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#anyway wonder what original design they come up with cause i just keep remixing this one
socksandbuttons · 4 months
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Consider:
New Solar Flare is Tiny. Like Lunar.
Im on it dont worry about it
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He's... hes just smaller. and also constantly on fire maybe.
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destiny-smasher · 5 years
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I used to be close friends with one of the composers for Steven Universe. I watched them rise from a YouTube remixer living in a cramped bedroom in a shared apartment with nothing but a mattress on the floor and a keyboard beside it to owning a house, happily married with a whole backyard garden and a cat because they found success working on one of the biggest cartoon shows I’ve known. But they broke off that friendship earlier this year and it’s made my biased love for Steven Universe become very difficult to grasp with. Understanding how and why we weren’t friends anymore was likewise difficult to grasp, even after hours of us trying to hash things out and resolve it. And while we DID resolve things amicably (I hope) and peacefully, it wasn’t until Steven Universe: The Movie that I was really able to feel like I could see the forest from the trees and ‘get’ what happened. This will be a kind of review of the movie, but mostly it became more of a personal ramble relating my real life experiences with Aivi to those of characters within SU, especially the antagonist of the Movie. This is lifted from this Twitter thread, so it was originally written stream of consciousness and I’m sharing it here to keep it more readable and archived. This is a bit of a read so tucking it behind a ‘read more.’
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"You keep on turning pages for people who don't care about you And still it takes you ages to see that no one's there Everyone's gone on without you"
Time to finally talk about the #StevenUniverse Movie. Strap in 'cause this gon' get personal.
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It should go without saying BUT I am gonna be talking about the movie! Dunno how in detail per se but I can't properly say what I wanna say without diving into some of the important plotty stuff. So yea.
Don't read this thread if ya don't want #spoilers #sumovie 
First off, I wanna talk about what this movie does well. Going in, I had heard it was framed like a musical. And I wasn't sure how I felt about that idea, though it wasn't surprising. After all, the 'musical' style episodes tend to resonate quite a lot. 
I think they work great when it's one song in a 10 minute episode, but an hour and a half of songs? I wasn't sure how well that would go. Turns out, pretty well. This is due to many factors but primarily the variety of song styles and art styles used throughout. Basically every scene has a primary song that drives it home, and basically all of them have a different genre/tone as well as visual presentation style. A lot of work went into getting it all to work together and feel cohesive. TBH for me personally the main highlight of the movie was honestly the animation. Average TV goers might just see "yup sure looks like a cartoon" but on the whole, on average, the movie is CLEARLY animated and framed with much more dynamism and detail than the majority of SU. Getting to see these characters we've gotten to know over the past few years a couple years in the future, generally at peace with things, but animated with more detail than ever, THAT is the true highlight of the film for me. Naturally, there was a lot of bits of comedy, often relying on knowledge of what the characters have been through, and I felt a lot of bittersweet smiles throughout as this felt like a good send off for Steven and his Space Moms. It managed to work in cameos from basically everyone you'd expect, some of which...didn't work out as well as others (specifically, the Diamonds bookending the movie was a bit forced and weird IMO but they ARE important to the lore even if I find them boring tbh) It was nice getting to 'catch up' with everyone, and the plot itself uses a generic 'gotta save the world again' thing (bleh) in a creative way, at least -- it all becomes an excuse to "re-live" the four primary heroes' stories through song. Cool enough. Something the movie inadvertently highlights, however, is the fact that SU as a series really started spinning its wheels a lot for its second half, in particular. Much has been said about how and why and why or not this doesn't matter, etc. etc. I was just along for the ride. I've repeatedly expressed my personal bias in the series' favor for a long time, and now? I kinda don't really have that personal bias anymore. I still love the show, I still think it's one of the best cartoons I've ever seen. But those rose-tinted glasses are off now. Taking said glasses