Updated at least 3x/week. Pseudo-intellectual rants. Ecology – Ecosophy – Food Science – Linguistics – Computer Science
Today, I had to see what all the buzz was about. Me and my wife saw Avatar in 3D before she had to go to work. The 3D was a nice effect, but after over two hours of that, I had pretty bad motion sickness getting out of the theater. I think I’d enjoy the movie more minus the nausea.
spoiler alert ** do not continue if you don’t want the plot revealed (this is really intended reading for people who watched the movie anyway, not a proper review; I don’t do movie reviews)
(note to friends: I meant to post this way earlier but hadn’t had time to edit it down. That’s why it refers to events way past. But the point is still fresh)
As is my fashion, I read a book on the plane. I read Time Machine on the way to Japan and King Hrolf Kraki’s saga on the way back. I have nothing to say about the latter except it would make an awesome series of movies with endless sequels and that modern literature lacks the sheer succinctness of poets of old. Of the Time Machine, well, what can I say, it was awesome, as expected. I also wonder why I didn’t read it earlier. It’s exactly the kind of book I would have read as a teenager, though I was much more into Asimov and Clark back then.
What made H.G. Wells such an awesome sci-fi writer (aside from those qualities that made him just plain old a good writer) was his ability to suspend disbelief by bringing heavy doses of real science into his stories while he makes his political commentary. My disbelief is not so easily suspended (one reason I seldom enjoy movies), so of course the SciFi I like is hard sci-fi, though I can appreciate the preposterous if it is at least internally consistent (e.g., if the way magic works makes sense and the world is as it would be were there magic; Lovecraft did this better than anyone else). His science isn’t the point of the novel. It isn’t to warn of an eventuality, but to make a separate point. It’s the good (for the time) science that draws you into the tale. Continue reading ‘Why do the Morlocks still Clothe the Eloi?’
Saw Ponyo a few nights ago. Highly recommended, but I do not want to give away plot details. Rather, I want to call attention to a murder that took place. A Disney-hired thug shot down this:
and replaced it with this monstrosity:
It’s hard to believe that they are (supposedly) the same song. The first is emotional, fun, bouncy, full of life. There’s expressiveness in the kid’s voice. The second sounds like I was sleep deprived and drunk and needed to turn in a song by the next day.. Sure, the first lacks “cool” (as if that’s what’s needed to make something kids like), while the second tries so hard to be cool, which only means that in 3 short years it will be worse than uncool. It will be like latter-era Elvis. FAIL
</rant>
Anyway, do watch the movie. Disney deserves credit for putting the effort (if sometimes misplaced) in bringing Miyazaki’s movies to the monolingual masses in America. I recommend watching it subtitled if you can read fast enough. If you’re watching it with kids then, yeah, you’ll probably want to dub it. Better yet, teach your kids Japanese! You know how kids have this annoying tendency to do things over and over again? Well, if your kid insists on watching this repeatedly, let them, but force them to watch it in Japanese with no subtitles subsequent times. That’ll teach ‘em.. Japanese, that is.
(read below for what I think of the movie, some spoilers contained)
Continue reading ‘Compare and Weep (plus, bonus Ponyo Review)’
My wife told me about a strange nightmare she had when she woke up. I thought it was interesting enough I had her dictate it to me again so I can unleash on the world the melodramatic horror flick that appeared before her rapidly moving eyes (R.E.M.)
She saw the dream from the perspective of a student in a boarding school. She was at a party at a restaurant with all of her friends and everyone else was leaving for downtown LA, perhaps to go to a club or something like that. The girl had to meet her mom so couldn’t go with her friends. She called her mother and then found out, however, that she wasn’t needed, so she called her friend so they could share a cab to downtown to meet their friends. When she went down to meet her friend, she saw her in the taxi alone. When she entered, her friend told her that the taxi driver left and didn’t come back. The girl decided to drive her and her friend in the cab to the police station to let them know that the car was abandoned. The police questioned us about the appearance of the man so they could possibly identify him. Some way or another, the two friends finally arrived in downtown and had fun with their classmates.
