why are you so stupid?

I’ve listened to the Daft Punk Tron soundtrack and it comes down to this: it’s boring. Terribly bland. Instantly forgettable. It sounds like the lowest level assistant tea-fetcher for Hans Zimmer submitted some simple sketches after five days of work, orchestrated by a professional and played by 100 of the finest studio musicians in a very expensive studio. With occasional electronic bleeps and bloops throw in at random.

It is an open secret that Daft Punk is only kind of sort of involved in the orchestral side of things, which represents the bulk of the album. It isn’t like they’re orchestrating, preparing parts or conducting. Whatever their involvement is past that point is really elementary level stuff. Regardless, it doesn’t matter. Daft Punk got played by Disney. Yep.

Why would you hire Daft Punk? For their music, right? OK, back up. Let’s say Daft Punk had no involvement with Tron whatsoever, and they released this Tron Soundtrack as a straight up Daft Punk album? How would fans respond? They’d revolt. This isn’t even remotely a Daft Punk album.

So, Disney hired Daft Punk to make music that doesn’t sound like Daft Punk, or, at least, bears little resemblance to anything Daft Punk has done in the past. The question remains, why use Daft Punk at all?

It should be obvious at this point: marketing. The original Tron soundtrack was composed and orchestrated by a person who, at the time, represented the pinnacle of electronic music production. This time around, Disney needed a name that represents the current state of electronic music production. As Daft Punk is coming off a recent Grammy-award winning year, they’re a natural choice. They’re the hot thing. Disney then proceeded to run their name through the marketing grinder, leveraging every last drop of milage out of the decision.

In short, Disney wanted the name, but, apparently, not the music.

The new TSA virtual strip search porno scanners are humiliating. Way, way too far. I don’t want naked photos of my body taken for any reason. I can opt out, which I have done, but clearly, the TSA’s policy is to bully passengers into submitting to the porno scanners by increasing the intensity of the pat downs (and the surrounding circumstances ‘OPT OUT. WE HAVE AN OPT OUT HERE’). Clearly, they want to make the pat downs as harsh as possible to send a message to other passengers. The transparency of this policy is insulting to my intelligence.

I don’t trust the Government. You make promises you can’t and don’t keep. You outright lie. Fact. Even with this particular issue. The TSA says that backscatter scanners “cannot store, print, transmit or save the image, and the image.” except when they do. And what is to prevent an operator from using a camera phone? That’ll never happen. YEAH, RIGHT.

The backscatter scanners won’t make us safe. They don’t improve security. This is security theatre and the only people who benefit are the corporations and lobbyists the represent the companies that make the equipment. Here is another take.

The TSA’s response is also insulting. “We’re not violating your rights. You’re free to travel using other methods.” Really? Internationally? Fuck off. Assholes.

I love the fact this idiot loves to write because everything he says is so fucking stupid it makes my teeth hurt.

From Renoise 2.51 music tracker studio

What makes a tracker so cool is that it is old school and written to the hardware in old school code. The code is more efficient than today’s modern sequencers and can do more without sacrificing audio engine quality.

Ah. Of course. Old school code. Written to the hardware. Whoa… whoa slow down with the software development technical jargon, cowboy.

The thing about hexfix93 is nothing he says actually has to make sense, nor does he have to offer proof of anything. He just presents his half baked opinions as fact. This enables him to change his mind on a whim.

He is one of those idiots who continue to believe that the only way to get accurate MIDI timing is to use an Atari ST.

From Sequencing Atari ST Cubase

You can throw 170 bpm 32nd and 64th notes at it and doesn’t choke. It’s amazing. If you are doing aggressive electronic, high temp, or glitchy stuff with hardware, these are the best sequencers. No PC or modern MAC can match it.

Cubase 2.8 with serial on win 98 is tight(you have to put the comptuer in 256 colors, and tweak the os a little), but not this tight. Atari is slightly tighter than the ASQ10, but by a hair. These three sequencers kick the crap out of any modern software on the market today. So if you want tight timing on your hardware like I do. This is the only solution.

It is true. Atari’s have tight MIDI timing. It is also true there was a period of pretty bad MIDI timing, but that era ended nearly a decade ago. Modern DAWs external MIDI timing accuracy is as good or better than the old Ataris due to MIDI interfaces that pre-buffer the time stamped MIDI data, but the half-truths linger. You can measure jitter yourself by recording the MIDI output as audio into your audio interface. hexfix93’s test is flawed because he’s measuring both MIDI timing resolution AND how quickly the destination device responds to the MIDI signal in the form of triggering a hi-hat sample. This completely throws off the results.

If you want tight timing, you don’t use external MIDI at all. You use soft synths which deliver sample-accurate MIDI timing. Or, use control voltage.

He is really pissed off at Apple. From Apple sucks

Why did I leave apple? I sold my ipad, I sold my macbook pro, I am in the process of selling all my apple software. Yes, Steve Jobs pissed me off that bad. The censorship king on the apps store, tells us what apps we can run, kicks in doors of companies and the press who get insider or leaked info like Watergate politics by nixon back in the day. Steve jobs to me is the new hitler of the tech world.

This is the reason hexfix93 is selling all his Apple shit?  Maybe he’s never worked in the tech industry, but sometimes you need to protect confidential information. As far as Apple’s draconian app store policies, just about everything in the developer agreement (which I’m sure he hasn’t read) is about Apple protecting the quality of user experience. Oooo! Evil. Hitler.

Anyway, I’m sure Steve is happy hexfix93 is no longer an apple customer.