off and actually listening to and looking up what critics of the show had to say kind of unearthed a bunch of things I had kept sweeping under the rug for the sake of personal bias/support of someone I loved and cared for a lot. We'll get back to that. I say all of this because the movie ironically failed to do much of anything NEW, something the series itself kind of struggled with for a while until it finally got around to the conclusion of Steven's story arc. The film ultimately kind of ends with "yeah Steven can change!" Which, um yea? Obviously. He's a completely different person than he was in S1. But he's kiiiiinda been the same person for....some while now. The weird irony of SU as a series is that about halfway through the narrative, the protag has essentially grown up, done. The last half or third or so of SU's narrative was basically Steven having to cheer everyone around him up and help them deal with their shit, and...kinda just going about that essentially the same way every time. The power of love, the friends we made along the way, etc. To be clear, there's nothing BAD about this, and in fact it's what sets Steven apart from most every other narrative of this type. The protag is almost always forced to change in ways they don't want, do things they don't want to do, etc. But when you put it side by side with something like Avatar or Gravity Falls, those series saw everyone growing alongside each other. There are clear arcs for everyone, almost all of which get resolved in ways fitting each character. It's imperfect but it's varied. SU has a tendency to just...hammer everyone's character flaws and arcs with ONE option: just love yourself and be nice, and everyyyyyyythinggggg 'll work out in the end! Which is fine, but when a story does it for so long, over and over, always the same, it gets a bit weird. I specifically LIKED in the film, at the end, that Steven actually does have to fight, because THAT is what Spinel needed to do. She needed to let out all of that anger, and that violence was her own way of doing it. 'you can't just sing a song to make everything go away' etc. It's typical, perhaps, for protagonists to have to tackle problems in different ways because that's LIFE. The fact is, Steven's approach will NOT save everyone. Lapis stilllll kinda stands as an example of this but an as of yet unresolved one. I liked that at the end of things, Spinel still doesn't come into the same fold as everyone else. Basically "sorry, I already fucked this up too much, I can't really deal with this," and that is IMPORTANT and I really liked it. Before really digging into the personal angle, I want to bring up how fascinating it is that the movie essentially had a real BUDGET and so they deliberately seemed to design an antagonist that would take full advantage of that animation budget. EASILY, by far, Spinel is the most interesting-to-watch antag in the whole series imo, in terms of how she moves and fights, etc. They really just wanted to flex and they did it, but like any SU antag there's (somewhat predictable) motives. This gets back at what I was saying before -- how the series spins its wheels a lot -- but Spinel's motivation/back story isssss kiiiinnndaaaa a lot like many many characters' issues and, like, I get it. We get it. Steven's Mom was Not The Best does that have to be the basis behind kinda EVERYONE who goes against Steven? Or the Gems? Lapis, Bismuth, and Peridot all offered more varied motivations, and even THEN, Bismuth was still essentially in the same boat? Anyway, I digress. I DO appreciate the way the series set up Rose as this wondrous lovely lady and has severely dissected and broken that down to the point where I really do not like Rose, in any of her ID's, as a character or a fictional person, and it did so gradually. A lot of what the movie did was kind of expected. Right? Songs, singing, check. Steven going about things the same way, check. Re-living/celebrating how far he and his moms have come, check. What I didn't expect was -- OK, well, there WAS that one fusion...which, um
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But the actual thing that really latched onto me was how much I conncted with Spinel. As is the case with any story that has well presented characters, you can attach to SOME part of just about all of them. I associate most closely with Pearl overall but can relate with just about anyone prominent. I see parts of me and Jenny in Steven/Connie, in Ruby/Sapphire, in Peridot/Lapis. I see what kind of woman I might've become in Amethyst (and sometimes am). Spinel, though, is a really weird case because I see my adolescent self in her SO MUCH and yet fairly recent events in my life -- directly tied TO the show itself, mind you -- make that connection weirdly poignant and present. For some context, I used to be good friends with Aivi, one of the musicians who works on the series with their husband. Spring 2018, Aivi and I vocalized to each other that we considered one another one of the