Back in the dormitory, something weird and suspicious kept happening to the girl to make her feel that someone was out to get her. Perhaps it was a sound or just a feeling she had in her gut. She had the ominous feeling that somebody was going to do something evil. There was a poster in her dorm room that was left there from the previous inhabitant. The girl never took it down because she liked it, but took it down thinking it might be covering something up and found a hole. Her heart sunk; she realized that somebody has always been watching her. She stormed out of the room and the girl she thought was a good friend of hers (the girl she was in a cab with) was found to be a something such as a ghoul that eats humans and leads a pack of other ghouls who do her bidding. She infects them and turns them into her servants, helping her hunt down people to eat. It was a dramatic scene with all of her friends, including her best friend, turning out to be monsters and in the dorm hallway.
“Hah, you remember that one time that the taxi driver disappeared and we reported it to the police?,” asked the girl’s “friend” who turned out to be the leader of the ghouls, “You know what happened to him? I ate him! That’s why he disappeared!” The girl stormed out from the dorm, running with the ghouls chasing her. Somehow, she ended up in the fashion district. She found a costume store that looked narrow from the outside, but was really deep and two-storied. The third floor was, like many stores in the fashion district, a residential floor for the owners to live in. She arrived at the top floor. Even though she was running away from ghouls, she felt guilty about intruding into the owners’ private space. In the residence, she saw three nice middle-aged women eating dinner together. She told them that she was in danger and they said that she could stay there for as long as she wants, provided she helps with the business.
It was a peaceful period for a while. She would go out, using a different costume each time so the monsters wouldn’t find her. She’s been going out like that so she thought it would be okay to do just live that way indefinitely. Perhaps the ghouls forgot her, she thought. Maybe she could just stay this way. But, one day she saw that they found her and ran back home from the store and went upstairs, finding all three of the nice women who lived above the store, dead. She felt a rush of guilt that they hid her and because of her, died. The ghouls almost found her and almost got into the store. There was nowhere to go. She got to above a beam above the store and they were trying to get up to her, looking up hungrily. She become progressively more and more panicked when suddenly I (Thomas Webb) appeared and unleashed the ultimate weapon – I peed on them. The urine was very painful to them, especially their eyes. The girl (or perhaps by this point in the dream, the girl became my wife, identities do shift around in dreams) jumped off the beam and killed every last one of them. When I killed the leader with a Japanese sword (which the costume store had), the servants started screaming in agony.
It was a mixed victory. While she was thinking that she finally won, she also had this feeling of guilt that that killed somebody and that, though she saved herself, she has to live with the guilt of having murdered the rest of her life.
The event I never knew I’d be able to see in my life almost could have been anti-climatic. Throbbing Gristle could not have possibly lived up to the expectations I built up over the years (back when I assumed, with good reason, that there’s no chance of them ever getting back together) but, despite the geriatric jet-lagged group, got pretty damn close. There IS a difference and they did crazy things on stage. I’m so glad I got to see “Hamburger Lady” live. It was done quite different on stage. Also, the quality of the sounds themselves were very good. I really lock into the texture of the sounds themselves (believe it or not, I’m not a druggie) and hearing those analog repetitive loops blare off the stage was, as GPO his/herself suggested, “orgasmic”. Oooh yeah.
Too bad it was a festival and there were two bands I had to see, the aforementioned TG and The Cure! I got some good moments in, but between the concert-jumping I managed to miss both Genesis kissing the tattoo of his dead x-wife and “lovesong”. What’s the opposite of a hybrid… a lobrid? Yeah, a festival is a lobrid, because though in theory, the different areas are for different kinds of people, in practice coming primarily for two different headlining acts is an eventuality. Though the sounds of those two bands I came to see are quiiiite different, there is considerably overlap in their fan bases (people who dress in black.. people who like songs dripping with emotion – yes TG’s songs do!) Oh well. Maybe I can be crazy and try to see TG tonight, though I probably will not have time, what with speaking in foreign tongues to future in-laws and all…
There isn’t so much to say about The Cure. They’re performance was perfect. Robert Smith is so dramatic and his voice is impressive (I didn’t use to be a fan of his voice, even though I still liked the Cure, go figure). They started out with the first track from their new album. Robert Smith should lose weight in a way that doesn’t involve going back to his old ways. If he jogged regularly like Jagger does, then their performance would go beyond legendary to.. ugh, whatever is beyond legendary. Yes.
