#especially for a podcast. and they still had ads on it. how does one get away with that. good stuff. cackling

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

midnight burger episode 5 was just a BRILLIANT move

[learnastrowallura]

💙The Fourth House in Astrology💙

The source if this information is The Astrology Podcast (Chris Brennan) on Youtube and from the book The Twelve Houses: Exploring the Houses of the Horoscope by Howard Sasportas and I will add a personal example as well

4th house: home, family, soul, origin, roots, ancestry, lineage, genes, inner self, heritage, inherited trauma and/or wisdom/values, comfort, the mother, the womb, parents, nurture, private life, conditioning, foundation, support or lack of support, shelter, childhood, early environment, the past, emotion, angular

Relationship with parental figures or those responsible for the individual early on, values instilled in the home, lessons passed down from parental figures to the child, themes most present during childhood, leniency or sterness in matters related to discipline, traits of the child, interets/favorite topics early on or that bring a feeling of home and comfort in the present, how one would be/act as a parent (replicating parenting style or breaking the cycle if needed)

Personal example: Aquarius in the 4th house and Uranus in Pisces 4th house

I believe I already mentioned how I didn't know I had siblings until I was 13 in my last post? 😅 I would say that is very Uranus energy and there were a lot of instances like this where shocking things would be revealed to me in the most casual ways with underwhelming energy

Very turbulent environment you really would not know what to expect and my Aries moon kind of added a danger element to it

Uranus is square my sun and this manifested for me in... the approach taken in raising me totally contradicting everything I stand for including the values that were instilled in me since they were not very ideal to be fair

Uranus is also trine both my Venus and Mars and I definitely see this as my past, as "annoying" as it was, kind of pushed me to take action to establish my own independance as well as prioritize my own comfort and appreciate myself as well so it does not justify in any way what happened but for me PERSONALLY it did play a huge role in shaping who I am as a person and my resilience as well which is a very Scorpionic thing and especially not being afraid of facing it all head on (for reference I have Venus and Mars in Scorpio in the 12th house)

My Uranus is also opposite my MC and sextile my north node however I will not analyze those right now

As for favorite topics I love kpop and astrology and these two interests definitely make me seem like an eccentric person to others (Aquarius) since I have been raised and do still currently live in a religious country

I think I would have a very progressive approach to parenting and handling matters of the home and again for me this is relative to my childhood environment so instead of me for example taking on a certain role since I am a woman I would handle things based on my strengths and weaknesses as well as my future partner's strong and weak points as well

I hope this was not too heavy 😅 I usually do personal examples for these so I wanted to stay consistent but I tried to not go into detail but yeah you get the idea

Comment down below your 4th house sign, planets and aspects

Thank you for reading <3

Masterlist

Paid readings available

[cyanogen-miasma]

Spoilers for Doctor Who episode "Lucky Day' (and I guess "The Silurians" but I think that's been around for long enough lol)

I certainly think that the new Doctor Who episode was quite politically confused...as the audience, we know that UNIT does some great stuff saving the earth (or at least, we're supposed to...practically speaking they aren't always the most useful presence to have around *cough* the Silurians *cough*) but canonically they are still secretive military-type people with big guns who are basically given free reign to do whatever they want (last bit being true mostly for the modern day). I mean, I love the Brigadier but he was a military man with military answers to very delicate issues, and I think one of the things that was enjoyable for me about UNIT-era Doctor Who was seeing how Brig and Three came into conflict, and how the Doctor - who always stood by logic and finding the best solutions to complicated problems - had to deal with the overwhelming presence of military men who charge in with guns blazing.

I feel like a condemnation of UNIT would have added more nuance to Lucky Day - Conrad was well out of line for making a whole conspiracy, using Ruby and playing with her heart, shooting a guy, (starting a podcast...), but his plight does demonstrate that there is a lack of transparency between UNIT and the public which should be addressed. The episode would look better if UNIT was less military and more science-y, then the climate scientist/WHO allegory I've heard people say is being used (and I'm sure is probably what the takeaway is supposed to be) could actually come through in the episode.

However I did actually enjoy the episode very much. The performance from the actors playing Ruby, Conrad and Kate were very good. I do especially like the scene where Kate releases the Shreek on Conrad, as we get to see Kate basically snap, and when Conrad was like? "haha those were good special effects lol" after being scared half to death by the Shreek, I was foaming at the mouth. Also the delivery of "THE PARENTS ARE TALKINGG" was heart-shattering. Poor Ruby. And the Doctor's speech at the end was a great performance on Ncuti's part.

Also SECOND DOCTOR REFERENCE!!! I LOVE YOU THE WEB OF FEAR!!!

[mythserene]

AKOM “Fine Tuning,” Episode 6: A prolonged jealousy

Another really excellent episode that I will have to listen to at least two more times to fully ingest, despite having lots of diffuse, unconnected notes where I ranted about most of the same text. They really backed up and gave it context and meaning, including adding a lot of things that I didn’t have and making sense of some of the extras that I did. It was both satisfying and frustrating: more satisfying than I expected, and my frustration feels more coherent and focused now.

I definitely think it’s one of the most important episodes.

There is only one point I would add, and that is just that when you listen to the episode it’s important to realize that Paul’s “jealousy” is the most egregiously non-sourced. There are basically two quotes that Mark Lewisohn uses to support this entire theme. The theme which he so beats into the ground that even if you don’t look at the footnotes it feels excessive.

I’ve mentioned before that when I read “Tune In” I was still very, very new to Beatles’ history. A newborn without any of the historiographical context, no understanding of the long, strange, John-deifying background, and therefore I wasn’t on the lookout for it. And that’s important because I went into the book with implicit trust, loved the writing, and still it was evident to me, fairly quickly, that I was reading an opinion column.

It was the cigarettes that did it

Paul’s care with money was noted—Pete says that while they all passed their ciggies around, Paul would “sneak one of his own to himself”—and he was still needling everyone about the Bambi sleeping arrangements, made all the worse now because he was jealous of Pete getting the best girls.

The second time I read the book I remember thinking, “Surely not that many people spontaneously bitched about Paul being stingy with cigarettes.” And that was my tipoff.

There are two quotes in the book about Paul and cigarettes that appear to be organic—one being Pete’s “sneak one of his own” quote in this episode—but you’d think that half the people Lewisohn talked to about their memories of some of the most famous people ever, and certainly the most famous from Liverpool, just magically thought that one of the most important things about these four guys was that Paul was stingy with cigarettes. And there is just no way that that is true.

But I also know how this works, inside out. You get “an angle” as a reporter. You have a story you want to tell, and then you interview people with that story—that angle—in mind. You ask questions that you think will elicit the responses that back up your thesis. And then, on the other side of the process, you filter the quotes you choose (and don’t choose) that tell the story you want to tell. And to be fair, every reporter and historian does this to some extent. It may just be to organize ideas in a coherent way, or it may be to focus on a theme. But it has also notoriously been used by historians to warp the truth and further a broader historical lie. (A very good example of this and the one closest to me is “the Dunning School” of the US Civil War and Reconstruction, the first real and condensed story of that conflict that injected into US historiography many complete lies, including the especially insane one that after the Civil War the “Radical Republicans” inflicted pain and humiliation on the South, which despite being the exact opposite of the truth is still the story most Americans “know.”)

Mark Lewisohn had a story he wanted to tell, and I believe that story is most obvious in his “jealous Paul” theme because it’s based on nearly thin air and even then is so ludicrously overblown. But I think it was just too tempting a canvas for Lewisohn. Setting up a dead, pretty kid as a sort of saint that Paul persecuted does so much work for everything else he wants to say about Paul, especially in the upcoming books. Hamburg becomes a pressure cooker where Paul’s true colors come out, and if Lewisohn can use Stu—a sort of perfect near-blank slate who never had time to put any of his memories into context—as a foil to Paul and to paint Paul as petty and jealous and seething, then all the rest of his work is easy. Stu is a layup that paves the way to seeing Paul as a bad guy. The concrete dries and everything else falls into place.