closest friends in each other's lives. We're no longer friends. To make sure this is clear, I think Aivi is a wonderful person, and our breaking apart wasn't violent or dramatic or anything, Aivi just...decided they weren't interested in the relationship anymore. And neglected to tell me this until like a year later. The context is of course not at ALL as severe or dramatic as Spinel/Pink, so please don't assume there's some one-to-one there. But OOF are there some harsh similarities and it really made Spinel's backstory sting in a very confusing way. I say 'confusing' because, as I mentioned, I see my adolescent self in Spinel. The way I was going about making friends matches her 'happy' self. The way I acted in my senior year of college matches her 'angry' self. There was no single person that created any of that, though. In high school, I was like Starfire, in college, I tried to nurture that, play to my strengths. I failed miserably. And what I feel is a big part of why is inherently tied to my transitioning (which is, still, something I feel I am failing miserably at). By the end of college I was more like Raven, and there I remained through the duration of my first long-term romance, into a very weird and atypical marriage and breakup, and then I moved to CA and started changing. Fittingly, my current self can't quite ID with any single Teen Titan. I'm not a teen anymore, after all. Throughout a lot of my friendship with Aivi, they really seemed to fixate on comparing me to Pearl. It sometimes made me uncomfortable the particular ways they did, though. I strongly identified with Pearl's flaws and strengths in personality (though we're obviously different people), and so seeing Pearl go through redemption via self-love and self-acceptance meant a lot to me. "It's Over, Isn't It?" I was IN THE ROOM listening to Aivi and their husband work on the chorus to that song. Obviously they couldn't talk about it but I knew damn well what it was about, and anticipated that piece for a long time. Now it's even more weirdly painful. I met Aivi because they made Mario arrangements they put on YouTube and they happened to live a few blocks away when I was subletting my first summer in CA. They seemed very kind and caring and eager to Be Nice and at the time I really needed that at a very vulnerable and fragile time in my life so I latched onto that. -In The Garden- The week when the LiS terfs freaked out on me and that Bad Spinel side of me lashed back, and I found myself suffering from being gaslit and facing the fact that the worst part of myself that Trigon in Raven's mind that Angry Spinel was still THERE was still ME It was too much For the first (and thankfully, only) time in my life, I experienced suicidal thoughts. And Aivi REACTED to that shit. Strongly. In a way no one ever had for me before, ever. They drove across the Bay to my house, picked me up, had me over, and helped me process it. And in the months to come, as I was healing and coming to terms with how That Worst Part of Me That I Wanted to BE RID OF was still THERE and apparently could just fucking show up, through all of that, Aivi helped me work through things, and we really bonded. In retrospect, though, it's SO damned hard for me to tell if Aivi and I became so close because of mutual respect or pity or just conditioned behavior to Be Nice and Keep Up Appearances. I dunno. What I know NOW is that apparently Cost More than I would've thought. I'm not Aivi so I don't want to really dig into 'dirt' (again, Aivi is a great person who works very hard and that's WHY their work is so good) but looking back, it's wild to see their progression into SUCCESS and fame while I just stood by, floundering The thing is, Aivi was a super busy person. We barely got to spend time together -- when we DID, it was a multi-hour affair and apart from like, Jenny, Aivi is prolly the person I've had the deepest, most vulnerable conversations with. They were next to me when I realized 'oh huh I'm maybe trans??' because they were there when I was at one of the lowest points in my life. I never ASKED them to be there, to Be So Nice and as it turns out, Being So Nice is harder than it looks. So to kind of loop this back to the movie, I wasn't some Skullgirls Peacock Cuphead grinny goof or anything like that but I AM WILLING to bet that from Aivi's POV the way Happy Spinel acts toward Steven is prolly how I felt in Aivi's life at points, at the least. The irony is that we would go weeks, months, barely interacting. But looking back, the way Aivi talked about things, the same phrase keeps dominating my mind: Aivi got bored of me. I wasn't 'useful' to them anymore. Aivi said that day in spring 2018 was like 'the climax' of our friendship, or something like that. Way they talked about it was like...the finale of a season of TV. Our character arc together was over. Even though we TALKED about it, came to mutual understandimng of The Logic behind Aivi's decision to cut ties, I don't think it ever REALLY made sense to