Yeah, he's... a complete prick in a very interesting way.
Bond or Yudkowsky?
Yudkowsky. He's the epitome of what happens when you get a really smart person that thinks their intelligence makes them morally superior. You don't see that as much as you would think, let alone with that degree of success. It's kind of fascinating.
On the surface, Pinch and Roska never seemed like obvious bedfellows for collaboration: Bristol-based proponent of dread-filled 140 BPM music versus the UK funky first-waver's colourful broken house. Nonetheless, 2011's "Paranormal Activity" occupied a surprisingly successful (if relatively obvious) middle ground, setting Roska's distinctive snare cascades adrift above a chasmic void of sub-bass.
Instead of repeating the same trick, "Shoulda Rolla" goes deeper and moodier, its blast furnace sub-bass dragged along by sparse hand-struck drums and chimes that recall the barely-controlled mania of early Shackleton. They successfully paper over the divide between each producer's contributions, making it pleasingly difficult to pick apart who brought which ideas to the table. However, this approach also masks their respective idiosyncrasies, ensuring that despite its heavyweight genesis, the track feels slightly more generic than you might expect.
Roska's solo cut "Asbestos," on the other hand, is excellent. It's the most stripped-back his music has been since that still-ferocious run of early Funky 12-inches in 2008, but he's never sounded this sinister. With its lightning snares coasting on a fat cushion of sub-bass, it's closer to dubstep tempo than house, souring his usual bounding melodies with fizzy dissonance. Even his characteristic "ROSKA!" vocal ident is delivered differently, the usual friendly yelp replaced with a snakelike hiss.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
One night I dreamed of New YorkYou and I roasting blue porkIn the Statue of Liberty's torch Elvis landed in a rocket, rocket, rocket shipHealed a couple of leapers and disappearedBut where was his beard A shadow from the sky, much too big to be a birdA screaming, crashing noise louder than I've ever heardIt looked like two big silver trees that somehow learned to soarSuddenly a summer breeze and a mighty lion's roar
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
What is it with cats and boxes, anyway? It's like the two were made for each other.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
"An albatross is the grandest living flying machine on Earth. An albatross is bone, feathers, muscle, and the wind. An albatross is its own taut longbow, the breeze its bowstring, propelling its projectile body. An albatross is an art deco bird, striking of pattern, clean of line, epic in travels, heroically faithful. A parent albatross may fly more than 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) to deliver one meal to its chick.
Wielding the longest wings in nature—up to eleven and a half feet (3.5 meters)—albatrosses can glide hundreds of miles without flapping, crossing ocean basins, circumnavigating the globe. A 50-year-old albatross has flown, at least, 3.7 million miles (6 million kilometers).
If people know the albatross at all, most harbor vague impressions of an ungainly, burdensome creature, derived from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1798 poem,The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Turns out, Coleridge never saw an albatross. Also turns out, most people haven't read the poem. In the poem, the albatross benevolently fills the ship's sails with wind and aids its progress. When the mariner impulsively kills the albatross, horror grips the crew; they punish the mariner by making him wear the great corpse around his neck.
But let's not burden albatrosses with our metaphors.
Strictly speaking, albatrosses are mediocre fliers—but excellent gliders. They can lock their wings in the open position like switchblades, the bird merely piloting the glider it inhabits. Catching the wind in their wings and sailing upward, then harnessing gravity while planing seaward, they travel in long undulations. Most birds struggle to overcome wind; albatrosses exploit it.
What differentiates an albatross from, say, a gull, is not just architecture but also state of mind, a brain that is master navigator of so exquisite a body. Swap the software, install a gull brain at the helm of an albatross, and the great vital sailing craft would never dream of daring the distances that an albatross routinely conquers. Gulls hug the shores and proclaim themselves monarchs of dock pilings. Albatrosses cross oceans for breakfast and deign to touch shore only when it involves sex. Land is an inconvenient necessity for breeding.
Granted, on land—where they seldom are—albatrosses walk with a spatula-footed, head-wagging waddle. Walking isn't their thing; no one will ever film March of the Albatrosses. But oh, when they unfurl those wings and leave gravity to the rest of us, they become magnificent beyond the reach of words"
Because 1986 is when Gregory Abbott happened, and that's impossible to top, as far as good music goes.
Oh yeah, those canned drum machine beats and that DX7 harmonica are totes hot. :lol:
Also, Bond has a bunch of words words words about why he's "no longer a skeptic". It basically boils down to "Hitchens, Dawkins, and Penn & Teller are loudmouth assholes, and the latter's association with right-wing politics doesn't help matters any"...I've noticed that RW tends to tread carefully around them, too.
