Jobs —
How I feel when I apply for 47 jobs online in which I have 27 years of industry experience, and the receptionist acts like I’m an idiot for calling to follow up and talk to someone in person:
Mercy —
I want to believe
That I’m at the mercy
Of all the stars above me
Meta’s $197 Billion Surge Is Biggest in Stock-Market History —
I just love reading headlines like this, when I’m working my ass off and can barely keep the lights on in my own fucking house…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/meta-200-billion-surge-biggest-152002946.html
Is there any room in the world for a determined, passionate human being that truly wants to change the world for the better? All I want is enough money to support my family, I couldn’t care less about being rich.
I want to do something that MATTERS.
People Problems —
Dare I say, in the United States?
Child porn isn’t a technology problem. It’s a people problem.
Mass shootings isn’t a gun control problem. It’s a people problem.
“Far right”, Neo-Nazism and MAGA isn’t a politics problem. It’s a people problem.
Human beings need to come together, now more than ever. We’ve been divided and conquered by the ones who seek power and control over liberty and freedom. No longer is Free Speech an honorable virtue, but largely demonized as a haven for the scum of the Earth to spread hate, fear, uncertainty and doubt to those they wish to oppress.
And for what, ultimately? The satisfaction in believing that they’re better than those they don’t agree with, that they’re threatened by? Fear is a hell of a drug. And it’s cutting our collective nose off to spite our face. I think that’s what gets me the most—it’s like a bad, slow motion dream where I can’t speak, but am seeing these things unfold in a mutually destructive manner. It’s like the Scorpion and the Frog.
What a pity that we’ve gotten to this point. I hope we can still dig ourselves out before it’s too late. Otherwise, I fear it’s going to be a hell of a bloodbath. Is that really what we want?
“I Still Have a Dream” by Bert [Kosmic FreeMusic Foundation] (1996) —
I was going to post this track here and talk about how much it has meant to me over the years. I was going to say how it’s my go-to track for when I’m feeling like some old school 90’s electronic. How I downloaded it from some unknown place, maybe a LAN party, maybe an FTP site, I don’t honestly remember. But I always loved this track especially, and have listened to it over the years many times, up until (at least) 2024.
I was exporting the .XM music format it was in to one digestible by most browsers and some hidden (to me) metadata appeared on the export screen. I had *never* seen this before!! It’s like this really cool easter egg, to find this almost 30 years later. So I’ll post it and post the track as well for you, hopefully D.R.van der Velden doesn’t mind.
“I Still Have a Dream by Bert [Kosmic FreeMusic Foundation]
This song was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. (1920-1968) Prior to his fatal shooting, MLK toured annualy, denouncing the hardships of African-Americans. “I have a dream”, one of his most stirring national adresses, was delivered on August 28, 1963 before 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial…………
Sample Origin:
-bassdrum, hihat & claps: tr909 ftp site
-percussion: krystall
-bass: tx16w ftp site
-piano: basehead
-synth: sampled from my psr500 keyboard
-speech: sampled from ‘America’s greatest speeches’ audio CD
-bells: maz sound ftp
-female voc: krystall
Feedback & Info:
-kosmic.nfo file or email
-d.r.vandervelden@wbmt.tudelft.nl Berts Music Department
-www.dsdelft.nl
/~vdvelden/
Copyright 1996 D.R.van der Velden
All Rights Reserved”
EDIT 1: Tried e-mailing the address and visit website above, but both are out of commission =(
EDIT 2: Here’s the Wikipedia page for Kosmic Free Music Foundation
- And Bert (Discogs)
- And KFMF Archives CD 1992 1996 (Discogs)
- And Kosmic Archives Volume 2 1997 (Discogs)
Repetition —
You wanna know the secret to success?
Repetition.
It’s no more complex than that.
Music and rhetoric.
Art and politics.
You wanna steer a people?
Repetition.
We’re all fucking apes. We think we’re so smart, so evolved… go fuck yourself.
We’re animals, feeding off of the umbilical residue of generations before us…
In the end, all we really are is energy manifested into an extremely slow vibration, colliding with matter and fucking reality with our existential dicks in the air.
Yeah, you fucking heard me. Go fucking talk yourself into a coma, this is all that really matters.
Boo, Earth —
Nothing to Gain —
I know I’ve written about Mudvayne before, and the song “Nothing to Gain” (from L.D. 50) has always stuck out to me with its eccentric time signatures. I was just listening to it again after some time. Parts of the song, including the outro, are in 17/8.
Yeah, you read that right. And it fucking flows *so* well. It’s pretty damn amazing.
Shallow and Pedantic —
I really am a pedantic piece of shit, aren’t I?
“Network Interface Card card”
Fists —
Something in my fists
I punch out with it
I can feel it leaving me
Like a bright flowing stream
Of light and negativity
This stale, blocked chi
Thank you for leaving me
Grounding, turning to nothing
Disappearing
Existential Crisis —
I’m caught between my irritation of my neighbor’s kids going outside every day to play, screaming/yelling everything for hours outside my office window… and my jealousy of them enjoying being outside so much.
Tell Them That —
It’s like what happened before. Only it’s the other way around.
Smart.
Weighted Upvotes —
I think the social media space needs weighted upvoting.
What I mean by this is that you can upvote *more* than your ‘single-vote’ count, depending on your current allotment of…oh I don’t know.. “vote currency” ? Hopefully you know what I mean. Maybe you’d get a certain amount for how much time you spend on the platform.
Anyway, some stuff I want to upvote MORE. But I don’t want to buy coins, I don’t want to pull out my credit card. Whatever. *toke*
On Awareness of Awareness —
Contemplating awareness itself is a satisfying but tricky task.
