well, they predicted a ridiculously cold winter this year and got it right. the mainstream forecasts were in the same neighbourhood, but not as extreme. for example, they predicted it would be cold in the upper midwest but warm in the southern midwest (it has been cold in both places) and cold in ontario but warm on the coast (it has been cold in both places).
meaning that it probably comes down to a variable or two and that, for whatever reason, the almanac was able to predict that the arctic air masses would overpower the probably maritime factors that the mainstream forecasts thought would overpower the arctic air masses.
it would be really nice to actually see how they came to that conclusion, but they won't publish.
i mean, it's easy to write it off as pseudo-science, but the truth is that we can't analyze the method because it's not public. sure, that obviously justifies some healthy skepticism. but it seems foolish to write something off without even knowing what it is.
http://www.ibtimes.com/farmers-almanac-winter-2014-forecast-draws-skepticism-weathermen-1401939
the last question is sort of silly, though. it's widely acknowledged that sunspots and planetary position have an effect. the problem is that the argument often comes up in the context of people arguing against anthropogenic climate change - and the overwhelming evidence that sunspot activity isn't even correlated with the increases in temperatures we've seen. but denying a link between climate change and sunspots doesn't negate the sun's effect on the earth's weather (weather, here, being contrasted with climate). we can connect all kinds of weather phenomena to sunspots. and with positioning, this is a real thing that's widely accepted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
but if they won't publish, there's no way to scrutinize what they're doing. from where you or i are standing, it's as good as magic. but if we knew what they were doing, we might be able to pull something of value out of it.
it's been widely published in wonky sources (and less wonky sources) that sunspot activity recently slowed down to almost nothing, leading up to a magnetic pole reversal that finally happened (after a longer than expected wait) a few days ago. even though the source of the cold is arctic air moving south, you don't have to take an obscure, gw-denying position to acknowledge that that might have had an effect on the cold winter we've had.
it would just be nice to see their calculations opened up so that that could be examined.
the recent magnetic reversal dismisses the fears in the article, but it gets to the point i'm making:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24512-solar-activity-heads-for-lowest-low-in-four-centuries.html
right. but it could give us a nasty winter or two.
then again, the current "nasty winter" would have been normal 30 years ago.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/11/solar-activity-and-the-so-called-%E2%80%9Clittle-ice-age%E2%80%9D/
btw, an interesting question that i've explored a little on this page going way back is whether there may be a way to connect volcanic activity to "space weather". i'm mostly thinking in terms of gravity. there's a really intuitive example with tides being caused by the moon. could all the gravity floating around us, from the sun and jupiter and whatever else, have an effect on the way continents interact, thereby affecting volcanic activity? if so, there's not a contradiction in the two ideas.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
re: roach situation
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord
actually, i got one right away. it's in a plastic baggie - i guess i can bring this upstairs...?
i'm no entomologist, but it sure looks like a roach to me. again, it seems to have come out of the wall looking for water; i caught it near the shower. also, given the pattern i've seen, i suspect it may be the same one i saw a few days ago and let get away into the crack. i really don't think there's an infestation in the unit, but rather a high number near by. when one gets in, it runs around for a few days until i catch it and then i don't see another for weeks....
j
To: the initial landlord
actually, i got one right away. it's in a plastic baggie - i guess i can bring this upstairs...?
i'm no entomologist, but it sure looks like a roach to me. again, it seems to have come out of the wall looking for water; i caught it near the shower. also, given the pattern i've seen, i suspect it may be the same one i saw a few days ago and let get away into the crack. i really don't think there's an infestation in the unit, but rather a high number near by. when one gets in, it runs around for a few days until i catch it and then i don't see another for weeks....
j
Friday, December 27, 2013
re: roach situation
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord
they're easy to kill by hitting them with a kleenex box, they don't seem to react to humans at all until they're attacked, but it may be a while before i see another one. as mentioned, they seem to be in the walls rather than in the unit. they never stray far from the hole they came from and try to go back in the hole if you don't get them the first time. when i blocked them off in the bedroom, they went away for months. now that i've blocked the dead radiator, i haven't seen another. i'm not sure what other entry points might exist, but i'll keep an eye out.
j
To: the initial landlord
they're easy to kill by hitting them with a kleenex box, they don't seem to react to humans at all until they're attacked, but it may be a while before i see another one. as mentioned, they seem to be in the walls rather than in the unit. they never stray far from the hole they came from and try to go back in the hole if you don't get them the first time. when i blocked them off in the bedroom, they went away for months. now that i've blocked the dead radiator, i haven't seen another. i'm not sure what other entry points might exist, but i'll keep an eye out.
j
re: roach situation
From: the initial landlord
To: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Happy Holiday, we have never had roaches but have had occasionally had bugs that are similar. They had appeared briefly from time to time and had originated from the storm sewer drain . I will contact my brother and he can use some product we might still have from a few years ago when we had a few bugs appear. Please try to capture one of the them so we can make a determination of what the bug is.
To: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Happy Holiday, we have never had roaches but have had occasionally had bugs that are similar. They had appeared briefly from time to time and had originated from the storm sewer drain . I will contact my brother and he can use some product we might still have from a few years ago when we had a few bugs appear. Please try to capture one of the them so we can make a determination of what the bug is.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
there's a young lady in the neighbourhood that's been bumping into me
repeatedly and coming up with excuses to try and start a conversation
with me. nervous hands, giggly voice. obvious; annoying, really.
unfortunately, anybody that is displaying any interest in any type of
interaction that is less than completely random and spontaneous is going
to instantly be put in my perpetual ignore filter. see, anybody that is
going out of their way to try and get to know me better is making a
gigantic mistake, the proportions of which they really have no grasp of.
it demonstrates bad judgment. to begin with, my first assumption is
cia, and that assumption isn't going to recede quickly. but, i'm
ultimately not willing to waste my time when the conclusion is
predetermined. it's better if others get the point quickly rather than
waste their own time. that's just time i could have spent by myself,
doing something i'm more interested in.
it got me thinking, though, as i was turning the corner a block early to avoid crossing paths. it's actually been almost 8 years, now, since i last had any kind of sexual activity. that's probably longer than most people in convents and monasteries (i don't really think most of them take those oaths all that seriously). practically speaking, i think i've revirginized myself.
i don't really think about it, or even really care. my level of cynicism about sex is probably clinical. like, in need of deep psychiatry - or so people would claim. whatever. the reality is probably that i'm absolutely right and the rest of the world is totally naive. i think i'm more likely to convince a shrink than the other way around. it's just a question of coming to terms with the futility of existence. maybe i'm being a little bit buddhist again; again, whatever.
but eight years is really impressive, considering it's just out of absolute disinterest rather than anything ideological or philosophical. i see no reason to think i won't go another eight...
it got me thinking, though, as i was turning the corner a block early to avoid crossing paths. it's actually been almost 8 years, now, since i last had any kind of sexual activity. that's probably longer than most people in convents and monasteries (i don't really think most of them take those oaths all that seriously). practically speaking, i think i've revirginized myself.
i don't really think about it, or even really care. my level of cynicism about sex is probably clinical. like, in need of deep psychiatry - or so people would claim. whatever. the reality is probably that i'm absolutely right and the rest of the world is totally naive. i think i'm more likely to convince a shrink than the other way around. it's just a question of coming to terms with the futility of existence. maybe i'm being a little bit buddhist again; again, whatever.
but eight years is really impressive, considering it's just out of absolute disinterest rather than anything ideological or philosophical. i see no reason to think i won't go another eight...
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
it's nice to realize that my bedroom is perfectly positioned to take maximum advantage of the winter's mid-afternoon sunlight. the last few places i've occupied have been less ideal, to say the least.
it's also sort of neat to realize this right after the solstice.
place must have been built by druids...
it's also sort of neat to realize this right after the solstice.
place must have been built by druids...
jessica amber murray
....and, now, to attempt to have a few drinks without smoking any cigarettes. considering the temperature outside (along with my absolute aversion to indoor smoking), i think i'm likely to do well. we'll see.
regarding the smoking thing...
the packs have been almost entirely cut out. i've bought probably around ten packs, total, since the beginning of september. what i've been doing instead is falling back to these single cigars that can be picked up at the corner store for around $1 whenever i'm about to crack. it's a little more costly on the face of it, but it's a good shot of nicotine so it works for a while. one of the problems quitters will run into is that when they crack once they want another one almost right away; the cigars seem to mitigate that. more importantly, it has broken me of a lot of routines, like smoking after meals. to me, that's the harder part. i know nicotine is a physical addiction (meaning that coming off of it will produce physical effects, like drowsiness) but i don't really feel hooked on that level. it's more about breaking routine...
...and not drinking. i've always been a social drinker, so no people has meant no drinking. i mean, i spend most of my time reading, and i'd rather be sober for that. i prefer marijuana as a creative aid. what i'm about to do is uncharacteristic.
so, i can't claim i'm nicotine-free. but i *have* broken the routine, to the point where i can honestly state that i'm not a habitual smoker anymore.
which is all i really wanted to accomplish in the first place. i don't mind being a social smoker that specifically smokes around alcohol and marijuana. what i no longer wanted to be was a solo smoker. on that point, mission accomplished.
(meaning i'm not going to get too mad at myself if i buy a pack on christmas, just like i didn't get too mad when i bought a pack a few weeks ago when it was over 10 degrees, just as an excuse to hang out outside for the day. stuff like that is enjoying the drug, not being a slave to it.)
mom
Wow! That's Great!...Wish, I could have that much self-control!
jessica amber murray
i don't think it's a question of self-control so much as it's a question of doing what one wants. i kind of strongly believe that smokers smoke because they want to, not because they're zombies. the physical withdrawals are coercive, no doubt, but it comes down to wanting or not wanting to quit.
mom
Addiction Stinks!....And in the end it WILL TAKE CONTROL!.....DENIAL is an addicts BEST FRIEND.
jessica amber murray
well, sure. but the semantics break down when you speak of control. what i'm really doing is giving myself permission to indulge, not controlling myself from indulging.
i guess i have a level of broad consistency in my concept of "self-control" that goes into a lot of areas and that my perspective regarding drugs is more of a consequence of how i see things more broadly. consider governments and this idea that their laws dissuade anti-social behaviour, the idea that laws act as disincentives to control people's desires. this is an idea that is, i think, very wrong. sure, on the one hand, you have the logic of poverty that often triumphs over the laws of social order. circumstances where property crimes exist are often circumstances where it's logical for an impoverished person to steal something or otherwise break property laws. governments can produce laws to catch people when they do this, but the laws don't actually succeed in preventing property crime. they merely succeed in criminalizing poverty. rather, eliminating that sort of crime requires a lot of social work to both eliminate the conditions that lead to it as logical and to create a populace that sees it as morally wrong. once you get to that ideal point, preventing crime is less of a process of people controlling themselves from committing crimes and more of a process of people choosing not to behave in a way that is anti-social. that's the ideal.
the way we treat addiction is sort of a cop-out. i mean, i'm not denying that addicts need to admit their addictions. i agree that acknowledgement is the first step. but actually working through it is a process of transcending the desire, not repressing it.
i think it's possible to use drugs without abusing them.
with alcoholism (and for random readers, that's not something i feel i have a problem with), the way to get beyond it is not to have the "self-control" to avoid it but to develop a desire to be sober.
(and i think i'm being a little bit buddhist, but it's something i connect to accidentally and intuitively rather than consciously)
in a moral sense, i find buddhism more rational than western religion. in the west, we've fallen into a sort of false dichotomy between "master morality" and "slave morality". the irony is that the dude that developed that false dichotomy is also the dude that transferred a lot of eastern ideas into the western sphere. he completely missed the obvious synthesis that was sitting right in front of him.
you need to be careful studying buddhism in the west, though, because most of the literature is misinterpreted hippie nonsense. there's a danger of turning into a new age weirdo.
for example, avoid anything that tries to connect buddhism with science.
i kind of like the idea that "only lost people require religion". which is to say that walking into a church or a temple or a synagogue isn't likely to find you people that understand how to behave morally on an intuitive level, but people that are struggling with it. people that "get it" find the whole thing boring and trivial.
not to put myself above it or anything. not declaring myself perfect. but there's a lot of truth to it. and if one can separate the social help from the control and brainwashing [which is difficult, especially for people in fragile states], i'll accept it could have some value.
what i'd rather see, though, is a resurgence of secular social institutions that strip out the brainwashing. i think there's a really open space here for socialist thinkers to walk into and am not really sure why they haven't, given that it connects quite well to the idea that "the social revolution must come first".
....and, now, to attempt to have a few drinks without smoking any cigarettes. considering the temperature outside (along with my absolute aversion to indoor smoking), i think i'm likely to do well. we'll see.
regarding the smoking thing...
the packs have been almost entirely cut out. i've bought probably around ten packs, total, since the beginning of september. what i've been doing instead is falling back to these single cigars that can be picked up at the corner store for around $1 whenever i'm about to crack. it's a little more costly on the face of it, but it's a good shot of nicotine so it works for a while. one of the problems quitters will run into is that when they crack once they want another one almost right away; the cigars seem to mitigate that. more importantly, it has broken me of a lot of routines, like smoking after meals. to me, that's the harder part. i know nicotine is a physical addiction (meaning that coming off of it will produce physical effects, like drowsiness) but i don't really feel hooked on that level. it's more about breaking routine...
