hyperfocus.logicandsound.com

  • New Album: dub feat. yoijerg

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  • A version

    I made a remix of an old Ethiopian track from my audio cassettes archive.

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  • Philosophy is a metaprogramming

    Philosophy is a metaprogramming of the director’s block – of the i, the reason.

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  • I used to read The Guardian but it has turned out to be yucky

    I used to read The Guardian. I wasn’t a fanatic, but I would open it regularly, sometimes every other day, sometimes every day, for 5-10 minutes.

    Seemed to be one of the few more or less balanced mainstream media, didn’t use the greedies’ stupidest invention – pay wall. The information was relatively independent.

    But today I can see clearly – it’s bad “can’t think the perspective” newspaper. World became too complex for them. The agenda they’re pushing, the kind of information… too biased and weak-reasoned.

    They publish what’s profitable, what’s not dangerous. They don’t seek the truth and – most importantly – the good. They simply write “from the crowd” – essentially there is no nobility there, it’s “a slave ethics” newspaper. I mean Slave-Master in terms of Nietzsche’s Master–Slave morality concept (see Wikipedia for more information)

    And remember, I am talking about a relatively good, established, respectable medium. One of the best in the business.

    There are different gradations of decadence. For example, I’m not even talking about the North Korean, Russian official, or Iranian media – which is one of the worst sources of information you could ever see. Total lies, twisting and manipulation of information, loud-shouting, don’t-ask-don’t-ask hysteria, etc.

    What’s key to say here. The Guardian has softened under the “morality of slaves” – lost the real beacon and become false, no independent strong opinion, just whining to the crowd or big bosses, again – money…

    In the case Israel-Hamas and what agenda Guardian is pushing, it is clearly visible, wrong ethics overpowered the noble one.

    So I stopped reading it anymore, I’m tired of them putting dishonestly rewritten stuff on the front page every day, and what’s funny, they’ve hidden Ukraine from the front page at all. All those endless pictures of hamas being hit and suffering… yes, war is hard, sometimes innocent suffers, but who started it… The Guardian as well as good amount of well established western sources are obviously biased today, not honorable, sometimes stupid; it’s called giving up to barbarians. A real noble, strong and smart will always come out to fight for the good, for the perspective progress; because it is self-defining values. And only master ethics will survive, – because their independence, will-to-truth and passion to deep education can see real values and way, not that big hysteria oil-money funds masses. The Guardians no longer seek and define true values as I can see it for today (after lots and various deeps checks) – they seem to be only a tool in the hands of average minds/wills.

    You ask me a question – what to read, what to watch, whom to believe? This is not an easy question, but I will try to answer it briefly… Today there is a lot of bad information, the Internet is one big dump actually, but there are some good things on it, but only about 20%. Remember the formula 80% to 20%, it works… sometimes stupid wins by mass, sometimes smart wins, it’s the mechanics of society on a large scale. Sometimes stupid people become smart or vice versa… it’s a flow, but the state is constant. I’d read anti-fragile individuals who got nothing to loose, or small decentralized organizations with proven reputation. We immediately cut off here the big media and corporations- they are no longer trustworthy – we still (rarely) open them, but we don’t believe them anymore, they have ruined their reputation, for real – clearly visible of decaying today under the pressure of mass psychosis, mass ignorance, slave morality, overgrown not-quality-but-money-only-focused structures…

    What you need to look for today are smart, independent, individual speakers, or small-sized medias. There’s truth and fearlessness there. I am not going to give any recommendations at the moment. However, I should note that you cannot ignore the Internet, you still need to look at public places sometimes – there is stench, rottenness, and weakness, insanity – this is reality and you need to know it.

    These are dark times today, change is coming. Life itself ain’t stupid, anything stupid in it will disappear over time, don’t worry.

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  • Amplification of the new

    I’ve recently made a small invention for myself, a method to improve the originality of melodies. When I create music or melodies I just play notes on the music keyboard to find perfection, it’s not about drawing on paper like in the past. I record them, look for the right combination and then edit.

    So one of the ways today to improve the originality of a piece of art, either music or anything else, as you realized first of all I’m talking about music or art, – is the way of varying the spontaneity of movement during the creation process. It doesn’t have to be the hand, it can be a technical device or whatever.

    You have to try to make a new, original movement, a sudden leap in an unusual place, or a stretch where you wouldn’t expect it. A leap, a discontinuity or stretch, a variation in the temporal. It is, after all, the flow of time.

    Apparently, something similar to randomization of context in creation is also done by nature – for example, mutations in DNA are a spontaneous factor, the factor of randomness, shuffling and over-shuffling is present.

    P.S.