Hitchens, Dawkins, and Penn & Teller are loudmouth assholes, and the latter's association with right-wing politics doesn't help matters any
but Penn & Teller are the most tolerable of the group
I'm going to second this.
Also, economically right-wing does not equate to socially right-wing. They are completely different things. "Right-wing" alone is too abstract outside of very specific contexts.
Yeah, while P&T may have gone too far on criticising recycling (one of the things I'm still sore about), they're at least fun to watch. The other two are just sour, hateful anti-theists as far as I can tell, O'Hairs for the 21st century.
Bond makes good points sometimes, but damn does he ramble. Also, pop songs are written for teenagers because most of the people likely to buy them are themselves teenagers or young adults (the 12-17 and 18-24 demos). That and puppy love and infatuation aren't something you grow out of...it can still happen just as easily to an adult as it can a high-schooler.
I actually have a lot of respect for Christopher Hitchens, but I can easily understand why people would be repulsed by him. To call him "uncompromising" would be the understatement of the century.
Comments
Because 1986 is when Gregory Abbott happened, and that's impossible to top, as far as good music goes.
Is the Reaper morally superior because he cures the elderly of sicknesses when no other cure presented itself.
Does morality really matter if you're just gonna make the same mistakes again and again?
I KNOW
Elvis landed in a rocket, rocket, rocket shipHealed a couple of leapers and disappearedBut where was his beard
A shadow from the sky, much too big to be a birdA screaming, crashing noise louder than I've ever heardIt looked like two big silver trees that somehow learned to soarSuddenly a summer breeze and a mighty lion's roar
I had been planning to watch that since I saw it on your profile page. I think that I shall do that now...
Also: HAY AU, Allbritton wants to sell WJLA
"An albatross is the grandest living flying machine on Earth. An albatross is bone, feathers, muscle, and the wind. An albatross is its own taut longbow, the breeze its bowstring, propelling its projectile body. An albatross is an art deco bird, striking of pattern, clean of line, epic in travels, heroically faithful. A parent albatross may fly more than 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) to deliver one meal to its chick.
Wielding the longest wings in nature—up to eleven and a half feet (3.5 meters)—albatrosses can glide hundreds of miles without flapping, crossing ocean basins, circumnavigating the globe. A 50-year-old
albatross has flown, at least, 3.7 million miles (6 million kilometers).
If people know the albatross at all, most harbor vague impressions of an ungainly, burdensome creature, derived from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1798 poem,The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Turns out, Coleridge never saw an albatross. Also turns out, most people haven't read the poem. In the poem, the albatross benevolently fills the ship's sails with wind and aids its progress. When the mariner impulsively kills the albatross, horror grips the crew; they punish the mariner by making him wear the great corpse around his neck.
But let's not burden albatrosses with our metaphors.
Strictly speaking, albatrosses are mediocre fliers—but excellent gliders. They can lock their wings in the open position like switchblades, the bird merely piloting the glider it inhabits. Catching the wind in their wings and sailing upward, then harnessing gravity while planing seaward, they travel in long undulations. Most birds struggle to overcome wind; albatrosses exploit it.
What differentiates an albatross from, say, a gull, is not just architecture but also state of mind, a brain that is master navigator of so exquisite a body. Swap the software, install a gull brain at the helm of an albatross, and the great vital sailing craft would never dream of daring the distances that an albatross routinely conquers. Gulls hug the shores and proclaim themselves monarchs of dock pilings. Albatrosses cross oceans for breakfast and deign to touch shore only when it involves sex. Land is an inconvenient necessity for breeding.
Granted, on land—where they seldom are—albatrosses walk with a spatula-footed, head-wagging waddle. Walking isn't their thing; no one will ever film March of the Albatrosses. But oh, when they unfurl those wings and leave gravity to the rest of us, they become magnificent beyond the reach of words"
From the December 2007 National Geographic.
Now, this is what National Geographic should be: poetic, highly researched, based in many hours of observation, and thought-provoking.
I'd post the next page or so, but I don't want to make a wall of text.
Also, Bond has a bunch of words words words about why he's "no longer a skeptic". It basically boils down to "Hitchens, Dawkins, and Penn & Teller are loudmouth assholes, and the latter's association with right-wing politics doesn't help matters any"...I've noticed that RW tends to tread carefully around them, too.