me, how Aivi must've felt about our friendship, until Spinel. By spring of 2019, my role in Aivi's life -- from what they have told me, from what I can perceive -- was more like I existed in a separate space from the rest of their life. I was that one interesting person always waiting in The Garden for them to visit when they felt like it Because while Aivi had gotten BIG, gotten MARRIED, gotten a HOUSE, found legitimate SUCCESS in their creative field I was still poor still stuck in retail still unable to find an audience still unable to understand the pressures of Success And OOOOFFF in those last couple years, interacting became more and more strained for both of us, from opposite ends of things. Aivi had responsibilities, PEOPLE vying for their attention, people wanting to hire them, projects to complete, a house, a spouse, etc etc My life was (and kiiiinda still is?) nothing like that, and as our Mutual Creatives Struggling to MAKE THINGS and Get By transforming into Yep I Am Still Here but you are SUCCESSFUL I think that really put a lot of strain on things I never accepted until Spinel. After Aivi hit it big with SU, in particular, they gradually started...acting differently. Acting in ways that made less and less sense to me. They were a Diamond now. And I was still just what I was. When drawing comparisons to characters on the show, Aivi persistently compared me to Pearl. A fact I once took pride in. They repeatedly compared themself to Garnet. Which...always kind of didn't make sense to me. Aivi wasn't really like Garnet. They are more NOW, though? In the sense of how they act, I suppose. Specifically, one of the last things Aivi said to me was that trying to be friends with me had started feeling like Pearl trying to force Garnet to fuse with her. This was problematic because from my POV nothing of the sort was happening. All I was looking for was occasionally hanging out a few times a year. Like. Ya know. Actually a lot less than what I was looking for with basically all of my other friends. And that was still Too Much? But when I start looking at things like Pink Diamond and Spinel instead of Pearl and Garnet, somehow things make a lot more sense. I was probably too clingy, too exciteable, and what amusement or relief I could provide eventually stopped being useful. Aivi eventually didn't even want to spend time with friends to just...spend time with them. Everything had to have some kind of practical Purpose to it, it had to be contributing to a Goal. I still don't get that, tbh. But I'm also not A Diamond. I'm not Successful. The most responsibility I have right now is fucking hanging up the laundry to dry. I have college loans that have and continue to feel pointless to try and repay. I have severe dental problems I haven't been able to fix. My body fell out of shape because of retail hell, and what energy I’ve had to spare from that always ends up going into the people I love, and trying to keep Making Things. Let's not forget The Complications of coming out and wanting to transition but not possessing the resources to do so. (Aivi was actually super supportive of this btw and was the first person to make me feel comfortable wearing feminine things so yea) Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that MY LIFE is not together. My personality is? I feel like I am finally Myself in terms of mental/emotional stability. And that is largely because Jenny helped me get there. But Aivi helped a lot with that, too. But I think Aivi got to a point where Success was more of a measure of how Grown Up and Healthy one was because despite my behavior, my personality, my mood, what I was asking for, and what I was giving, all changing DRASTICALLY after being with Jenny, I think Aivi still...looked at me the way Pink Diamond looked at Spinel during that song. Like, "yeeeaaaa ok kiddo it's time for me to go now, kinda done here" This is what's so confusing about all of this metaphor/etc. I'm not...like Spinel anymore? My current, post-coming-out self doesn't really relate with Happy OR Angry Spinel. It's almost like Aivi couldn't see me for who I became, and could only see me for who I had been. And maybe that's like why Spinel can't be friends with Steven at the end. It's too painful. I used to take pride in being associated with Pearl because "I'm enough" and "being strong in the REAL way" but now it's more like "oh you just think I'm still hung up and needy and clingy?" which uh don't feel so great a comparison. I can't help but wonder if while working on the movie, Aivi saw some of themself in Pink. Because I'm not the only person who apparently wasn't 'useful' to them anymore. And I'm not saying we should've kept forcing something that wasn't working. Not at all. What we had was good for both us, but it also entailed a lot of patience on my part and effort on theirs. And unlike any of my other long term friends, I often ended up waiting weeks, months, "Happily wondering night after night, Is this how it works? Am I doing it right?"