Many people have said during the conversation of meditation to me, “But how can you think about not thinking? Isn’t that still thinking??”
Yes, and you should stop thinking about not thinking, and just not think ;)
Triumph the Insult Dog – You’re gonna amplify this crap? (meme) —
CC —
CC is like open sharing, but with teeth.
Infinity —
Today is today
And tomorrow, you see
Is just another mark
In infinity
Random idea #5478237 —
(straight from the stickynote..please forgive the run-on sentences, it was a very ‘stream-of-consciousness’ thing)
A cartoon musical number where Donald Trump and Eric/Don Jr/etc. are there as kids asking what they should do since they won’t be able to afford some extravagant thing if the bank loan rate is that high, and Donald burst out into song – “Well, kids…”
(musical theatre type up-beat music)
“All you ever need to do is lie
Lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie
All you ever need to do is lie
Lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie
All you ev-er need to do
Is lie and hope they don’t see through
(all together) ALL YOU EV-ER NEED TO DO IS LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEE!!!”
When the Game is Over… —
“When the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.”
– Italian Proverb (via Powerctl on Slashdot)
Memory #9272748 —
My grandparents on my mother’s side had a hearing aid business/office when I was little. I remember my parents dropping me off there on occasion to “work”, my grandparents assigning me some duties such as sorting the small glossy brochures for different products. I remember sorting through them as quickly and efficiently as possible, to see how fast the big pile of paper could be organized into smaller specific piles of each type. I felt proud of myself for the work I did there, even if it was partly pretend and to keep me busy while I was there.
I feel like this memory has really stuck with me throughout my life, in the context of optimizing tasks. It comes up frequently still. Pretty funny how the brain can assign visuals and memories to mundane everyday life, to be recalled each time you do a thing.
I’m glad to have had grandparents that did things like this with me. They really cared, even if we were a big family with many siblings and cousins, about all of us. They were always so selfless and nurturing, hardly ever a bad or tense moment with them that I can recall.
He wants to go to prison —
The optics would be perfect.
WTF Musk —
Musk has apparently gone full-on troll against Wikipedia.
It’s really sad to see somebody who has done so much for scientific progress stoop so low in his public interactions. I’m honestly ashamed I ever looked up to him as an entrepreneur and cheered my son on years back to write a school report on of his achievements and all of the good he was (at the time) doing in the world. I mean, nobody’s perfect but there’s been something really wrong with him since Covid and 45.
These are my predictions of Musk – his recent actions tell me he’s likely to do one of the following:
- Drive Wikipedia into the ground like he did Twitter
- Run for (R) POTUS
- Blow the rest of his money on stupid shit he has no business with, for the lulz
- Continue to covertly build an army of his enemies, unbeknownst to them, and ultimately direct them all off a cliff Lemmings style
Heels —
You’re pathetic
But to your credit
You’re the main character
I don’t get it
Sucks up your debt
For all it’s worth
Dig in your heels
Big in the feels
You don’t see what’s real
You don’t see what’s real
Win one over, nothing is colder, but you’ve got a coat
So far ahead, but when you go to bed, that’s not all she wrote
It’s not all she wrote
Yeah, it’s scary —
Yeah, it’s scary.
Do it anyway.
“Lemme Get This Straight” —
Circa November, 2018 voice recording regarding the vast gap between human achievement and human ignorance.
Explore the Space —
“It’s important that we explore space and the universe. We need to explore other planets. Esp. those nearest to us in Andromeda, so we can view them as a threat.” –J0hnny Rayg0n
“Artifacts” (from 2018) —
Thought that this was interesting listening to after 5 years as I’m going through the process of giving my past audio blogs relevant filenames. Like a visit from the past.
Time For Money —
Am I gonna trade my time for money
Or am I gonna change the world
Focus my light to a dollar
Watch the edges curl
Should I live by the riptide
And extinguish my flame
I could ask you what to do
Bu I know what you’ll say
Conspiracy Theory #892745: Social Networking Stats —
I wonder if the big social networks (looking at you Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) artificially slow their site responses to inflate the “time spent on our platform” KPI.
Apologies —
How hard is an honest apology to some people?
…Or is it just not in them?
14th Amendment —
Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection and Other Rights
Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office
"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."Luddites vs. Loom Machines —
There’s a lot to be worried about in this late-stage of capitalism and humans.. AI infiltrating art itself, for example.
What humans need is a universal agreement that technology != art. We need to separate art and technology. We’ve got to understand again that the value of art is that it is created by humans as a self-expression; something to relate to as a species, something to ponder, to digest, to appreciate.
AI is a creation of humans, yes. So in a way it may be seen as an extension of a human’s artistic expression. I guess I can see it as something similar to creating an algorithm that generates fractal style artwork based on mathematical equations. It’s nice to look at.
But on the other hand, my example above is far removed from generative AI based art. Mathematical equations != calculating a mean/average of what has been fed as input, from human-based art, and outputting an approximation which is *technically* unique, but 100% derivative… and not only derivative, but a derivative generated by a non-human. I don’t agree with this. It is timely taboo. I’m uncomfortable with it. We humans haven’t grasped or fleshed-out (no pun intended) the psychological differences between digesting art made by a human vs. software.
Of course, there are similar situations of past – let’s take drum machines, or perhaps Luddites vs. loom machines for example. Technology has always tread upon the shores of art and craftsmanship. This time it’s a bit more interesting as it’s the art itself that’s generated by non-humans, not just augmented or simplified by it.
45 —
He’s currently shifting posture to include even more calls for violence and more general focus on weaponry (guns specifically). This guy is desperate. Be aware, to those who easily hear his dog whistles (everybody?).