so, i don't know if my mail person was trying to do me a favour or trying to piss me off and i'm consequently torn as to how to react. the package got here, but through a difficult route - and unsigned, when i was supposed to sign. that works out to my benefit, but it's more future packages i'm concerned about.
right now, i'm almost afraid to open it.
i'm going to probably walk down to the post office and ask them if they can automatically hold items to this address. there's no way anybody can contact me down here without prior consent, which is on purpose and not going to change. i'd rather they hold items there to begin with, and just send me an email to get me to pick it up. it removes a set of hands from the chain.
so, here's the story...
first, the crux of this is that i've made myself difficult to contact on purpose for many years - as long as i've lived on my own, basically. people coming to my old apartment would complain i was unlisted and they had to use their cell, but this was no accident. what a lot of them didn't realize was that i wasn't just unlisted; the buzzer actually wasn't set up. there was literally no way for anybody to contact me from the intercom.
and who uses the intercom? jehovah's witnesses. rogers. vacuum cleaner salespeople. mary kay. politicians. kids with fundraisers. people i don't want to talk to...
there's no intercom here. yet, when i moved down here, i took the doorbell out. it's for the same reasons: i do not want random people to be able to bother me.
you can agree with me by emulating me. it might get rid of some of the door-to-door type if more people adopted this method.
pretty much the one casualty of this is the mail dude, who drops off packages from time to time. yet, it's generally far too infrequently for it to justify being annoyed by children and religious idiots. i'm perfectly happy with going down to the post office and getting it myself. as mentioned, that prevents the unnecessary risk stemming from the mail dude handling it.
however, i happened to encounter him on my front step a few weeks ago and he wasn't very happy with my attitude. he asked if there was another bell to ring, because mine didn't work - i had to tell him i don't want it to work. so, he asked me for a phone number. right, like i want to give a random stranger my phone number (and i actually don't have one, anyways). i told him i'd rather he just leave the slip in the box. he was both confused and upset...
see, the mail people in canada are coming up against some possible extreme layoffs. looking at the government's plan, it almost seems like a scheme to make the mailboxes smaller and force more expensive courier options; what they're doing isn't going to eliminate carriers, it's just going to make the process more expensive. private carriers win, everybody else loses. no surprises, here - it's been the trajectory of government for decades.
however, i happen to be the type of ("real") anarchist that is opposed to frivolous work, and i'm not sure how anybody could argue that delivering mail is less frivolous than working a cash register. it's a job i don't think should exist; it squanders resources i think could be better applied elsewhere. if i can walk to the post office, why can't everybody else? so, i wouldn't be particularly upset about layoffs, and am not particularly empathetic to this guy's snarky reaction to my request to leave it in the box.
the key question: did he pick up that i didn't care about his job?
i had a package arrive this morning that required a signature. strangely, it ended up down the street, left without a signature. i only know this because of the kindness of the neighbour who brought it to me, and was able to contact me by knocking on my landlord's door.
on first glance, it seems obvious that the mail dude is being an ass, here.
however, given that he knew i don't answer the door, he may have thought he was saving me a trip.
i actually don't appreciate that. but i'd rather talk it through than write him up. well, unless he's looking for severance, i guess. but i can't reasonably make any of these assumptions.
so, i think the best thing to do is determine if i can get the post office to hold items and email me for pickup when they come in.
the device is apparently undamaged. and, in truth, with the way it was packaged, it would have been hard to damage it.
oddly, the canada post tracking site continues to state that the item is "out for delivery". i'm going to let this run through the system and see what happens. if it works properly, i should get a refund. and maybe i deserve one. i'll give it a few days....