    One asks why seek originality… The fact is that real art is always a search for the new. Otherwise it is not art, but a craft, a sub-service.

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  • Symmetry in aesthetics

    Why are rhymes appealing? It’s their symmetry. Symmetry is profound, similar to number and math, and it’s present in all aspects of the universe, from subatomic to macro cosmic.

    In human existence and creativity, the preference is typically around 80/20 in favor of order and symmetry. However, a small element of chaos exists within us, which is crucial for maintaining a balanced aesthetic.

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  • About my work ethics

    You might know I usually publish an album per month and a post per day. It’s not that hard; I don’t rush myself, I just follow properly established habits for things I like to do.

    In the morning before breakfast, I work as hyperfocus; after breakfast, I work as mittnetworkmusic. After lunch I maintain “office” work like socials or communication, it’s about the store, preparing goods for it (preparing audio tapes, t-shirts, art), about people and connections, money, and various administrative/home/routine tasks. Sport, good quality books and healthy fruits/vegetables allowed any time. At evenings I usually play video games or watching movies. I turn on internet only for “office time” like a couple of course in midday, turn it off other time – too much noise there. I try not to think about work when I’m not around my work space physically.

    From time to time I can miss a day or something, but I do not put much pressure on myself about that. It’s OK to miss the target sometimes. But a general flow must be established. Understanding habits is a must.

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  • Things of good quality that last long

    Things of good quality that last long are much better for emotions and environment and other better saving than buying a new top smartphone each year. Personally, I use some vintage old tech just because it works well; why hurry with upgrades and overconsumption, just why.

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  • Ideas in vacuum

    In a vacuum, any object tends to continue doing what it’s doing. By acquiring mass, a particle… Ideas are the reflection of mass information or?

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  • Basic Dialectics: Answering Yes or No Until the End

    Thesis: In the construction of a judgment, it is important to verify and open its contrary side. False judgments are unnecessary.

    A Thesis: Modern pop era artists, who are massively over-applauded and actively entertain crowds, are akin to digested gruel or prepared baby food. They provide information for the weak, representing the wrong approach to a mature diet.

    An Answer: No, let’s consider the other side. It is not just food, and despite being made in a intentionally simple manner, quality can still be available for free.

    A Thesis: Jumping around for the sake of attention is not a decent way of obtaining value.

    An Answer: No, why not? Jumping can grab attention. What is decent in a decent way of obtaining value? Effectiveness? “Brain cells work like that.” They don’t care about ideas.

    A Thesis: The best rarely lies just on the surface, but any mass-oriented creativity internally is often blurry, simplified, and sometimes almost empty, even if it makes money.

    An Answer: People don’t have much time to discover real art; they get what they need and that’s okay. The issue of money just reflects how we self-reflect and ideals are easily bought. The middle point of perspective is always better and more important to see.

    Whoever makes money from creativity and is guided by the opinion of the masses is almost certainly vulgarized. Decent art worthy of respect comes from areas of reason rather than from fooling others to get rich.

    True creativity often dwells beyond the immediate grasp of mass appeal, requiring a deeper engagement to be fully appreciated, whereas popular art, though accessible and appealing, may lack the depth and substance found in less mainstream expression

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  • ‘Techno-Feudalism’

    Such a view might sound logically correct, addressing why the next stage involves all that discussion about free software. Recently, I wrote about the concepts of free code in contrast to the market. I perceive the situation of techno-feudalism as a dead-end, disproportionately influenced by initial setup of digital world. However, I think it will eventually balance itself out with protests against markets that lack freedom. I have already distanced myself from anything related to big tech, preferring the quality and flexibility of free software and hardware. It has perspective. It’s evident that the overgrown nature of big tech can only lead to imbalance and suffering. A better balanced, open, decentralized approach is needed.

    https://news.slashdot.org/story/23/11/12/2336255/is-capitalism-dead-yanis-varoufakis-argues-capitalists-are-now-vassals-to-techno-feudalists

    Greek economist/politician Yanis Varoufakis “was briefly Greek finance minister in 2015,” remembers the Conversation. Now his new book asks the question, “What killed capitalism,” with the title’s first word providing an answer.

    “Techno-feudalism.”
    Varoufakis argues that we no longer live in a capitalist society… “Today, capitalist relations remain intact, but techno-feudalist relations have begun to overtake them,” writes Varoufakis. Traditional capitalists, he proposes, have become “vassal capitalists”. They are subordinate and dependent on a new breed of “lords” — the Big Tech companies — who generate enormous wealth via new digital platforms. A new form of algorithmic capital has evolved — what Varoufakis calls “cloud capital” — and it has displaced “capitalism’s two pillars: markets and profits”.

