zkom
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Posts posted by zkom
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4 minutes ago, sweepstakes said:
Why is not being able to go to the hairdresser such an intolerable hardship for Republican women? Jesus, mail order some hair dye, a hand mirror, and some scissors and save yourself $50.
These people are so horny for "freedom" that they're slaves to it.
I really don't understand why they need to be armed and in some ridiculous combat-like gear for this kind of protest. It's like a weird cosplay event with delusional adults instead of nerdy kids.
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This is also going to end well
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9 hours ago, Draft78 said:
... apparently Confield took a lot of contempt. The times were not ripe.
Yeah, the stylistic change around the turn of the millenium wasn't easy on some of the Autechre / IDM / Warp fans.
For a change here's an Amber customer review:
AuTESHre
If you look at the middle of Autechre's name you will see 'tech' which sounds kind of like 'tesh' and when I say 'tesh' I mean like John Tesh. While Autechre's music is not even close the same style as Tesh's they share a common parallel, they're both dreadfully boring. Autechre are known as masters of the mundane, which brings me to my first point, why would anyone be interested in the mundane especially in something that is supposed to be as engaging and exciting as music. Autechre play a bunch of instrumental ambient electronica songs. Electronica can in some cases mean electronic tinged rock, and at other times old men's techno. I'd have to lead to the latter. None of the songs lead anywhere. I can see sitting through songs to get to a grand conclusion, but long after this album was over I sat in my room listening to nothing, in hopes some hook, some reason to listen to this album would be realized. Then it finally hit me, this music would be perfect for yoga, or some kind of gay interpretative dance, or when your cleaning the house. It is great background music. But so are those 'Sounds of The Ocean' and 'The Ambience of The Forest" discs you see at Target and Walmart for a couple bucks. If you want good background music I suggest you go to your local Target and pick up five of those discs rather than spend it on this 'acclaimed' music. -
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7 minutes ago, goDel said:
Been in Taiwan about 15 years ago. Despite political tensions with China, the country itself seems perfectly free and safe. If you'd be ignorant about those political tensions, you'd hardly notice anything off.
I've been to mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in the past year or so. It's been an interesting experience.
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12 minutes ago, sweepstakes said:
Basically, nobody that trades directly with China?
Yeah, I guess China's influence in the international politics is mostly economic.
7 minutes ago, mycospherologyst said:how does taiwan compare to palestine? or am i opening a can of international worms?
They're very different cases. Simply put: both China (or People's Republic of China) and Taiwan (or Republic of China) have historically claimed to be the one true China. Taiwan as a country was the result of the Chinese nationalist army or Kuomingtang retreating from the mainland to the Taiwan island around 1949 while the mainland China was left to be controlled by the communist party. After that it's been just one long standstill. The early Taiwan wasn't a democratic paradise either with the opposition violently crushed but the Kuomingtang martial law rule ended in 1987 and Taiwan became a real democracy.
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2 minutes ago, hijexx said:
RE: WHO
I don't mind that the US is taking a time out on funding the WHO. WHO needs to really take a hard look at what Tedros is doing and the China vs. Taiwain rift. It's unfortunate that it's happening while the pandemic is happening but it's one way to get their attention.
WHO's hands in regards to Taiwan are probably pretty much tied due to being a specialized agency of UN which does not recognize Taiwan as a country. And UN recognizing Taiwan's independence is not happening anytime soon. The actual list of countries that officially recognize the independence is very small, only 18 countries: Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Nicaragua, Palau, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Vatican City.
Yeah, US doesn't officially recognize Taiwan's independence either..
The politics and foreign relations regarding Taiwan are so fucking complicated that if you decide to go down that rabbit hole you'll be lost for years.
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Customer review for Confield:
I have explored many of the artists on the Warped Records label like Autechre, The Aphex Twin, Nightmares on Wax and Boards of Canada, and this is by far the worst Warped Record that i've heard. With the Aphex Twin records and other Autechre albums like Amber, you'll find a very diverse but compelling sound that is completely unique and at the same time deeply listenable. I don't really know what happened here, 1 or 2 of the songs are interesting for about 2 minutes but after that you start to question your taste in music and think "What the hell was I thinking?!?". The best way to imagine what this album sounds like would be to listen to an ape play an electric keyboard in a steel works factory amongst all the machinery. I can understand that some people may be able to get into this album, but i'd really have to listen to this 200 times to be able to understand it, and then it would still bore the hell out of me. This album is definately one to avoid, or at least try before you buy. A much better purchase would be Autechre's first album Amber which is quite a beautiful album, or if you prefer the Aphex Twin's style, then just buy yourself another Aphex album.