And look, there just is no way to see this theme as organic, because it’s not. It just isn’t. It’s not based on quotes or stories. There are a few completely disconnected quotes stretched to breaking that he uses to try to prop all this nonsense up with, but there is simply no defense for even 90% of the primary usage of them, and certainly not of the whole, big-picture story he creates with them.

I’m going to give one example—and there are many—but I admit to liking this one best because it’s all there in one passage based on one quote that doesn’t say any of this.

Passage:

But, as much as Paul liked exhibiting versatility, he was unhappy—he felt he’d been lumbered, that his multi-instrumental ability was tying him down. Who looked at the drummer? By rights, his place was out front, especially with his new guitar. Here he was, paying off the Solid 7 at ten bob a week and hardly getting to play it. Jealousy of Stu was stoked: Paul was in the back line while he remained out front (even if he was hiding and in dark glasses). One thing was for certain: Paul wasn’t going to abandon singing.

The only citation for all that Maca-inhabited resentment is the brief Paul quote already in the text, (FN35) and the next footnote—FN36—is from George on a new topid. There is no citation whatsoever to support any of Lewisohn’s finely-sketched fantasies of Paul’s vanity and jealousy.

FOOTNOTE 35: “I was drumming with my hands, playing the hi-hat and bass drum with my feet and I had a broomstick stuck between my thighs on the end of which was a little microphone, and I’m singing ‘Tell me what’d I say …’ It wasn’t easy!”

*Note: This quote is also in the text right under the ‘lumbered Paul wanted to be out front’ passage, so in some ways it’s an even thinner spread, if that’s possible.

So, according to Lewisohn:

Paul liked “exhibiting versatility” (a whole lot because of the modifier “as much as”)

Paul was unhappy because he felt “lumbered”

He felt he was being punished because he was TOO TALENTED

BY RIGHTS his place was out FRONT

He wanted to be LOOKED AT!

Jealousy of Stu is grabbed from thin air, based on nothing, and “stoked” by Lewisohn.

because, again, Stu was out FRONT

Did you catch the point that Paul is CHEAP?

Again, all of that is cited to this:

“I was drumming with my hands, playing the hi-hat and bass drum with my feet and I had a broomstick stuck between my thighs on the end of which was a little microphone, and I’m singing ‘Tell me what’d I say …’ It wasn’t easy!”

There are at least two more things that I want to say but this is long enough so I will put them off. (Hopefully not for long.) ✌🏻

[sshbpodcast]

To Be Continued: Multi-parters in Star Trek (Part 1)

By Ames

Back in the day when Star Trek series were less serial, stretching an episode out to two weeks was a sneaky sneaky way to stretch a dollar, applying two weeks’ worth of budget to one story. Relatedly/unrelatedly, this was also the heyday of the season finale cliffhanger, in which a show would leave their audience in suspense for a few months in order to ensure they’ll return next season to see how their heroes get out of their latest scrape. Trek of the streaming era does this less since modern series are arguably all one continuous plot, so that got your hosts here at A Star to Steer Her By thinking: What makes for a good two-parter?

Over the years, we’ve very rarely been satisfied with multi-parters. Our constant refrain has been: “This should have been one episode.” So let’s look back at our first batch of two-parters from The Original Series and The Next Generation to see how the pattern emerged. Check ‘em out below and listen to our chatter on this week’s podcast episode (skip to 55:25) to see which ones actually had enough material for a sequel and which ones could have been trimmed to a 44-minute slot. And spoiler: it’s gonna be a cliffhanger!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

TOS: “The Menagerie”

The only two-parter we see in the ultra-episodic original series was really just a way to keep up with deadlines and to work around budget limitations, already thin mere months into the franchise’s existence. The unused pilot, “The Cage,” (which we talked about the other week in our pilots post!) already existed. The team had a full week’s worth of material right there to release at no extra cost! It was just a matter of writing a frame story around it to feature the current cast, and presto! It’s basically a clipshow that audiences wouldn’t realize is a clipshow!

And while the two-parter itself occasionally feels a little stretched (watching people watching Star Trek isn’t exactly riveting), we do have to admit that adding the Pike character and his fateful story into the canon would benefit us fifty years down the line. Is watching both parts of “The Menagerie” any better than watching “The Cage” on its own? Well, that may be a matter of taste and how tired you get of courtroom hearings.

TNG: “The Best of Both Worlds”

The next generation of shows would use the two-parter more commonly and to a new effect. TNG’s first foray into season finale cliffhangers is also one of its best uses of the mechanism. Ending season three with “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I”’s hair-raising final moments teases the audience so expertly that they are guaranteed to be champing at the bit after the summer hiatus to see what Locutus’s deal is, if Shelby will stay on the crew, how Riker will handle being in charge, and what the effects of firing on the assimilated captain will be.

By the time season four starts up, we also see another trend with two-parters: one part is usually far better than the other, and it’s frequently the first part. Part II is definitely laggier, and even the writers admit that they hadn’t planned how they were going to reconcile the actions of Part I until they’d already shot themselves in the face, quite literally. So while Part I was groundbreaking television, especially in the 90s, TNG still needed to learn to pace themselves.

TNG: “Redemption”

Lightning doesn’t strike twice, and the next season’s big twist in its finale is significantly less interesting than firing on a Borgified Picard. Instead, “Redemption” introduces us to another incarnation of Denise Crosby, this time as Sela. It’s more perplexing than mind-blowing, though, and the cheesy “Humans have a way of showing up when you least expect them” line doesn’t help matters.

This two-parter is on the more convoluted side, but we can forgive most of the rest of it because it’s the Klingons and Romulans at their best. From the Duras Sisters and Toral, to the Klingon Civil War, to the Romulans’ involvement, to the ship blockade, to whatever on earth Sela was supposed to be, these scripts feel as dense as one of the novels. Some may argue that there’s too much going on, but at least it doesn’t lag.

TNG: “Unification”

Oh good, Sela’s back in our next two-parter! “Unification” is plopped a couple weeks later in the middle of season 5, mostly as a way to cross-promote with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and to get Nimoy into TNG for the fans to cream themselves over. The Romulans are up to yet more shenanigans, as is their wont, and ambassador Spock is in the mix! What’s not to love?

Well, a lot, it turns out. As far as catering to fans goes, your SSHB hosts are frequently too skeptical to take the bait. And not being blinded by all the familiar guest stars, we were able to see all the flaws. The pacing of this one struggles more than ever. Even more than “Redemption,” there’s just too much going on, the pudding is thoroughly overegged, all the sideplots on on the Enterprise feel superfluous, and Sela is far too distracting as a concept. Like most Romulan plans, everything is just overwrought. Even if that does mean it has plenty to do over two episodes, we question if it’s worth it.

TNG: “Time’s Arrow”

What definitely isn’t worth it is the frustratingly repetitive and obnoxious “Time’s Arrow,” which is on so many of our bad lists, I get to pick and choose which links to cross promote! It’s another cliffhanger episode that bridges the gap between seasons, but since none of us could even remember how Part I ended, that pretty much shows you what kind of job it did at leaving an impact. (I looked it up and apparently the answer was Picard and crew following the Devidians through the temporal door, I guess? Yawn.)

While I can (and often do!) blame most of these episodes’ faults on the ear-splitting portrayal of Mark Twain, there’s not much here that’s actually compelling overall. Any elements that could be compelling (Data dealing with his own mortality, aliens who live out of phase and feast on human neural energy, etc.) are emphatically upstaged by the goofy hijinks in the past! It’s a pair of episodes that are tonally all over the place and agony to watch. Not only should it have not been a two-parter, it shouldn’t have even been a one-parter.