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
the most important thing i learned from....decades....in school is the following:
if you're going to go to school with the purpose of doing something competitive with it (be that in employment or in academia), you have no option but to pick something you love to do. things may have been different in the past when the field was narrower, but nowadays living in north america means you're competing against two thirds of the planet for just about anything, and if you're not loving it then somebody else is going to mop the floor with you.
you might have a greater pure aptitude in the topic and in general. you might have higher test scores. you might be a harder worker, even. yet, if you're doing it for labour then the blunt reality is that you have no chance against the thousands of other people that do it for *fun*.
it's actually sort of an anarchist's ideal: the only kind of vocation any of us have any real chance in any more is what we'd love to be doing, anyways. the problem is that so few of us were raised with that mindset. we were told to do something we don't love because it is marketable (only to be outcompeted by somebody that loves it), or even to do something we loathe because it's profitable (only to run into the same problem). while that's happening, we're wasting developing skills doing things we enjoy, and getting behind those that figured this out.
if there are changes to immigration, or drastic improvements in living standard elsewhere, maybe it will once again make sense to tell your young, operatic nephew they'd be better off as a dentist. but, as it is, there's no deficit of kids that knew they wanted to be dentists when they were three years old and have spent their whole lives preparing, and the reality is that your nephew doesn't stand a fucking chance against them - he's really better off exploring his vocal chords.
i think that's a mass shift in social mindset that we need to have.
if you're going to go to school with the purpose of doing something competitive with it (be that in employment or in academia), you have no option but to pick something you love to do. things may have been different in the past when the field was narrower, but nowadays living in north america means you're competing against two thirds of the planet for just about anything, and if you're not loving it then somebody else is going to mop the floor with you.
you might have a greater pure aptitude in the topic and in general. you might have higher test scores. you might be a harder worker, even. yet, if you're doing it for labour then the blunt reality is that you have no chance against the thousands of other people that do it for *fun*.
it's actually sort of an anarchist's ideal: the only kind of vocation any of us have any real chance in any more is what we'd love to be doing, anyways. the problem is that so few of us were raised with that mindset. we were told to do something we don't love because it is marketable (only to be outcompeted by somebody that loves it), or even to do something we loathe because it's profitable (only to run into the same problem). while that's happening, we're wasting developing skills doing things we enjoy, and getting behind those that figured this out.
if there are changes to immigration, or drastic improvements in living standard elsewhere, maybe it will once again make sense to tell your young, operatic nephew they'd be better off as a dentist. but, as it is, there's no deficit of kids that knew they wanted to be dentists when they were three years old and have spent their whole lives preparing, and the reality is that your nephew doesn't stand a fucking chance against them - he's really better off exploring his vocal chords.
i think that's a mass shift in social mindset that we need to have.
obligatory "influential on song of the day" post.
out of the hundreds or thousands or even tens of thousands of records i've consumed in my life, very few are in the same category as this one. it's a song structuring influence on this particular track, especially in the instrumental second half of the track.
(relevant track: liquify, the day inri messed the world up, all symphonies, more)
out of the hundreds or thousands or even tens of thousands of records i've consumed in my life, very few are in the same category as this one. it's a song structuring influence on this particular track, especially in the instrumental second half of the track.
(relevant track: liquify, the day inri messed the world up, all symphonies, more)
deathtokoalas
obligatory "influential on song of the day" post.
you can hear it in the short section that features piano mashing and feeding back guitars.
(relevant track: liquify, first movement, others)
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
the song structuring is early queen, the atmosphere is david bowie (c. aladin sane) and the pick harmonics are all eddie van halen. also, the solo is vintage king crimson. you can maybe pull something post-punk out of the vocals....
like, honestly: if you like that layered guitar sound on mellon collie (which is what makes this track), go pick up the first three queen discs.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
the pumpkins were a punk band at their core, but this particular track is a fine piece of mid 70s glam metal, mixed with a bit of progressive rock.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
if forced to pick between grunge and punk, it's more like grunge than it is like punk, but there's a number of stylistic qualities associated with grunge that it doesn't have. the guitar tone is very bright, caused by rolling up the treble - grunge is generally associated with an exaggerated low end. nor do the vocals work well in a grunge context.
