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Alcofribas

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Posts posted by Alcofribas

    Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    in General Banter

    Posted

    10 hours ago, Satans Little Helper said:

    At first it seems obvious to condemn US(UK) for allowing the current situation to continue. Too obvious even. So in my poor-mans attempt to try to understand why the US voted against, I read the reuters article. yeah, I kid you not. and this is what my open and naive worldview took away from this little mental exercise :

    first the obvious: US voted against because Israel opposes. Duh. Then the somewhat less obvious question: why is israel against? Reading reuters: because Hamas isn’t addressed properly.
    Obviously, without any detailed knowledge I can’t make any meaningful judgement about such a claim. But, if I take it at face value - meaning Israel is completely upfront and open - I could understand that Israel would consider Hamas a key point that needs to be addressed. From their perspective. ( yeah mental exercise) Because without, there wouldn’t be a meaningful ceasefire. Or so they would argue, i would assume.  

    And the US? Well, I guess their opposition could mean there is some validity to Israels objections. Or they think so. 
    Does it matter that most other nations did support it? Yes and no. Why no? Because it would have been obvious US would veto, I assume. So at that point the vote had become political symbolism. Meaning: a vote to show broad support for a ceasefire. Any ceasefire. Regardless of the conditions. Even if those conditions weren’t good. 

    My conclusion: there’s a good reason I try to keep myself from taking part in discussions such as these. It makes me feel and look stupid. But more importantly, to me looks like a giant “moral outrage” porn gangbang. And I feel dirty and dumb by posting this. 

    It’s an important issue. I hope it gets resolved soon. Hopefully others have more interesting things to say. Ill gladly take the hit if it is at my expense 

    i would recommend taking a look at the record of the un security council on this issue. one might more accurately call it a broken record. the us and israel and not vetoing the council bc "hamas needs to be addressed" - there will always be cute little claims like this as half-baked window dressing to smugly cover the incessant brutal conquest of the middle east by western military power. it's always just and righteous. sensible intellectuals always find some clever little nugget of reasoning for slaughter as long as it's by the approved power.

    every single israeli invasion is like this - they go into gaza to destroy, the us funnels even more money and arms to them, the united nations cries fowl, and then the us and israel say they are innocently fighting terrorism and will not stop bc they're the good guys.

    dk man, if hamas was my problem i kinda just don't see how bombing the fuck out of thousands of innocent people would solve that for me. but then again, if hamas wasn't my problem and it was actually the existence of palestinians per se...i could see how these methods would be effective. maybe this looks like a "moral outrage porn gangbang" to you (whatever that means) but to me i see business as usual. over a million palestinians rendered homeless, over 17k lives savagely removed from earth, and for the majority of people in the west this means nothing, doesn't even register on the radar, and anyway isn't it all hamas' fault? 

    • Like 2

    Photek - Modus Operandi reissue

    in New & Upcoming Releases

    Posted

    I remember when this came out. I went to Circuit City and bought it on cd. My friends and I would sometimes go to Walgreens and steal boxes of Coricidin Cough & Could and each eat a whole pack. We would also often steal cookies and donuts and eat them in store. On one such occasion I brought the Photek cd and late at night my friends and I had the cared pulled over in the middle of nowhere, all windows and sun roof open, complete high off our minds, blasting the Photek and dancing in the dark. I remember it just feeling *so cool* like the music was somehow really slow and moody and also had such intense fast percussion. It felt like I was dancing in slow motion but the earth was zipping through space at a billion miles per hour. Sick night. Kinda hard to believe I’m the same person. 

    • Like 6
    • Big Brain 2

    Orban

    in Boards of Canada

    Posted

    8 hours ago, keen drops said:

    And the Orban equipment shown on the photo was probably manufactured much earlier, 1969

    precise release dates are difficult for these. for reference, this order form and catalog from 1982 lists then-current Orban items for sale and both of the units pictured in my post (418A and 526A) were available; I'd not think they were still selling equipment from the 60s in this list. 

    also if you take a look at this timeline you can see the precursor to the 526A (the 516EC) was released in 1974. also, my understanding of the 418A is that it was developed from the multiband compression system of the Optimod which was first released in 1975. so my best guess is the signature Orban blue-face gear with the BOC font were released late 70s/early 80s. 

     

    Films Recently Watched

    in General Banter

    Posted · Edited by Alcofribas

    10 minutes ago, logboy said:

    you picked up on similar things here as also found in ‘american psycho’ i think. i didn’t really, but what you say makes sense.

    there are similarities but i think the killer is depicted more like a regular person

    Spoiler

    (at the very end he concludes he isn't one of the "few")

    , whereas in american psycho the finance bro is a really over the top psycho. it's less a film about a character losing his grip on reality and more a story about someone with a completely inauthentic lofty personal philosophy that he adheres to while pretty much disobeying every principle throughout the film. that's more "life like" and really made me think about how our culture is so obsessed with performative ideologies that mean nothing as they are never tested or brought into action, and when challenged they evaporate into thin air. it's almost like the narration was like his "posting" online. 

    where i think this has a secondary humor is with respect to fincher himeself, a director known for operating under very similar principles to those articulated by the killer: total control, clinical distance/lack of empathy, rejection of improvisation, etc. i feel like he was having fun with this. 

    Films Recently Watched

    in General Banter

    Posted

    *the killer semi-spoilers*

     

    i thought the killer was excellent. watched in the theater. i don't really care if a movie has a "subtext" but i will say i think this is yet another entry into fincher's cannon that seems to be a send up of masculinity. in this one the killer's whole ethos comes across as some "rise and grind" guy who's worldview is a mishmash of cherry-picked nuggets he can't even attribute properly (lol at not remembering aleister crowley). his philosophy is all about total control of the mind and body in order to put these into the service of the sole purpose of getting money, about everything else he "does not give a fuck." fincher puts this guy in a situation where he makes one single mistake and he instantly spirals into a revenge spree, all the while telling himself he denies emotion, he sticks to the plan, he does not improvise. this is classic fincher, he always seems to be undermining masculinity and its various trappings and i really enjoyed how contemporary this one is not just bc of how well fincher depicted the modern world but bc this character and his ideological trappings are such 21st century things. our society is dominated by men like these - guys who think they are stoic geniuses who hide their mediocrity with profound-sounding quotations, who are ultimately unremarkable and not even good at what they do (the killer doesn't just fuck up the assassination but also leaves his girlfriend in some beach-side hideout with no walls lmao), and who continue to justify completely contradictory behaviors with the same pseudo philosophy about how controlled they are and how they are actually sociopaths, etc. 

    additionally, the film just ruled. amazing editing and sound design here. fincher working with editing and sound together in new ways here imo - lots of really disorienting, even jarring shifts in the sound, where background becomes suddenly very loud orvery fast edits from one thing to the next also involve corresponding shifts in sound intensity. the whole diegetic music thing was very clever - how the music would change from in-environment to soundtrack depending on the particular shot. also the choice of the smiths i thought fit the theme i mentioned above so well and was pretty funny - the hyper stoic masculine assassin is actually motivated by emotion and is constantly listening to the most emo shit ever. definitely plan on watching again soon. the pacing was pretty aggressive so i feel like there's probably lots to see the second time around. 

    ultimately found it really rich and fun, a taut but not lean thriller, which sees fincher bringing a little more levity into his intense control. kinda felt there must be a little self-deprecation in this one, in a way

    • Like 3
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