dcom

AP FACT CHECK: Trump bending facts on virus, Biden, economy (Associated Press)

A Very American Suicide (Still Drinking)

An exquisite piece.

Cyriak FTW.

Ooh, a(nother) topic I could go on about. Here's a sampler of some of my favourites. Metempsychosis, great label with artists like Flaminia, Tapefeed, End Train etc. VSK. Michal Jablonski. 6SISS. BR1002. Scalameriya, Tommy Four Seven, others on T47's label: Olēka. Militiā and others on Abyss. Paula Temple. SHXCXCHCXSH. Torn. That should get you started.

Joseph Pujol, stage name Le Pétomane, was the world's most famous fartiste: he could control his sphincter to use it as a wind instrument (pun intended).

Science, e.g. medicine, is evidence based and progressively cumulative; you could say science is a series of better and better guesses about how things are, then the guesses are either verified or falsified (I know there's a verification crisis in science because everybody wants to be special and not verify someone else's research but do their own) and those that are verified become established knowledge - but even then they can be falsified at any time (there's this patent office clerk who wiped two millennia of physics knowledge clean with just a couple of papers). Calling homeopathy a pseudoscience is giving it way too much credit - homeopathy is not even wrong, it's wishful thinking - you can't falsify faith, blind or otherwise. Yes, a lot of science is based on probability, but probability is an application of science in and of itself and therefore based on the same progressively cumulative principles like all science is. Yes, probabilities and statistics can be used to deceive, they can use biased data and/or algorithms/normalization factors etc., they can be interpreted with prejudice, data, methodologies, algorithms, interpretations etc. can be massaged to get to a particular end result - but even that is better than pulling stuff out of your imagination (or ass, whichever gets more likes on social media), at least the swindlers know there's a proper way to do it and they make an effort to appear scientific - but with proper peer review (don't get me started on pay-to-publish pseudojournals or what happened to Aaron Swartz) they're going to get culled. The whole anti-vaccination movement is based on one (yes, ONE) paper by a discredited doctor; the paper itself has been falsified a gazillion times over, but there are still people who actively think that they know better. The basic statistics in favour of vaccinations are simple and strong enough for almost anyone to understand, but there are people who don't (want to) understand things like herd immunity; then there are those who actively seek to disseminate (even dangerous, life-threatening) disinformation because they're so Dunning-Krugered (yes, that again) that they're, weill. not even wrong, because a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Vaccination causes adults. Be an adult, vaccinate.

Bandcamp.

Underworld, eh? I remember holding my breath (figuratively, natch) waiting to pick up Dubnobasswithmyheadman from the post and I've played the vinyl so many times it crackles. Second Toughest In The Infants, Beaucoup Fish both have a very, very special place in my heart. After that, Underworld dropped out of my radar and the next thing I knew Barking was out and I was chewing my face off to Scribble and the post-rave adulthood-negating avin' it large flashbacks it gave me; at that point I traced back to A Hundred Days Off, an album I listened to at least once every day on our 21 day Interrail trip around Europe - I was listening to Dinosaur Adventure 3D on the train when we arrived in Venice, FFS the feels. Oblivion With Bells and Barbara Barbara are nice, but I have no special attachment to them. The multi-disc special extended editions of the first three albums are really, REALLY essential to any and all Underworld enthusiasts. I've passed on Drift until today, and will probably be having it on heavy rotation for the next umpteen days. Nothing happened to Underworld, it's just that time is passing. At least they're not boring ad nauseam like Jeff Mills. Never seen them live, though.

I think there's quite a bit of exposure for The Jaffa Kid, if you just search for it, and yes, the music's good.

I have a smallish section of Loompanics Unlimited books in my library, there's some seriously specific books on various outré subjects like Backyard Catapults: How To Build Your Own, Sex Crimes Investigation, Surviving In Prison, Sell Yourself to Science, Curious Punishments of Bygone Days etc. I used to be on Loompanics' mailing list, even the mail order catalogs are collectable. There's a metric crapton of interesting stuff, I would really like to add to the 20-odd books I have but the most interesting ones are getting a bit pricey already - the drug chemistry books like Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture etc. have always commanded higher prices (or anything else by Uncle Fester).

Nuron Bandcamp. Just two tracks available (La Source and an updated version (!) of Electric Arc).

All originally released on Djax-Up-Beats in 1991-1995, remastered and pressed on fresh vinyl.

‘There is no emergency’: W.H. economic advisers shrug off feared ‘second wave’ of coronavirus (Politico) 114669 dead as per Johns Hopkins, and the curve shows no signs of levelling, experts estimate 200000 dead by September (NY Post). In comparison, here in Finland we have 325 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and things are slowly opening up, with limitations, checks and balances, all confirmed infections are traced and possible contagions mapped.

I'd already splurged on all the digital in Bandcamp, which is basically an extended version of the vinyl box (or the vinyl box is a curated subset of the digital) - but decided to get the vinyl as well - the green vinyl version directly from WeMe was the cheapest option for 45 € (6 in stock): Juno has it for 85 €, Clone for 65 €, Decks for 70 €, Bleep for 93 €, RedEye for £80 (all without postage and most probably not green vinyl). Get it from WeMe while you can or just go for the full digital with 40 tracks (the vinyl has 24) for under 30 €. No download code (as of yet) from WeMe.

Jazz Sabbath

The day police bombed a city street: can scars of 1985 Move atrocity be healed? (The Guardian) I remember reading about this years ago, even back then I was completely flabbergasted that the police - any police - would actually kill civilians by bombing them.

I've noticed that there has been a considerable bump in postage costs in recent years, but this is also due to couriers' extended handle on the market; domestically, Europe-wide using the national-transnational postal system costs are semi-reasonable, but overseas e.g. from US to Finland, even small packages have become really pricey; value-added services like registered/signed for/tracked are almost a necessary evil when the price of the item(s) exceeds a certain limit. Then again, couriers have bulk options where the costs don't go up linearly, but if I would like to order a 12" or two from Bandcamp to support a label or artist directly, the p&p becomes prohibitively expensive due to limited options (although you can usually ask if there are cheaper options, some labels explicitly state this on their pages), the postage can easily be as much or even more than the price of the records themselves. This is why I've gone mostly digital after being a vinyl-only aficionado for a lifetime - but items like this GC box are my exceptions: the postage from the UK to Finland is 24.20 € on top of the 90 € for the box and yes, it does sting a bit even when I accept the cost-benefit ratio. At least I'm not a heroin addict, it's only vinyl. Only vinyl. Only...

It seems that the FLAC and WAV are present in the download ZIP, but the MP3 is not.

Bleep.

Bill Gates is worried 'stupid' conspiracies will discourage acceptance of a coronavirus vaccine (Input Magazine)

You're right, so I added the lead as well, because the cultural hyperindividualism is mentioned.

https://mobile.twitter.com/macinta/status/1268336590121766913