“alternative rock" has never been a real genre, and to the extent that it was it applied more to stuff like rem (which corgan certainly dabbled heavily in). the pumpkins fit well into "alternative culture" for a while, but they were generally not considered to fit into that aesthetic in the 90s. they were usually cut out into psychedelic pop or progressive rock, and viewed as more of a 60s/70s retro act.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
it's really not, though. you'd really never hear any grunge bands or personalities talk like that. politically, it was mostly a left-liberal movement with an undercurrent of christian morality (in the love your brother sense, not the kill the gays sense). corgan's always been somewhat of a hippie.
there was a strain of that kind of misanthropist thinking in some of the alternative culture of the early 90s, but it came more out of goth and industrial subculture. it's something you'd hear from trent reznor or nivek ogre, not kurt cobain or mark arm.
it's maybe a bit emo, though, which is another thing the pumpkins dabbled in.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
the pumpkins fit into a lot of overlapping genres, but there was never anything "independent" about them. this is big budget stadium rock in any era.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
people are assholes. it'd be nice if we could just set them all on fire, but there's laws and stuff.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
it's not because you hurt my feelings, it's because your views deserve to be incinerated along with everybody who shares them.
beyond there being laws against setting assholes on fire, the historical record is also clear: oppressing assholes just makes them come back stronger. look at russia. they tried to ban the christians, and a hundred years later the country is teetering on the edge of a fundamentalist state.
so, we have to argue with assholes, somehow. educate them? maybe their kids, but not too harshly, or they'll kneejerk.
really, i think it's better to just resign ourselves to the reality that assholes will always exist and there's nothing to be done about it.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
there's a little button on the thread that says "disable replies".
obligatory "influential on song of the day" post.
you can hear it in the short section that features piano mashing and feeding back guitars.
(relevant track: liquify, first movement, others)
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
the song structuring is early queen, the atmosphere is david bowie (c. aladin sane) and the pick harmonics are all eddie van halen. also, the solo is vintage king crimson. you can maybe pull something post-punk out of the vocals....
like, honestly: if you like that layered guitar sound on mellon collie (which is what makes this track), go pick up the first three queen discs.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
the pumpkins were a punk band at their core, but this particular track is a fine piece of mid 70s glam metal, mixed with a bit of progressive rock.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
if forced to pick between grunge and punk, it's more like grunge than it is like punk, but there's a number of stylistic qualities associated with grunge that it doesn't have. the guitar tone is very bright, caused by rolling up the treble - grunge is generally associated with an exaggerated low end. nor do the vocals work well in a grunge context.
“alternative rock" has never been a real genre, and to the extent that it was it applied more to stuff like rem (which corgan certainly dabbled heavily in). the pumpkins fit well into "alternative culture" for a while, but they were generally not considered to fit into that aesthetic in the 90s. they were usually cut out into psychedelic pop or progressive rock, and viewed as more of a 60s/70s retro act.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
it's really not, though. you'd really never hear any grunge bands or personalities talk like that. politically, it was mostly a left-liberal movement with an undercurrent of christian morality (in the love your brother sense, not the kill the gays sense). corgan's always been somewhat of a hippie.
there was a strain of that kind of misanthropist thinking in some of the alternative culture of the early 90s, but it came more out of goth and industrial subculture. it's something you'd hear from trent reznor or nivek ogre, not kurt cobain or mark arm.
it's maybe a bit emo, though, which is another thing the pumpkins dabbled in.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
the pumpkins fit into a lot of overlapping genres, but there was never anything "independent" about them. this is big budget stadium rock in any era.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
people are assholes. it'd be nice if we could just set them all on fire, but there's laws and stuff.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
it's not because you hurt my feelings, it's because your views deserve to be incinerated along with everybody who shares them.
beyond there being laws against setting assholes on fire, the historical record is also clear: oppressing assholes just makes them come back stronger. look at russia. they tried to ban the christians, and a hundred years later the country is teetering on the edge of a fundamentalist state.
so, we have to argue with assholes, somehow. educate them? maybe their kids, but not too harshly, or they'll kneejerk.
really, i think it's better to just resign ourselves to the reality that assholes will always exist and there's nothing to be done about it.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
there's a little button on the thread that says "disable replies".
obligatory "influential on song of the day" post.
there's a more in depth explanation at my bandcamp site. but, over that summer, i was sorting through some old guitar magazines and came across a version of most of this worked out in tab. i had very fast fingers back then; i picked it up pretty quickly. so, it worked it's way into the track for that reason...