...and not drinking. i've always been a social drinker, so no people has meant no drinking. i mean, i spend most of my time reading, and i'd rather be sober for that. i prefer marijuana as a creative aid. what i'm about to do is uncharacteristic.
so, i can't claim i'm nicotine-free. but i *have* broken the routine, to the point where i can honestly state that i'm not a habitual smoker anymore.
which is all i really wanted to accomplish in the first place. i don't mind being a social smoker that specifically smokes around alcohol and marijuana. what i no longer wanted to be was a solo smoker. on that point, mission accomplished.
(meaning i'm not going to get too mad at myself if i buy a pack on christmas, just like i didn't get too mad when i bought a pack a few weeks ago when it was over 10 degrees, just as an excuse to hang out outside for the day. stuff like that is enjoying the drug, not being a slave to it.)
mom
Wow! That's Great!...Wish, I could have that much self-control!
jessica amber murray
i don't think it's a question of self-control so much as it's a question of doing what one wants. i kind of strongly believe that smokers smoke because they want to, not because they're zombies. the physical withdrawals are coercive, no doubt, but it comes down to wanting or not wanting to quit.
mom
Addiction Stinks!....And in the end it WILL TAKE CONTROL!.....DENIAL is an addicts BEST FRIEND.
jessica amber murray
well, sure. but the semantics break down when you speak of control. what i'm really doing is giving myself permission to indulge, not controlling myself from indulging.
i guess i have a level of broad consistency in my concept of "self-control" that goes into a lot of areas and that my perspective regarding drugs is more of a consequence of how i see things more broadly. consider governments and this idea that their laws dissuade anti-social behaviour, the idea that laws act as disincentives to control people's desires. this is an idea that is, i think, very wrong. sure, on the one hand, you have the logic of poverty that often triumphs over the laws of social order. circumstances where property crimes exist are often circumstances where it's logical for an impoverished person to steal something or otherwise break property laws. governments can produce laws to catch people when they do this, but the laws don't actually succeed in preventing property crime. they merely succeed in criminalizing poverty. rather, eliminating that sort of crime requires a lot of social work to both eliminate the conditions that lead to it as logical and to create a populace that sees it as morally wrong. once you get to that ideal point, preventing crime is less of a process of people controlling themselves from committing crimes and more of a process of people choosing not to behave in a way that is anti-social. that's the ideal.
the way we treat addiction is sort of a cop-out. i mean, i'm not denying that addicts need to admit their addictions. i agree that acknowledgement is the first step. but actually working through it is a process of transcending the desire, not repressing it.
i think it's possible to use drugs without abusing them.
with alcoholism (and for random readers, that's not something i feel i have a problem with), the way to get beyond it is not to have the "self-control" to avoid it but to develop a desire to be sober.
(and i think i'm being a little bit buddhist, but it's something i connect to accidentally and intuitively rather than consciously)
in a moral sense, i find buddhism more rational than western religion. in the west, we've fallen into a sort of false dichotomy between "master morality" and "slave morality". the irony is that the dude that developed that false dichotomy is also the dude that transferred a lot of eastern ideas into the western sphere. he completely missed the obvious synthesis that was sitting right in front of him.
you need to be careful studying buddhism in the west, though, because most of the literature is misinterpreted hippie nonsense. there's a danger of turning into a new age weirdo.
for example, avoid anything that tries to connect buddhism with science.
i kind of like the idea that "only lost people require religion". which is to say that walking into a church or a temple or a synagogue isn't likely to find you people that understand how to behave morally on an intuitive level, but people that are struggling with it. people that "get it" find the whole thing boring and trivial.
not to put myself above it or anything. not declaring myself perfect. but there's a lot of truth to it. and if one can separate the social help from the control and brainwashing [which is difficult, especially for people in fragile states], i'll accept it could have some value.
what i'd rather see, though, is a resurgence of secular social institutions that strip out the brainwashing. i think there's a really open space here for socialist thinkers to walk into and am not really sure why they haven't, given that it connects quite well to the idea that "the social revolution must come first".
Monday, December 23, 2013
roach situation
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: the initial landlord
hi.
i just want to say things are going well here. and merry christmas.
there's actually not what i'd call a "roach problem" in the unit itself. i've seen a few here and there, exclusively where there are cracks in the wall. that is to say that i don't think there are roaches in the unit, but it is certainly the case that sometimes roaches wander into the unit from elsewhere in the building. i saw one the other day near the dead heater in the kitchen, and hadn't seen one before that since about october - when i had seen a few near the hole for the pipe in the closet. when i covered up the pipe, they went away. so, i've filled the cracks around the dead heater up with a pile of old hole-ridden socks i had hanging around for rags and expect that will keep them out of there. it seemed like the roach i saw in the kitchen was actually looking for water, not food. it was attracted to the sink. i'm very careful to ensure all the food in the unit is in the fridge - even like bread and stuff.
i do, however, feel a responsibility to point out that there are roaches in the building. my perspective regarding that is that there are bugs everywhere; i'm content to simply patch up holes when i see them and keep them out that way. but, as a tenant, i think i have a responsibility to inform you that they do seem to have a nest in the building somewhere.
j
To: the initial landlord
hi.
i just want to say things are going well here. and merry christmas.
there's actually not what i'd call a "roach problem" in the unit itself. i've seen a few here and there, exclusively where there are cracks in the wall. that is to say that i don't think there are roaches in the unit, but it is certainly the case that sometimes roaches wander into the unit from elsewhere in the building. i saw one the other day near the dead heater in the kitchen, and hadn't seen one before that since about october - when i had seen a few near the hole for the pipe in the closet. when i covered up the pipe, they went away. so, i've filled the cracks around the dead heater up with a pile of old hole-ridden socks i had hanging around for rags and expect that will keep them out of there. it seemed like the roach i saw in the kitchen was actually looking for water, not food. it was attracted to the sink. i'm very careful to ensure all the food in the unit is in the fridge - even like bread and stuff.
i do, however, feel a responsibility to point out that there are roaches in the building. my perspective regarding that is that there are bugs everywhere; i'm content to simply patch up holes when i see them and keep them out that way. but, as a tenant, i think i have a responsibility to inform you that they do seem to have a nest in the building somewhere.
j
Sunday, December 22, 2013
i just clued in that the distance one lives from their timezone split can have a huge difference on the way the sun is experienced. i suppose that this is obvious, but i never realized it before.
the sun wasn't up until almost 8:00 today. sure, it's the shortest day of the year, but that's still pushing it. it wasn't up until around 8:00 before they turned the clocks back, too. in ottawa, the sun is never much later than 7:30. most confusing to me was that i'm comfortable in the knowledge that windsor is south of ottawa, meaning it's closer to the equator, meaning i would think it should be a few seconds (maybe a minute or two) *earlier*, not apparently a half hour later. it seemed late in the fall, too. i'm used to the sun being up before 7:00 most of the year, and it really wasn't. so, what, precisely, is the fuck?
well, it's pretty obvious if you look at the map. it's not that the sunrise is later here, it's that synchronizing clocks across timezones is something that sort of doesn't actually make sense. here's where it gets weird, and we're moving from east to west across the eastern time-zone here, within a relatively small latitude change:
boston - 7:11
nyc - 7:17
montreal - 7:32
ottawa - 7:40
toronto - 7:48
detroit - 7:59
indianapolis - 8:03
then...
chicago - 7:15
right. time zone shift.
as is now obvious, it's the move east-west that makes the difference. humans may possibly exist at infinitely many points within each time zone, producing a different experience of the sun in each that varies by as much as an hour on the edges. the difference between living in detroit and living in chicago could be dramatic for some people. what i've done is move a half hour within the zone, and it's produced noticeable effects.
there's a benefit, though, if you're the type that is inclined that way, especially in the summer:
sunset in ottawa today - 4:23
sunset in windsor today - 5:03
so, the thing to adjust to is the sun coming up a half hour later and setting a half hour later.
mom
i was wondering why the sun wasn't coming up when we drove in.
jessica amber murray
well, it was freaking you out. i just thought it was cloudy. it wasn't until around october that i realized something wasn't right.
mom
the summer days were always a lot longer in prince rupert, so i thought the days got longer when you moved north and shorter as you get closer to the equator. so, shouldn't the days in windsor be shorter?
jessica amber murray
that's a big latitude difference, though. almost 10 degrees. and the shift isn't linear - it changes faster as you move further north. so, you'd expect to notice a measurable change with longer days in the summer and shorter days in the winter. ottawa to windsor is only 3 degrees. i mean, i'm sure you could measure it down to a few minutes, but it couldn't really be that noticeable.
actually, sunrise in binghampton, new york was about 11 minutes earlier than sunrise in ottawa, today. so that's the straight comparison, north-south. at the solstice.
really, the longitude thing is totally obvious when you think about it. of course the sun does rise later over windsor than over ottawa if measured from outer space (my language up there was a bit weird). i'm just a half hour further away from the earth coming out of darkness. the thing is we tend to expect that time zones work that kind of shit out and don't think about the changes that exist when moving across the same time zone.
also, the fact that we were moving west overnight might have exaggerated the effect. we got to experience the earlier sunset in ottawa, then the later sunrise on the way into windsor.
something i've learned though is that if you like an early sunset (and i'm often up all night, and do like to watch the sun rise) then you want to be on the easternmost edge of your timezone. relative to your clock, the sun rises earlier in chicago than in detroit (although it of course passes over detroit first). somewhere like the gaspe peninsula would be perfect for those that like early sunrises..
the sun wasn't up until almost 8:00 today. sure, it's the shortest day of the year, but that's still pushing it. it wasn't up until around 8:00 before they turned the clocks back, too. in ottawa, the sun is never much later than 7:30. most confusing to me was that i'm comfortable in the knowledge that windsor is south of ottawa, meaning it's closer to the equator, meaning i would think it should be a few seconds (maybe a minute or two) *earlier*, not apparently a half hour later. it seemed late in the fall, too. i'm used to the sun being up before 7:00 most of the year, and it really wasn't. so, what, precisely, is the fuck?
well, it's pretty obvious if you look at the map. it's not that the sunrise is later here, it's that synchronizing clocks across timezones is something that sort of doesn't actually make sense. here's where it gets weird, and we're moving from east to west across the eastern time-zone here, within a relatively small latitude change:
boston - 7:11
nyc - 7:17
montreal - 7:32
ottawa - 7:40
toronto - 7:48
detroit - 7:59
indianapolis - 8:03
then...
chicago - 7:15
right. time zone shift.
as is now obvious, it's the move east-west that makes the difference. humans may possibly exist at infinitely many points within each time zone, producing a different experience of the sun in each that varies by as much as an hour on the edges. the difference between living in detroit and living in chicago could be dramatic for some people. what i've done is move a half hour within the zone, and it's produced noticeable effects.
there's a benefit, though, if you're the type that is inclined that way, especially in the summer:
sunset in ottawa today - 4:23
sunset in windsor today - 5:03
so, the thing to adjust to is the sun coming up a half hour later and setting a half hour later.
mom
i was wondering why the sun wasn't coming up when we drove in.
jessica amber murray
well, it was freaking you out. i just thought it was cloudy. it wasn't until around october that i realized something wasn't right.
mom
the summer days were always a lot longer in prince rupert, so i thought the days got longer when you moved north and shorter as you get closer to the equator. so, shouldn't the days in windsor be shorter?
jessica amber murray
that's a big latitude difference, though. almost 10 degrees. and the shift isn't linear - it changes faster as you move further north. so, you'd expect to notice a measurable change with longer days in the summer and shorter days in the winter. ottawa to windsor is only 3 degrees. i mean, i'm sure you could measure it down to a few minutes, but it couldn't really be that noticeable.
actually, sunrise in binghampton, new york was about 11 minutes earlier than sunrise in ottawa, today. so that's the straight comparison, north-south. at the solstice.
really, the longitude thing is totally obvious when you think about it. of course the sun does rise later over windsor than over ottawa if measured from outer space (my language up there was a bit weird). i'm just a half hour further away from the earth coming out of darkness. the thing is we tend to expect that time zones work that kind of shit out and don't think about the changes that exist when moving across the same time zone.
also, the fact that we were moving west overnight might have exaggerated the effect. we got to experience the earlier sunset in ottawa, then the later sunrise on the way into windsor.
something i've learned though is that if you like an early sunset (and i'm often up all night, and do like to watch the sun rise) then you want to be on the easternmost edge of your timezone. relative to your clock, the sun rises earlier in chicago than in detroit (although it of course passes over detroit first). somewhere like the gaspe peninsula would be perfect for those that like early sunrises..
