B Michael Tumblr

ke B Michael Tumblr

Jan

26

“While Dean’s mix may be impeccable, there is one kink in MBDTF’s technical solidity. For proof, compare the G.o.O.D. Friday version of “Monster” that first dropped this summer with the version that appeared on the album: The latter is harsher, clipping more frequently; the waveform confirms it, resembling a long, ugly brick. Dean does not deserve the blame, however. According to him, whoever mastered the final cut (Vlado Meller, say the liners) turned up the volume too loud.”

From a Respect Magazine interview with Mike Dean. This seems plausible, definitely, but I’m just slightly unconvinced. I mean, look for yourself below.

I’m not audiologist. It looks to me like there’s more compression on the album cut, but it’s not like the G.O.O.D. Fridays version is much better. Still, it’s good to know that genius Mike Dean isn’t for some reason totally incompetent. (I mean, he’s the opposite and then some: very competent.) Phew. Perplexing, still, why there’s some random-ass old white guy significantly ruining-up Kanye’s albums.

On the other hand… Watch The Throne sounds fucking awesome, and I’m pretty sure it was mixed and mastered by Dean. Damn. Take a look at “Ni//as in Paris”.

fuckyeahmikedean:

Watch the throne official tracklisting!!!!

Mike Dean’s tumblr is funny.

precious snobs can ruin anything even coffee

“What was the root cause of this rage and frustration? The answer: pour-over coffee, a seemingly simple but incredibly time-consuming method of coffee assemblage which wreaks destruction wherever it appears, a gastronomical ascot whose chief benefit seems to be that it roughly triples the time it takes to make a cup of coffee and allows consumers to then imagine that they can taste a difference.”

Chris Chafin, “The Scourge of Pour-Over Coffee” (The Awl)

What the hell is wrong with “pour over coffee”? Unless you’re using pressure (stove top espresso maker, espresso maker), heat-physics (percolator, AeroPress), or a French press, all coffee is pour over, right? It’s actually the least pretentious and time-consuming way to make coffee. I’ve been drinking pour over coffee every day of my life for the last six years. It’s not rocket sauce.

I'm curious how you think the Maximum fun Podcasts fit are part of the "liberal cronies making faux-racist jokes all the time." Not a loaded question or anything, i'd just love to hear your perspective on it.

Asked by
legospaceship

That’s a good question, and definitely my parenthetical vitriol needs expansion.

For one, Jesse Thorn was recently on Boing Boing’s podcast, and Coulton was on Thorn’s TSOYA podcast (responding to a Planet Money podcast that characterized Coulton fairly well, I think — of course, neither he nor Thorn could handle NPR saying he got any sort of help by having a baked-in programmer audience). Thorn is friends with Lonely Sandwich, from You Look Nice Today, which had a two episode run with John Hodgman and his pal Coulton. Hodgman was Thorn’s mentor. They’re all sort of left coast friends (not Hodgman, ofc.), I get the impression. ANYWAY — I’m just trying to establish the connection. (Yes, I listen to a lot of podcasts.) (Also, this ignores the way the extremely funny and talented Merlin Mann connects this group of people to the more hard-core tech people who are THE WORST via Dan Benjamin and 5by5.) (Yes, still, I listen to a lot of podcasts.)

Jordan Jesse Go frequently features racist jokes. In JJGO Ep 207, Jordan Morris was gobsmacked that his “Thai lady boys” twitter joke was poorly received. Then, they played a listener call that celebrated racism, and they thought it was HILARIOUS. Their guest, Merrill Markoe, who’s an actually talented funny person was like, ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?” but more polite. I’d have to literally go back and listen to 200 episodes of JJGO, but there’s not a month that goes by where I don’t have a WTF moment and have to pause or delete the podcast because of their love for liberal-racist jokes. I have a similar relationship with certain podcasts as I do with Bill Simmons. Yes, I am a person who needs to let go of negativity and be too blessed for to be stressed, etc. I’m working on it.

Anyway, yes. The Max Fun podcasts, I believe, really cater to the white and nerdy crowd that I’ve mentally mapped to Boing Boingers, so-called “makers”, readers of Reddit, and comedy nerds — which are not implicitly bad people, certainly. I am a huge comedy nerd. But there’s a strain in it, I think, of meritocratic-nerd-outsideryness that lends itself to denying privilege in off-putting ways. As a panacea to all that, I have nothing but good things to say about The Pod F. Tompkast and Super Ego. (Thorn and Morris are once-time guests on the latter.)

“‘Make good stuff and make it easy for people to buy it’ is so simplistic as to be grossly insulting. People have been making good art and trying to make it easy for people to buy it since the dawn of time, and it’s no accident that somehow, weirdly, it’s straight white folks, mostly men, who still keep ending up succeeding at it.”

