another one slated for 2018 (at which point I guess I'll have another chance to finally get into Royal Tusk, who've never quite clicked for me). But in the meantime I discovered that there was already another Motorbike James album . . . back in 2011?

Well, whatever. Lets just hope time starts making sense again at some point and end this then with a band that I know doesn't have a full album out yet: Isolato, who put on a pretty fantastic show at the Sad Boys Club this weekend. That I can make sense of in space and time.

It's been quite a while since I updated "my website" here. In the meanwhile, people having their own websites (rather than just Facebook pages, Twitter handles, Tumblers that Oath deigns to allow still exist, etc etc) continues to be on the decline, and with that, music blogs. At least, I think they're on the decline; perhaps, instead, I'm just slowly falling into the "oh, I don't listen to new music anymore, just podcasts" territory that comes with old age. And there's probably a bit of that, creeping in from the corners. But I do blame the increased centralization and concentration of the internet onto Capital-P Platforms.

Anyways, the point is, I should dust off this site, and I miss music blogs . . . so why not make this a music blog? Or at least, one heavily leaning that way. I already lean towards making playlists as a way to get a handle on new music; it isn't much more effort to just record those here as I go.

So! With that in mind, here's my first one. Well, I should also link to my 2017 compound playlist, made up of the new-to-me music playlists I made throughout last year. But that's a big task to detail, and lets start small lest I falter at the firsts step. Here we go:

2018A: Step Forwards, Fearful Future

(I long have, and shall continue to, give my playlists ostentatious names)

1. Jom Comyn - New Feeling
2. Deep Frosty - Fire
3. Marlaena Moore - Magic Knife
4. Slow Place Like Home - Bats
5. El Huervo - Daisuke
6. Hannah Epperson - 20/20 (Amelia)
7. Dommengang - Lost My Way
8. Dommengang - Stay Together

I'll have more rants about music streaming services in the future, but I'm not ignoring them; here's this playlist on Google Play, and a Spotify playlist or a Play Music playlist you as the imaginary audience could theoretically subscribe to for updates as the year goes on.

Oh, and as a bonus track, here's a song I couldn't put on the music service incarnations of the playlist, since it's only up on Bandcamp (or originally on vinyl for Record Store Day 2014), but is quite fantastic; it's Teeth of the Sea very much in their dreamy and hypnotic mode, and I'm going to stop describing it now since I'm going to need a large reservoir of superlatives if I'm going to make this a music blog, yaknow? Give it a listen during a normal daily journey and let it wash over you as you remember for once to notice the endlessness of the sky.

Your desktop computer, at least. I'll update this later (including credit where credit's due to fabsh) but you can get perhaps the geekiest white noise ever pretty damn easily; basically all you need is SoX.

On Linux

1. You probably have Sox installed already. If not, a quick apt install sox (or via your package manager of choice) should fix that.
2. Alright, now in a terminal run play -n -c2 synth whitenoise band -n 100 24 band -n 300 100 gain +10 | play -n -c2 synth whitenoise band -n 100 20 band -n 50 20 gain +25 fade h 1 864000 1

On OSX

1. You need to grab SoX. For my old iMac that's stuck on 10.6, I needed a slightly older version, but for any quasi-modern release of OSX you should just be able to grab the latest stable release.
2. Unzip it; I think on OSX that happens automatically if you just click on the zip file?
3. In a terminal now you can probably just run the following: ./Downloads/sox-14.4.2/play -n -c2 synth whitenoise band -n 100 24 band -n 300 100 gain +10 | \
./Downloads/sox-14.4.2/play -n -c2 synth whitenoise band -n 100 20 band -n 50 20 gain +25 fade h 1 864000 1

On Windows

1. Probably as straightforward as on OSX, but maybe not? I'll test this tomorrow or something and update this post.
2. Update, Nov. 23: Uhhh yeah so I seem to be failing at figuring out the right incantation; mostly the problem is SoX's ability to figure out the default audio device is apparently stymied by Windows' lack of a default audio device in the same sense that Linux and OSX have. Maybe it'd work if you install it through Cygwin?

And there you have it, the geekiest way to get some white noise yet invented.

For a person who posts so little to my various web sites, I actually have a surprisingly large number of takedown requests from people upset with me having posted one thing or another.

Here's the problem, though: I'm the kind of person who thinks that false beliefs are cancerous, and that the world would be better off if all of us humans were telepathic.

