half brilliant

I have a 600Gb iTunes library. That’s 62,187 songs (currently), or 231 days’ worth of music. I’m not showing off - it’s more of a curse than a blessing - but it’s important background for my next thought , so bear with me. 

When I discover new music that I like, I tend to download at least the album the music is from, and often - after having read reviews - the entire discography of the artist responsible. This generally means that while I have a great deal of music that I am intimately familiar with, and a working memory of what my library contains and doesn’t contain (and how well tagged it is)*, there’s also a LARGE amount of my iTunes library (probably about 60%) that I haven’t even heard. I think this is testament to the age - days of dialup long passed have still emblazoned “THE INTERNET IS NOT A GIVEN”  into my psyche - and I live in perpetual fear of losing such essentials as internet access. So I want to ensure that when the inevitable collapse of modern industrialised society happens, I’ve got enough music to get me through it (likely dynamo-powered). 

So far, so obsessive. The main reasons I curse the size of the library is the sheer amount of CPU cycles iTunes appears to need to index it… But that’s nothing on how long it takes me to select tracks to fill my portable music player (once Walkman, then Discman, then MiniDisc**, then iPod, then - glory glory - iPhone), taking care to not leave wasted space, and also to represent “important” albums in the full (Kid A and D’Angelo’s Voodoo are two of very few albums that are granted Lossless privileges - although the latter is so well recorded it sounds good at 96kbps MP3). The last time I was forced to painstakingly pick and choose 50Gb of music to sync to my iPhone, it took me roughly 8 hours, and it’s generally something that needs to be done in a single sitting. 

Now, unlike many who claim this, I have a genuinely diverse music taste, and a seemingly insatiable appetite to experience the music I know & love over and over again, as well as music that is new to me. I can’t think of any major genre that goes completely unrepresented in my library, or without me having certain tracks I’d die for. I care not about the apparent “credibility” of the artist, I only care about the credibility of the music, and even then my parameters are astonishingly wide. The only things are RIGHT OUT are the cheap, nasty, ugly use of pitch correction to hide lazy vocal performances (WHERE’S THE HUMANITY - LITERALLY?), and music that I perceive to be made for no other reason than to make money. All the other reasons - the genuine, balls-out, proper reasons for music - to communicate, to make people dance, catharsis, expression, anger, and that stupid “love” nonsense - are all reasons that resonate with me. Strongly. Even music that others would (hatefully) refer to “guilty pleasures” stay in the playlist. If I loved it 20 years ago, I love it now (I completely do not understand people who like a type of music one year, and hate it the next. In fact, I think they’re full of bullshit)

So essentially,  out of something that is entirely meant to maximise my own personal enjoyment of the music that I am so extremely privileged (and so are you) to be able to walk around and hear in awesome clarity as I potter about doing my daily doings, I’m becoming a highly-trained, finely-tuned, very experienced (I’ve been following this process for a decade) filter.

And basically, over the next few years, or just before I die (I’m likely to get warning, you see), I will publish my 50Gb’s worth, or roughly 7000 songs, that I truly consider “essential” to me and my mobile life - that I pay a pretty premium to be able to store entirely on my phone (I may well recant these words in the future, but I think 64Gb is finally “enough” for my local storage needs on my mobile device. 50 of that for music, the rest fits in the rest.)

ANYWAY. So I am slowly, but constantly refining a playlist of around 7000 songs that I believe are worth integrating fully into my soul. 

And when it reaches a point of ripe, pluckable maturity, I will DEFINITELY be sharing that playlist, in full, on the web, with all the none of the people who are interested.

But in a very real sense, once I have levelled-up, I believe it will be the fullest indicator of who I was as a person, the first life journey I went on. So maybe it will interest people once I am inevitably murdered.  

*around 2006 I gave up trying to ensure that all the track metadata was correct in the library, when it reached about 80Gb in size. It basically became a full time job. And even though I admittedly was gainfully unemployed, that was specifically because I didn’t want a full-time job. 

**Oh how I loved MiniDisc, which was amazing technology that was oddly prescient of the future - decent lossy compression, and computer-like storage. Sony, in the post-Walkman MiniDisc heyday, really didn’t deserve to have their lunch so fully munched by Apple. But thank God for Apple. (Except iTunes). That was a joke, of course I love iTunes.

Just how much cognitive dissonance does the “average individual” have to rely on to swallow the ridiculous notion that information sharing is “piracy”, and therefore an immoral activity or one born out of avarice? 

Yes, there are a few people who have made a bunch of money from providing (supposedly) “copyrighted” material for free, but this number would likely pale in significance compared to the number of people who have “legitimately” profited within the corporate framework from other people’s efforts. However, and I say this as someone who has been sharing information HEAVILY on the internet since 1998 - the vast, VAST majority of the “pirate” scene is characterised by people, most usually geeks with limited resources, spending a lot of time and effort - and quite often money (server expenses etc) to share cultural material (music, movies, TV shows, books, software etc - all of which, despite creator’s protests to the contrary, are only ever grown from seeds sown in the collective, COMMUNAL fields of culture)  to those unable (or indeed unwilling) to pay for it.

And somehow the corporate hegemony manages to convince the majority of people - culture consumers *and* creators (quite often those creators obsessed with the arrogant notion that what they “create” is theirs and theirs alone), that people coming together, FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS, spending time and effort to quite literally improve the life experience of countless millions of people by providing information as free as it is meant to be - is somehow akin to theft, piracy or greed. 