(relevant track: liquify, first movement, others)
there's a more in depth explanation at my bandcamp site. but, over that summer, i was sorting through some old guitar magazines and came across a version of most of this worked out in tab. i had very fast fingers back then; i picked it up pretty quickly. so, it worked it's way into the track for that reason...
(relevant track: liquify, first movement, others)
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
wooo!
2014/04/14 23:36 MISSISSAUGA Item processed
so, i'm thinking tomorrow or the next day.
meaning that i may not end up getting any work done on this old laptop, after all. but it's now fully loaded.
including this neat, fairly new little trick regarding playing direct into midi. always wanted something like that...
(i knew this was going to happen, btw. lol.)
2014/04/14 23:36 MISSISSAUGA Item processed
so, i'm thinking tomorrow or the next day.
meaning that i may not end up getting any work done on this old laptop, after all. but it's now fully loaded.
including this neat, fairly new little trick regarding playing direct into midi. always wanted something like that...
(i knew this was going to happen, btw. lol.)
obligatory "influential on song of the day" post...
an aesthetic influence, mostly...i could pull a lot of things out, but i specifically remember listening to large amounts of this record...
(relevant tracks: symphony 0, happiness is a harsh gun, weed in the yard, medicated to the one i love, others )
an aesthetic influence, mostly...i could pull a lot of things out, but i specifically remember listening to large amounts of this record...
(relevant tracks: symphony 0, happiness is a harsh gun, weed in the yard, medicated to the one i love, others )
obligatory "influential on song of the day" post...
an aesthetic influence, mostly...i could pull a lot of things out for that, but i specifically remember listening to large amounts of this record...
(relevant tracks: bach goes loopy, symphony 0, pop music, missed connection, jesus gets fucked on robitussin, tribute, others)
an aesthetic influence, mostly...i could pull a lot of things out for that, but i specifically remember listening to large amounts of this record...
(relevant tracks: bach goes loopy, symphony 0, pop music, missed connection, jesus gets fucked on robitussin, tribute, others)
Monday, April 14, 2014
it's past my bedtime (you can laugh. i'm ridiculous.)
but i think i can declare victory with this ad-hoc setup. it's ad-hoc,
mind you. but it should be functional.
i had to go up to cubase 5. iirc, i didn't do that in the first place because it wasn't playing nicely with my interface. i'll have to see if this version is better. no dongle emulator running in the background. that's definitely nice...
i also went up to guitar rig 5. i'm picky with tone. so, i'll call it an experiment for now.
i was hoping i could use the soundcard in the laptop for playback, but it's turned out to be useless. i had to get asio4all for cubase to even recognize it, but it's not actually working. it's probably a minor fix, but looking at the difference in specs is embarrassing to the hd chip. i'm way better off just headphoning directly out of the pod, even if it's a little awkward, cord-wise.
besides that, the bare minimum (pod drivers, cubase, guitar rig, cool edit) installed properly. and that's all i want running for now. i'll take more things in as i need them (i do use izotope as an effect processor, and there's a few secret plugins i won't mention), but this is meant to be a minimal environment.
if i were to play this live, i'd need a second usb to 1/8th inch out. that hdmi out isn't connecting to cubase. then again, i'd need to move to sonar to route the signal from the usb in, through guitar rig and back out again to the mixer, anyways.
it's not a worthwhile thought right now....