Of course people say to such thought experiments "that'd be terrible! If we knew what we all were thinking we'd be embarrassed and scared and everything'd be terrible!" And sure, that's probably true at first (and if it happened all of a sudden, it might be a very oddball apocalypse). But the thing is, much in the same way that society didn't collapse when we gave up on Victorian-era ideas of how women should dress, we'd get used to it. We, as people, often have a fear of "other" and a bad habit of failing to connect and engage with other people and ideas when even the slightest disconnect interrupts the flow of communication. So much of our time is spent either failing to understand others, or judging them for aspects of themselves that we either fail to grasp the context of, or believe are extremely uncommon and thus judge a person for. See, for example, how homophobia flourishes when people believe that homosexuality is rare. More truth and light leaves us better equiped to engage with the world around us, not less, and knowing more about other people eventually makes us less judgmental, not more.

Now, in this fictional scenario (and in anything approximating or reflecting it), again, the initial path is hard. And it may indeed exaggerate and encourage debate, because people wouldn't be able to pretend others agreed with them. And, I mean . . . yay, no? If society can only function when we never talk about anything of substance, then lets tear this motherfucker down (and you can quote me on that for all posterity, and if posterity doesn't understand the actual, more abstract meaning of specific idiomatic swear words then posterity can shut the fuck up and maybe show up some time for a nice cup of tea and maybe we can talk about how rarely language is even remotely literal---posterity, what do you feel like, I have some dried mint from my garden, is that good with you?).

Maybe life would get more dramatic, but it'd also get more authentic and progressive, I think. And we could all benefit from better understanding of other people, even if that understanding sometimes puts us at odds.

And truth, well . . . truth is kindof its own virtue. It has countless upsides: you realize vaccines don't cause autism and so your kids don't get measles and their friends don't get it from them in turn, the politician who lies gets caught in it and has to leave office to be replaced by someone whose policies are based more on facts than talking points, the old-growth forests are left standing when we actually weigh the real costs and benefits. But almost moreso, it's where real beauty comes from. Auto-tuned vocals singing focus-grouped lyrics will, for me at least, lose out every time to a faltering voice singing from the heart. The sound and fury of a Michael Bay movie holds no draw compared to staring up at the Milky Way in the country at night, and tentatively grasping what it means that we stand on a spinning sphere moving within all of that.

So when someone asks me to hide something that stands as a record of interaction between a bunch of people (in this latest case, one of them being me), I have an enormous philosophical bias against complying. The part where the conversation sitting in the public record includes them calling a friend of mine an asshole doesn't even have to factor into it.

The User asked the Machine to link to SQL tables in the first database from their ancient database frontend file.

"There is no driver installed" the Machine replied.

The User installed an ODBC driver, and again asked the Machine to link to SQL tables in the first database.

"There is no connection configured" the Machine replied.

The User then configured the ODBC driver and attempted to connect.

"Your driver is outdated" the Machine replied.

Sure that the problem was now solved, the User installed a modern ODBC driver.

"Your driver is too new for the program you use" the Machine replied.

Uninstalling the newer driver, the User tested again. Elated, they saw that their ancient database frontend now connected to the first database.

The User then asked the Machine to link to SQL tables in the second database.

"There is no connection configured" the Machine replied.

The User attempted to add to the ODBC driver configuration.

"There is no driver installed" the Machine replied, and the User was enlightened.

Okay, so I'm a bit late to the party of making fun of Diablo III. But the other day my housemates were talking about how silly the randomly-generated item names are in Diablo III, and I thought "well, surely there's a random item name generator out there for Diablo III". But either nobody has bothered or my Google-Fu is weak, because shrug.

So I thought, hey, why not just write one then? The initial version is below; source code is available (and thus you could submit pull requests with more words) at the GitHub project page.

?

Future development is intended to include more item pictures, some sort of overlay/change method to make it so the modifying words actually change the appearance (not 100% sure how I'll do that yet), and hell, maybe an Android app or something that'll let you save items.

Current item images:

Particularly meaty improvements I can think of would include then the ability to sell and trade the items with some kind of managed market using internal currency, which would be hilarious (especially when you think of the dynamics, since I'd make it so you could scrap any item for 1 unit of currency; if for some godforsaken reason people actually chose to play the game, then, inflation could quickly become ludicrous).

I hear everyone's raving about Bootstrap these days, so what the hell, lets just go and make this a Bootstrap-based site.

You can still find the old content at this page (or at a Bootstrap-ified version if you like).