TNG: “Chain of Command”

In a rare instance of an episode for which the second part is significantly better than the first part, see “Chain of Command, Part II.” The first installment of this mid-season-6 two-parter is mostly setting up what will be a phenomenal acting showcase in the second, which could frankly just stand on its own with some very simple tweaks. The Cardassian torture chamber is where the action is. The rest can’t stand up to David Warner and Patrick Stewart.

And sure, you’d want to keep Jellico’s “Get It Done” attitude, Riker’s little temper tantrum, and getting Troi in a proper uniform for a change, so maybe cramming it all into one episode would feel bloated, but maybe it’d be worth it? Or maybe we could retain the two-parter and give Patrick Stewart the proper runway to get to his “There Are Four Lights” moment if we swapped Ro in for Crusher, who just seems out of place inexplicably spelunking around for a full episode. I posit Ro could’ve balanced a mediocre Part I with the stellar Part II.

TNG: “Birthright”

We’d take all the part ones of “Chain of Command” we could handle over “Birthright” though. Over the course of an episode and a half, Worf finds a colony of Klingons under the rule of Romulans while looking for Mogh (which turns out to be a red herring). And for the other half episode, we get some surrealist Data stuff plus a random Bashir cameo.

The writers seemed to know there wouldn’t be enough of the Worf plot to stretch over two episodes, so they stapled on this Data dreaming plot that ends by the time Part I is over. Which just feels weird because then Part II is nothing BUT Worf plot… and it’s just not that compelling. Part I ends with Worf just finding the camp, which makes everything up to that point feel like exposition. And thus skippable. I’d say it should have been condensed down to one episode and then you could move the Data plot to some other episode, but frankly they could have both been skipped entirely.

TNG: “Descent”

While I wouldn’t put “Descent” among my favorite TNG episodes or anything, it might actually be a decent example of a two-parter. There may be a little stretching of Part I to get to the cliffhanger, but overall it keeps the pace moving along. I can’t think of a time during either episode when I was feeling bored or thinking more things ought to be happening. Sure, the season 6 cliffhanger revealing that Lore has been behind the whole scheme is kind of a corny twist to keep fans abuzz over the season break, but it does its job.

It’s also a two-parter that keeps most of the characters busy, which is a rarity! Crusher flies into a sun. Geordi gets tortured by Lore. Troi tries (and fails) to help Data with his emotions. Everything is working toward the same goal instead of tacking on more and more disparate things. It’s not perfect, as the Borg would prefer, but it might be the most worthy of being a two-parter so far. Dang, that’s something I never thought I’d say.

TNG: “Gambit”

The final two-parter of TNG we get until the finale (which we talked about last week!) comes in the middle of season 7, and boy does it fall flat. Picard feels out of character, like he’s involved in this whole pirate shenanigan just for the sake of plot. Riker’s on top of things, but that’s pretty typical. But everyone else feels like they’re just spinning their wheels while the other plot unfolds.

Unlike in “Descent” where I felt like the other characters’ plots felt organic and in service of the whole concept, this one just feels like everyone’s doing busywork so they could justify putting them on the callsheets. In terms of our pirate friends, they keep momentum for the full two parts, revealing things as they go to open up new possibilities. So yeah, “Gambit” definitely fills its airtime. It’s just not that interesting.

—

Our story continues next week with more multi-parters, so make sure you’re following this space. Go to Black Alert with us over on the podcast as we catch up on episodes of Discovery on SoundCloud or wherever you like to listen, and compare cliffhanger theories with us over on Facebook. To be continued…

[castlebyersafterdark]

I’m genuinely so surprised by finn’s lisp, you know how artists can often adopt other accents and vocal ticks more than other people because theyre like sponges…. I wonder if being around gaten a lot added to this because i have never detected a lisp in all the years ive heard finn speak, does mike have one? And on many s words he doesnt have it. Also his diction and way of speaking reminds me so so much of gaten when he’s talking on podcasts and in interviews. Im sure it can develop but i’m genuinely surprised, mike was always so crisp and finn had softened speech that ran into itself, casual and murmured a lot, but this sounded like a different dude! Interesting

LINK | Also available on Spotify and Apple I think. Spotify is where I listened and then there's a nice transcript to reference after the fact.

This was an excellent podcast!! YES! This is the type I'm interested in - just getting to listen to a person to person conversation, with direct personal insights into a celebrity or creative's headspace. Not a lot of gimmicks, not difficult to listen to. Very nice. Just a really great interview.

He sooooo cares about the craft and making movies! His insights are amazing. Love what he says about "how to make a movie that appeals to gen z" or you can sub in any generation - as soon as you're "trying" that hard to appeal to any demographic, you've already lost. Dated references, making people too divided, relaying on stereotypes etc. When really what people, and young people especially are looking for, are relatatbility and realism - just write a person. Authenticity is what we're looking for. Just write a character. That should do the leading with storytelling and fillmmaking. And I think this is interesting and probably something he picked up on from his time on Stranger Things - I personally think they do characters soooo well, just really authentic character forward stories.

His voice really caught me off guard here! I'm still unsure if it popped off because he was comfortable and talking long form, because I've never really heard a lisp from him before like this - if it was some way he actually sounds sometimes when slowing down and being vulnerable, kinda loved it, but if it was just a cheap mic or weird pickups from equipment as a friend I talked to about it suggested, either way - he was still very endearing here. Even his cadence and story sharing was different. He felt more at ease, not anxious, collected thoughts as compared to his typically plentiful likes and uuuuhhhmmms and yeahs that are so "interview mode Finn" we typically hear. Very much recommend anyone who cares about learning more about the way his brain works to give a listen.

Highlighting of course his relationship to Stranger Things. And how positive he considers the entire experience. He's so humble and clearly cared so much about the making of the show. Saying that he'll always recognize what made him, where he came from. How people can recognize him as Mike for the rest of his life and that's totally ok.

And of course, his thoughts on the cast....

His insights on social media are reallllllllllly important for understanding who Finn is as a person and where he stands these days. I think we can all take a lesson from him and reevaluate our relationships with social media, even as normal citizens not in the industry.

[placegrenette]

hi y'all. have been preoccupied by various domestic responsibilities (my oven is clean now!) but can at least poke my head up long enough to get you some news.

No, we do not have any indication of when Ninety One will make new music together again. We do have a recent OT4 performance, where they... opened for Chen? From what I could see the set list was a quick greatest-hits compilation: "Aiyptama," "Mooz," "Men Emes," "E.Yeah." There was also this Nauryz show, if you want to see what haircut Bala has now. But that's it, as far as the group is concerned.

Let me recap the solo activities first. Alem released a single called "Kuiim" and... it was a hit! As in: 4.6 million YouTube views in four months! (By contrast, "Biz" still hasn't hit 2 million views, nearly two years after its release.) He has since released a follow-up, "Elestet," which sounds a great deal like "Kuiim," but why knock a winning formula. Also the video for "Elestet" has actual good English subtitles. In between the two releases, Alem and Veronika went on the Zamandas podcast together. That does not have good English subtitles, but it was conducted entirely in Russian, so you might have luck with auto-transcribe and translate. (Or I might, if I can get out from under said domestic responsibilities. No guarantees. Will go ahead and spoiler you that they bring out baby Tai towards the end of the interview, and Alem play-nibbling on his son is indeed one of the cutest things you will ever be privileged to witness in your lifetime.)

Alem also did an interview with 98 Magazine. Here's a quick machine translation version of the relevant-to-Ninety-One content:

Ninety One has its own direction. Each of the five people added their own flavor, and a new eclectic direction emerged. This is a great experience. Through it, I began to discover new facets of myself. But, honestly, I am realizing my musical desires that I have had since childhood more in my solo work. When you are alone, you have to give yourself completely to the work. I can’t just do my own thing, delegate everything to the children, and run away, like in a group. (Laughs) It seems that my potential is opening up more in my solo work. Because I am putting myself completely into the song. Sometimes I ask people for help with things that I can’t do myself. Especially in writing lyrics, I turn to others.