....and the pod provides the option of a clean or wet send in the drivers (as well as to turn the amp sim off and on). i knew that, but it's been a while since i've used it...
i had to go up to cubase 5. iirc, i didn't do that in the first place because it wasn't playing nicely with my interface. i'll have to see if this version is better. no dongle emulator running in the background. that's definitely nice...
i also went up to guitar rig 5. i'm picky with tone. so, i'll call it an experiment for now.
i was hoping i could use the soundcard in the laptop for playback, but it's turned out to be useless. i had to get asio4all for cubase to even recognize it, but it's not actually working. it's probably a minor fix, but looking at the difference in specs is embarrassing to the hd chip. i'm way better off just headphoning directly out of the pod, even if it's a little awkward, cord-wise.
besides that, the bare minimum (pod drivers, cubase, guitar rig, cool edit) installed properly. and that's all i want running for now. i'll take more things in as i need them (i do use izotope as an effect processor, and there's a few secret plugins i won't mention), but this is meant to be a minimal environment.
if i were to play this live, i'd need a second usb to 1/8th inch out. that hdmi out isn't connecting to cubase. then again, i'd need to move to sonar to route the signal from the usb in, through guitar rig and back out again to the mixer, anyways.
it's not a worthwhile thought right now....
....and the pod provides the option of a clean or wet send in the drivers (as well as to turn the amp sim off and on). i knew that, but it's been a while since i've used it...
it took a lot of wasted time waiting for things to copy around all over the place, but i've managed to get my medium old laptop back up (not the really old one that can barely hit google; this is about ten years old, and fully useable for just about anything). the hard drive has been causing me problems since last summer, but it turns out the black screen was actually the result of not activating windows (i forgot i had installed it)...
the drive isn't really to be trusted anymore, though, so i need to be working off a usb key. i wanted to work off an external drive, but windows 7 just flat wouldn't read it. works fine in xp. vista too, even. not 7. there's all kinds of dumb info online about the drive being "incompatible with windows 7", like it broke plug and play compatibility through usb or something. it's a glorified fucking thumb drive. it should read on everything.
but i suspect it's the same basic problem i spoke of earlier, with changes to the way the os reads drivers. i'm not privy to background info on 7 like i am on vista, but talk about arrogance. they get all kinds of complaints on this, and rather than fix it they make it worse.
unless, of course, somebody figured out you could sell more drives by forcing people to upgrade their hardware with their os...
i repeat: perfectly functioning drive on xp, vista. brick on 7. official reason: "incompatible". most likely technical reason: the 7 kernel considers it a "security threat". actual driver: hardware sales.
anyways, i wanted to back up to that drive, so i put vista back on and copied the shit over, and then put 7 back on. it will read fine in xp when my bios comes back. but in order to get it from my new laptop (also running 7) to the old one, i had to use my mp3 drive...
so, it now exists in five places. that's more than sufficiently safe.
anyways, the thumb key is more than enough space for one song at a time for a few weeks until things resolve themselves back to stability.
the thing is that i bought this laptop refurbished to use for school in the short run and turn into an effects rack long term. the hope was also to turn it into somewhat of a live out. i mean, it's hard to lull a tank of a pc out and about. the signal was supposed to dual out of the laptop and the pod into a stereo receiver and play through a set of celestions, which i had interpreted as a sort of modern, technology-friendly update to the classic marshall sound. i mean, trying to run this stuff through amps creates garbage. it has to be through clean signals...but getting as close to the original path as possible struck me as worthwhile.....
it's not quite to that point. well, i never finished the symphony i wanted to perform, anyways. but, it is going to end up with cubase, guitar rig and pod software - along with other guitar effects, which will turn it into a backup guitar studio.
i cannot hook it up to a firewire interface and consequently cannot connect it to the mixer or any of the things into the mixer. nor does it have a midi in/out. so, my options are limited...this is temporary....
