After today

After today, I am inescapably (without incurring financial detriment) an assessable student of UQ for at least a semester, flailing in the deep end of the philosophy and ethics pool. Today’s the cutoff for GTFO (getting the f*** out) of enrolment.

A catalyst for improved study habits? We’ll see.

Anyway, here’s a pikachu car:

My first ever short post that was just a little too long for twitter.

Student observations

Observation 1:

People ask questions in lectures:

• Some are unintelligent.
• A lot are irrelevant to the purpose of the lecture.
• Where the lecturer obliges these questions, ideas are considered arbitrarily, haphazardly, without structure and altogether time-wastedly.

Observation 2:

“You can’t be the stone or the dog.”
Lecturer, in response to a student question on existence when in a darkened room.
Stranger, but no less funny taken obviously out of context.

Observation 3:

People betray themselves by asking questions. They expose their foolishness. But if not for their self-betrayal, they would only become greater fools. Thankfully, sometimes their questions expose ideas which I’ve not yet considered to the extent of coming to a defensible standpoint.

Observation 4:

People use their knowledge from prior reading of theorists mistakenly to try to build connections where building a connection is not required and is, in fact, unhelpful for understanding.

The other thing the internet does

I decided a long time ago (November) that I wanted to write and so I am. I like writing. I also decided that what I would write would be for pretty much everyone I know to read. And to that end I’ve used Facebook as a lazy, mostly ineffective way to let people know I’ve written something.

Today I was going to write about Uni and how it’s been starting a new course and what people have been like there. But then I remembered that the next thing I wanted to write about before anything else is feeds.

Feeds (aka RSS) are a way of keeping up with any websites you follow. Any website or blog or youtube channel you check every now and then (or frequently) has a feed attached to it that updates every time something new is posted. This allows me to get just about everything I’m interested in reading on the internet sent to me as it’s published: TV shows, new youtube videos, news from The Australian (breaking news and Arts news), gadget news from Gizmodo and new posts from other writers who are actual people.

I use Google Reader to manage my feeds.

Just thought I’d mention this and I’ll make the feeds for my blog more public for anyone interested in using this other thing that the internet does to keep up with my sporadic posts.

As I said, I’m writing for anyone who’s interested. It’d be interesting to know who actually reads this. Let me know in person, or in the comments if you feel so inclined.

Nathan.

P.s. I don’t read newspapers mostly out of how inconvenient I find them and I use Google Reader as a substitute for this plus all the other stuff it does. If you want a better explanation as to how to use feeds let me know and I’ll help!

Charcoal for Linkin Park?

I expect alot^ of the musicians that I listen to and I don’t think that this makes me snobbish.

I think that good music does something that you want it to do.
I think that the best music can leave you somewhere where you didn’t intend to be.

Popular music adheres to popular music conventions.
The best music exploits these conventions of language and of musical quality, rather than being exploitative of it’s audience.

Like the term ‘popular music’, our words for genres are sometimes helpful but altogether are very silly. Couldn’t we use colours instead? I would make Rage Against the Machine a shade of red, maybe brown. And Dizzee Rascal can be purple.

If you like a certain music, err on the side of being humble about your discovery.

I like conversations about music where whoever is talking comes across as authentic in their appreciation. Inordinately deep consideration of this or that band makes for a conversation I’ll particularly enjoy, even if that band is Oasis.

I would like the whole world to not settle for poor music; poor in lyrics, or; poor in the myriad elements that comprise it’s sound.*

I would like bands to exploit the instruments of production that they have available instead of genres (or listeners).

Music is sound, like language.
It’s requiring of literacy for comprehension.
I’d love to know what it is that you don’t like about any song that I do like, especially if you can offer a comparably better song. And to this end, here’s 10 songs which Last.fm says I’ve played alot:

1. Obstacle 1 – Interpol
2. The Pot – Tool
3. Viðrar vel til loftárása – Sigur Rós
4. Map of the Problematique – Muse
5. And I Was A Boy From School – Hot Chip
6. Please – Pete Murray
7. Details of the War – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
8. Pussyole (Old Skool) – Dizzee Rascal
9. A Wolf At The Door (It Girl. Rag Doll) – Radiohead
10. Elephant Gun – Beirut

I think that there are too many well-meaning musicians and listeners in the world for music to ever come down from it’s lofty status as one of the wonders of the world. In a life where I’m unable to worship anything other than what I know to be real (insofar as what I can experience), music has a beauty and an unknowable quality that is, in my opinion, deserving of my considered adoration and contemplation.

Charcoal for Linkin Park?

Nathan.

^I have made ‘alot’ one word.
*Please someone teach me how to use semicolons!