Thursday, March 31, 2011

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Dubstep

Seems like people are really mixed on dubstep. So many people are vehemently anti-dubstep, and I kinda wonder why. I think it is the future of music. There are two trends emerging in the music scene, and they are autotune and dubstep. both have been around for a long time, but both are just now getting really popular. I can see why one would hate auto tune, it takes the talent out of music. It can be a cool tool, but so many times it replaces real talent. Dubstep takes just as much talent as any other type of electronic music, and you're definitely living in the past if you think that electronic music is all untalented. Sure some of it is, but the same is true of any genre. I actually think that dubstep on average takes more talent because it cant just use one trance beat for 5 minutes, it has to be unique and mix it up. Plus, the beats are sick. Nothing beats the hard grime beats that penetrate through to your bones. I don't actually have much to write except a general wonder about why people hate dubstep when it's obviously awesome. Heh, here's some videos.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Anonymous

A bit ago, I was talking with a friend, and brought up a flyer that I had seen circulating the interwebz "from" anonymous. It was called Operation Skankbag and I thought it sounded pretty cool. The basic story is an artist put an image of a starving African child carrying a handbag and a chihuahua on a shirt and started selling it to raise awareness about Darfur with a statement about the materialism of pop culture. Louis Vuitton thought the handbag looked a little too much like theirs and sued the artist. "Anon" posted a flyer saying lets take down Louis Vuitton's site.
So, I agree that taking down the site isn't gonna do anything really, and everyone's time would be better spend doing something about Darfur, donating to charity, etc. But this kind of vigilante-ism against a huge company who are being bitches to a woman who is only expressing herself is still cool because it gets across the message that big companies being asshats for no reason is only going to get them negative press.
Anyways, my friend said that he really didn't like the group anonymous, and I told him he misunderstood. Anon isn't a group, it's everyone, it is the internet. The media has started to portray it as some highly organized terrorist cell, but anyone with a brain knows it's more likely 15 yr old kids sitting in their mom's basements "hacking" because they have a lot of time on their hands. Either way, the idea of anon as a group misses the point that anon is anonymous and therefore can't be defined by group ideology.
My friend argued that once the media, or some mass of people defines something as a group, that something becomes a group. For instance, there are 15 yr old kids who identify with anonymous and say they are part of the group. They release flyers with the logo, and write "For we are anonymous. We do not forgive, we do not forget. Expect us." This implies that the people who wrote the flyer identify with a group named anonymous. So, since there are people who write under the banner of anonymous, and it has been defined as a group, and people identify as members, anonymous is a group. Maybe it wasn't, it wasn't meant to be, but it is now; even though it is loosely defined and unorganized.


So, for a person to agree with the ideology of the group anonymous, one must agree with all of the operations that the group takes part it. Everything released under the banner anonymous is, for better or worse, a project of the group, according to the new definition of anonymous as a group. So, when anonymous decides to ruin a girls life for being too cocky on youtube, even though she is only eleven, that is just as much anonymous as the group that decides to take down Louis Vuitton for being skankbags.
Therefore, I reevaluated the way I look at Anonymous. I don't like the idea of anonymous as a group because it is a lot of different people with different morals, ideologies and goals. Being part of a group implies a singular ideology, and this can't happen with the group anonymous, so they contradict each other all the time. I agree with some of the things the group decides to do, but I think that anonymous in its new formation as a defined group instead of an abstract entity containing no morality and no ideology, is not something I can stand behind. I'm all for anonymous people hacking or DDoSing people or companies that are being dicks, but I think that people should stop identifying with the group "anonymous", and start actually acting anonymously again. Everyone should act as an individual and participate in whatever they agree with, but acting as Anonymous is stupid, contradictory, not anonymous, and may be dangerous with all the press it is getting.


Monday, March 28, 2011

Meme's

WTF is it with the internet and its picking up on really bad shit and making it really popular? It seems like every other week there is a new viral video on youtube of some horrible singer like Rebecca Black, then in a week or so, there are 400 new videos all parodying Rebecca Black. Now you can see the shittiest song ever recorded in the style of Bob Dylan, Death metal, emo, Sigur ros, etc. I don't think that anybody takes the time to realize that by giving her so much attention, you're not letting her fade away like she should. So, her video gets 40 million views, and a retarded record exec confuses this as actual talent, and signs her. Soon, she becomes the next Justin Beiber, and we have to deal with much more than just one shitty song. I am contemplating whether posting this blog just adds to the problem. It probably does, but fuck it. I think we should celebrate talent and skill, not stupidity. So here's this:
The XX are an amazing band, and recently Jamie XX has started remixing some of his bands and other bands songs, and they are all pretty sick. The XX is really good indie music, it knows how to use silence to convey emotion. The electronic remixes he is doing are genius in their ambiance. 
So, now that I've hated on internet meme's I would like to point out that they aren't all bad. Sometimes the internet points out hilarious things that we should all see  to make our days better. For example this youtube vid has been popular lately:
So epically funny. Anyways, memes can be great, or they can be a trolls dream, but before passing on a meme, realize that you are making that content more popular, and keeping it alive longer. I'm not saying Rebecca Black deserves to die, but her music does. So, instead of posting one of the billions of her vids, I'm gonna put up a remix by nosaj thing of radiohead. Beautiful