So, in conclusion, I might go to Coachella again. It’s a good experience, but I’m just more of a concert guy. One stage, preferrably where the fans of the main band and of earlier bands are mostly the same people. Yeah, that’s good. Nothing has topped the Current 93 concert in San Fran’ for me yet…
(0)Looks like the artist who did an artist’s rendition of a living Mars did a pretty good job:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TerraformedMarsGlobeRealistic.jpg
Except one big, glaring hole – the craters! Why isn’t Earth all crater-y like that? Oh yeah, because we have erosion and biological processes erase and cover them up. I don’t believe we have any craters like that you can see from space, though we’ve been bombarded by Mars no less, I’ll bet. Psh.
(copying my post from craigslist to here)
I’m in the first stages of starting a new band (or reviving my old band, however you wanna look at it). I’m very open-minded as to what instrument(s) you can play/contribute. Right now, I’m trying to find 1-2 really motivated people to start working on new songs with. We can add more musicians later if needed. But right now, I’m looking for people who have a vision and can compose new material with me.
My goal is to practice 1-2x/week, every week and not start playing until we have a solid base of original songs that we play very, very well (I’m interested in a few covers here and there too). I already have quite a few originals I can show you how to play, or we can even rework them to sound different! Other than playing live, the only other thing I want out of this band is for us to make a really awesome CD and release it to the world!
I’m not in it for the money. I’m finding working in IT is a much better way to make money than music. I don’t want to “make it big”. Not in music, anyway (my life goal is to become a renowned food science and biotech inventor). To me, it’s a semi-serious hobby and if this is the situation for you also, then I think we’ll get along 
Here is a small selection of the bands I’m influenced by. Major bonus points if you really like at least 2-3 of these:
coil, throbbing gristle, laibach, current 93, oingo boingo, bauhaus, joy division, kraftwerk, bjork, aphex twin, nick cave and the bad seeds, einstruzende neubauten, polysics, christian death (rozz williams, minus points if you listen to valor, hehe), the cure, joy division, gossamer, non, skinny puppy, david bowie, brian eno, the pixies, …
Feel free to call/SMS me with any questions 760-912-1856. Leave a message if I don’t answer, I’ll call you back. Or you can contact me through craigslist, or check my myspace
www.myspace.com/pinkboi
My previous band that died from the members all moving their separate ways can be found here (I think “Church Girls”, one of the last songs we did, is also one of our finest, despite my weak vocals):
www.myspace.com/thehappybuttons
www.thehappybuttons.com
We can change the name though, because this will be a new band, as far as I’m concerned.
On the episode that talks about when Homer was in the Bee Sharps, I could have sworn that he said to Bart, “What did I say about swearing like a 19th century shoe black?” or something along those lines. But when I saw it just now, he said “What did I say about swearing like a grizzled 1890’s prospector?” and it even looked like the part didn’t lip sync correctly (though in those earlier episodes, the lip syncing wasn’t exactly perfect). Am I witnessing an easter egg?
Hmm…
Is an artist. His canvas is the mind. He unites the real and the unreal in a way where the seams are almost invisible.
The best occultist of all time? Why, H.P. Lovecraft, of course. Frustrated astronomer, reluctant (but good!) writer. Get a collection of his stuff and be merry.
Start with Categories, end with Nuanced Vision
General Description:
In a vacuum of knowledge about the underlying causes of phenomena one sees, the first thing one can do to understand the phenomenon is to categorize the phenomena themselves. When a scientist groups phenomenon into categories, he may be leading himself astray – the categories may or may not have anything to do with the underlying causes. Nonetheless, the sharper and more precise the categories, the closer they may become to reflecting causes.
When these categories are in error, they are discarded outright when a sharper view of the science emerges. When these categories have merit, they still tend to take the sideline when they lose their importance. In either case, they mysteriously still get taught in elementary school.
Example:
Taxonomy (categorization of the phenomenon of biodiversity) vs. phylogeny (the evolutionary origins of biodiversity). Biologists in near pre-evolutionary times were already quite good at categorizing species based on their physiology. By the time Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species was published, they have long since discarded classification systems such as flying, land, sea or useful, dangerous, harmless or other such nonsense in favor of Linnaean Taxonomy, which reflected the best of their knowledge of the day.
Some of Linnaeus’ categories did represent true evolutionary relationships. This is because he was so careful to categorize based on morphological similarities. Some things were, of course, wrong, too. Cases of convergent evolution naturally created false positives for category matches. Paleontology did much to correct the taxonomy since Linnaeus’ time, and molecular data, more still. Now, the system itself still suffers from not correctly reflecting the underlying causes of biodiversity – there are still many paraphyletic clades (unless you want to deem birds reptiles, for example). And, the classifications highlight the sections of biodiversity we were most familiar with before the invention of the microscope, and that is but a tiny representation of one of the major clades!