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
we need a stray cat cull. the idea that we can just continue to allow these vermin to breed out of control in our cities is not looking at the bigger picture and the kind of problems they're going to cause.
gawker, as usual, are being morons; this woman had every right to chase the cat (who was probably hanging around looking for food and/or trying to sneak in) away from her place.
it may seem unusual, but if you're shocked then what you need to realize is that that cat may be twenty or more generations removed from domestication. nor were they ever fully domesticated in the first place. this is just the beginning; they're going to get more and more aggressive. i'm just across the river. i can state clearly that the alley cats i've tried to interact with (including several around my place) are an entirely different species of animal. they have no interest in human affection. they run when you try and touch them - more like a squirrel would than like a house cat would. which means they're just another rodent, right? who cares? except that they're territorial, and don't understand or care that humans built all this stuff. they'll try and block your path home, under the perception that you're invading their territory. and, i have to admit i've felt stalked. that's the next step in their instincts reasserting themselves.
we can't just let them evolve back into dangerous wild animals in our urban core because we're too pussy (pun intended) to deal with them.
http://gawker.com/woman-learns-invaluable-lesson-about-not-picking-fights-1484881340
gawker, as usual, are being morons; this woman had every right to chase the cat (who was probably hanging around looking for food and/or trying to sneak in) away from her place.
it may seem unusual, but if you're shocked then what you need to realize is that that cat may be twenty or more generations removed from domestication. nor were they ever fully domesticated in the first place. this is just the beginning; they're going to get more and more aggressive. i'm just across the river. i can state clearly that the alley cats i've tried to interact with (including several around my place) are an entirely different species of animal. they have no interest in human affection. they run when you try and touch them - more like a squirrel would than like a house cat would. which means they're just another rodent, right? who cares? except that they're territorial, and don't understand or care that humans built all this stuff. they'll try and block your path home, under the perception that you're invading their territory. and, i have to admit i've felt stalked. that's the next step in their instincts reasserting themselves.
we can't just let them evolve back into dangerous wild animals in our urban core because we're too pussy (pun intended) to deal with them.
http://gawker.com/woman-learns-invaluable-lesson-about-not-picking-fights-1484881340
Friday, December 6, 2013
RE: Yes, All new homeowners can pick up their first recycling Red & Blue Boxes free at the Environmental Services Centre
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: city.windsor.on.ca
i picked some up at home hardware the other day....
thanks anyways.
j
To: city.windsor.on.ca
i picked some up at home hardware the other day....
thanks anyways.
j
Yes, All new homeowners can pick up their first recycling Red & Blue Boxes free at the Environmental Services Centre
From: the city of windsor
To: "death.to.koalas@gmail.com" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Hi Jessica.
I just wanted to let you know that you can come down to pick up your new boxes. We are located at 3540 North Service Road East (corner of EC Row & Central Ave.)
We are open from 8:00 am to 4:00pm. I will just have you write down your name and address and then you can collect your boxes.
Thanks,
Public Works / Environmental Services
To: "death.to.koalas@gmail.com" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Hi Jessica.
I just wanted to let you know that you can come down to pick up your new boxes. We are located at 3540 North Service Road East (corner of EC Row & Central Ave.)
We are open from 8:00 am to 4:00pm. I will just have you write down your name and address and then you can collect your boxes.
Thanks,
Public Works / Environmental Services
Thursday, December 5, 2013
so, i just watched a three hour mit food security symposium and what i learned is that, because meat consumption is correlated with wealth, the best way to promote the shift to vegetarianism is to promote policies that decrease total wealth.
they weren't even asking the right questions. so of course they didn't have any useful answers.
they danced around the climate change issue, but the closest thing to a straight answer i could pull out what was "we find that the greater uncertainty makes it difficult to make predictions, and consequently to plan".
it's fair on some level. but it's not encouraging.
what they're all more concerned about is malthus...
first, i should point out the sarcasm if it's not obvious. to them, the issue is trying to find a way to produce enough livestock to feed 8 billion people. the idea of not producing livestock seems to be outside of the ideas being contemplated.
but, malthus. he thought we'd all starve to death. a simple mathematical model.
it turned out he was wrong, but he was wrong for a specific reason: as quickly as population has risen, and it has risen quickly, technology has simply moved ahead faster: mechanization, refrigeration, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides...
that doesn't mean his model was wrong, it just means he didn't realize how useful oil would be.
of course, there's a cost.
but these guys get that. and now they have the blind faith that malthus was screaming at us all to avoid. technology has been elevated to this sort of religion, defined by some kind of creed of moore's law.
well, i'm willing to listen. skeptical. i mean, it has to burst at some point. tomatoes are finite.
infinite tomato.
anyways, what's your fancy technology that's going to beat the math this time? i'm waiting...
it's....
africa.
no, for real.
africa.
well, ok. africa is huge. makes sense on some level. that's math you have to do with a pen and a paper, not guess in your head - not due to computational complexity, but because the precision of the calculation is important. there is probably lots of arable land in africa, which is a really unfathomably big place. it just might work...
but, you're going to work in the effects of desertification, right?
*crickets*
you're going to make sure there's carbon offsetting from cutting down all those trees, right?
*crickets*
here, in the heart of the empire? we'll be the last to starve.
i'm going to retreat back to my previous suggestion of terraforming mars into a natural strawberryological cycle.
we could promote it by getting strawberry shortcake to do a rendition of "strawberry rain".
no cryptoracism.
"the red planet". wouldn't even create galactic chromopollution.
they weren't even asking the right questions. so of course they didn't have any useful answers.
they danced around the climate change issue, but the closest thing to a straight answer i could pull out what was "we find that the greater uncertainty makes it difficult to make predictions, and consequently to plan".
it's fair on some level. but it's not encouraging.
what they're all more concerned about is malthus...
first, i should point out the sarcasm if it's not obvious. to them, the issue is trying to find a way to produce enough livestock to feed 8 billion people. the idea of not producing livestock seems to be outside of the ideas being contemplated.
but, malthus. he thought we'd all starve to death. a simple mathematical model.
it turned out he was wrong, but he was wrong for a specific reason: as quickly as population has risen, and it has risen quickly, technology has simply moved ahead faster: mechanization, refrigeration, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides...
that doesn't mean his model was wrong, it just means he didn't realize how useful oil would be.
of course, there's a cost.
but these guys get that. and now they have the blind faith that malthus was screaming at us all to avoid. technology has been elevated to this sort of religion, defined by some kind of creed of moore's law.
well, i'm willing to listen. skeptical. i mean, it has to burst at some point. tomatoes are finite.
infinite tomato.
anyways, what's your fancy technology that's going to beat the math this time? i'm waiting...
it's....
africa.
no, for real.
africa.
well, ok. africa is huge. makes sense on some level. that's math you have to do with a pen and a paper, not guess in your head - not due to computational complexity, but because the precision of the calculation is important. there is probably lots of arable land in africa, which is a really unfathomably big place. it just might work...
but, you're going to work in the effects of desertification, right?
*crickets*
you're going to make sure there's carbon offsetting from cutting down all those trees, right?
*crickets*
here, in the heart of the empire? we'll be the last to starve.
i'm going to retreat back to my previous suggestion of terraforming mars into a natural strawberryological cycle.
we could promote it by getting strawberry shortcake to do a rendition of "strawberry rain".
no cryptoracism.
"the red planet". wouldn't even create galactic chromopollution.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
gorgeous day. took advantage of it by finally taking the hour long trek out to get a blue bin and a red bin. i wasn't expecting them to be so big (well, i could have grabbed tiny ones, but that seemed silly - no middle or 'normal' size was the weirdness). so i looked pretty odd hauling these two giant bins around for 5 km. not sure if the honks were sarcastic or in solidarity...
it was a nice walk, though. and it'll be nice to get these four month old juice cartons out of here.
and now i'm kinda sleepy. so i think i'll get back to deconstructing this so-called history of the norman invasions of italy as a bunch of mythical nonsense.
you got all these people trying to convince the world that their mythology is history. i'm more interested in convincing the world that history is mostly mythology.
it was a nice walk, though. and it'll be nice to get these four month old juice cartons out of here.
and now i'm kinda sleepy. so i think i'll get back to deconstructing this so-called history of the norman invasions of italy as a bunch of mythical nonsense.
you got all these people trying to convince the world that their mythology is history. i'm more interested in convincing the world that history is mostly mythology.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
"All new homeowners can pick up their first recycling Red and Blue Boxes free at the Environment Services Centre"
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: pubwork@city.windsor.on.ca
hi.
i'm just wondering how stringent they are about "home owner". i'm living in a rental unit that isn't currently recycling. can i pick up a blue and red box myself or do i need to convince my landlord to do it?
j
To: pubwork@city.windsor.on.ca
hi.
i'm just wondering how stringent they are about "home owner". i'm living in a rental unit that isn't currently recycling. can i pick up a blue and red box myself or do i need to convince my landlord to do it?
j
Sunday, December 1, 2013
it's always so hard to tell when bros yelling at each other are being serious or not. you've gotta give it three or four back-and-forths of "come here, bitch", "i'm over here, bitch", "you wanna fight, bitch?", etc before the volume either goes up or down enough to figure it out and, consequently, you know whether to shake your head at their misogynistic attempts to verbally jostle each other into a joking submission or get out of the way while they pointlessly harm each other for entirely trivial reasons.
silly bros.
silly bros.
Monday, November 18, 2013
so, i finish doing the dishes after making some scrambled eggs and i look down in the sink and see a little worm type of thing squiggling around.
i'm aware of the tremendous diversity that exists amongst worm species, which is why i'm curious to know what the fuck. the thing is that i've never seen this before, anywhere. harmless worm i should not be concerned about? parasite i should be extremely concerned about?
it was small, but far from tiny. about 2 or 3 cms long. definitely a worm - too thin to be a maggot. it did not change it's shape in response to stimuli (in this case a knife that was trying to kill it). nor was the knife successful in splicing it. it didn't seem to have a head, so i don't think it was a snake (and therefore a vertebrate that would be hard to chop in half). i didn't really want to let it stick around long enough to find out. i transported it to the toilet on the knife and flushed. it seemed to still be alive as it disappeared.
i spent a little time on google, and "sink worms" are actually a real thing, but they're generally described as black and extremely small. none of the pictures at all describe what i saw.
if i had to guess, it struck me as a parasite. but a parasite of what? the only thing in the sink was a green pepper that was washed and chopped, which is a process that makes it hard for parasites to come out undetected. i haven't brought any raw meat in here and probably never will.
has anybody else ever seen a feisty little worm in their sink?
i think i can safely deduce that whatever it was did not originate inside of me in any way. i didn't shit in the sink. honest.
nor did i cough in the sink. there's just no way...
...so, i'm slowly coming to the conclusion that it's not likely to have been parasitic. parasites have lots of different life cycles, but none of them land one hanging out in my sink.
i'd still like to *know* though.
bottom line is i think i should bleach my sink. can't see where else it may have come from. the green pepper thing is just...
i mean, you slice a pepper in half. you run it under the water and play with it in your hands. you take the seeds out. i surely would have seen something.
i suppose it's not impossible that i hallucinated it. i've been thinking about parasites recently. see post about smoking.
i'm trying to convince myself that it was the larval stage of a bug i see around, but i can't find anything that fits.
and i haven't seen any bugs around either, lately, for that matter. i think i kicked the roaches out by patching a few holes and leaving the lights on, and that chased the centipedes away. well, after they ate all the spiders, i guess.
i'm aware of the tremendous diversity that exists amongst worm species, which is why i'm curious to know what the fuck. the thing is that i've never seen this before, anywhere. harmless worm i should not be concerned about? parasite i should be extremely concerned about?
it was small, but far from tiny. about 2 or 3 cms long. definitely a worm - too thin to be a maggot. it did not change it's shape in response to stimuli (in this case a knife that was trying to kill it). nor was the knife successful in splicing it. it didn't seem to have a head, so i don't think it was a snake (and therefore a vertebrate that would be hard to chop in half). i didn't really want to let it stick around long enough to find out. i transported it to the toilet on the knife and flushed. it seemed to still be alive as it disappeared.
i spent a little time on google, and "sink worms" are actually a real thing, but they're generally described as black and extremely small. none of the pictures at all describe what i saw.
if i had to guess, it struck me as a parasite. but a parasite of what? the only thing in the sink was a green pepper that was washed and chopped, which is a process that makes it hard for parasites to come out undetected. i haven't brought any raw meat in here and probably never will.
has anybody else ever seen a feisty little worm in their sink?
i think i can safely deduce that whatever it was did not originate inside of me in any way. i didn't shit in the sink. honest.
nor did i cough in the sink. there's just no way...
...so, i'm slowly coming to the conclusion that it's not likely to have been parasitic. parasites have lots of different life cycles, but none of them land one hanging out in my sink.
i'd still like to *know* though.
bottom line is i think i should bleach my sink. can't see where else it may have come from. the green pepper thing is just...
i mean, you slice a pepper in half. you run it under the water and play with it in your hands. you take the seeds out. i surely would have seen something.
i suppose it's not impossible that i hallucinated it. i've been thinking about parasites recently. see post about smoking.
i'm trying to convince myself that it was the larval stage of a bug i see around, but i can't find anything that fits.
and i haven't seen any bugs around either, lately, for that matter. i think i kicked the roaches out by patching a few holes and leaving the lights on, and that chased the centipedes away. well, after they ate all the spiders, i guess.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
this is a little clearer. he found a correlation and speciously attributed it to cfc reduction.