To translate the translation: not any time soon, folks. He does say, when asked where he sees himself in five years' time, "onstage, with Ninety One," but it seems like solo work is suiting him just fine. And, honestly, frustrating as the Gap era must have been, thank goodness for some buzz.

The song credits for "Elestet," meanwhile, are Alem, ZaQ, Ne1tron, Fellow Cute Dad De Lacure, and Ayrys, with whom I am not familiar at all. And now it seems that ZaQ, De Lacure, and Ne1tron are doing a separate project called HighOne, and Alem will be a guest vocalist. So the current situation is not so much "Ninety One has split up" as "Alem and ZaQ are busy being cute dads and helping each other out with their respective solo projects, Ace is meanwhile doing his thing, and Bala is doing something that does not require the supervision of QpopNews or social media, and hopefully enjoying it, whatever it is."

Ace is meanwhile doing his thing. His solo album was actually mostly written by Serzhan Bakhytzhan, whom you might remember as the driving force behind the Aiyptama EP. As best I can tell, this EP—if you guessed that the title is Baqytty Bol, go ahead and pat yourself on the back—was not nearly as successful as "Kuiim." I'm not really surprised; "Kuiim" has a bass-driven energy, whereas stuff like "Qushaq" sounds more like a bid for space on your lo-fi study playlist than something you would go out of your way to listen to. But Ace also got a solo interview:

How difficult was it to promote an album as a solo artist? It was very difficult. Last year, there were a lot of problems in Kazakhstan. I was forced to draw attention to myself with light videos with humor. If you notice, the media played a lot of songs with a minor, sad atmosphere. Because that was the vibe of the people. On the contrary, I mostly released songs with a major, upbeat tone. My main goal was to write positive songs.

...like I said, I'm not surprised he didn't tear up the market. But he did just get featured by Il'han on a ballad. I think Alem's been doing collabs as well? And voice acting? Working dad's been busy!

Finally: Ace and Alem both are going to do a couple concerts with Dastan Orazbekov (of Orda, right? I feel like my Pop-Almaty-social-dot-connecting skills have atrophied). And on May 3rd, they're both scheduled to appear at a concert with Madi Rymbaev and Yenlik, hosted by Kyle Ruh. YES! The hardest working man in Kazakh show business is still at it! And reportedly a reunited Moonlight will be there! Oh, and Kyle Ruh was on the Kazakhstani version of The Masked Singer, where Ace is a judge. Forgot to mention that.

I will come back again when there is more news, or when I finally have time to start reviewing songs again. And in the meantime we can all rest easy knowing that, no matter what the time or the situation or the bleakness of the news, Kyle Ruh is out there getting shit done.

[throskart]

A TAD BIT LATE BUT HEY BETTER LATE THAN NEVER 2024 year IN ART I found it quite shocking how much improvement there was, as I did not notice any changes over the year. Also apparently I have allergy to the colour green as I barely use it anywhere, I'm talking, I could count on my hand the amount of drawings containing the colour green . While looking over all the drawings, the most common theme was, unsurprisingly, d&d related drawings.

From all the drawings I have begun, I finished 68% (25/37) of all started drawings. Per month I manage to draw 2 art pieces, which I am pleased with. Of all the unfinished drawings, most barley have a sketch, whilst few are still in the process of making. Before doing the math, I was convinced I had finished around 80% of drawings instead of 68%, but close enough. This year has been full of pieces that I've disliked, but that's art, can't always love all of your pieces. But the same goes in the opposite direction, so here are my top 3 faves and dislliked pieces Top 3:

3. This was during "inktober" except I gave up on the ink part and then just started ignoring the days themes, and in the end diregarted drawing once piece per day, instead opting in to make a more complete piece over the span of multiple days, so I guess I just did my own thing??? Nevertheless, this was a practice with the painting brushes on krita and omg, it turned out so well?? I would have never expected for myself to actually draw something like this, especially without using eyedropper tool!

2. This was made during December, I took part in a 3 day media bootcamp, and safe to say, it truly was a bootcamp! We basically had +/- 24 hours to create a trailer for a show/podcast/film, while in that time we are getting additional lectures how to break through in Latvia media! Before going to the camp, I had no idea that we'd do any of that. Luckily, I had brought my drawing tablet as well as my laptop, thus became the groups artist.

1. My best piece in 2024. also made during Inktober, I was experimenting with a vector art look. Something funny, I didn't realise vector art literally meant using vectors, so I made it all using a lot of fill tools and selections.. way too many selections, I am afraid to look at the layers... This is art of a friends D&D character as I was feeling lost on what to draw.. The worst:

3. This one is a still a push as this was made during whole december, and I seem to only have finished on 5th jaunary 2024, but works for me. This was still when I was still drawing on my phone.. I remember feeling so proud of this because oh how it looked with all the textures, all the effort and actually trying to draw something smooth.. ngl if we ignore ALL THE FLAWS, it looks good? I had no clue how to draw pants and was allergic to using references "because I'm good enough to draw without using references" sure buddy, you were xD Throughout the year, I just can see how his design slowly changes, first off head shape before was a mystery, each drawing, different shape, consistency? who dat? This drawing serves as a reminder that I should practice drawing landscapes other than lush forests, because omg what are those sand dunes..

2. I CAN'T DRAW WOMEN, LET ALONE GNOMES!! Here's what drawing on a phone with a cracked screen did to me, drawing mostly straight lines. When I got a drawing tablet, I still continued on using straight lines, as I had grown used to it. I feel like I screwed myself over in the drawing with the awkward angle, without reference.. The light makes absolutely no sense here! Where does the light come from? Idk, ask the stars, maybe they can answer..

1. This was when I first got a drawing tablet.. I get the feeling I was going for but the execution is... Yeah.. Ngl, I should attempt to redraw this, I like the concept I had.

I hope next year I manage to finish more works, for that elusive 80% , and probably switch up the drawing subject a bit, adding some variety in the mix finally, as I feel like I've lost my edge in environment I used to have.. Perhaps create some OC's as I have only my dnd characters and nothing else~

[dreamsmearcampaign]

a) I'm gonna preface my points with this. Dream has been overhated for a long time. The grooming jokes are out of line, especially since he has had allegations levied against him, and I think a lot of the hate towards him is due to the very vocal bad apples in his fandom in the early 2020s. (On that note, I do appreciate how he called out the bad actors in the discussion stream).

b) That said, I do think that his response to this controversy was HORRIBLY handled. I don't want to focus on points that have been talked to death again and again, but one thing I haven't seen talked about is how in his initial response stream and his response video, he chose to have himself portrayed as his minecraft character, which I don't get. He's being put on blast right now (primarily) for using incredibly charged language in an insulting way, and he decides the best way to show his point of view is to dress up as "Detective Dream" on stream and to add cinematic shots in his response video. I cannot think of a reason why he chose to do that instead of just keeping the screen black with some text, like he did in other parts of the video.

c) One thing that I can give to Tommy's response video over Dream's (Which to clarify, I've only skimmed Tommy's), is that while I've heard that it's mostly opinion based, it didn't have music. I personally think that adding a backing track to a response video is, while nowhere close to Colleen Ballinger levels of bad ideas, still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If you're simultaneously defending yourself and accusing others of serious allegations, I think it would be prudent to treat it as seriously as possible, and I think putting muzak behind accusations of child labor is antithetical to that effort.

d) I think that one thing that a lot of people are forgetting about is that the tweet that sparked all of this wasn't directed towards Tommy, instead being directed at his FANS, which, in my eyes, invalidates the defense that it was him breaking after years and years of concentrated harassment from Tommy, as again, it was aimed at Tommy's fans. Again, in my eyes, if it was truly the result of Tommy harassing him and he couldn't take it anymore, the tweet would be aimed at Tommy specifically. I can't connect the logic of "Tommy made fun of Dream, so it's fair to go after his fans" in my head.