From IMS-20

I left Apple a year ago for Android and the future of touch tablets only to find an extreme lack of 3rd party software. I missed the iElectribe a ton. My envy grew and grew when Gravy showed up in Denver with his, making beats with it for the newest Toxic Coma track “DIGITAL GRAVY”. Already jonesing for an ipad for the iElectribe, seeing the ims-20 videos on Matrix Synth sent me over the top (I HAVE TO SELL STUFF TO PAY FOR THIS NOW). I bought an ipad again.

FUUUUUUUUUUU!

I hate itunes, because their business model is destroying music, they put all the mom and pa stores out of business, well there the employees knew the music, they would hang posters and feature all kinds of things to help promote bands. Now there is itunes, and they don’t advertise shit, there is no way to promoted yourself there, or anywhere on the internet anymore so you no longer get random buyers.

I don’t even know where to begin with this. I remember it more like this: Napster came out and everyone started downloading music. The iTunes music store offered a fairly painless way to get the music you wanted instantly. It was the first, really viable alternative to illegal downloading.

The business model of selling music shifted from brick and mortar to online, where it arguably belongs - for many reasons, but, to pick one, the environmental impact of manufacturing and distribution.

As far as marking is concerned, this also has shifted. The social aspect of mom and pop stores has also moved online and there are any number of ways to reach new listeners.

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Every. Single. Post. has some facedesk-esque stupidity in it. I had to stop reading because I’m pretty sure I lost 30 IQ points just by reading the small bits that I did. I’m actually impressed I still can type right now.

People who claim that without an absolute moral standard, we’d be running around fucking kittens scare me.

First of all, your moral standard sucks. You can’t cherry pick the parts of the Bible and claim it to be a superior moral standard and ignore the other parts. You also can’t be a literalist because the thing is so internally inconsistent to be wholly incomprehensible. That leaves, uh, nothing.

Second, the moral standard that Christians claim to follow, don’t. Take George Bush for example. He claims to be a devoutly religious guy. Any follower of Christ knows that one should turn the other cheek. Everyone who has been to Bible school also knows of the Old Testament (invalidated by the New Deal of the New Testament, but still relevant, so we include it anyway) and nuggets like “thou shalt not kill”, but we go ahead and start a two wars in the Middle East anyway. It is easy to claim the Bible is your moral standard, it is quite another thing to actually follow its teachings. Failing to do so doesn’t mean you’re weak, it means you’re a hypocrite. This goes for every Christian Hawk. (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:3)

Most importantly, any sort of morality enforced by punishment or reward in the afterlife is fundamentally selfish in nature, and invalid. The notion that your sins can be forgiven by a belief in Christianity is repugnant. You can be a terrible, horrible selfish person, but if you hold this specific selfish belief (oh, and repent), everything is forgiven! You’re rewarded! This is an end run around the idea of an inherently moral person, who is good for all the right (non-selfish) reasons, but who also happens to be an unbeliever. That person is going to hell. This justification makes no sense whatsoever, is transparently self-serving and conveniently reinforces the idea that you must be on ‘our’ team to ‘win’.

People who believe they will be forgiven in the afterlife are raping the planet. You have one life, and you need to answerable to the people living (and not yet living) on this planet for your actions. Unsustainable living practices are a tax on our decedents. The way you live your life is inherently selfish and damaging to our children.

But, that’s ok. You go to church.

So, you think Obama is a Muslim? You’re totally fucking wrong. Most of the people who choose to believe this are using the Muslim excuse to mask latent racism. You can’t hate him because he’s half-black so you invent this ridiculous secret Muslim excuse.

But let’s say there is someone out there who really really really isn’t racist, and really really really really still believes, even in the face of overwhelming evidence and documentation of his Christian faith, that he is, in fact, a Muslim. SO WHAT? How is this a bad thing? How does this change anything? What policy decisions has he made to somehow, ridiculously, turn the United States into a Muslim nation?  Can you cite anything?

But this isn’t the thing that bothers me. Any time, ANY TIME religion, in whatever form, makes its way into politics, a part of me dies. Why is this a factor at all? When will we be able to elect an atheist president? Every Presidential debate I’ve seen there is some obligatory reference or lip-service to Christianity. You can’t get elected without it.

When I see someone getting upset about Obama as a Muslim, they need to understand THIS IS HOW I FEEL ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Too fucking bad. Christian, Muslim - you’re arguing about different shades of the same bullshit. I don’t want the President of the United States consulting his/her faith about a single fucking thing, ever. Listen, would you vote for a candidate who confesses in believing in a giant blue elephant and this faith is an important part of their life? Delusional.

I have a serious fucking problem with favstar. I enjoy the service, as it allows me to find funny and insightful people, but it is also feeds a disturbing species of attention whore. These are people who are addicted to the validation the service provides. Sometimes you come across a tweet that gives you a strong wiff of star whoring. Other times you’ll find a joke that is trying just a little too hard.

Then you find accounts that seem to thrive on the validation that is provided through an endless stream of lame sexual innuendo. It may start as a harmless off-color joke. Women talk about their boobs or their sex life, find it is an easy way to gather stars and they do it more. It is a vicious cycle; narcissistic women validated by sex-starved nerds. I think some of these people have genuine psychological problems.

Twitter and favstar make such an exchange possible. It is a somewhat safe form of exhibitionism and it comes with a built in audience. These people wouldn’t actually say shit like this in mixed company, but the anonymity of the internet suddenly makes it possible.

tumblr comes with a built-in validation method, and it supports pictures. This has given rise to the GPOW attention whore: an excuse for women to post pictures of themselves strictly in order to harvest the complements of random internet people. Do these people have anything to contribute to the world other than their own vanity and thirst for validation? It’s fucking pathetic.

I have a suggestion. Instead of posting pictures of yourself or talking about your vagina, why do you fucking make something for a change. Contribute something to the world other than waste heat.