....which makes zero sense.
usually, the argument is presented as follows:
- increases in greenhouse gasses have contributed to warming
- increases in aerosols have counter-acted that warming
- the net effect is that the greenhouse gases have had a stronger effect.
you'll hear skeptics talk about how "they used to think it was cooling". well, yeah. they thought the effect of aerosols was stronger. then they learned otherwise.
now, aerosols are a warming factor? again, no. there's merely a correlation between aerosol reduction and decreased warming, and a lot of people jumping to ridiculous conclusions.
again: why isn't anybody studying the effects of warfare on the climate? wait: government funds almost all research. right. of course.
http://www.nature.com/news/ozone-hole-treaty-slowed-global-warming-1.14134?WT.mc_id=GPL_NatureNews
....which makes zero sense.
usually, the argument is presented as follows:
- increases in greenhouse gasses have contributed to warming
- increases in aerosols have counter-acted that warming
- the net effect is that the greenhouse gases have had a stronger effect.
you'll hear skeptics talk about how "they used to think it was cooling". well, yeah. they thought the effect of aerosols was stronger. then they learned otherwise.
now, aerosols are a warming factor? again, no. there's merely a correlation between aerosol reduction and decreased warming, and a lot of people jumping to ridiculous conclusions.
again: why isn't anybody studying the effects of warfare on the climate? wait: government funds almost all research. right. of course.
http://www.nature.com/news/ozone-hole-treaty-slowed-global-warming-1.14134?WT.mc_id=GPL_NatureNews
this is incoherent. aerosols are generally thought to produce a cooling effect. the article only makes sense if it's talking about soot, but it clearly isn't. a decrease in aerosols should lead to an increase in global temperatures.
i have a theory that the pause is related to the increase in warfare that's happened since 2001.
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-ozone-pact-cool-planet.html
(very mild nuclear winter, basically)
they were using extremely powerful conventional bombs in iraq, and they've been blowing up mountains in afghanistan. it's hard to think this has not had an effect on the atmosphere.
i have a theory that the pause is related to the increase in warfare that's happened since 2001.
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-ozone-pact-cool-planet.html
(very mild nuclear winter, basically)
they were using extremely powerful conventional bombs in iraq, and they've been blowing up mountains in afghanistan. it's hard to think this has not had an effect on the atmosphere.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
they're doing their best to come up with rational explanations, but i think they need to take a step back and determine if some of these "comet tails" might be something else entirely.
they may have caught something intelligent.
http://www.nature.com/news/hubble-space-telescope-spots-unprecedented-asteroid-with-six-tails-1.14133
"what's happened is that a weather balloon has gotten lost in the asteroid belt, and caused an exotic refraction event where one tail appears as six"
no, honestly. i think the probability of historical extra-terrestrial contact is many times higher than the probability of god. so, before you write the idea off as nuts, carefully ask yourself which is more likely.
in fact, i'm not the first person to point out that the bible actually makes perfect sense if you interpret the judaic religions as ufo cults. all those seemingly whacked stories about beings in the clouds are brought out of the level of fantasy into the level of allegory.
that's nothing approaching empirical evidence, mind you. but it's an interesting way to interpret religion. and i have to admit believing that there's something to the idea.
the biggest problem from a physics perspective, i think, is simply that it's hard for humans to understand space travel relative to our relatively short lifespans. yet, if we could live for five or six thousand years, that limitation would dissolve. a distance of 100 light years would be nothing.
i don't see any good reason to think that a hypothetical alien species couldn't live that long.
it does put a limit on ourselves, though. things like tachyon space ships are probably impossible. there's probably not warps in space time to take advantage of. if there are creatures floating around through space, it's more likely that they're very long lived than that they've found some ingenious way to "break physics". and that means we're probably more or less out of luck.
well, i guess we could freeze ourselves or something, but that's still a gigantic limitation.
imagine, though. like, 10,000 years is more than the length of human civilization up to now. the entire rise and fall of human civilization could be something that an intelligent extra-terrestrial creature could experience in one life time.
"wow. the last time i was here, you creatures were obsessed with building pyramids. what happened to the nose on that one?"
trees can live for thousands of years. whales and turtles live for hundreds. it's not out of the realm of plausibility.
i mean, how long did dinosaurs live for?
(answer: can't really tell from bones.)
no david icke, please.
jellyfish are thought to be potentially immortal.
but, yeah. wouldn't the asteroid belt be a natural place to find mining craft?
jeff
As with the lobster, they grow until eaten. As for the Bible it is highly possible to be speaking of aliens although no evidence, it is still a believe in my books. As far as space travel, age is slowed and with understanding of physics and anti gravity etc there life span could be highly lengthened to travel the distances required. Not to mention the idea of worm holes or Muti~ dimension travel. I could go on but hate typing so..
jessica amber murray
lobsters will keep growing until they die, but they aren't actually immortal. they will die of old age. with jellyfish, they could in theory just never die - although they do, of course, die due to various other reasons.
what i'm talking about specifically are a number of stories in the bible where alien contact could be presented as a rational/scientific explanation to something that otherwise seems like utter fiction, like the story about a chariot of fire coming down from the sky to take elijah to heaven, for example. there's a ton of stories like that in the bible, and as many (if not more) in east indian, native american, egyptian and other religious sources that seem to quite literally be describing extra-terrestrial contact. the standard rationalist/skeptic approach to these stories is currently to just write them off as nonsense. i'm not entirely comfortable with that level of dismissal. the stories must mean something. salvaging them as weakly remembered contact encounters is one way to give them a rational meaning.
if you take the idea as a possibility, it's easy to construct a narrative of these primitive ape-like creatures (us) running around through the forest collecting berries and coming into contact with these incredible spaceships. got the mental image? good. the next step is interaction with these far more advanced beings, and the inevitability of humans interpreting them as gods. there's even a historical comparison: a number of native american tribes (not all) interpreted the spanish as gods because they had far more advanced weapons and far more advanced ships. it's hard to think how hunter-gathering humans would interpret galaxy-jumping aliens, except as gods. and, so, religion is born from a naturalistic and rather biological explanation.
what it is is a hypothesis, and all hypotheses require some sort of faith in their incubation stages. by definition, really. science doesn't reject faith, so much as it demands that faith be erected upon evidence and subject to modification as the evidence changes. not "i believe, because.", but "i believe because...".
i think what you're trying to say about time-dilation is that close to light speed travel would necessarily require that a much longer period of time transpires on their home planet, but, as mentioned, that's an issue that would decrease in meaningfulness if the hypothetical aliens have very long lifespans. from the perspective of somebody in the spaceship, time outside their frame of reference would actually be dramatically sped up. the point i was trying to make is that if there are aliens zooming around then they would have to be creatures that live very long lives.
worm holes and hyper-dimensional travel likely exist only in the world of science fiction. alas...
jeff
Agreed, Indian culture is by far the most understanding when talking about alien culture even Indian (Hindu) kids understand the possibility to the point where it's a normal event. I wish I had more patient to type all I want to say but... Again the Bible I my mind is clearly a lack of understanding of what they are witnessing and trying to describe. The reason the Bible stands out is before writings everything was by word of mouth, when writing came about the most important of things and issues where scripted. If these things were true or just for sake of the church is another story all together. As far as hyper~dimensional travel not existing may be cause it can't or we don't understand it/how. Example.. Earth is flat till we found out it wasn't. Bad example maybe?. Going back to how long aliens life spans are to achieve long distances, I would like to think that they require the same fundamental things as us(food source and water). The fact that the greys etc.. Have same features( eyes,mouth,nose) leads me to conclude that there organs are similar as we'll(maybe no appendix etc). Which makes them of the same evolution timetable. If from same timetable but clearly more advanced then that species is in the same galaxy or closer. And clearly more older of a species(duh)lol. I wonder why you never see baby aliens is it because by the time they travel to there destination they have aged? Just kidding lol! What I'm saying is that species is clearly and older species but the life span can't be longer than 150 because of the same make of looks(nose,mouth,eyes) which means that the organs can only function so long or their tech. has allowed for a longer life span. None of what I wrote is backed by fact so take it with grain of salt. Just alot of wasted time on documentaries etc.
jessica amber murray
ah, but tortoises have similar features and yet are thought to have maximum lifespans approaching 300 years. whales can live at least more than 200 years - and they're even mammals! conversely, frogs and pigs and dogs and cats have similar features and much lower lifespans. i'm not convinced that what would be convergent evolution to similar phenotypic expression has much to say regarding average lifespan.
the popular representation of aliens is based on a combination of leprechaun folklore and a description by science fiction writer hg wells. it's not really something i'm taking overly seriously. i'm not even convinced that they're carbon based, really.
i will say, though, that aliens are often presented as short and wrinkled, which does suggest an advanced age. take et, for example.
in order for hyper-dimensional travel to exist, we first must demonstrate that we exist in a universe with more than 3 spatial dimensions. a wormhole is essentially travel through the 4th dimension. it's an exotic idea that exists in some mathematical models, but is not necessitated by them; we can mathematically show that wormholes *might* be possible, but we have no reason (at this point) to think that they *ought* to exist. black holes definitely exist, but we don't know what happens when we go through them (and think it's unlikely that anybody gets spat out alive on the other side). the flat earth metaphor is consequently indeed a sort of bad one. the better extrapolation of the spherical earth to the universe lies in analyzing it's shape. the universe might be shaped sort of like a donut. it might be possible to set off in one direction and end up back at the earth again. we don't really know yet, though. the quality being discussed there is curvature: curvature of the earth, of the universe. with dimensions, the more standard analogy to use is an ant. pretend ants can't climb up walls, that they can only move on the ground. they'd only understand two-dimensions. no understanding of the up/down axis. as far as they know, it doesn't exist. yet, it does. is there a fourth spacial dimension that we likewise have no understanding of? if there is, are we any more able to understand it than an ant is able to understand up/down? the standard, mainstream position in physics right now is that there is no evidence of extra spacial dimensions, and that building evidence is probably impossible. also, the way that extra dimensions are used in certain extensions to quantum mechanics (such as string theory, also a mathematical contrivance with zero experimental reasoning) is not at all the same thing, conceptually. bluntly: hyper-dimensional travel is unlikely because extra spacial dimensions are unlikely.
surreal fact: a lot of the old testament is newer than the new testament. and the oral sources were not exclusively from the middle east. the iranian religion of zoroastrianism seems to have been a dominant influence. regardless, those ideas have their own histories, and i do think there's something to this idea.
they may have caught something intelligent.
http://www.nature.com/news/hubble-space-telescope-spots-unprecedented-asteroid-with-six-tails-1.14133
"what's happened is that a weather balloon has gotten lost in the asteroid belt, and caused an exotic refraction event where one tail appears as six"
no, honestly. i think the probability of historical extra-terrestrial contact is many times higher than the probability of god. so, before you write the idea off as nuts, carefully ask yourself which is more likely.
in fact, i'm not the first person to point out that the bible actually makes perfect sense if you interpret the judaic religions as ufo cults. all those seemingly whacked stories about beings in the clouds are brought out of the level of fantasy into the level of allegory.
that's nothing approaching empirical evidence, mind you. but it's an interesting way to interpret religion. and i have to admit believing that there's something to the idea.
the biggest problem from a physics perspective, i think, is simply that it's hard for humans to understand space travel relative to our relatively short lifespans. yet, if we could live for five or six thousand years, that limitation would dissolve. a distance of 100 light years would be nothing.
i don't see any good reason to think that a hypothetical alien species couldn't live that long.
it does put a limit on ourselves, though. things like tachyon space ships are probably impossible. there's probably not warps in space time to take advantage of. if there are creatures floating around through space, it's more likely that they're very long lived than that they've found some ingenious way to "break physics". and that means we're probably more or less out of luck.
well, i guess we could freeze ourselves or something, but that's still a gigantic limitation.
imagine, though. like, 10,000 years is more than the length of human civilization up to now. the entire rise and fall of human civilization could be something that an intelligent extra-terrestrial creature could experience in one life time.
"wow. the last time i was here, you creatures were obsessed with building pyramids. what happened to the nose on that one?"
trees can live for thousands of years. whales and turtles live for hundreds. it's not out of the realm of plausibility.
i mean, how long did dinosaurs live for?