....but it will get me back to work while i'm waiting.
there are cheap usb soundcards nowadays. it's not really necessary. but if that bios doesn't flash...
actually, something else i won't be able to do (i don't think) is drive the signal. i'll have to check. the question is if the usb sound card out on the pod takes a dry or wet signal in.
if it does, i have no real complaints regarding guitar tone. i'll just have to wait until the mixer comes back up to tweak it.
if not, i'll have to see how it sounds, but i'm not compromising my tone, either....
unfortunately, it makes sense to me to think that the usb out is just a signal from the unit - meaning it won't matter what i put in front of the thing, it won't pick it up.
hopefully, it surprises me, but it doesn't really make sense to me to think it can do that.
i use it largely for amp sims. i use guitar rig for post-processing. well, it's what each is made for. the problem with the amp sims is they need some fire to reverse that dead, digital sound. i guess if i was doing that corporate emo hair metal thing it would be fine, but i'm not; i find i need to drive it with a tube pre-amp to be useable, and i need to drive *that* with some boxes to get the most of it.
i didn't think that through.
i'll find out in a few hours.
i'm actually able to recreate fuzz-->tube-->amp fairly well with that setup, and without getting evicted.
the drive isn't really to be trusted anymore, though, so i need to be working off a usb key. i wanted to work off an external drive, but windows 7 just flat wouldn't read it. works fine in xp. vista too, even. not 7. there's all kinds of dumb info online about the drive being "incompatible with windows 7", like it broke plug and play compatibility through usb or something. it's a glorified fucking thumb drive. it should read on everything.
but i suspect it's the same basic problem i spoke of earlier, with changes to the way the os reads drivers. i'm not privy to background info on 7 like i am on vista, but talk about arrogance. they get all kinds of complaints on this, and rather than fix it they make it worse.
unless, of course, somebody figured out you could sell more drives by forcing people to upgrade their hardware with their os...
i repeat: perfectly functioning drive on xp, vista. brick on 7. official reason: "incompatible". most likely technical reason: the 7 kernel considers it a "security threat". actual driver: hardware sales.
anyways, i wanted to back up to that drive, so i put vista back on and copied the shit over, and then put 7 back on. it will read fine in xp when my bios comes back. but in order to get it from my new laptop (also running 7) to the old one, i had to use my mp3 drive...
so, it now exists in five places. that's more than sufficiently safe.
anyways, the thumb key is more than enough space for one song at a time for a few weeks until things resolve themselves back to stability.
the thing is that i bought this laptop refurbished to use for school in the short run and turn into an effects rack long term. the hope was also to turn it into somewhat of a live out. i mean, it's hard to lull a tank of a pc out and about. the signal was supposed to dual out of the laptop and the pod into a stereo receiver and play through a set of celestions, which i had interpreted as a sort of modern, technology-friendly update to the classic marshall sound. i mean, trying to run this stuff through amps creates garbage. it has to be through clean signals...but getting as close to the original path as possible struck me as worthwhile.....
it's not quite to that point. well, i never finished the symphony i wanted to perform, anyways. but, it is going to end up with cubase, guitar rig and pod software - along with other guitar effects, which will turn it into a backup guitar studio.
i cannot hook it up to a firewire interface and consequently cannot connect it to the mixer or any of the things into the mixer. nor does it have a midi in/out. so, my options are limited...this is temporary....
....but it will get me back to work while i'm waiting.
there are cheap usb soundcards nowadays. it's not really necessary. but if that bios doesn't flash...
actually, something else i won't be able to do (i don't think) is drive the signal. i'll have to check. the question is if the usb sound card out on the pod takes a dry or wet signal in.
if it does, i have no real complaints regarding guitar tone. i'll just have to wait until the mixer comes back up to tweak it.
if not, i'll have to see how it sounds, but i'm not compromising my tone, either....
unfortunately, it makes sense to me to think that the usb out is just a signal from the unit - meaning it won't matter what i put in front of the thing, it won't pick it up.
hopefully, it surprises me, but it doesn't really make sense to me to think it can do that.
i use it largely for amp sims. i use guitar rig for post-processing. well, it's what each is made for. the problem with the amp sims is they need some fire to reverse that dead, digital sound. i guess if i was doing that corporate emo hair metal thing it would be fine, but i'm not; i find i need to drive it with a tube pre-amp to be useable, and i need to drive *that* with some boxes to get the most of it.
i didn't think that through.
i'll find out in a few hours.
i'm actually able to recreate fuzz-->tube-->amp fairly well with that setup, and without getting evicted.
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