e) Least consequential point, but I'm thirsty for context. A lot of people have been saying that Tommy has been clickbaiting Dream, and that argument doesn't make sense to me. I can't speak for the SUIT podcast, but on Tommy's main channel, Dream has been either in the title or thumbnail five times by my count since January 15, 2023, which doesn't seem like that much in comparison to his upload frequency. Those videos being "Dream", "Was The Dream SMP Bad?", "We Recorded Our Dreams...", "If YouTubers Were Honest...", and "Goodbye, Dream SMP.". Of those videos, "Dream" is in response to the current controversy, "Was the Dream SMP Bad?" discusses the SMP in general (which Dream explicitly states in his response video, "The Dream SMP was made what it was by everyone" (4:00)), though it does have Dream in the thumbnail, "We Recorded Our Dreams..." is in reference to what happens during sleep, though still added due to the word choice, "If YouTubers Were Honest...", which has Dream in the thumbnail, and "Goodbye, Dream SMP.", which is again about the DSMP in general, though this occurrence doesn't have Dream in the thumbnail. To restate a point that might have been lost in the wall of text (btw sorry about all the text), that isn't a lot compared to the amount of videos uploaded during that time. However, IIRC, Dream did mention during the discussion stream that the older videos with him imply that the two of them are still friends, though with the dates the videos were posted clearly available, as well as how widespread this got in the mcyt space, I don't think that's a good point, though I can see the logic that idea spawned from.

f) Again, sorry for the wall of text.

a. we agree

b. we agree it was handled irresponsibly. as for the minecraft character, dream does not stream with his face ever. it is fine to disagree with that choice, but that's his choice to make.

c. in our opinion, if music choice matters more than the subject matter, the person is already far beyond asking them to treat dream in a rational manner.

d. yes, it was directed toward his fans. the fans (who were antis as well) that encouraged the pedo jokes. the fans (who were antis as well) who sent death threats and rape threats to dream fans. the fans (who were antis as well) who doxxed Dream's address.

it was a terrible response to them, but since tommy had dream blocked and would not be able to hear dream if he said "please stop encouraging harassment toward my community," we, the mods, don't know how he could have discussed that better with tommy (we already have seen how people treat him if he tries to ask them to stop harassing him).

e. mentioned in the podcast, mentioned in the qsmp/usmp video, livestream with tubbo reacting to Sapnap,

the reason dream pointed out the videos left up on his channel were because it looks performative to say "I hate this person" while profiting off his name. that may not be the case, but many have to admit that's a valid interpretation.

for an outside example, after the iskall situation, many hermits removed iskall from previous thumbnails and titles so his name wouldn't be featured on their channels.

we appreciate your comments. they are well-put and genuinely reflective.

-mod b

[screenexodus]

Smartphones — the drug-dealing elephants in the room...

Getting rid of iPhone 13 and getting iPhone SE 3rd Gen instead did not result in expected effect of less screen time, if anything it caused an extra irritation of the smaller screen housing a smaller keyboard, I do still despise touch screen keyboard. With that said the irritation did not deter me from typing less, in fact what would be the point of a grander keyboard experience on a bigger screen? In any case the phone got smashed beyond economical repair and I had to get a new one. iPhone 15 was a good if not best choice for the year 2025, and as I have already proven to myself the size of the screen will not guarantee less screen time. That sucks! Something exclaimed in the back of my mind. Back to drawing board. I need the goddamn WhatsApp for work, I need certain apps which are not addictive at all yet I need them.

So I began looking at dumbphones with app store functionality but a really "shitty" screen, like an e-ink screen. I had a closer look at the super expensive totally overpriced and very restrictive light phone 3, I think it is not a bad idea to give your kids, if you have the money to spare, it makes sense. Otherwise I think, it violates the boundary between reason and the price put on that reason, in this case to have a phone that is dumber not smarter. It cannot be just a luxury dumb phone—no one should need that—at this asking price it has to be a phone that is very smart at being dumb, and I'm sorry I don't see it.

Minimal phone sounds like something I'm after at this stage of divorce from the screen. But the project is unfortunately still very raw, yes the first batches of handsets are out, and people are already using them and yes beta-testing them for free, out of desperation or ignorance of the fact, that the handset is not yet officially out. Sigh, I used to be very invested in beta testing back when, but I got no longer the stamina for such shenanigans—I need the finished product thank you.

Something tells me such smart-dumb phones will continue to emerge and develop momentum. You might even see an app from Apple itself that would turn the phone dumb, as of right the accessibility option is not what you'd expect, to say the least.

This is tough, it is tough being conditioned. Anyways, as of right now I use this nifty app which irritates me to no end, and does it work—kind of, first of all it makes me aware of how much time I spend using the app—the apps that I have added to the list of apps with limited screen time. It seems to be stable app, but I can unlock the restriction quite easily—and I do it often. Second of all I catch myself not unlocking more time(it reminds you to take a deep breath while you wait the lock to be lifted)—and I might add more seconds, right now it is at 10 seconds and the default is 5 I believe.

I've learned to unlock it for about 60 min if I am listening to a podcast, otherwise there would be no point in having this app.

Basically and this is the truth this apps keeps you aware of how much screen time you actually spend—which is important, because otherwise as you know you do not sense the time you have spent—an interesting effect of the psychological time and chronological time do not have to be synchronised and when in the flow—for the good or the bad(often bad i.e. addiction) it is utterly unsynchronised, meaning for example you do not believe that 10 minutes have passed when it felt like 2 minutes. So this is really what we're dealing with here—time theft, or rather—life-theft.

I will continue to experiment, and the most important thing is to be honest with oneself whether the nth thingamajig actually works or not. Especially if you pay for it.

[rotationalsymmetry]

Oh, we're sharing cooking advice? I can chime in.

I first learned as a young adult living with my parents, often with unemployed and not in school levels of leisure time, which was very optimal in a lot of ways -- I didn't have to cook, I didn't have to cook all or even most of the meals I ate, and I had access to a fully stocked kitchen and also the money to buy high quality ingredients. Because every night cooking was a night one of my parents didn't have to, my work was appreciated by someone else, which was nice, and often my brother and I cooked (and sometimes went grocery shopping) together, one of the few things we did together that didn't involve us being at each others' throats. I actually started with fairly complex, labor intensive stuff, which worked for me because I was getting to eat things I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. (I mean, my parents are both great cooks, but the recipes I picked out were still different from the ones they went for, so it was novel food.)

Apart from probably the last one, I recommend replicating those conditions as closely as possible. And I especially recommend cooking with other people if you can, which conveniently can also be a way to get access to a fully stocked kitchen if you don't have one of those yourself. A more expeienced cook can answer your random newbie questions and show you how to hold the knife and stuff, yeah you can also find this out online but this way is more personal and involves fewer ads. Or another newbie can make an excellent partner in adventures/misadventures.

(Do expect to have the occasional complete failure. Budget for it if money is tight.)

Having music or a radio talk show/news station/podcast going on while cooking can alleviate boredom and make things more fun even if you're not bored.

I used to cook from scratch all the time, but with my illness I get about fifteen minutes standing up at a time, so my husband does most of the cooking. He brings stuff to me to cut up, and I do food prep sitting in a regular chair at a table. Leaving some pots and pans on the stove spares the effort of having to pull them out from the pots and pans cabinet of doom, and having a spice rack saves the effort of digging out the spice I need from the back of the bunch, when I'm cooking on my own, and keeping the things we use most between about hip height and shoulder height conserves spoon usage. I can't do very complicated stuff, but I can throw some things into a slow cooker or cut up and roast some potatoes, things like that.