(answer: can't really tell from bones.)
no david icke, please.
jellyfish are thought to be potentially immortal.
but, yeah. wouldn't the asteroid belt be a natural place to find mining craft?
jeff
As with the lobster, they grow until eaten. As for the Bible it is highly possible to be speaking of aliens although no evidence, it is still a believe in my books. As far as space travel, age is slowed and with understanding of physics and anti gravity etc there life span could be highly lengthened to travel the distances required. Not to mention the idea of worm holes or Muti~ dimension travel. I could go on but hate typing so..
jessica amber murray
lobsters will keep growing until they die, but they aren't actually immortal. they will die of old age. with jellyfish, they could in theory just never die - although they do, of course, die due to various other reasons.
what i'm talking about specifically are a number of stories in the bible where alien contact could be presented as a rational/scientific explanation to something that otherwise seems like utter fiction, like the story about a chariot of fire coming down from the sky to take elijah to heaven, for example. there's a ton of stories like that in the bible, and as many (if not more) in east indian, native american, egyptian and other religious sources that seem to quite literally be describing extra-terrestrial contact. the standard rationalist/skeptic approach to these stories is currently to just write them off as nonsense. i'm not entirely comfortable with that level of dismissal. the stories must mean something. salvaging them as weakly remembered contact encounters is one way to give them a rational meaning.
if you take the idea as a possibility, it's easy to construct a narrative of these primitive ape-like creatures (us) running around through the forest collecting berries and coming into contact with these incredible spaceships. got the mental image? good. the next step is interaction with these far more advanced beings, and the inevitability of humans interpreting them as gods. there's even a historical comparison: a number of native american tribes (not all) interpreted the spanish as gods because they had far more advanced weapons and far more advanced ships. it's hard to think how hunter-gathering humans would interpret galaxy-jumping aliens, except as gods. and, so, religion is born from a naturalistic and rather biological explanation.
what it is is a hypothesis, and all hypotheses require some sort of faith in their incubation stages. by definition, really. science doesn't reject faith, so much as it demands that faith be erected upon evidence and subject to modification as the evidence changes. not "i believe, because.", but "i believe because...".
i think what you're trying to say about time-dilation is that close to light speed travel would necessarily require that a much longer period of time transpires on their home planet, but, as mentioned, that's an issue that would decrease in meaningfulness if the hypothetical aliens have very long lifespans. from the perspective of somebody in the spaceship, time outside their frame of reference would actually be dramatically sped up. the point i was trying to make is that if there are aliens zooming around then they would have to be creatures that live very long lives.
worm holes and hyper-dimensional travel likely exist only in the world of science fiction. alas...
jeff
Agreed, Indian culture is by far the most understanding when talking about alien culture even Indian (Hindu) kids understand the possibility to the point where it's a normal event. I wish I had more patient to type all I want to say but... Again the Bible I my mind is clearly a lack of understanding of what they are witnessing and trying to describe. The reason the Bible stands out is before writings everything was by word of mouth, when writing came about the most important of things and issues where scripted. If these things were true or just for sake of the church is another story all together. As far as hyper~dimensional travel not existing may be cause it can't or we don't understand it/how. Example.. Earth is flat till we found out it wasn't. Bad example maybe?. Going back to how long aliens life spans are to achieve long distances, I would like to think that they require the same fundamental things as us(food source and water). The fact that the greys etc.. Have same features( eyes,mouth,nose) leads me to conclude that there organs are similar as we'll(maybe no appendix etc). Which makes them of the same evolution timetable. If from same timetable but clearly more advanced then that species is in the same galaxy or closer. And clearly more older of a species(duh)lol. I wonder why you never see baby aliens is it because by the time they travel to there destination they have aged? Just kidding lol! What I'm saying is that species is clearly and older species but the life span can't be longer than 150 because of the same make of looks(nose,mouth,eyes) which means that the organs can only function so long or their tech. has allowed for a longer life span. None of what I wrote is backed by fact so take it with grain of salt. Just alot of wasted time on documentaries etc.
jessica amber murray
ah, but tortoises have similar features and yet are thought to have maximum lifespans approaching 300 years. whales can live at least more than 200 years - and they're even mammals! conversely, frogs and pigs and dogs and cats have similar features and much lower lifespans. i'm not convinced that what would be convergent evolution to similar phenotypic expression has much to say regarding average lifespan.
the popular representation of aliens is based on a combination of leprechaun folklore and a description by science fiction writer hg wells. it's not really something i'm taking overly seriously. i'm not even convinced that they're carbon based, really.
i will say, though, that aliens are often presented as short and wrinkled, which does suggest an advanced age. take et, for example.
in order for hyper-dimensional travel to exist, we first must demonstrate that we exist in a universe with more than 3 spatial dimensions. a wormhole is essentially travel through the 4th dimension. it's an exotic idea that exists in some mathematical models, but is not necessitated by them; we can mathematically show that wormholes *might* be possible, but we have no reason (at this point) to think that they *ought* to exist. black holes definitely exist, but we don't know what happens when we go through them (and think it's unlikely that anybody gets spat out alive on the other side). the flat earth metaphor is consequently indeed a sort of bad one. the better extrapolation of the spherical earth to the universe lies in analyzing it's shape. the universe might be shaped sort of like a donut. it might be possible to set off in one direction and end up back at the earth again. we don't really know yet, though. the quality being discussed there is curvature: curvature of the earth, of the universe. with dimensions, the more standard analogy to use is an ant. pretend ants can't climb up walls, that they can only move on the ground. they'd only understand two-dimensions. no understanding of the up/down axis. as far as they know, it doesn't exist. yet, it does. is there a fourth spacial dimension that we likewise have no understanding of? if there is, are we any more able to understand it than an ant is able to understand up/down? the standard, mainstream position in physics right now is that there is no evidence of extra spacial dimensions, and that building evidence is probably impossible. also, the way that extra dimensions are used in certain extensions to quantum mechanics (such as string theory, also a mathematical contrivance with zero experimental reasoning) is not at all the same thing, conceptually. bluntly: hyper-dimensional travel is unlikely because extra spacial dimensions are unlikely.
surreal fact: a lot of the old testament is newer than the new testament. and the oral sources were not exclusively from the middle east. the iranian religion of zoroastrianism seems to have been a dominant influence. regardless, those ideas have their own histories, and i do think there's something to this idea.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
i was actually wondering, on a whim, if being a habitual smoker could lower the risk of tapeworm and other parasitic infection. still wondering; it doesn't appear as though anybody's studied this. know a kid studying biology? there's an iconoclastic research topic for them...
this is neat though, and contributes to the "you didn't think all these life forms around us were going to just give up and quit evolving, did you?" anti-anthropocentric view i periodically post on.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/afr3/blogs/siowfa12/2012/12/one-of-the-few-benefits-of-smoking.html
to clarify: i was wondering if it might be a natural explanation for tobacco use. well, lots of animals do lots of things to get rid of parasites. maybe humans smoked tobacco for that reason. entirely rational.
yeah, i think i might be on to something. not nicotine, but ayahuasca:
"Its purgative properties are important (known as la purga or "the purge"). The intense vomiting and occasional diarrhea it induces can clear the body of worms and other tropical parasites,[28] and harmala alkaloids themselves have been shown to be anthelmintic[29] Thus, this action is twofold; a direct action on the parasites by these harmala alkaloids (particularly harmine in ayahuasca) works to kill the parasites, and parasites are expelled through the increased intestinal motility that is caused by these alkaloids."
this is neat though, and contributes to the "you didn't think all these life forms around us were going to just give up and quit evolving, did you?" anti-anthropocentric view i periodically post on.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/afr3/blogs/siowfa12/2012/12/one-of-the-few-benefits-of-smoking.html
to clarify: i was wondering if it might be a natural explanation for tobacco use. well, lots of animals do lots of things to get rid of parasites. maybe humans smoked tobacco for that reason. entirely rational.
yeah, i think i might be on to something. not nicotine, but ayahuasca:
"Its purgative properties are important (known as la purga or "the purge"). The intense vomiting and occasional diarrhea it induces can clear the body of worms and other tropical parasites,[28] and harmala alkaloids themselves have been shown to be anthelmintic[29] Thus, this action is twofold; a direct action on the parasites by these harmala alkaloids (particularly harmine in ayahuasca) works to kill the parasites, and parasites are expelled through the increased intestinal motility that is caused by these alkaloids."
Friday, November 8, 2013
Re: Fw: Neue Anfrage aus dem Sennheiser Kontaktcenter vom 2013-11-03 [##SVS-Web-SK]
From: sennheiser.ca
To: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Hi Jessica,
The required cable is available in our Montreal warehouse.
Part number: 069427
Cable steel 3m jack3.5/jack6.3
Cost: $ 36.19
Shipping: $ 9.00 plus applicable taxes.
Grand total: $ 51.06
Please send a cheque or a money order to:
Sennheiser (Canada) Inc.
221 ave. Labrosse
Pointe-Claire, QC
H9R 1A3
Please make the cheque or money order payable to:
Sennheiser (Canada) Inc.
Reference: Parts department.
Have a lovely weekend!
To: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Hi Jessica,
The required cable is available in our Montreal warehouse.
Part number: 069427
Cable steel 3m jack3.5/jack6.3
Cost: $ 36.19
Shipping: $ 9.00 plus applicable taxes.
Grand total: $ 51.06
Please send a cheque or a money order to:
Sennheiser (Canada) Inc.
221 ave. Labrosse
Pointe-Claire, QC
H9R 1A3
Please make the cheque or money order payable to:
Sennheiser (Canada) Inc.
Reference: Parts department.
Have a lovely weekend!
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Fw: Neue Anfrage aus dem Sennheiser Kontaktcenter vom 2013-11-03 [##SVS-Web-SK]
From: sennheiser.ca
To: s
Cc: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
S, would you be so kind as to render an assist here?
To: s
Cc: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
S, would you be so kind as to render an assist here?
Re: Fw: Neue Anfrage aus dem Sennheiser Kontaktcenter vom 2013-11-03 [##SVS-Web-SK]
From: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: sennheiser.ca
i'm really relieved by how easy it's going to be to fix these.
i have a credit at a music store in ottawa (steve's) that i'm going to try and cash in, but i'm not sure if it's enough to cover it. if that doesn't work, i'll want to order the part (the 069427) directly from you via check or money order. could you put me in contact with s for that? if she can send me the price, i guess i'll attach the check to the service form and send that in....?
jessica
To: sennheiser.ca
i'm really relieved by how easy it's going to be to fix these.
i have a credit at a music store in ottawa (steve's) that i'm going to try and cash in, but i'm not sure if it's enough to cover it. if that doesn't work, i'll want to order the part (the 069427) directly from you via check or money order. could you put me in contact with s for that? if she can send me the price, i guess i'll attach the check to the service form and send that in....?
jessica
Re: Fw: Neue Anfrage aus dem Sennheiser Kontaktcenter vom 2013-11-03 [##SVS-Web-SK]
From: sennheiser.ca
To: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
I'm sorry!
I missed this entire thread.
Let's see what you come up with, in terms of experimentation. We take cheques, so if you decide a parts order is for you, s. on the Parts Desk can give you bottom line. Same deal for repairs, it just lengthens the process somewhat.
We're not huge, so we've never set up a warranty depot chain. In fact, the only one we ever did set up, dropped us because he didn't get enough business! Considering that we have a fairly large product catalogue, I guess that's a good thing!
To: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
I'm sorry!
I missed this entire thread.
Let's see what you come up with, in terms of experimentation. We take cheques, so if you decide a parts order is for you, s. on the Parts Desk can give you bottom line. Same deal for repairs, it just lengthens the process somewhat.
We're not huge, so we've never set up a warranty depot chain. In fact, the only one we ever did set up, dropped us because he didn't get enough business! Considering that we have a fairly large product catalogue, I guess that's a good thing!
The HD 440 II was designed to be user serviceable. This is no longer true with our products, save for the really high end stuff. This is why I mentioned rehabilitation of the old, rather than buying new.
The cable will come out without destroying anything. Wiggle the boot while firmly pulling downward on it. It's been in there a long time, it'll be stubborn. Observe polarity! Letter faces out.
The cable is steel on your model. Big on strength, but tough to solder. If it's not completely trashed, you can put a new plug on. Your call on whether it's worth it.
This model was one of the first to come from the Tullamore factory. They make almost all of Sennheiser's European product nowadays. A few(Uber-expensive) models come from Germany, while the buds and streetwear are out of China.
If your problem is intermittent operation, you can reverse the cable and see if the problem switches sides. If it doesn't, the capsule is trashed, and there's nothing to be done about it. Those parts are long out of production. (One of our techs still uses a pair of these, just to underscore how durable they are)
069427 is the number of the cable, just FYI
if you're not following that, it's excellent news - i just need to replace the fully modular cord.
i remember seeing an audiophile shop down on.....ottawa street. be back in a few minutes, hopefully with good news.
The cable will come out without destroying anything. Wiggle the boot while firmly pulling downward on it. It's been in there a long time, it'll be stubborn. Observe polarity! Letter faces out.
The cable is steel on your model. Big on strength, but tough to solder. If it's not completely trashed, you can put a new plug on. Your call on whether it's worth it.
This model was one of the first to come from the Tullamore factory. They make almost all of Sennheiser's European product nowadays. A few(Uber-expensive) models come from Germany, while the buds and streetwear are out of China.
If your problem is intermittent operation, you can reverse the cable and see if the problem switches sides. If it doesn't, the capsule is trashed, and there's nothing to be done about it. Those parts are long out of production. (One of our techs still uses a pair of these, just to underscore how durable they are)
069427 is the number of the cable, just FYI
if you're not following that, it's excellent news - i just need to replace the fully modular cord.
i remember seeing an audiophile shop down on.....ottawa street. be back in a few minutes, hopefully with good news.
Re: Fw: Neue Anfrage aus dem Sennheiser Kontaktcenter vom 2013-11-03 [##SVS-Web-SK]
From: sennheiser.ca
To: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
The HD 440 II was designed to be user serviceable. This is no longer true with our products, save for the really high end stuff. This is why I mentioned rehabilitation of the old, rather than buying new.
The cable will come out without destroying anything. Wiggle the boot while firmly pulling downward on it. It's been in there a long time, it'll be stubborn. Observe polarity! Letter faces out.
The cable is steel on your model. Big on strength, but tough to solder. If it's not completely trashed, you can put a new plug on. Your call on whether it's worth it.
This model was one of the first to come from the Tullamore factory. They make almost all of Sennheiser's European product nowadays. A few(Uber-expensive) models come from Germany, while the buds and streetwear are out of China.