Let the market decide. Vote with your dollars. Poor people shouldn’t be overweight. If minorities just worked harder. You can be sexist against men too. Just go to college. Just pay for college. Work harder. Just write. Just make stuff. Minorities can be racist too. Your accusation of sexism is itself sexist. Hack the planet.

I have had it up to literally here with techno-tard libertarian free market geek assholes. The comments on this Boing Boing story about MLK Day and unpacking your privilege knapsack made me stop reading Boing Boing. Finally. I know — what took so long. It only took two comments for someone to deny the conceptual basis of privilege, which is privilege. The comments did not get any higher-minded from there. I’m sick of Coulton’s liberal cronies making faux-racist jokes all the time (looking at you Maximum Fun podcasts). I’m sick of all this enlightened techno-liberal white male bullshit. I’m sick of it all. It’s the same game, white male exceptionalism, but the players have just swapped jerseys.

(via mikkipedia)

Comeback Dog

Jan

25

Stay Classy, Connecticut

[East Haven Mayor Joseph] Maturo was being interviewed by New York’s WPIX-TV about alleged anti-Hispanic bias in East Haven, a shoreline town bordering New Haven and the subject of a federal civil rights probe that was launched in 2009.

The four officers arrested Tuesday are charged with depriving the civil rights of Latinos and their supporters, including by unlawfully searching Latino businesses and intimidating people who tried to investigate or report alleged misconduct.

Maturo was interviewed on video Tuesday by WPIX reporter Mario Diaz, who asked, “What are you doing for the Latino community today?”

Maturo’s response: “I might have tacos when I go home; I’m not quite sure yet.”

Diaz then said: “You realize that’s not really the comment to say right now, you ‘might have tacos tonight’?”

Maturo, who is of Italian heritage, then said he might have spaghetti or any other kind of ethnic food.

Growing increasingly angry, he added he does not believe the anti-Latino bias allegations are “a systemic problem within our police department or within our community” and told Diaz to “go for it, take your best shot” to make the “taco” comment seem to imply something he did not intend.

It looks like it is a good idea for reporters to point out ‘errors’ made by their interviewees, and politicians (many? mostly? all?) clearly have no regard for the truth.

Jobs

Yo, they probably call him Steve Jobs cause he got ‘em
He can give a job to anybody, man, no problem

The late Steve Jobs — what a fitting name he had — created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the president borrowed and blew.

Those jobs aren’t coming back.

-RETURNS SERVE-

Touché!

Flana Del Rey

Come on guys, chill. I got this.

“There is hypocrisy all around: on the part of Ms. Del Rey, on the part of her various teams and enablers, on the part of her dissecters and executioners. A career founded on bad faith all around can’t be long for this world, but at this point what can Ms. Del Rey do? Not much. Her cultural stamp has already been affixed, her biography written in concrete. The only real option is to wash off that face paint, muss up that hair and try again in a few years. There are so many more names out there for the choosing.”

So Lana Del Rey is like…. Tune Yards 2? I still don’t think she’s going to wash out, as such.

Whew, anyway. This was a really very interesting album review by Jon Caramanica. It reads like, I don’t know what. The eulogy of a gravedigger? A warranty card for a Rube Goldberg machine? The Post Secret entry of a person with no secrets and even less access to the post office? Very strange, but not particularly bad. (I mean, it’s actually a really good review. It’s just an odd thing to read.) I guess the punishment fits the crime.

lana del rey

Album Review: Lana Del Rey — “Born To Die”

In this economy, being able to sing like some weird adult-baby hybrid has got to be worth something, right? ¹

I am open to it being worth nothing. ↩

“In America’s rough streets, there are four forms of currency—cash, sex, drugs, and bicycles. Of those, only one is routinely left outside unattended.”

Yeah, dude, and only one isn’t exactly the end of the world and makes for a tedious #longread about how you love your stolen bike.

LDR

Happy birthday, Virginia Doowg!

The prettiest crowd that you had ever seen
Ribbons in our hair and our eyes gleamed mean
A freshmen generation of degenerate beauty queens
And you know something?

They were the only friends I ever had
We got into trouble and when stuff got bad
I got sent away, I was waving on the train platform
Crying ‘cause I know I’m never coming back.

This is what makes us girls
We don’t look for heaven and we put our love first
Don’t you know we’d die for it? It’s a curse
Don’t cry about it, don’t cry about it
This is what makes us girls
Darlin’ little queens do you know what you’re worth?
I’ll tell you everyday till you get it, girl
It’s all gonna happen

Jan

24

essays

Until we figure out how to inhabit the bodies and minds of other people, we might never know these things of each other.

I could not find a representative quotation to pull from this brief essay. It only takes a few minutes to read, and presents an issue (epistemic bottomless as regards sexual experience) in a really nuanced way. So it’s worth reading, I think.