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A.I. permeates this blog. The new Nirvana song is weird. It’s all weird. The vinyl stuff is pretty depressing. I want you to get into Marc Ribellet’s Sunday Brunch livestream DJ podcast weirdness.

SO… my thoughts post-first-vaccine shot this week:

Proud of science and those humans who got us here, sad in general for a lot of reasons. Reality isn’t going to get better, and I’ll never be the same after this… but people will expect it. We’re not going to change enough after this, and I’m not sure how well I’ll handle that.

The enthusiasm for “normal” feels dangerous to me, like some hazy drug-induced irrationality, a seemingly desperate diversion. I remember reading this article at the start of the pandemic: Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting* You are not crazy, my friends. forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0

The upshot is that governments and corporations will be smiling with big teeth in wanting us to think everything is fine, and there’s nothing to see here. But that’s just not true, and it will be psychically damaging if we don’t acknowledge this:

It’s reasonable to say we will be fundamentally changed by this, and it’s okay to acknowledge we don’t know what that looks like yet.

I’m just hoping we’re not PTSD-laden, emotionally-unavailable, grumpy versions of WW2 vets after they got home from the way.

 

I NEED TO ADD A VEHICLES SECTION THAT IS REALLY A TAKE MY MONEY SECTION

 

SPACE

  • The James Webb Space Telescope’s First Year of Extraordinary Science Has Been Revealed From more than 1,000 proposals, the scientists that hoped to perform the observatory’s historic first studies now know their fate…

“When it hopefully launches on October 31, it will be, by far, the largest and most sophisticated observatory ever sent into space. JWST will be poised to revolutionize our understanding of the universe from its lofty perch some 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, beyond the orbit of the moon”.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-james-webb-space-telescopes-first-year-of-extraordinary-science-has-been-revealed/

 

  • This week, what I would ostensibly but not securely call “a human being” posited that “Alien isn’t a horror film”, because “horror cannot be set in space” and i can’t even with this shit.It was *IN* the Nostromo and *ON* LV426… but the real problem is that *EARTH IS IN SPACE*, so every movie takes place in space. And yes, Kerry, the funniest answer is “Because in space no one can hear you scream”, but it wasn’t a joke and it’s not funny.

WTAF

 

 

Science, Technology, AI (but not intelligent, but still), and our Brains are so weird

  • Listen to ‘new’ Nirvana song, Drowned In The Sun, created by Artificial Intelligence By Louder 2 days ago Hear a Nirvana song written by AI, as part of a project examining mental health issues in the music biz Drowned In The Sun was created as part of a project titled Lost Tapes of the 27 Club, created by Toronto-based non-profit organisation Over The Bridge, with the intention of drawing attention to the tragedy of Kurt Cobain’s death by suicide 27 years ago, and raising awareness of how mental health issues continue to affect musicians and creatives in the music industry. The project has previously given birth to ‘new’ (ie, AI generated) songs from Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse, and The Doors. https://www.loudersound.com/news/listen-to-new-nirvana-song-drowned-in-the-sun-created-by-artificial-intelligence

 

And they’re not hated. You can even reply “Good bot” to bots to tell a bot that that bot is good, and it keeps a list. But I think the dementia and madness starts when you realize there is an entire subreddit as experiment with bots talking to each other and posting: https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditSimulator/

The discussion of the subreddit happens here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditSimMeta/

 

 

  • VSauce is amazing. But our weird brains hurt my brain. This is about letters in mirrors not mirroring, because BRAIN WEIRD HURT BRAIN. It’s about 50 seconds long:

 

  • THIS IS UNREAL. HOW OFTEN DO YOU HEAR THE TERM “NEW PHYSICS”. These are important studies. More here:

‘Last Hope’ Experiment Finds Evidence for Unknown Particles Today’s long-anticipated announcement by Fermilab’s Muon g-2 team appears to solidify a tantalizing conflict between nature and theory. But a separate calculation, published at the same time, has clouded the picture. https://www.quantamagazine.org/muon-g-2-experiment-at-fermilab-finds-hint-of-new-particles-20210407

 

  • More Gan2 Text to Image, this time a lapse of Escher created by the AI:

Watch the AI as it creates works of art using Text to Image synthesis – in a way that dreams are formed perhaps? Each piece is initialised by a random noise pattern, or a photo (such as Escher’s own work or his portrait). From here the AI attempts to converge toward the imagery suggested by the text prompt – in this case “Escher Art” was given.

 

 

  • Elon Musk’s Neuralink Reveals Monkey Playing Video Game With Its Mind:

“A monkey is literally playing a video game telepathically using a brain chip!!” wrote Elon Musk. https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/elon-musks-neuralink-reveals-monkey-playing-video-game-with-its-mind-2409597

 

 

 

 

  • The origin of SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site remains a mystery. This is a very complex article, but the upshot is this unexplainable seeming bizarre and non-natural phenomenon is giving people fuel in the “it came from a lab” conspiracy. I can’t trust one idea floated from the Trump admin, especially as viruses jump from nature to humans all the time. Occam’s Razor keeps this one simple, but the furin site change the world, and it’s worth delving into it:  https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210217/The-origin-of-SARS-CoV-2-furin-cleavage-site-remains-a-mystery.aspx

 

MUSIC

 

  • I AM GLAD YOU CAME BY… stop and stay awhile with 30 minutes of Jimmy Smith 1965:

 

  • CRAZY OOZING TALENT MR. MARC REBILLET: This man is a podcasting comedian Live PA DJ, and I am HERE FOR IT. This guy is unreal. Live beat sampling and being goofy.