And when I do packaged food, I tend to add in one extra thing. Frozen peas go nicely with ramen, or mac and cheese. I throw half a can of kidney beans into some of my frozen meals, to make them healthier and more filling. I'll throw some sesame seeds on top of almost anything. (I mostly avoid eating meat, but the most cheap and convenient food tends to be light on protein, and I'm sure there's a lot of meat-eater easy additions that make processed food more balanced too. Canned fish or salami or something.)

Every time I'm like "IDK this thing that I'm making a post about seems super obvious, this is probably going to be more an exercise in showing ass than helping people" I am mistaken.

What other stuff do you not know how to do in the kitchen that you want to learn?

[xtruss]

Trash Trumpet Isn’t A Narcissist – He’s A Solipsist. And It Means A Few Simple Things

The President Delights in Being Attacked, Since It Keeps the Focus on Him. The Press Should Handle Him Like Parents with an Ornery Child

— John R MacArthur | Saturday February 8, 2025

‘Covering Trump, Like Bringing up Children, is an Art, Not a Science.’ Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Two weeks into the Trump administration, I’m still being asked by foreigners about the new president’s “political vision”.

Some of them, especially the French and the British, might be excused for excessive politeness toward a country that in many respects they still envy and admire. But on most of the news programs and podcasts to which I’ve been invited, I’m still encountering earnest interviewers struggling to understand Trump from a conventional political perspective, no matter how contradictory, irrational, or stupid his statements and actions may be. How can this be and what does it augur?

The investigative psychiatrist Robert J Lifton once explained to me that Trump is a solipsist, as distinct from the narcissist that he’s often accused of being.

A narcissist, while deeply self-infatuated, nevertheless seeks the approval of others and will occasionally attempt seduction to get what he wants (I think of the French president, Emmanuel Macron). For Trump the solipsist, the only point of reference is himself, so he makes no attempt even at faking interest in other people, since he can’t really see them from his self-centered position.

Trump’s absence of external connection is self-evident: his treatment of the “other” – from his own family to his tenants, his political rivals, the victims of the Los Angeles fires or the displaced people of Gaza – displays not only a lack of empathy, but also an emotional blindness. How else could he tease out loud about dating his own daughter, Ivanka? How else could he so cruelly insult former president Biden in his inauguration address, with Biden seated just a short distance away?

Trump’s solipsistic character was on full display on 20 January in the Capitol Rotunda. After stating, absurdly, that houses had burned “tragically” in Los Angeles “without even a token of defense”, the president seemed to turn philosophical and then appeared to ad-lib: “Some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in our country … they don’t have a home any longer. That’s interesting.”

“What Could Be Better For A Solipsist Than To Be Criticized Across The Full Spectrum of America’s Limited Ideological Bandwidth?”

I suppose it’s better than his reaction to a 2018 fire in Trump Tower that killed a resident, Todd Brassner. Trump’s tweeted response: “Fire at Trump Tower is out. Very confined (well built building). Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!” No condolences for the dead man or his family. That’s also interesting.

None of this is to say that Trump’s policy directives don’t suggest disturbing political predilections that need to be discussed and challenged. He is the president, after all, not just a coldhearted landlord. His firing of 17 inspectors general, attempt to end birthright citizenship and temporary halt of “all federal financial assistance” are certainly causes for concern, and possibly alarm. So, also, are his threats to slap high tariffs on Canada and Mexico, friendly nations that normally are happy to kowtow to their vastly more powerful neighbor no matter who occupies the White House.

But this misses the point of Trump, malevolent though he may be. He delights in being attacked because it keeps him at center stage. What could be better for a solipsist than to be criticized across the full spectrum of America’s limited ideological bandwidth?

In an editorial, the New York Times denounced Trump’s “first assertions of executive power” that “blatantly exceed what is legally granted”. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal ridiculed an unprovoked “trade war” that “will qualify as one of the dumbest in history”. Already, Trump has changed the script by “pausing” the tariff increases, but he got the Journal worked up enough to pay him a lot of attention. Federal judges blocked Trump’s two most obviously unconstitutional orders, but the Times still got into a dither about his threats to the constitution.

‘Humor, sarcasm and ridicule can be useful tools, though as we learned from Barack Obama’s famous roast of Trump in 2011, they can also motivate the target to run for president.’ Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

One can’t just ignore Trump’s blathering, but like parents dealing with an ornery child, editors, reporters and columnists need to temper reprimands and raised voices with self-restraint, calmness and even studied indifference. Humor, sarcasm and ridicule can be useful tools, though as we learned from Barack Obama’s famous roast of Trump in 2011, they can also motivate the target to run for president.

“Covering Trash Trumpet, Like Bringing Up Children, Is An Art, Not A Science.”

Of course, none of Trump’s tariff actions or anti-immigrant edicts will bring factories back from Mexico (the cheap labor and investment protections under our current trade agreement with Mexico and Canada are too good for a rational businessman to pass up). Neither will they quickly raise wages for working-class citizens, since creating a labor shortage through deportations will take much longer to affect pay scales than if Congress simply raised the federal minimum wage, or legalized the “illegals”. Also, ironically, Trump’s tariff threats and military border bluster may backfire and encourage fentanyl production to move to the United States from south of the border.

However, it’s a fair bet that Trump the solipsist doesn’t care if his policies fail to help the ordinary people who voted for him, and we anti-Trumpers should fear his supporters’ rage if they conclude that they’ve been duped by their hero. The backlash is more likely to be felt by liberals than by Trump, who will retreat safely to Mar-a-Lago and resume cheating at golf.

While I do tend to mock, rather than fear, Trump’s sound and light show, I don’t mean to make light of his most reckless impulses. There’s always collateral damage when somebody starts a war.

On the eve of the inauguration, in the Watergate Hotel, I attended the “Coronation Ball”, where “populist” and royalist rightwingers packed the Moretti Grand Ballroom to drink and dine on French champagne and red wine, as well as Gallic cuisine that included amuse-bouches. I was there at the invitation of an open-minded business consultant, an unfanatical Trump partisan who may not have understood that I wanted to cover the event, though he knows the world of journalism

It was indeed amusing to meet a guy wearing a Gen Douglas MacArthur button. So was hearing Steve Bannon’s rip-roaring speech, which flattered the black-tie and evening dress crowd as the “vanguard of a revolutionary movement” that was “just in the top of the first inning”. Bannon warned his rightwing Jacobins not to “flinch” or “question” Trump’s mission of ending “any of these forever wars” and accomplishing “the deportation of all 15 million illegal aliens”.

And when Bannon called for “no mercy, no quarter, no prisoners”, he apparently was including Rupert Murdoch and Fox News: “Murdoch sent a memo: ‘We’re going to make [Trump] a non-person’ … and [Trump] knew it. And he still came back like Cincinnatus from the plough, who saved his country.” (Bannon might have mentioned that the Roman patrician, according to legend, was twice dictator of the Republic, but I quibble.)

It wasn’t all amuse-bouches, however. Later in the evening, when the jazz band took a break, the far-right personality Jack Posobiec launched a diatribe against the cliques surrounding the former presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden, who, he said, would never return to power “because they’ll have to come through us”. Meanwhile, a lot of political prisoners would be freed, and not just the martyrs of January 6. “Derek Chauvin will be freed!” he declaimed.

Two guests in military dress uniforms standing nearby looked at me, laughing with incredulous astonishment. “You’re going to tell us who he is ?” one said. Once I found out from other journalists in the crowd that it was Posobiec – he of “stop the steal” fame and other conspiracy theories dear to Trump and Maga – I could better appreciate the foreign journalists’ difficulty understanding the president. With no political vision, no long-range goals, it’s quite possible that it never occurred to Trump to pardon George Floyd’s murderer. But now that an influential courtier has serviced the monarch with a concrete idea – an idea guaranteed to slake a solipsist’s thirst for attention – we should all be worried about the short-term whims of the king.