    Markets have been “replaced by digital trading platforms which look like, but are not, markets”. The moment you enter amazon.com “you exit capitalism” and enter something that resembles a “feudal fief”: a digital world belonging to one man and his algorithm, which determines what products you will see and what products you won’t see. If you are a seller, the platform will determine how you can sell and which customers you can approach. The terms in which you interact, share information and trade are dictated by an “algo” that “works for [Jeff Bezos’] bottom line”…

    Access to the “digital fief” comes at the cost of exorbitant rents. Varoufakis notes that many third-party developers on the Apple store, for example, pay 30% “on all their revenues”, while Amazon charges its sellers “35% of revenues”. This, he argues, is like a medieval feudal lord sending round the sheriff to collect a large chunk of his serfs’ produce because he owns the estate and everything within it.

    There is “no disinterested invisible hand of the market” here. The Big Tech platforms are exempted from free-market competition.

    And in the meantime, users are unknowingly training their algorithms for them — so “In this interaction, we are all high-tech ‘cloud serfs’… [T]he ‘cloud capital’ we are generating for them all the time increases their capacity to generate yet more wealth, and thus increases their power — something we have only begun to realise.”

    Approximately 80% of the income of traditional capitalist conglomerates go to salaries and wages, according to Varoufakis, while Big Tech’s workers, in contrast, collect “less than 1% of their firms’ revenues”… For Varoufakis, we are not just living through a tech revolution, but a tech-driven economic revolution. He challenges us to come to terms with just what has happened to our economies — and our societies — in the era of Big Tech and Big Finance.

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  • Balance of elements, outer space

    I regret that I did not do proper audio mixing on some of my albums around the 2017-2019 era. Despite having good Yamaha monitors back then, I often lacked the knowledge and practice needed to carefully ensure that all elements in a track sounded balanced on speakers first, especially around the bass drum, middle rim, bass, hats. And the fact that all tracks in an album must have the same volume, like you’re listening and meet no very high or quiet tracks; all must be the same. Balance of volume must be prepared not only between elements of tracks but also between all tracks in an album.

    I started checking mixing and mastering details very carefully on both speakers and headphones around the start of 2020. Despite all those not well-balanced albums always sounding good in headphones, I would advise everyone to check on monitor speakers first.

    What sounds good in speakers sounds good in headphones, but what sounds good in headphones might sound bad in speakers. When mixing, start with speakers.

    Same can be said about any other form acting whether art or form design.

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  • Emotional Thinking

    Why do people support charismatic but misguided leaders today? Why is there a rise in populism in politics? The post-modern era has led most people to think and choose based on emotions, not rationality, similar to advertising techniques that focus on stimulation rather than conscious thought. This leads to various problems.

    Emotional thinking isn’t inherently wrong. Sometimes, it’s necessary, especially in personal situations where we need to drive a movement, with a framework of rational thought around it. However, for broader societal matters, rational, critical, and slow thinking is essential.

    We should never blindly trust the words of politicians or celebrities. Always ask questions, check facts, and remember that their statements might be primarily motivated by profit. But ultimately, we must seek the truth, because, in the long run, truth is the only genuine profit.

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  • Xiph Icecast Directory

    http://dir.xiph.org – “a directory of internet radio stations and other live streams using the Icecast Streaming Server”

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  • Open source and proprietary software: when is each appropriate and a little about the excess of money

    On one hand, open source is always better; you know what the program is doing and can improve it… But on the other hand, developers need to earn a living. Indeed, it’s ridiculous to work for free, as one can easily die of hunger, and motivation… Programming can bring pleasure in itself, but it’s certainly not as fan as music or sport.
    I see the situation this way. Logically, the very first question arises, the first claim against proprietary code, “better knowing what the program does,” but this mainly concerns privacy.
    If there’s absolutely no internet access, a completely offline box for strictly practical purposes, like audio or video creation, databases, local systems… it can be proprietary because it doesn’t matter what’s inside the fridge or synthesizer as long as it doesn’t connect to the internet or camera, personal data, or spy.
    But if there are components that directly or indirectly involve personal data, areas that can be abused, with direct access to a user’s personal life or the internet in general, access to microphones or cameras… these things must be open, documented, with open source, etc… How developers can make money from such – there are options… additional features, selling hardware, extended support, merchandise, and subscriptions. Think of more. I’m bad at marketing, alas.
    If you just make code, for example for yourself or out of interest, that’s also great and noble. Overall, chasing excessive profit is vulgar. Why do you need so much money, for luxury, for nonsense? An excess of funds is not exactly a good thing; it’s clearly imbalanced, though here one could argue. In general, excess spoils average people. A rare intelligent and self-controlled person – most likely, will do charity, but the average person, more likely than not, will become worse.
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