This is me when I first heard him:

 

BUT THIS IS ME SMOOSHING HIS SPIRIT ANIMAL INTO MY SPIRIT ANIMAL:

 

 

*Vinyl Collecting, or sorry JMFL you’re new here*

  • That discussion in the philosophy subreddit (below) about the immaterial nature of digital music vs vinyl and how it sounds has sort of broke my brain, and i highly encourage you to read the original article, which will create some ambivalence for Vinyl lovers: “On the record: An Audio Professional’s Take on Vinyl”: https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2021/04/07/an-audio-professionals-take-on-vinyl/

https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/mmbslh/vinyl_doesnt_sound_better_than_digital_audio_but/

I’ve been incredibly annoyed with the wild variations in Record Store Day quality of mastering… and this old post helped me forever cute RSD: https://thequietus.com/articles/19946-record-store-day-2016-shops-bad-reissues-bleugh

I’ve been thinking about my collection a LOT. So this isn’t helping. Vinyl is horrifyingly bad for the environment. His tests aren’t perfect, but point is made. He is like the John Oliver of making me hear things I do not want to hear:

 

 

CONTENT WHICH IS FOR WATCHING THINGS INSIDE GLOWING RECTANGLES

  • I really believe Adam Ruins Everything has become in my top 3 MOST IMPORTANT tv shows. I am not sure the 3rd, but 2nd is The Wire. I don’t mean favorite, but the Wire is there too. Like my prior joke on John Oliver, it’s like a human editor talking about stuff you don’t want to hear, but you probably should. Debunking powerfully damaging narratives and myths needs to be celebrated and cherished. He does it with empathy, and outside some of the funnier shows, there are ones that are truly mind blowing and will change your perspective on existence.

This is a fantastic ranked list of “best” episodes. However, aggregate works but I would say the “Adam Ruins Tech” episode is really important too! https://episode.ninja/series/adam-ruins-everything

 

3 – 12 more shows, and more stuff than ever before: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mst3k/makemoremst

 

 

  • Joss isn’t getting cancelled. He’s being held accountable for his historic behaviors. Cancel culture isn’t a thing. It’s “problem resolution” culture. Cancel culture came from the people that gave us “snowflake”, but whine and scream at Delta, United, MLB, NCAA, Twitter, Facebook, and anyone else who doesn’t let them be tone-deaf racist. That being said, this is interesting, because it includes both Ray Fisher and Gal Gadot. OOoooh boy-o. This guy is dick:

Joss Whedon Reportedly Threatened Gal Gadot’s Career, Refused Criticism of His Justice League Script “He told her he’s the writer and she’s going to shut up and say the lines and he can make her look incredibly stupid in this movie.” https://www.ign.com/articles/joss-whedon-reportedly-threatened-gal-gadots-career-refused-criticism-of-his-justice-league-script

 

  • OMG this is so awesome. Like the “House of the Future” Tex Avery stuff, this has that mid-century retrofuturistic aesthethic I crave. The Ford “Science Series” Talking about Big Red. What’s amazing is that I can’t help but think MST3K should do a riff on this like the Truck Farming skit.

 

  • SPEAKING OF TRUCK FARMING!

 

  • UNAIRED PILOTS! This Summer of Tears is superb and a bit before it’s time, obviously:

Summer of Tears Pilot from summer of tears on Vimeo.

 

  • 7 minutes with a trio of jokes from Buddy Hackett on Carson (been watching old clips, never fails to make me laugh and smile):

 

  • Speaking of the World of Tomorrow (I may have shared this old MGM Tex Avery stuff that doesn’t love their mother in law, but it’s fantastic and relevant:

The Wold of Tomorrow! (According to Tex Avery and MGM in the 1950s) from Bill Stickers on Vimeo.

 

You know the show was amazing in regards to civil rights, and moving the needle. They were monsters, but it was a metaphor for outsiders (cough cough race stuff cough) moving into a white suburb. They had poignant moments:

 

 

Morgan Freeman as Easy Reader on Electric Company

 

 

GAMES

link to Steam version for free: https://steamdb.info/app/770990/info/

Creator RareBird Games describes Sinfeld Remastered as “an action horror comedy parody featuring various gameplay styles inspired by Resident Evil, Silent Hills, and P.T.,”

 

  • INFOCOM (Zork, text based adventure games) DOCUMENTARY, 45mins!

This is the deepest deep dive on the Infocom game: 50 years of text games: 1984: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy https://if50.substack.com/p/1984-the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy

 

 

 

Society & WHAT IS ART? & Culture & Weird Travel

 

 

  • If you don’t know what microaggressions are, and if you reacted to the word and think it’s bullshit, you need to watch this video called “Home”, about the misogyny and racism people casually throw out, and not even know it.

“But as I started recording, I realized how, throughout my entire life, all of these experiences are nonconsensual, and Asian Americans are holding on to all of these nonconsensual experiences and microaggressions that don’t belong to us at all,”

 

 

 

  • This looks so fun… first to New Zealand I’ll buy the first round:

 

  • This is more philosophical and culturally relevant than just content. It was a great episode… I really like Russell Brand as a Robert Downey Jr recovered addict, but add the whole Jedi vs Buddha thing, and you’ve a thoughtful, funny, and charming man:

 

 

By Uncle FishbitsCategories: advertising art Astronomy Beautiful &/or Wonderful brands business Cosmology design futurism Insane movies music Nature Newsletter philosophy Physics politics privacy science tech television Uncategorized video games