— John R MacArthur is President and Publisher of Harper’s Magazine

[nickgerlich]

Artificially Speaking

Sometimes I chuckle when I see people putting up a big resistance to something new, and then one day realizing they’ve been using it all along. Maybe it doesn’t count if you don’t know, right? Yeah, I doubt it.

I’m talking about AI, the most-ballyhooed topic we have had in a long time. For all the people talking nonsensical fears and crap-talking what is arguably the most important tech topic of the day, I sure do see evidence that a lot of us are using it. We only need look back to the last holiday shopping season, when 70% of shoppers admit to using generative AI when shopping. I suppose the other 30% either just didn’t know it, or wouldn’t confess to it.

If you have ever used one of those handy chat bots residing on the lower-right corner of your screen, then you have used AI. It’s not like there is an operator standing by at corporate headquarters in the event that you or someone else has a question. Nope. There’s a machine waiting and watching for you to type a few syllables.

It’s one thing when Amazon started offering suggested items years ago. You know. “People who bought this also bought that…” At its core, even those recommendations are AI, but their algorithms are simply scouring massive data bases looking for patterns. It has to make sense of those patterns, and recognize all of the if…then scenarios and outcomes.

But it is quite another to carry on a conversation with a machine. That takes some raw computing power, along with we consumers placing trust in the replies.

If you are a Googler, perhaps you have seen the change over your results page in the last few months. When you query today, you are more than likely to get an AI-generated summary first, along with links to relevant sources. This is especially true when there is abundant information to be found on the web. Google is merely filtering through that mountain of results to help us cut to the chase.

The chat bot, though, is like having a personal assistant. Not long ago Amazon launched Rufus, its own PA. Although it may still be in Beta, you might find it on your homescreen on the top menu bar, between All and Medical Care. I took it for a test drive last year, and found it to be quite helpful.

So popular is the use of chat bots that there’s even an Amarillo start-up going live with their web tool that creates cut-and-paste code for adding a chat bot to any website. We’re going to be seeing a lot more chat bots in the days ahead, and I aim to have the developers on a podcast episode soon.

As the analysts are wont to say, even the best chat bot does not completely replace F2F browsing, as well as possibly interacting with a human. Well, that’s assuming you can find a human, and also that the information given by one human does not differ from that provided by another. Those analysts may be just a little bit too optimistic in their effort to keep AI in what they perceive to be its proper place.

Which brings us to the limits of AI. Is it the machine, or is it the user? Naturally, the results to any query, be it on Google or on a shopping bot, depend greatly on how well the query is worded. Frame it poorly, then you get poor results. Frame it perfectly, and you get what you need.

How do we educate the public, though? It’s not like there ever has been a college class called Googling 101. I know that I kind of learned from experience. I also know that early Google as well as other search engines back then often relied on boolean operators and symbols to guide the searching. Google is much better these days, as we have all seen with its predictive spelling when we are typing away.

Essentially, these AI bots are not only spewing information, they are acquiring information. They are learning as they go, learning our speech patterns, our search criteria, and more. Each time it attempts to answer a query, it has a little bit more information at its disposal.

And we the consumer are quickly becoming oblivious to the presence of AI in our lives. Heck, I routinely ask Alexa questions about things, and am amazed at how well she thinks on command. AI, you are welcome in my house. As long as you keep making my life easier, I won’t put up a fight. Resistance is futile, anyway.

Dr “Which Kitchen Tools Do I Need To Use A Blackstone Grill?” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[thameena-mga2024mi4016]

Learning Outcomes

Sound editing :

I got to navigate Adobe Premiere Pro more comfortably. I have a basic idea of which tool does what like how to lower the tone of a voice, keyboard shortcuts, and knowing how to avoid issues that may come up while exporting and saving. Example : when creating a new project, the location/folder we choose is where the Premiere Pro file saves into. So if you want to be able to find the autosave files and the premiere file in order to continue editing where you left off have to be mindful of where we save. The location we choose when exporting the file in whichever format we need is also important. If we forget to specify the folder it's hard to find it especially when in a hurry..... (totally not speaking from experience here).

My experience with Adobe Audition was messy. Like I've mentioned before, the effects I want to apply to just one clip keeps getting applied to all the clips. It took me a few attempts to realize this. I did not have time to check for any tutorials either. Anyways I prefer to learn on my own since my actions autosave into my brain when compared to following a tutorial where I have to manually save the info to my brain.

Observation :

Learning how sounds are connected to visuals and how much attention we should give to the soundtrack of any media. Learnt how to focus on sound design rather than moving images as we usually do. For example I realize that the podcast module from semester one has taught me how important sound is and how much of an impact it has on the audience. I should be able to imagine the visuals from just the audio if I edit it right and find the right audios.

Final thoughts :

I know I still have a lot to learn and improve but hopefully I have some sort of progress in comparison to the first semester. I feel more comfortable with using Adobe software when during the first semester we were inclined to keep using Capcut.

I didn't know what the word "foley" was before but now I know and I can add the word to my "Animation Industry" vocabulary. I have seen videos of sound designers from disney adding life to the visuals from a bunch of simple tools like sticks and drums but I didn't realize how hard it is to record.

I had fun recording all the audios (idk how to put emojis on laptop so -insert LOL emoji- ). We were all laughing while recording the screaming parts. Good thing we used the 13th floor. Last time we screamed inside the bathroom area and gave everyone a heart attack.

I also learnt how to not be stuck in one place trying to perfect one thing and move on. Come back and work on it only if I have time. This applies to all the modules.

DONE

Final Presentation :

[d2kvirus]

3/12/23 Fact or Fiction

Statement #1: Backstage drama will continue to follow CM Punk upon his return to WWE. FACT - ...but fact with a caveat, as the issue with Punk at this point is the expectation of backstage drama will follow him around, meaning there's going to be added scrutiny of everything he says and does, and the problem with the expectation of Punk causing problems is that it runs the risk of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy - especially given Punk's track record of responding to any kind of pressure by lashing out

Statement #2: If we’re not going to get traditional Survivor Series elimination tag team matches anymore then the War Games matches should include elimination rules in the end. FICTION - Adding eliminations to WarGames would only serve to overcomplicate the stipulation, especially as the point of the stipulation is (usually) the faces having to overcome a numerical disadvantage throughout the match - so adding eliminations on top of that is overegging the proverbial pudding

Statement #3: You blame the sale of WWE to Endeavor for the first hour of Survivor Series being one big commercial for Ruffles. FICTION - Considering how the achievements list for several WWE games from 2K18 onwards had literal ads for Snickers and KFC in them, no, it is nothing to do with Endeavor. Instead it's late stage capitalism, which is why we get matches sponsored by Mountain Dew and Army of the Dead on WWE PPVs in the last few years

Statement #4: Will Ospreay made the right move signing with AEW. FACT - The main thing AEW's uppercard needs is a refresh considering Bryan Danielson is winding down his career, Chris Jericho has outlived his welcome around the main event scene, CM Punk is...well you know where he is, and while they are elevating Swerve Strickland organically a signing like Ospreay allows the landscape of their headline scene to change around him - and this wouldn't really happen in WWE as the options for the next 6-9 months are Roman's Reign of Terror continuing to break record in inorganic ways or giving Cody his moment, so Ospreay would be in a holding pattern for some time

Statement #5: The best tag team wrestling is in AEW. FACT - It didn't occur to Matt Hardy that there's a reason that The Hardys haven't been pushed much in AEW, and that's because they just cannot hang with the majority of the division and all they can do is play the hits at half speed and that just will not work against the likes of FTR, Aussie Open, Top Flight, Kings of the Black Throne et al due to the standard being so much higher

Statement #6: It is already clear that AEW doesn’t know what to do with Adam Copeland. FICTION - In the ring they know exactly what they're doing with Edge Adam Copeland as they're mainly using him in tag sprints so he is still getting the maximum impact out of his appearances in the way The Hardys cannot (okay, those questions lined up well for me...)and he's contributing in segments as well, not least as he isn't Happy To Be Here and instead has slotted into a groove pretty quickly and doesn't appear to have missed a step in the ring or on the mic

Statement #7: Cheap Heat is the best pro-wrestling podcast. FICTION - TBH when I listen to podcasts I tend to go for something more chill and certainly not something you need to consult a fan wiki in order to understand the tsunami of references and in jokes, which is why Renee Paquette or Kevin Nash are more the sort of thing that I will listen to, though this is more my preference than anything else

Statement #8: You would pay to listen to a podcast. FICTION - That's like expecting people to pay in order to use a free social media platform, and what sort of 🔔🔚 would suggest something as monumentally dense as that...?