People coming together - AT THEIR EXPENSE, and sharing information that is wrong-headedly restricted FOR PROFIT under the false notion of “copyright”, for free with those both unwilling and unable to pay for it… is THEFT?! 

You’ve got to give it to them.  

“Minister for Crime Prevention and Antisocial Behaviour Reduction Lord Henley said: ‘…It is important for those considering using these drugs to understand that just because a substance is legal, it does not mean it is safe and should not be seen as a safer alternative to illegal substances.’”

(from “‘Safe Ketamine’ (MXE) referred to drug experts”)

I’m sorry, Lord Henley, but you fucking what? Did you just effectively admit that the illegal substance drug classification system has ABSOLUTELY. NOTHING. to do with public safety? So why do we have it again? 

Fuck you guys.

just treated myself to yet another peaK experience to end off my amazing holiday… I’m embarrassed for all those who don’t know what they’re so naively proud to be missing.

Ketamine. Kid A. VisionSynth, which I have to hack OS X Mountain Lion to be able to still use, with my custom settings, on a discreet GPU that is newly mine again. In a darkened room.  

Quoth me on Twitter just now: “I am certain of it. It is those who proudly intend to “”stay” “drug” “free”” who are the real idiots. Opting to squander their consciousnesses away via mediocre sensation, never interfacing with the divine One…until death reveals them as fools… such a shame.”


 

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“This is not an issue about a squatter moving in while you go out to buy the milk but about a willful neglect of houses while there are people on the streets.

The scandal is that the law allows property owners the right to do what they wish with their own property, even if they wish to leave it empty. If you feel they are right to waste limited resources because they own it, then you are morally bankrupt.

The reason properties are left empty is simply because it is cost effective for the owner or they forgot they own it (as local councils do). Squatters are providing a benefit to society by bringing homes back into use. The fact that home owners now, after not caring about a property for years and sometimes decades, decide to cash in, is the problem.

Morals of society make the law. If a council charged the owner 10 times the community charge for an empty property, making leaving the property empty uneconomic, the squatter issue would disappear overnight. To intentionally leave houses empty for years, is morally wrong.”

- commenter “wordsareimportant” from Is it right to criminalise squatting? - The Guardian

People “agree” with the criminalisation of squatting because they imagine some grubby dropout taking up residence in their home whilst they’re out at work. The fact is, that’s what the government wants you to believe. Squatting was a hundred-years old RIGHT of the people, that was there to stop the moral scandal of perfectly good homes going empty whilst people go without housing. Right now there are at least 750,000 domestic homes completely empty in the UK… have you seen any homeless people today?

This makes me fucking angry. I woke up this morning angry about Iraq and squatting. That’s what not smoking will do for you. 

Thankyou brain.

Yeah, I do have a pretty good brain. Thanks Brain.

I’m my brain.

All hail the brain! I am and can see, brain activity! ALL HAIL THE BRAIN!

…Come on rest of the body, admit it. You wouldn’t be shit without the brain. Give thanks; hail the brain that rules you!

“ALL HAIL THE BRAIN”

Oh wait I can’t feel my legs. Been sat in the same position for FAR too long. Well… numb bits…. You numb bits can hail the brain in a bit when there’s enough blood in you again. Come on, knees, admit it - you wouldn’t be shit without the brain.

‘Ok brain, we admit it, we wouldn’t be shit without you.’

THAT’S BETTER! And the cartilage under the knee! ‘Yes we admit it too’ ALL HAIL THE BRAIN!!!!

ONE IS ONE AND YOU ARE ONE. ONE IS ONE AND YOU ARE ONE.ONE IS ONE AND YOU ARE ONE.ONE IS ONE AND YOU ARE ONE.ONE IS ONE AND YOU ARE ONE.ONE IS ONE AND YOU ARE ONE. ( ad infinitum)

1=1&U=1

deadmau5:

So heres whats happening. im going to unplug for a wee bit. which doesnt mean im cancelling any upcoming shows or anything, im just gunna slam on the breaks for a bit and force myself to endure some quiet time. in that time, obviously the gears will still be moving, ill still be writing, and the…

Oh man, I’ve been there, just not with the magnificent output

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Reblogged from deadmau5

He has his head screwed on right this lad :)

nicklathambass:

This is something that often bugs me and I’ve wanted to talk about for a while. But it’s massively opinionated which is always a troublesome road to take on the internet. Haha. Here goes nothing!

The common misconception of late seems to be that if something is loud, tuned low-down and/or played…

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Reblogged from nicklathambass

deadmau5:

its no secret. when it comes to “live” performance of EDM… that’s about the most it seems you can do anyway. It’s not about performance art, its not about talent either (really its not) In fact, let me do you and the rest of the EDM world button pushers who fuckin hate me for telling you how it…

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Reblogged from deadmau5

“There’s a unique component of music that is different from, you know, the written pamphlet or a speech,” he explained. “There’s something, when you get the right combination of rhythm, melody and the right lyrical couplet, that feels like truth in the reptilian brain. There’s something hardwired in our D.N.A.. And when you get a large group of people singing together in solidarity, it’s something that, in my experience, and I’ve played countless demonstrations and protests through the years, it’s something that can really help a struggle.” - Tom Morello