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Feeling stuck at home and want to travel sonically? Here's a map of the world with a shitton of local radio stations that you can listen to: http://radio.garden
Listening to some electronic music from Namibia now.
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If I had to pick a single period for interior design for my home I think I would go with 1920s art deco style. I just love how everything is so geometrical with clear shapes and soft colors and the vague Egyptian or Middle Eastern influence. But so far I have only a 1920ish-1930ish art deco candle holder so it's a long way to go.
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33 minutes ago, BCM said:
Has anyone noticed a lot more birds around lately? I think they're going to take over. Hitchcock was right.
They are after all, the remnants of the dinosaurs. Maybe they've just been biding their time.Yeah, I've noticed there are quite a lot of magpies, crows and seagulls on my backyard lately
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I never really thought how confusing the Nordic multilingual keyboards must be to somebody who has never used any of the local keyboards before.
A couple of examples of the keys:
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1 hour ago, Enthusiast said:
When Holland is under water, I hope it gets all the help it deserves.
EU is really dropping the fucking ball in regards to this whole pandemic. If EU states can't cooperate in front of this kind of global threat then the questions start to rise that what good is the whole union?
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Somebody should make a cover of Killing Joke's Eighties but instead of "eighties" sing "twenties".
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5 minutes ago, rhmilo said:
One thing I've read is that immunity for the corona viruses that we normally get - and that cause variants of the common cold - only lasts for about a year or so, which is why we can get these types of colds over and over again. Which is not to say that this particular corona virus doesn't cause a slightly longer lasting immunity, though.
The 2-3 year immunity was based on previous SARS epidemics that are also caused by corona virus.
6 minutes ago, rhmilo said:How do you figure this? While the principle is correct, I don't think a 0.66% mortality rate (or even a 5% mortality rate, even) is high enough to cause this effect. But IANAE* of course.
It does not have to be deadly for the effect to take place. If there are severe symptoms in general the infected people will be easier to identify and quarantine. If the symptoms are very mild or non-existent then the virus can spread completely freely.
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A new article in the Lancet suggests that the mortality rate is "only" around 0.66% when taken into account all infected and not just the ones that have severe symptoms: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30243-7/fulltext
That would be still much higher than influenza but nowhere near as bad as some estimates a few weeks ago.
Some other things I've learned: The corona viruses are genetically pretty stable unlike influenza viruses. We have new strains of influenza yearly because they mutate so fast and that's why last year's influenza shots don't protect against the latest strains. Also based on previous knowledge on corona viruses the immunity lasts about 2-3 years. So if we get the vaccination we might need booster shots every 2 years.
Also, as I said before, it's probable that the strains with milder symptoms become more commonplace and replace the deadlier strains over time due to evolutionary advantage. So, maybe we have a seasonal corona epidemic every couple of years in the future but it's not going to be this bad.
Anyway, this is NOT the worst case pandemic that the virologists have been fearing. This is more like a rehearsal for that..
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10 minutes ago, Rubin Farr said:
As people are fleeing NYC, i can see other cities doing that, maybe heading to the Midwest, Great Plains areas. People out in rural Alaska would fare better i would think than being trapped on an island like Hawaii.
That's what started to happen here in Finland that people tried to escape the crowded capital area and now the government is trying to isolate it from the rest of Finland. The reason is that besides spreading the disease around there's much less capacity in the rural areas to take care of even their own population let alone city dwellers coming to add extra patients.
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BoJo has tested positive for the Corona now.
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3 hours ago, Mesh Gear Fox said:
sorry for being a total gronk, but what happened in 1968? vietnam?
The Hong Kong flu pandemic that killed around 1 million people around the world. My grandmother remembers this.
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The Uusimaa region in Finland (contains Helsinki and the metropolitan area and some smaller towns) is getting isolated for 3 weeks from the rest of the Finland tomorrow. I've almost ended up in quarantined regions before but never expected it to happen in Helsinki, ffs.
Have to just wait this out I guess. Wishing I could put myself in some cryostasis for 6 months. Anyway, busy coding now to keep the project I'm working on going.
Also probs a good idea to start limiting following the covid news a bit. Just check the essentials a couple of times a day.
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Finland has had 3 casualties in total during the whole pandemic and restaurants only serve takeaway now, bars closed, ski centres closed, schools (mostly) closed. And travel to and from the Helsinki region is probably going to be banned in a couple of days.
Meanwhile Stockholm alone has had 18 deaths due to covid19 today and everything basically stays open in Sweden. Wtf?
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1 hour ago, very honest said:
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Coronavirus COVID-19
in General Banter
Posted