So, even though Linnaean taxonomy is at the verge of being discarded outright for strict cladistics, the taxonomy itself proved quite useful in telling us where to look. Why do mammals all have such similar limbs? Such similar embryology? These questions lead to the biology we have today, and a frustrated purist who would reject early attempts at classification as simply imposing a librarian’s order on a chaotic universe would have done nothing to help a fledgling science. Oh, and the “kingdoms” are quite easy for school children to grasp.
Some More Examples:
Application:
An ambitious scientist would be half-right be be suspicious of a young science’s obsession with categorization. But he should be cautiously optimistic about more and more detailed classification (read: observation) while striving for something that points to a fundamental cause. Oh, but scientists already know about all this. What can you, the non-scientist glean from this? One day, you are telling your friend over a drink “there are X types of people in this world…” and proceeding to bitch about your X, and the next, you develop a Mark Twain-esque understanding of human nature.
Be satisfied with solid observation at first, and even indulge yourself with your atavistic desire to categorize if you must. But from there, learn the underlying causes, the essential nature of things, the ways in which the categories are an illusion, or at least but a small puzzle piece.
Generic ideas. Idea templates. Not out of the box complete ideas, but rather generic concepts, taken from a wide variety of fields such as philosophy, the sciences, business, etc, stripped of specifics (though a book on this would give them as a history of the idea), so that it can easily be applied to different fields. This is similar to templates in C++ and other object oriented languages. Much of what makes many ideas great are in the logic structure. If an “idea” only applies to just one field, it may well be an observation, not an idea.
My machine will automate what polymaths of old (yes, they don’t exist anymore, though technology has made an unprecedented number of people think they are) did with their artful analogies. Much “innovation” is doing nothing more than this and I, myself, am good at tricking people into thinking I’m smart by, e.g., turning a joke from South Park into an insight into computer science. So take this as a warning, you people who think you’re smart – use your noggin, or I will replace you with a perl script.
Example forthcoming. Watch this space.
Music is in our genes : Nature News
Here is an interesting article on Nature. It’s a study that show a correlation between genetics and singing patterns in African tribes. This reminds me of how me and my dad would joke that we’re good at drumming because of our Afro roots (there are unverified, yet plausible family legends of Sub-Saharan African ancestry on the English side of the family).
The study used an arbitrary set of ways to measure singing patters, such as presence of yodeling, pitch, etc and looks at correlations with geography and with genetics. The strongest relationship was with genetics. Of course, this doesn’t rule out the possibility that culture passed down generations can be more powerful than influence from neighboring tribes especially given that people move around a lot, so it would only add up to noise.
Now, if a child adopted from another tribe had difficulty with his or her host family’s singing style (unlikely, though it was a good gag in The Jerk), this might give credence to the notion that “Music is in our genes” and even to the absurd racialist notion that culture is burnt onto the EEPROM, not installed on the hard drive. That being said, it’s not too far-fetched to think that people who’s ancestors were in tribes that placed greater importance on music in ritual would, on average, have more innate musical talents. The musical sense in general is universal and that would mean that we’ve been doing this stuff as long as, or even before, we were human.
Unfortunately, since it’s been long enough, you need a subscription to Nature to read the article now, but it was free when I read it.
Oftentimes, I’ll have ideas about aesthetics that are generic and can apply to any art form. Some principles apply to any art, especially with regards to the appeal aspect. I’ve done posts on this before, but for now on, they’ll all be posted in “art principles”. It’s my nature as a programmer to find patterns. Write generic templating code and implement specifics later…
People like things that are like people, like an individual:
Here’s the latest press release for band-collab.net. When I finish additional features (like the note editor), I’ll do more. Gotta toot your own horn, kids.
Band-collab.net Online Music Collaboration Released with WebDAW™
Wrightwood, CA – - 12/8/2007 – - Osaka Red, LLC officially makes band-collab.net, a web-based platform for collaboration between musicians, available to the public. Band-collab.net promises to revolutionize the way musicians work on music, delivering on great as-yet undelivered promises of the internet. Continue reading ‘Band-Collab press release’
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