Saturday, March 26, 2011

Auto tune

There is a cancer entering modern music, and it's name is auto tune. I feel like every new hit  that comes out has some singer who can't sing helped out by auto tune. Now people who have no talent, and could never have released a record are making top 40 hits. On the forefront of the new popular music scene is hip hop and rap, and even it has fallen to shitty autotuning. Every new rap song now has a verse rapped, then an autotuned chorus song by a guy who sounds like he never hit  puberty. All I can say is fuck the modern music scene, i really hope that people get over this robotizing of their voices soon.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Piracetam

Just a quick post today, cause there's not much to say, but recently I've learned about this smart drug, or nootropic called piracetam. It's a cool idea, drugs that make you smarter instead of drugs that make you trip or feel energetic or anything like that. I looked into it, cause if it's possible, I'm definitely interested in all the help i can get. It seems like it's actually legit. There have been many studies done on the effects on people with alzheimers, ADD, other degenerative diseases or brain disorders, and it's always been pretty positive results. There has also been a couple studies done on the effects on healthy normal people, one saying that after two weeks, people's short term memory increases greatly. So, I found some for sale like a month ago on some body builder website (of all places) in a huge tub for like 16 dollars. Its 500 grams, and you do a gram a day (or I do), so it lasts like a year and a half. Not a bad price for sure. The only problem is it is in powder instead of pills, so it tastes like absolute shit. But if you can get over that, it's totally worth giving a try.
I've been taking it along with choline for about a month now, and have started to notice some effects when engaging in memory based activities. For example, I sat down to play the piano for the first time in like 6 months the other day, and started playing moonlight sonata from memory. I really didn't think I'd get very far, because it had been so long, but I got as far as I had ever bothered memorizing, without stopping or messing up once. I was surprised at myself as it was happening. Kinda cool.
I also am learning arabic, and like with any foreign language, there is a lot of memorization involved. But, looking at flashcards after a few weeks on this, and I can start to remember vocab much quicker than before. Anyways, I think it's a cool thing to use drugs for memory and intelligence instead of to just get fucked up. In some countries there are loads of similar drugs for sale in "smart shops." So, I'd recommend giving it a try.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

DRUGS!

Aaight, new post time, why the fuck not. Someone wrote a comment asking me to write on marijuana. Probably some dumb ass stoner who will never read this anyways, but why the fuck not. So, i know that most everyone under the age of 30 nowadays thinks that weed should be legal and I'm no different, but I don't think that's enough. I mean the drug war is a retarded flushing of money, and the entire point of it is to tell me how I can spend my time. I live in Boulder, CO, in the US and here weed has pretty much gained the status of being legal these days. It's legal for medical use, and there are hundreds  of doctors willing to say you have chronic headaches or anxiety and they recommend pot. I have a friend who said she has bad cramps on her period, and the doctor recommended that she have the ability to own 60 plants at a time. That's like 20 pounds of weed. For her period.
But, despite weed becoming slowly accepted by society, most drugs are still looked down upon. I don't think that there's too much to gain from injecting heroin, but I also don't think I have the right to tell an intelligent adult that he isn't allowed to. We should have the freedom to do whatever the fuck we want with our bodies. There should be an age limit, but as long as someone is an adult, they  have the responsibility to know what they are putting into themselves, and should have the freedom to choose to use harmful things as well. Keeping heroin illegal does a few things:
1. Makes heroin more dangerous to use because you are unsure of the quality/additives
2. Keeps heroin addicts addicted, because they can't get treatment very easily
3. Spreads disease through dirty needle use, because needle exchange programs are rare
4. Fucks other countries over by making their income source based on the drugs they sell us
5. Fucks us over by making us spend ass loads of money instead of collecting taxes and adding an industry in the US.
This is the same for all drugs. When we try to limit the freedom of consenting, intelligent adults, all we are doing is fucking ourselves over. I think all drugs should be legal and regulated by the government, and this stupid fucking drug war should end.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Hey

So, I guess everyone on the interwebz now has a blog, so i guess that means I should have one too. It's funny, the internet makes everyone anonymous, but it seems like that makes everyone craze attention even more. Being anonymous has made everyone want facebooks, myspaces, tumblr's, twitters, and blogs. So, once their entire life is easy to see by clicking on a few pages, they add anyone and everyone who has ever taken the time to see them eating at a different table at a restaurant once. It's retarded how many "friends" people have on facebook and such sites, when in reality they probably know like 20 of them really well. tops. Besides making everyone attention whores (me included, obviously), it has made everyone need vastly bigger and better and more grotesque, shocking, etc things to get their attention. I remember when "shocking" was tubgirl... *shudder*... then rotten.com, then nothing. I know i sound old, but its true, the shit people post today, and dont even blink an eye at, its amazing. I mean, go on any forum that allows adult content, and you'll see the depraved shithole the internet has started to become in order to receive the attention people so crave. But hey, im no better, im posting a fucking blog, ranting and raving like my thoughts actually mean something. Anyways, in a sea of anonymous it is interesting to see how people fight for an identity, while at the same time reveling in the mask that being anonymous allows them to have.

my first blog

I have a blog now, yay! I dont really feel like saying anything yet. so i wont.