it's probably better to get kids to reach in their reading than to keep them juvenile, and give them books below their reading level.

but, i'm not the first person to point out that i didn't understand much of what i read at that age, be it asimov or whatever else. and, i could hardly have been honestly expected to.

everybody's gotta learn, somehow. right? a lot of kids learn to read with asimov, only to realize they didn't actually understand what they were reading, after all. at all.

asimov was, first and foremost, a satirical author. i know that's not well understood, and it may be understood the least by his audience, or at least the part of it that's not dead yet. he was the last of the old guard, in that sense; wells and verne were also both, primarily, satirists. his writing is pretty much always more political than technical and almost never has exaggerated action scenes, making it very different than most of what is nowadays imagined as science fiction.

they're political satires set in outer space.

so, if it's there, it's going to be snarky - as everything he wrote was snarky.

i remember the broad outline of the foundation series, but it wasn't as heavy-handed as the robot series (which i realized even at the time was a marxist allegory, even if i couldn't articulate it) and i don't expect i got the tone right.

i mean, it's going to be similar to the eugenics slant, if it's there - i don't expect asimov to align with bernays.

but, i've already pointed out that asimov's concept of psychohistory is largely a sardonic joke about the usefulness of applied psychology, and there is some possibility that he may end up elaborating it into a satire of gramscianism, or a criticism of the approaches taken by bernays.

asimov was an elitist in a vague sense, but he was a liberal. he believed in democracy, and there's a very clear criticism of aristocracy and bureaucracy throughout his work. i'm not certain that this slant is going to be there at all, but if it is, i would expect it to be critical.

like marx, asimov might find himself frustrated with the inability of workers to understand what is in their best interests, but he is ultimately concerned about their interests, and not about the interests of the elite.

we'll see what comes up.

and, just tersely: is there some potential influence from edward bernays on asimov? is there a gramscian slant to this?

i'll be honest: it was a long time ago.

i'll look for it. it might be there. but, i'm not committing to it.

just a reminder.

inri075 is a live acoustic album that i want to mostly redo entirely. i want to fix the takeharu guitar first, and i need access to the alesis, at least, even if i don't use cubase - and i suppose i wouldn't need to, as it's one track. i bought a marantz condenser mic for this purpose.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/akousmatic-performances-live-compilation-lp

inri076 is almost done, but i want to add an experimental noise piece to the front of it:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/all-you-need-ep

inr077 was recently digitized. i need to rebuild it in cubase.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/bedroom-cassette-demos-ep

inri078 needs to be rebuilt from scratch, in cubase:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-lost-symphony-ep-single

inri079 is musically complete:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/art-show-demo-alternate-lp

inri080 is musically complete:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/like-divine-amoebas-ep-single

inri081 is musically complete:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa-lp

i wanted all of the data on my drive properly organized before i started on this, and i'll have to do that eventually, but i only have so much time...

so, as always happens with me and writing projects, what i wanted to be a short process has turned into a time consuming mess.

i have to finish what i've started. that's not optional.

but, there's an upside to it - i've been using the usb ports on the recording pc to transfer files back and forth (it's the production machine. it's where i'm typesetting.) and i haven't had any problems, yet. i've noticed some chokes that seem to be related to the video card, but i don't have drivers installed, and it's hard to tell if it's:

a) just what happens when you use generic xp video drivers. i guess this is probably an old problem now, but the generic xp video drivers were awful - you had to install a driver package or you'd get choppiness in scrolling and difficulties refreshing. but, the thing is that it seems to almost freeze at the same kind of points it was freezing at before, without the drivers installed. it's curious, but i think the balance of probabilities is that this is coincidental.

b) actually suggestive that the drivers are the problem, or

c) suggestive of an underlying hardware problem, either with the video card or with the slot on the board. i did swap slots a while back.

so, i'm changing this up a little.

it's the end of tuesday. i'm going to get as much of this done as i can before the weekend, and see if i can just do some music on saturday. i didn't want to do that, but i just keep falling into these time-wasting, cyclical traps that i can't get out of. i have to just do it.

if i can get audiomulch - which is the tool i'll be using to finish inri076 - to run on the m-audio card, that's some clues as to the stability of the underlying system.

i may have to remaster it later, but at least it's a step forwards. and, i have to do this very, very slowly because every time i think i've got it - ram, big drives, os, etc. - it reverts back to the underlying problem, that i can't figure out.

i haven't been outside since the 17th and right now don't expect to be out again until the first week of january. i'm taking d pills to counteract the lack of sunlight. and, i just want to get done what i'm doing and move on to the next thing.

i'm going to post this to archive it. it doesn't make sense to print it until the end, but i'll try to keep up.

posting the other is pointless.

index 2: concepts

30s culture  60s counterculture  allegory  arabs  automation  bezos, jeff  bohr, niels  callisto  canals on mars  china  climate change  corporatism  covid-19  democracy  descartes, rene  division of labour  dna  einstein, albert  elitism  europe  evolution  exponential growth  federation  floating point error  free market  freud, sigmund  gates, bill  genome  greeks  hamming codes  ibm  icke, david  imperialism  india  industrial revolution  irony  japan  jefferson, thomas  jung, carl  killer whales  king, stephen  kramer, cosmos  lacan, jacques  luddites, luddism, ludditism  magnetism  mars  marx, karl  mathematical psychology  maxwell, james  mechanization  misanthropy  moon  moore's law (moore, gordon)  multivac  musk, elon  nationalism  neo-liberalism  nuclear war  nuremberg trials  obsolescence  peer review  persians  pink floyd  probability  psychohistory  quantum computers  quantum physics  racism  religion  robots  russia  satire  sentience  slavery  smartphones  socialism  statistics  steinbeck, john  sun  surveillance state  theodosian walls  theory of art  time travel  turks  united states  venus  victorian england  world war two  yellowstone park (yogi bear)  zionism

1, 2  1  2  6  3, 8  1  2  2  3  1  1, 3-4  2  3-4  3  1, 6, 9  2-3, 5  2  2  3  1, 6-7  2, 5-6  1  2, 4-5  9  1  5  9  2  3, 6-7  9  9  3  3, 6-7  1, 3-4  6-7  5-6, 8-9  1  2  5  8  8  7  5  1, 3  2  2, 3  3  4-5  2  3, 8  2, 7  1  1  9  1  3-4  1  3, 5-7  5  8  3, 6-7  3, 6-7  1  4-5  4-5  9  4-5  2, 5, 8-9  1, 3-7  3, 5, 7-30 1, 3-7  3-5  8-9  1, 2  2, 8-9  3-6  4-5  3  2  3-4  6-7  2  6-7  6  1, 2, 5-7  1, 2  6-7  2, 3  6  2

ok, so i'm working on two indices. it doesn't make sense to add either until the end.

the first is just a list of stories:

that will fill out. it will be comprehensive,including the novels.

the second is an indice of concepts, to keep track of all the things i'm rambling about in the reviews:

i should be back to updating the document soon...