If your problem is intermittent operation, you can reverse the cable and see if the problem switches sides. If it doesn't, the capsule is trashed, and there's nothing to be done about it. Those parts are long out of production. (One of our techs still uses a pair of these, just to underscore how durable they are)
069427 is the number of the cable, just FYI.
To: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
The HD 440 II was designed to be user serviceable. This is no longer true with our products, save for the really high end stuff. This is why I mentioned rehabilitation of the old, rather than buying new.
The cable will come out without destroying anything. Wiggle the boot while firmly pulling downward on it. It's been in there a long time, it'll be stubborn. Observe polarity! Letter faces out.
The cable is steel on your model. Big on strength, but tough to solder. If it's not completely trashed, you can put a new plug on. Your call on whether it's worth it.
This model was one of the first to come from the Tullamore factory. They make almost all of Sennheiser's European product nowadays. A few(Uber-expensive) models come from Germany, while the buds and streetwear are out of China.
If your problem is intermittent operation, you can reverse the cable and see if the problem switches sides. If it doesn't, the capsule is trashed, and there's nothing to be done about it. Those parts are long out of production. (One of our techs still uses a pair of these, just to underscore how durable they are)
069427 is the number of the cable, just FYI.
Re: Fw: Neue Anfrage aus dem Sennheiser Kontaktcenter vom 2013-11-03 [##SVS-Web-SK]
From: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: sennheiser.ca
sorry, one more question.
i'm looking at replacement parts, and it almost looks like the cord clicks into place. well, here's a picture of a replacement part:
you can see what i mean. i'm getting the feeling that i can maybe pull the cord out and then snap a new one in. but i obviously don't want to determine if that's the case or not through experiment.
these are the 440-IIs. there's a big MADE IN IRELAND on the side if that makes a difference. could you determine for me (i understand you may have to forward me to a different department) if the cable is meant to snap in and out that way or if the plastic needs to be broken to recable?
i know it seems like it should be designed to disassemble, almost everything is nowadays, but this model is from the 80s...
jessica
To: sennheiser.ca
sorry, one more question.
i'm looking at replacement parts, and it almost looks like the cord clicks into place. well, here's a picture of a replacement part:
you can see what i mean. i'm getting the feeling that i can maybe pull the cord out and then snap a new one in. but i obviously don't want to determine if that's the case or not through experiment.
these are the 440-IIs. there's a big MADE IN IRELAND on the side if that makes a difference. could you determine for me (i understand you may have to forward me to a different department) if the cable is meant to snap in and out that way or if the plastic needs to be broken to recable?
i know it seems like it should be designed to disassemble, almost everything is nowadays, but this model is from the 80s...
jessica
Re: Fw: Neue Anfrage aus dem Sennheiser Kontaktcenter vom 2013-11-03 [##SVS-Web-SK]
From: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: sennheiser.ca
on second thought, i've taken a little closer look at the phones and it looks like the cord is connected to the phones as a single piece. of course, it must be soldered into place underneath the plastic, but it doesn't appear like there's a way to replace the cord without breaking the plastic apart and regluing it. there's no screws or anything. i kind of don't want to do that as a first attempt.
i think i can probably get the phones back in working condition by just replacing the plug, which is a quick soldering job that i can do myself.
if that doesn't work, i'll want to send them in to have the plastic taken apart and put back together - i'll recontact sennheiser if that turns out to be necessary.
thanks for your response,
jessica
To: sennheiser.ca
on second thought, i've taken a little closer look at the phones and it looks like the cord is connected to the phones as a single piece. of course, it must be soldered into place underneath the plastic, but it doesn't appear like there's a way to replace the cord without breaking the plastic apart and regluing it. there's no screws or anything. i kind of don't want to do that as a first attempt.
i think i can probably get the phones back in working condition by just replacing the plug, which is a quick soldering job that i can do myself.
if that doesn't work, i'll want to send them in to have the plastic taken apart and put back together - i'll recontact sennheiser if that turns out to be necessary.
thanks for your response,
jessica
actually, i think it's obvious that i should get something similar.
i've got a price estimate coming in from sennheiser but i expect it to be ridiculous.
so, i think what i should do is take the phones down to a store and see if i can find a similar cord. then see if i can find a soldering iron....
i should really probably have a soldering iron.
i've got a price estimate coming in from sennheiser but i expect it to be ridiculous.
so, i think what i should do is take the phones down to a store and see if i can find a similar cord. then see if i can find a soldering iron....
i should really probably have a soldering iron.
Re: Fw: Neue Anfrage aus dem Sennheiser Kontaktcenter vom 2013-11-03 [##SVS-Web-SK]
From: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: sennheiser.ca
yeah, they seem to have just shorted permanently, and i'd kind of feel better about letting sennheiser fix them then taking them to a random shop.
i found this order form:
http://www.sennheiser.ca/live/download/Sennheiser_Repair_order_form.pdf
....but i don't have a credit card and, despite my previous rhetoric, i do need to watch the price very carefully. they're obviously well past whatever warranty my dad bought in the early 90s. do you have any licensed repair centres in windsor, ontario i could just take them in to and pay out cash for? if not, i'm wondering if you could give me a quick price quote and let me send you a check.
the symptom is that one of the ears is deaf. there's two possible causes, and i'm not sure which one is dominant. one of the ears has been a little loose, solved by jiggling it a bit. also, the base seems to have a short in it, solved by rotating it. it's the second of these that i've been doing more often. either way, there's two shorts in the wire.
if i'm going to do this, i'd prefer to just replace the entire copper wire altogether, from the phones right down to the plug. i don't want to do it twice, kind of thing. how much do you think that would cost?
To: sennheiser.ca
yeah, they seem to have just shorted permanently, and i'd kind of feel better about letting sennheiser fix them then taking them to a random shop.
i found this order form:
http://www.sennheiser.ca/live/download/Sennheiser_Repair_order_form.pdf
....but i don't have a credit card and, despite my previous rhetoric, i do need to watch the price very carefully. they're obviously well past whatever warranty my dad bought in the early 90s. do you have any licensed repair centres in windsor, ontario i could just take them in to and pay out cash for? if not, i'm wondering if you could give me a quick price quote and let me send you a check.
the symptom is that one of the ears is deaf. there's two possible causes, and i'm not sure which one is dominant. one of the ears has been a little loose, solved by jiggling it a bit. also, the base seems to have a short in it, solved by rotating it. it's the second of these that i've been doing more often. either way, there's two shorts in the wire.
if i'm going to do this, i'd prefer to just replace the entire copper wire altogether, from the phones right down to the plug. i don't want to do it twice, kind of thing. how much do you think that would cost?
ok. they're not as bad as i thought - coming from a quality source, and with the noise reduction turned off. they're not replacements for the 440-II's, but given that i'm just running everything through the same filters *anyways* (same source...i'm doing it track-by-track but i haven't deviated from the base algorithm of custom izotope patch + nr), i think i can use them while i'm waiting for them to get fixed. so i shouldn't get slowed down at least.
i'll also say that they died on me once before and came back. i wonder if it's temperature related, even. i'm going to let them sit for a few days and see if they come back.
....and, now to wade through all kinds of audiophile nonsense trying to get a straight answer about how important the wiring is in the sound...
i'll also say that they died on me once before and came back. i wonder if it's temperature related, even. i'm going to let them sit for a few days and see if they come back.
....and, now to wade through all kinds of audiophile nonsense trying to get a straight answer about how important the wiring is in the sound...
i got a response back from sennheiser. they are indeed long out of production, and the response i got basically told me that if i want a similar sound, i'm fucked - they don't make anything remotely like this model anymore, so i'm better off trying to get them fixed than replacing them.
he also explained that if i end up getting new ones, i want to focus on open back models. after doing a little googling, i think he's right - and i think that the fact that most of the headphones i've tried have been closed back might be the biggest sound degradation issue i've been unable to get over. that muffed sound seems to be defined by this difference. but that's going to cost me probably close to $300.
it's imperative, though. i can't do anything without headphones.
the pair i got back in january are just not useful for recording. even at the time, i remember wishing that i would have got a gift certificate or something. they turned out to be ok for the laptop. but they run on a battery that turns on a "noise reduction". batteries in headphones isn't a good idea at all. but, that's secondary to all the processing at the headphone stage. i need headphones with zero processing - clean reproduction. those ones are made for people that want to listen to mp3s on their cell phone, not people that are recording or mastering things.
...and when you turn off the battery they're just glorified ear buds. i'm going to try them though....
he also explained that if i end up getting new ones, i want to focus on open back models. after doing a little googling, i think he's right - and i think that the fact that most of the headphones i've tried have been closed back might be the biggest sound degradation issue i've been unable to get over. that muffed sound seems to be defined by this difference. but that's going to cost me probably close to $300.
it's imperative, though. i can't do anything without headphones.
the pair i got back in january are just not useful for recording. even at the time, i remember wishing that i would have got a gift certificate or something. they turned out to be ok for the laptop. but they run on a battery that turns on a "noise reduction". batteries in headphones isn't a good idea at all. but, that's secondary to all the processing at the headphone stage. i need headphones with zero processing - clean reproduction. those ones are made for people that want to listen to mp3s on their cell phone, not people that are recording or mastering things.
...and when you turn off the battery they're just glorified ear buds. i'm going to try them though....
:(
seem to be gone, and it's an emergency. no headphones = no recording. or, for right now, no remastering. which basically means no reason to continue to exist.
i'm going to try and get them fixed, but if i can't then i may have to sell some gear to get new ones. having one pair of good headphones is more important than having two guitars.
hopefully, i can get them fixed, though. that means plans for a telephone and border clearance are going to have to be put on hold for another month, maybe two.
and that i'm going to have nothing to do but read for the next little bit. ugh.
i don't feel i'm at fault. i left them in a safe space, woke up, and caput.
there's two problems. one of the ear plugs is a little weak, but it hasn't been a problem lately. the larger problem has been at the base, which has been solved by spinning the jack around. it seems like it may be a contact problem inside the base, but i have to admit that i'm not intuitively grasping what may be wrong with it.
seem to be gone, and it's an emergency. no headphones = no recording. or, for right now, no remastering. which basically means no reason to continue to exist.
i'm going to try and get them fixed, but if i can't then i may have to sell some gear to get new ones. having one pair of good headphones is more important than having two guitars.
hopefully, i can get them fixed, though. that means plans for a telephone and border clearance are going to have to be put on hold for another month, maybe two.
and that i'm going to have nothing to do but read for the next little bit. ugh.
i don't feel i'm at fault. i left them in a safe space, woke up, and caput.
there's two problems. one of the ear plugs is a little weak, but it hasn't been a problem lately. the larger problem has been at the base, which has been solved by spinning the jack around. it seems like it may be a contact problem inside the base, but i have to admit that i'm not intuitively grasping what may be wrong with it.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
hrmmn. second thought, those voip phones are a lot. laptop it will be.
laptop is good for skype and shit, too.
so, again, can i convert a modem into a wall plug that connects through voip? seems exotic, but not impossible.
i know, headset, but there's something comforting about having something that actually rings.
laptop is good for skype and shit, too.
so, again, can i convert a modem into a wall plug that connects through voip? seems exotic, but not impossible.
i know, headset, but there's something comforting about having something that actually rings.
no google voice.
no skype-in.
why, thank you, bell-rogers corporatocracy!
currently? a little irritated.
there are potential workarounds, but they're annoying.
for now, this looks like a better idea than getting a sim card at the 7/11. 0.25 v 0.01 is a big difference, and the monthly cost for the number is less than 7/11 will charge for 9-11 access.
http://www.voip.ms/features.php
on average, that's going to cost me about $1.05/month. i put $20 down in credits, it'll last me well over a year.
google voice would be ideal, though - wouldn't even cost that - because i really just need a voicemail for people to leave messages (chances of answering the phone are zero). the site up there has the voicemail-to-email feature that converts voice messages to text messages, which i really really like....
i don't want that software on any pc i'd use for anything else, though. luckily, i have an old laptop i can convert into a dedicated, glorified phone.
last thing to check is if i can integrate this "normally" into an ip phone through software on the laptop.
no skype-in.
why, thank you, bell-rogers corporatocracy!
currently? a little irritated.
there are potential workarounds, but they're annoying.
for now, this looks like a better idea than getting a sim card at the 7/11. 0.25 v 0.01 is a big difference, and the monthly cost for the number is less than 7/11 will charge for 9-11 access.
http://www.voip.ms/features.php
on average, that's going to cost me about $1.05/month. i put $20 down in credits, it'll last me well over a year.
google voice would be ideal, though - wouldn't even cost that - because i really just need a voicemail for people to leave messages (chances of answering the phone are zero). the site up there has the voicemail-to-email feature that converts voice messages to text messages, which i really really like....
i don't want that software on any pc i'd use for anything else, though. luckily, i have an old laptop i can convert into a dedicated, glorified phone.
last thing to check is if i can integrate this "normally" into an ip phone through software on the laptop.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Fw: Neue Anfrage aus dem Sennheiser Kontaktcenter vom 2013-11-03 [##SVS-Web-SK]
From: sennheiser.ca
To: <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Thanks for writing.
Twenty years would be just about right.