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #610

Top Ten Sequences from the Fantasia Films

Amazingly – or unsurprisingly? – I’m banging on about something to do with Disney again, for at least the fourth week in a row. At least Disney is such a huge and monolithic corporation that their output can veer wildly from superheroes to creepy freaks to, in this case, classical music.

Fantasia is a weird film, and I think it’s one that’s more enjoyable as a sort of historical exercise than a film in its own right. Thanks partly to just being a bit of a swot, and also to the invaluable resource that is the Disniversity podcast, I know all about the whys and wherefores of its production – Walt Disney’s intent to create a theatrical experience, a living musical document that would travel the globe, with new songs and animation being added, old ones stripped away; however, the massive budget and meagre box office put paid to his plans. The film, therefore, is an animation curio, one that most people have seen bits of, but which is probably isn’t of towering interest to most unless you’re a classical music scholar, an animation nerd, or maybe just a Disney completist.

The same is broadly true for its belated sequel, a film which troubles the chronically anal by being called Fantasia 2000 whilst releasing in the year 1999 (it’s not as egregious an offender as Blues Brothers 2000, which as well as being a worse movie in and of itself, also had the audacity to come out in the Year of Our Lord 1998 – but I may have digressed slightly). These two films are oddities in the Disney catalogue, audio-visual smorgasbords celebrating what the filmmakers considered some of the very best compositions recorded. They can be bold and daring and fascinating and – yes – entertaining; but they’re kinda weird things to just sit and watch, especially at home on Disney+.

Anyway, the very fragmented nature of the films makes it quite easy to separate the distinct individual segments; the various different animated sequences, each based on a piece of classical music. Now, before we go any further, it’s worth pointing out that I’m not a classical music scholar; when you say Beethoven I think of the dog. My introduction to opera was Bugs

Bunny. Ride of the Valkyries is the theme tune to Apocalypse Now. I am an ignoramus in this world. So if you’re looking for nuanced takes on the musicality on display, this ain’t that. I can’t really comment with any degree of aptitude or authority on how well the films interpret the music, or whether there’s some deep reference or allusion or anything like that. I can just watch each short film and talk about if I think it’s good or not, based on my own opinion and very little else.

All that being said, there are some belters here. And I guess the overall quality – how much I like it, basically – does rely on how well I think the music and the animation sit together, in harmony if you will. And that’s all there is to it! Now let’s put our monocles in and get all artsy-fartsy.

Rhapsody in Blue (Fantasia 2000, 1999): spoiler alert, we’re going to see a lot more OG Fanta here rather than its sequel, but my favourite sequence is still this adorable epic from 2 Fant 2 Asia. The Gershwin composition, being more recent than most, evokes the Twentieth Century, and the heavily stylised art – all solid lines, flat colours, and round-headed characters – likewise is redolent of minimalist sixties animation. The combination of the two feels tailor-made to tell the story of a city, a marked contrast with the more pastoral offerings of most Fantasia pieces. It’s a bustling urban story, with multiple characters weaving in and out, and it actually tells a proper story rather than “just” being a dance or something abstract. It’s great, it’s multicultural, it’s funny, it’s rather touching, and the music and animation combine to produce something magical. Should have won an Oscar all on its own.

The Rites of Spring (Fantasia, 1940): the first two “proper” Fantasia pieces are very me-centric; this one’s all about dinosaurs! And it’s suitably badass, with exploding volcanoes and foreboding skies, the tumultuous creation of the world leading to swift Pteranodons and lumbering apatosaurs before the thrilling appearance of a T-Rex. The music fits perfectly, the highs and lows depicting furious chaos and sudden drama before slowly fading out as the dinos are wiped away by storm and sun.

Night on Bald Mountain (Fantasia, 1940): the absolute master of bad-assery, and a serious contender for the most metal thing Disney has ever done. Look, it’s got the freaking devil waking up on a mountain and getting all kinds of freaks and skeletons and stuff to dance around. The music rocks – despite not being, y’know, rock music – and the visuals are just extreme. Chernabog – the big bad devil dude – is just iconically evil and delicious, and it all ends with a choir of monks singing Ave Maria and restoring good to the world. It’s amazing.

Pastoral Symphony (Fantasia, 1940): beautiful pastoral scenes with all kinds of sprites and nymphs and whatnot, delightful and cute mystical creatures cavorting under pastel skies. It’s all nice and relaxing. Except actually it’s probably the horniest thing Disney have made, with all these little Greek guys are desperately trying to get it on with each other.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Fantasia, 1940): ah, the big famous one. You can probably buy toys of some of the other Fantasia bits and bobs, but it’s Sorcerer Mickey who’s the break-out star. And it’s still a great little story! Mickey is really cool in this. When it gets to the bit where he freaks out and starts hacking the brooms apart with an axe, it’s actually really gnarly, and choreographed brilliantly to the music.

Carnival of the Animals (Fantasia 2000, 1999): a short but funny little piece as a group of flamingos try to be all refined but are frustrated by their goofy mate playing with a yo-yo. It harks back to some of the dancing animals from the first Fantasia, but adds a good deal more comedy, which ramps and ramps with slapstick abandon.

Dance of the Hours (Fantasia, 1940): the serious counterpoint to the above – well, sorta. But the dancing ostriches and hippos do try to represent the music with some sincerity. But it’s how the oh-so-Disney animals interpret the dance – ballerina hippos being held aloft by comically skinny crocodiles – that really sings, with the whole thing building and building until it literally brings the house down.

Pomp and Circumstance (Fantasia 2000, 1999): that’s the name of the music, but probably most people would call it “Noah’s Ark” – for that is what it is. Clearly an attempt to “do a Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by casting an established Disney stalwart, we see Donald Duck as Noah. Well, actually, Noah’s assistant or something. It’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s dramatic, and there’s a bit where Donald – a duck, remember – has to lead a pair of ducks into the Ark.

Firebird Suite (Fantasia 2000, 1999): a kind of attempt to do an updated version of Bald Mountain, as a sweet life-giving woodland spirit is overcome by a vast and destructive firebird. Like the day/night dichotomy of Bald Mountain it’s about how death and new life are an inherent part of the natural world. And in its anthropomorphism of such concepts – and the overall art style employed – it’s pretty Ghibli-esque too.

Piano Concerto No. 2 (Fantasia 2000, 1999): more from the sequel than I thought really. This one is very interesting, and I think I like it more as an animation artifact; but approaching both these films kinda clinically, as if wearing a beret, is probably a decent approach regardless. This is a soft adaptation of an existing story, a little toy soldier trying to get back to his ballerina doll but attacked by a sinister jack-in-the-box; but it’s the use of computer animation that sets it apart. Yes, it wasn’t a revolutionary concept – Toy Story 2 came out the same year, and other pieces in the film use CG animation to some degree – but this really feels like a minor landmark for Disney, one of (if not the) first times they told a whole little story in this new medium. And, y’know, it kinda works.

Sadly didn’t quite have room for the “Meet the Soundtrack” section from the first film, which invents the WinAmp visualiser about six decades early.