There have been a number of successive generations to the 440 over the years, and if you're looking for an exact replacement, you'll be looking for a long time!
First: In that style range, there are no more supra-aural models. Doughnuts rule. The only supra-aural types are the more miniature 2** series. Pretty good headphones in their own right, but perhaps a bit petite for your requirements.
My recommendation, based on style, type and sound quality, not necessarily price or specs, would be HD 428 or HD 448. These are closed back models, as opposed to yours, but they acquit themselves well in overall sound. Wearing comfort and weight are about par.
If you need open style, you really have no choice but to move up to the 500 series. The 518 would make the most sense here. Quite a bit larger in style, these are considered *High End*.
All of this having been said,
Why not fix yours? You can get pads, you can get cables, you can't get capsules, but if they're still working, why ditch them? You know better than I do what shape they're in, but I'll put that out there.
(Interesting email address. Good thing I'm not a zoologist. My sister is, though.)
Kidding aside, need more info? Please let me know.
To: <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Thanks for writing.
Twenty years would be just about right.
There have been a number of successive generations to the 440 over the years, and if you're looking for an exact replacement, you'll be looking for a long time!
First: In that style range, there are no more supra-aural models. Doughnuts rule. The only supra-aural types are the more miniature 2** series. Pretty good headphones in their own right, but perhaps a bit petite for your requirements.
My recommendation, based on style, type and sound quality, not necessarily price or specs, would be HD 428 or HD 448. These are closed back models, as opposed to yours, but they acquit themselves well in overall sound. Wearing comfort and weight are about par.
If you need open style, you really have no choice but to move up to the 500 series. The 518 would make the most sense here. Quite a bit larger in style, these are considered *High End*.
All of this having been said,
Why not fix yours? You can get pads, you can get cables, you can't get capsules, but if they're still working, why ditch them? You know better than I do what shape they're in, but I'll put that out there.
(Interesting email address. Good thing I'm not a zoologist. My sister is, though.)
Kidding aside, need more info? Please let me know.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Sunday, November 3, 2013
i wish you could hear how good these phones sound, though....
....i just compared them to a newer model of sennheisers i got last year and they're just not on the same level...
when i put the 440-IIs back on, all i could think was "why did i ever take them off?".
it was like taking a pair of ear plugs out.
like switching from grey-scale to colour.
like walking out of the city and taking a breathe of fresh air...
like, the way they're able to separate the fuzz guitar in the middle section of mountains made of steam so that it's directly harmonic to the guitar part is...it's almost impossible, really....there's *no* blur....
and, then when the bow comes in, i can clearly hear the buzz on the fucking string. spectacular!
i'm wondering if the model name is a coincidence or a hint.
something about these sennheisers, though, is that they don't have those big muffy ear pieces - and that's an asset, as i find they muffle. all the new phones come with all this noise cancelling stuff that fucks with the signal. no. i want clear, crisp, perfect reproduction...
about five or six years ago, i picked up a pair with some funny digital processing in them that reduces more or less to a boost on the high and low; it was meant to compensate for mp3 compression, and it did give the sound a nice boost through an mp3 player. but, they were impossible for mastering. that's what i'm trying to avoid.
but the market has changed. back in the 80s and 90s, people bought high-end headphones to listen to record player and cd player signals through high end amps. so the focus was on reproducing the signal exactly. that's sort of rare nowadays; the market now is for mp3 players, laptops, djs...
...and because the sources suck, the phones companies have come up with all these digital tricks to try and make their product sound better. basic reproduction is a niche market, now.
....i just compared them to a newer model of sennheisers i got last year and they're just not on the same level...
when i put the 440-IIs back on, all i could think was "why did i ever take them off?".
it was like taking a pair of ear plugs out.
like switching from grey-scale to colour.
like walking out of the city and taking a breathe of fresh air...
like, the way they're able to separate the fuzz guitar in the middle section of mountains made of steam so that it's directly harmonic to the guitar part is...it's almost impossible, really....there's *no* blur....
and, then when the bow comes in, i can clearly hear the buzz on the fucking string. spectacular!
i'm wondering if the model name is a coincidence or a hint.
something about these sennheisers, though, is that they don't have those big muffy ear pieces - and that's an asset, as i find they muffle. all the new phones come with all this noise cancelling stuff that fucks with the signal. no. i want clear, crisp, perfect reproduction...
about five or six years ago, i picked up a pair with some funny digital processing in them that reduces more or less to a boost on the high and low; it was meant to compensate for mp3 compression, and it did give the sound a nice boost through an mp3 player. but, they were impossible for mastering. that's what i'm trying to avoid.
but the market has changed. back in the 80s and 90s, people bought high-end headphones to listen to record player and cd player signals through high end amps. so the focus was on reproducing the signal exactly. that's sort of rare nowadays; the market now is for mp3 players, laptops, djs...
...and because the sources suck, the phones companies have come up with all these digital tricks to try and make their product sound better. basic reproduction is a niche market, now.
sent to sennheiser support (via online form)
sent to sennheiser support:
hi.
i've had a pair of hd 440-II's for about twenty years now. that's two thirds of my life. these 440-II's have followed me everywhere - from bus rides to high school in the 90s with a cassette player right into recording studios for mastering processes. every piece of music i've ever connected to or created has been heard through these phones.
after 20 years, they're getting a little shorted, and i feel it's time to replace them.
i would like to replace them with another set of 440-IIs. otherwise, the world would just sound entirely different. better specs, worse specs - it wouldn't matter. my recordings would all sound wrong; my favourite records would become alien. my universe would just implode in on itself...
yet, they appear to be discontinued. i am very distraught by this thought.
and, so, i have two questions:
1) do you have any hd 440-iis sitting around somewhere?
2) if not, what is the closest model?
if you end up answering (2), i would like to request that you take the time to run the question by some engineers that can answer it properly, rather than try and sell me on something. i'm not looking for the phones with the best specs, or the cheapest phones or any other such thing - i am looking for phones that can replace the 440-ii's with the least amount of variance.
thank you,
jessica
hi.
i've had a pair of hd 440-II's for about twenty years now. that's two thirds of my life. these 440-II's have followed me everywhere - from bus rides to high school in the 90s with a cassette player right into recording studios for mastering processes. every piece of music i've ever connected to or created has been heard through these phones.
after 20 years, they're getting a little shorted, and i feel it's time to replace them.
i would like to replace them with another set of 440-IIs. otherwise, the world would just sound entirely different. better specs, worse specs - it wouldn't matter. my recordings would all sound wrong; my favourite records would become alien. my universe would just implode in on itself...
yet, they appear to be discontinued. i am very distraught by this thought.
and, so, i have two questions:
1) do you have any hd 440-iis sitting around somewhere?
2) if not, what is the closest model?
if you end up answering (2), i would like to request that you take the time to run the question by some engineers that can answer it properly, rather than try and sell me on something. i'm not looking for the phones with the best specs, or the cheapest phones or any other such thing - i am looking for phones that can replace the 440-ii's with the least amount of variance.
thank you,
jessica
why does this model of headphones have to be discontinued? FUCK.
they're still kicking, somehow. but, they're dying a slow death and i need to replace them. i really, really, really want to replace them with the same model. even if i get something with drastically better specs, it's going to sound different, and it's going to throw me for a loop. these are literally the only headphones i've ever had to record with.
any headphone geeks out there reading this? suggestions for something that sounds similar? anybody happen to even have a pair?
sennheiser hd-440 IIs.
guess i'll look on ebay. but if you have a pair or know somebody that does....
they're still kicking, somehow. but, they're dying a slow death and i need to replace them. i really, really, really want to replace them with the same model. even if i get something with drastically better specs, it's going to sound different, and it's going to throw me for a loop. these are literally the only headphones i've ever had to record with.
any headphone geeks out there reading this? suggestions for something that sounds similar? anybody happen to even have a pair?
sennheiser hd-440 IIs.
guess i'll look on ebay. but if you have a pair or know somebody that does....
Thursday, October 31, 2013
it's time to stop dealing with banks.
is it weird that i'm almost 33 and have never paid a monthly fee? i've just always had "student accounts" that wave all those fees, and nobody ever bothered checking up to see whether i was really a student.
i had to switch banks a few months ago, and i just got a letter explaining that unless i can provide evidence of being a student they're going to start charging me $20/month, give me a very small debit limit and then start charging by transaction and a couple of other things that are really just flat out dastardly, the morally.....bankrupt.....cretins that they are.....
i was already pissed off at the check cost. it's over $1.50/check and they only sell them in bulk - 50 checks at a time. they get cheaper if you buy more than 50. for what reason? who uses checks in 2013 for anything other than to pay rent? that's enough checks to cover four years of rent. now, i don't like paying $1.50/check, but i'd pay it if it meant avoiding the headaches i'm about to put myself through. what i can't handle is dropping that much all at once. worst thing: the last bank i was at waived the cost. so, i was trying to figure out various ways around that...but switching banks isn't really fun.
i've got it narrowed down to a credit union that appears to be a front for ING. most of the credit unions seem to be a front for something or other. i only need like three things. but i NEED those three things...
i think that's the thing with banks, right? if it's a $1-$2 here or there, we gnash our teeth and stomp our feet, but it's more out of principle - and then we carry on as though nothing had happened.
that's how they get us. the bastards.
but, when they throw down $50 or $100 that's when we pick up the phone and yell and scream until we either get it reversed or are broken down into accepting our status as slaves who can be stolen from with impunity.
that doesn't happen often, though, 'cause they know this. they know they can get away with $1 surcharges. they know they can't get away with more than that.
or at least that's what i thought...
is it weird that i'm almost 33 and have never paid a monthly fee? i've just always had "student accounts" that wave all those fees, and nobody ever bothered checking up to see whether i was really a student.
i had to switch banks a few months ago, and i just got a letter explaining that unless i can provide evidence of being a student they're going to start charging me $20/month, give me a very small debit limit and then start charging by transaction and a couple of other things that are really just flat out dastardly, the morally.....bankrupt.....cretins that they are.....
i was already pissed off at the check cost. it's over $1.50/check and they only sell them in bulk - 50 checks at a time. they get cheaper if you buy more than 50. for what reason? who uses checks in 2013 for anything other than to pay rent? that's enough checks to cover four years of rent. now, i don't like paying $1.50/check, but i'd pay it if it meant avoiding the headaches i'm about to put myself through. what i can't handle is dropping that much all at once. worst thing: the last bank i was at waived the cost. so, i was trying to figure out various ways around that...but switching banks isn't really fun.
i've got it narrowed down to a credit union that appears to be a front for ING. most of the credit unions seem to be a front for something or other. i only need like three things. but i NEED those three things...
i think that's the thing with banks, right? if it's a $1-$2 here or there, we gnash our teeth and stomp our feet, but it's more out of principle - and then we carry on as though nothing had happened.
that's how they get us. the bastards.
but, when they throw down $50 or $100 that's when we pick up the phone and yell and scream until we either get it reversed or are broken down into accepting our status as slaves who can be stolen from with impunity.
that doesn't happen often, though, 'cause they know this. they know they can get away with $1 surcharges. they know they can't get away with more than that.
or at least that's what i thought...
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
yes. a source of hydrocarbons. the price of the space program redeems itself.
there are some mild transport problems with that idea. not to mention the reality that we're going to terraform the earth into venus if we keep ejecting these greenhouse gasses.
we are, however, ruled by the insane. they'll try it.
https://phys.org/news/2013-10-cassini-views-titan-lakes.html
there are some mild transport problems with that idea. not to mention the reality that we're going to terraform the earth into venus if we keep ejecting these greenhouse gasses.
we are, however, ruled by the insane. they'll try it.
https://phys.org/news/2013-10-cassini-views-titan-lakes.html
Sunday, October 27, 2013
part of the reason i just moved to the area is that there's a strong potential to build sustainable local communities in the areas that have been abandoned by industry. this sounds like the kind of area i was thinking of - a residential area that has been partially abandoned and has left behind spaces for squatting and growing in a relative vacuum of capital. i fully understood that such a thing would be quashed, but hopefully not before some experiments could be carried out and a movement could create some momentum to move into further tazs. if the momentum can continue to grow, the tazs will become harder and harder to quash.
the key here is demonstrating that a life outside of slavery is, indeed, possible. i have faith that, once people realize that, they will free themselves from their own chains. i further believe that once people taste freedom they'll have a hard time giving it up.
i see a mass of empty houses and mass of homeless people and suggest the obvious; the landowner sees the same thing and concludes that the empty houses are decreasing his profit, and should consequently be torn down. this isn't an economic system, it's organized psychopathy.
worse is that it's not even a smart investment. buying up the land and turning it into a park, or condos, doesn't solve any of the economic "problems" that exist in the area. it just eliminates a source of affordable housing, further exacerbating the existing social problems. i'd expect the park to be full of squatters and that they'll have to be removed by force. on top of that, whatever is built will lack a market until production returns, which it won't. the result is simply more empty houses.
i could look at it on the bright side. this is going to piss people off. but, i realize the futility of fighting the class war head on.
i have to hope that landowners are, on average, more intelligent than this one and this isn't a trend that will pick up. if it is, however, the result is likely to be a mass of angry homeless people, and that gets me to a second best option in the end.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/10/140-acre-forest-about-materialize-middle-detroit/7371/
the key here is demonstrating that a life outside of slavery is, indeed, possible. i have faith that, once people realize that, they will free themselves from their own chains. i further believe that once people taste freedom they'll have a hard time giving it up.
i see a mass of empty houses and mass of homeless people and suggest the obvious; the landowner sees the same thing and concludes that the empty houses are decreasing his profit, and should consequently be torn down. this isn't an economic system, it's organized psychopathy.
worse is that it's not even a smart investment. buying up the land and turning it into a park, or condos, doesn't solve any of the economic "problems" that exist in the area. it just eliminates a source of affordable housing, further exacerbating the existing social problems. i'd expect the park to be full of squatters and that they'll have to be removed by force. on top of that, whatever is built will lack a market until production returns, which it won't. the result is simply more empty houses.
i could look at it on the bright side. this is going to piss people off. but, i realize the futility of fighting the class war head on.
i have to hope that landowners are, on average, more intelligent than this one and this isn't a trend that will pick up. if it is, however, the result is likely to be a mass of angry homeless people, and that gets me to a second best option in the end.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/10/140-acre-forest-about-materialize-middle-detroit/7371/
Friday, October 25, 2013
first night out in windsor...
a few stories to tell. right now? glad i'm at home, in relative safety.
something i learned tonight is that, in windsor, start time means door time. so, showing up an hour after the time on the poster still means waiting over an hour for the show.
in ottawa, we have le cafe de kcuf. in windsor, we have the phog lounge. variations on the same theme. not dissimilar atmospheres.
waiting forever means too many spiked coffees...
at least the music for the wait was alright. meat puppets. mbv. sonic youth. and perhaps it was fitting that the first band started right as 'the sprawl' finished, given my thoughts on this new area to explore.
silent movie type were catchy, noisy and dissonant. not much that's novel, here. but i like the genre. and their record up on bandcamp is pretty good.
they closed the show with a cover of breed, which was sort of nice to hear. i scattered quickly to another show down the street....
there was a band in the 90s called 'man, or astroman?'. this machine kills robots are eerily similar to that band. in every way. 'cept they're not quite as good.
i wish i would have got to see man or astroman?, actually...
actually, i'm going to choose to not tell the stories i was going to tell. there's certain adjustments i'm going to have to make to living in a smaller city. i think this is one of them.
i couldn't quickly find audio for the second band, worry. it's a hard name to google. the audience they attracted seemed to enjoy faux moshing to it, but it was pretty generic hipster music. the hipster genre du jour is something called 'doom', which is a type of heavy grunge that incorporates screamed vocals into it. i'll give this band a tad bit of credit because the drummer was a bit more interesting in a weird sort of way; he was all agent orange while the rest of the band was all sleep. but, at best the result was 'crust', and crust is rarely worth listening to.
extra annoyance: no human could decipher those vocals.
famines, on the other hand, were excellent. it's a shame the place cleared out before they came on. i've seen this before, where local bands take over shows for touring acts and the place clears out when the locals are done. it's just bad research. extra head-scratching is the fact that there was a band down the street that would have brought in the proper audience. i took the walk, but...
famines is dance-punk done right in the after-punk era: rambunctious, hyperactive and entirely bipolar when it needs to be. bonus: moderately intelligent lyrics.
the walk home was a little surreal. i was drunk enough to slur my speech, but not tipsy or in any threat of passing out. cop cars on every corner...
well, there's been some issues in windsor of late. a pretty teenager disappeared (they found a body in the river and will id it this afternoon). there was a gang related stabbing downtown that involved something like ten people. fires. robberies.
that's not the reason the cops are actually there, though. they've been brought in by the bia due to concern about property damage. there was a press release. people are getting stabbed and abducted and arsons are raging across the city and the police department is being driven by a concern about broken windows (to my knowledge, there haven't actually been any broken windows).
regardless, it might be the first time i was happy to see some cop cars. i was a little uneasy walking home, and knew i would be. recent spate of violent crime aside, i'm in a city i don't know very well. and it was well after midnight.
getting out of the downtown core, i noticed a van was following me. it was turning into side streets, u-turning.....eventually it stopped down the street. i crossed the road. it pulled one last u-turn and zoomed off...
the night person at the quickie suggested that the driver may have mistaken me for a prostitute. apparently, a lot of people work up that strip. it's not the first time i've been mistaken, but it usually happens in the summer when i'm minimally clothed. tonight, my make-up was fairly light, and i was wearing my kurt cobain sweater (or at least the sweater that i think of as my kurt cobain sweater). i can't see how i was drawing attention to myself. but maybe it doesn't really matter if i was or wasn't drawing attention to myself.
i also started wondering about a few things walking back. i'm a new addition to the area. change always breeds uncertainty. my largest concern is actually that local criminals might think i'm a cop. i don't have anything for them, especially if i'm walking rather than biking. but the inevitable question is no doubt: what is this nut doing walking alone down the road at midnight? is she really impossibly oblivious to her own safety? if not, who is she working for? etc.
i sort of decided that i just have to keep going out at night regularly in order to create a comfort level. to normalize the locals to my existence. i'm not going to live in fear. it's not in my dna. if they get used to me, i'll begin to blend in. like a squirrel...
getting inside the door was a relief, though. more so than i've ever experienced.
....and, now for zesty cheese....
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2013/10/24.html
something i learned tonight is that, in windsor, start time means door time. so, showing up an hour after the time on the poster still means waiting over an hour for the show.
in ottawa, we have le cafe de kcuf. in windsor, we have the phog lounge. variations on the same theme. not dissimilar atmospheres.
waiting forever means too many spiked coffees...
at least the music for the wait was alright. meat puppets. mbv. sonic youth. and perhaps it was fitting that the first band started right as 'the sprawl' finished, given my thoughts on this new area to explore.
silent movie type were catchy, noisy and dissonant. not much that's novel, here. but i like the genre. and their record up on bandcamp is pretty good.
they closed the show with a cover of breed, which was sort of nice to hear. i scattered quickly to another show down the street....
there was a band in the 90s called 'man, or astroman?'. this machine kills robots are eerily similar to that band. in every way. 'cept they're not quite as good.
i wish i would have got to see man or astroman?, actually...
actually, i'm going to choose to not tell the stories i was going to tell. there's certain adjustments i'm going to have to make to living in a smaller city. i think this is one of them.
i couldn't quickly find audio for the second band, worry. it's a hard name to google. the audience they attracted seemed to enjoy faux moshing to it, but it was pretty generic hipster music. the hipster genre du jour is something called 'doom', which is a type of heavy grunge that incorporates screamed vocals into it. i'll give this band a tad bit of credit because the drummer was a bit more interesting in a weird sort of way; he was all agent orange while the rest of the band was all sleep. but, at best the result was 'crust', and crust is rarely worth listening to.
extra annoyance: no human could decipher those vocals.
famines, on the other hand, were excellent. it's a shame the place cleared out before they came on. i've seen this before, where local bands take over shows for touring acts and the place clears out when the locals are done. it's just bad research. extra head-scratching is the fact that there was a band down the street that would have brought in the proper audience. i took the walk, but...
famines is dance-punk done right in the after-punk era: rambunctious, hyperactive and entirely bipolar when it needs to be. bonus: moderately intelligent lyrics.
the walk home was a little surreal. i was drunk enough to slur my speech, but not tipsy or in any threat of passing out. cop cars on every corner...
well, there's been some issues in windsor of late. a pretty teenager disappeared (they found a body in the river and will id it this afternoon). there was a gang related stabbing downtown that involved something like ten people. fires. robberies.
that's not the reason the cops are actually there, though. they've been brought in by the bia due to concern about property damage. there was a press release. people are getting stabbed and abducted and arsons are raging across the city and the police department is being driven by a concern about broken windows (to my knowledge, there haven't actually been any broken windows).
regardless, it might be the first time i was happy to see some cop cars. i was a little uneasy walking home, and knew i would be. recent spate of violent crime aside, i'm in a city i don't know very well. and it was well after midnight.
getting out of the downtown core, i noticed a van was following me. it was turning into side streets, u-turning.....eventually it stopped down the street. i crossed the road. it pulled one last u-turn and zoomed off...
the night person at the quickie suggested that the driver may have mistaken me for a prostitute. apparently, a lot of people work up that strip. it's not the first time i've been mistaken, but it usually happens in the summer when i'm minimally clothed. tonight, my make-up was fairly light, and i was wearing my kurt cobain sweater (or at least the sweater that i think of as my kurt cobain sweater). i can't see how i was drawing attention to myself. but maybe it doesn't really matter if i was or wasn't drawing attention to myself.
i also started wondering about a few things walking back. i'm a new addition to the area. change always breeds uncertainty. my largest concern is actually that local criminals might think i'm a cop. i don't have anything for them, especially if i'm walking rather than biking. but the inevitable question is no doubt: what is this nut doing walking alone down the road at midnight? is she really impossibly oblivious to her own safety? if not, who is she working for? etc.
i sort of decided that i just have to keep going out at night regularly in order to create a comfort level. to normalize the locals to my existence. i'm not going to live in fear. it's not in my dna. if they get used to me, i'll begin to blend in. like a squirrel...
getting inside the door was a relief, though. more so than i've ever experienced.
....and, now for zesty cheese....
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2013/10/24.html
Thursday, October 24, 2013
24-10-2013: silent movie type @ phog, windsor + this machine kills robots, worry & the famines @ villain's, windsor
their music:
https://silentmovietype.bandcamp.com/
https://thismachinekillsrobots.bandcamp.com/
https://thefamines.bandcamp.com/
review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2013/10/24.html
event listing:
https://www.facebook.com/events/168999913304700/
https://www.facebook.com/events/568493106551319/
video:
https://silentmovietype.bandcamp.com/
https://thismachinekillsrobots.bandcamp.com/
https://thefamines.bandcamp.com/
review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2013/10/24.html
event listing:
https://www.facebook.com/events/168999913304700/
https://www.facebook.com/events/568493106551319/
video:
so, i can't make it across the river until i get that stupid card. and, because the stupid card is going to cost twice as much as i thought, i have to wait until after the first. i therefore can't write show reviews...
i can point out what i'm missing, though.
this is tonight in detroit. i would have enjoyed this, too.
stupid borders.
one day, we'll tear their system down and set their flags on fire.
patience.
i can point out what i'm missing, though.
this is tonight in detroit. i would have enjoyed this, too.
stupid borders.
one day, we'll tear their system down and set their flags on fire.
patience.
Monday, October 21, 2013
this new melt banana record is going to be insane to see live
the new melt banana disc is phenomenal. the alvin-joins-ministry thing (i suppose there's already an al in ministry, maybe it's a metamorphosis) is still in place, but there's a massive influence from vision/creation/newsun era boredoms, and it's taken it to a completely different level. this is one of the best INDUSTRIAL records i've heard in a long time.
more to the point, this is going to be awesome to see live. i don't think i'm going to get my stupid card in time. if you're near where they're going, though, i think you want to not miss out on this tour....
more to the point, this is going to be awesome to see live. i don't think i'm going to get my stupid card in time. if you're near where they're going, though, i think you want to not miss out on this tour....
getting yelled at by incoherent crazy people that seem to know me (and yet i don't recognize them) is sort of a different experience.
it's led me to an interesting question, though. is there any evidence to suggest that wage slaves in our society suffer from a sort of stockholm syndrome?
....and if it's not stockholm syndrome, what other psychiatric condition might cause that kind of absurd behaviour?
it maybe raises an educational point, though: yelling at people on the street generally just makes them wonder what's wrong with you.
so, if anybody here knows who was yelling at me (or what they were talking about) , i'd just request that a discussion be had with that person about treatment options, whether they've been taking their meds recently, etc.
i'm probably not the person in the highest risk category; i didn't even recognize this person.
==
"As our work becomes more unpleasant and unnatural to us, ever greater forms of control are needed to ensure that we do it. As machines take over our labour, forces need to be employed to see that idleness does not give way to mischief. Discipline is employed with sadistic readiness, in ever more complex and powerful ways. The obvious power in the batons of the police is matched by the subtle power contained in the stamp of the benefits adviser. The state which we believe to protect us is actually our captor and master. The worker has developed Stockholm syndrome."
http://libcom.org/blog/man-machine-09102013
it's led me to an interesting question, though. is there any evidence to suggest that wage slaves in our society suffer from a sort of stockholm syndrome?
....and if it's not stockholm syndrome, what other psychiatric condition might cause that kind of absurd behaviour?
it maybe raises an educational point, though: yelling at people on the street generally just makes them wonder what's wrong with you.
so, if anybody here knows who was yelling at me (or what they were talking about) , i'd just request that a discussion be had with that person about treatment options, whether they've been taking their meds recently, etc.
i'm probably not the person in the highest risk category; i didn't even recognize this person.
==
"As our work becomes more unpleasant and unnatural to us, ever greater forms of control are needed to ensure that we do it. As machines take over our labour, forces need to be employed to see that idleness does not give way to mischief. Discipline is employed with sadistic readiness, in ever more complex and powerful ways. The obvious power in the batons of the police is matched by the subtle power contained in the stamp of the benefits adviser. The state which we believe to protect us is actually our captor and master. The worker has developed Stockholm syndrome."
http://libcom.org/blog/man-machine-09102013
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