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Years and years of broken friendships, one after the other, most lasting merely 6 months, MAYBE a year at most, with a handful that have lasted since middle school (but which are so much harder to maintain) took a toll on my Adult Self until Jenny, anyway. For quite a long time - the majority of my life, currently - I assumed I just was Too Different and that was why my friendships didn't seem to last, didn't seem to extend to the depths I was looking for. That's perhaps one critical difference between Spinel and I: she's looking for FUN, for smiling faces, for attention, for creating smiles, I just want some fucking consistency. At this point, I'm not even sure WHY I still reach out to people. I don't NEED friendships in that desperate way I used to, back in the Happy/Angry Spinel times. And I've come to terms with that Other Max part of myself and integrated it, accepted it. My worst parts are still me and instead of suppressing them (often by relying on bids of deep friendship with others) I just have to let them EXIST and let them do their thing once in a while. This is ALL why Celeste hit me as hard as it did. Because even if I'm not actually much like Spinel anymore, and Aivi's not really like Pink Diamond, even if I don't actually share much in common with Madeline (other than the subtle 'I drink sometimes to deal with my problems' thing, which I don't anymore) I still comprehend and resonate so much with that concept of just needing to accept the worst parts of yourself and work with them rather than trying to keep them caged up and then they escape and rampage every 5-10 years or so and ruin your life As I felt myself coming to all of these Good Feelings I FINALLY felt like I could help Aivi in the ways they had helped me. That I finally had something to offer I didn't before. Turns out, I didn't, apparently. Aivi had More Important Things to do than visit me in The Garden. And I couldn't blame them. Not a bit. Especially if they had gotten bored of visiting me. I didn't like feeling like a burden on them, either. Can't really argue with that. During the last time we talked, Aivi didn't use the WORDS, didn't literally say them, but I finally could see it: I wasn't Useful anymore. I couldn't Understand, either, because I wasn't Successful. Our friendship was rewarding, but because it required effort. And that effort was still worth it to me, but no longer to them. I was no longer worth it. And despite that, despite starting to feel those hunches, I spent those final months -- as had been the case before, they were afraid to hurt me so avoided actually confronting the problem -- I remained "Happy to listen, Happy to stay Happily watching her drift away" I have no idea if any aspect of our friendship impacted anything Aivi had worked on creatively. TBH Aivi seemed to approach even relationships themselves with more of a logical, pragmatic style -- it was entirely unique compared to anyone I had ever connected with. But if you've read @lis-allwounds then it might not surprise you to know that a lot of what I expressed through Stella and Max, as well as Other Max and Another Stella, channels a lot of these things. I even quoted Aivi directly in the story's end (perhaps foolishly optimistic) And yes, that epilogue moment of sorts is gonna be entirely different if I ever do finish the visual novel. The fact is that we were ALWAYS very different people and our friendship was weird and complicated and hard for one or both of us throughout its, what, 8 year duration? Ironically, I think I took away the opposite 'Character Arc Lesson' they did from all this. But that's just the thing, nothing is permanent for a Human Being. We aren't Gems, we don't actually fuse, we can't just change our appearances when we feel like it, or project ourselves to look how we want to look, or exist for thousands of years. But we DO all have different needs, different ways of understanding those needs, and different ways of needing to adjust or change ourselves or our environments in order to pursue what we want to pursue with the limited time we have here. We tried, hard, and it lasted long enough. If I'm not useful, I'm not useful, I guess? I don't have any ill will toward Aivi, I loved them as a friend and I know they loved me, too, and were better at showing it than most any friends I ever have had. If I'd been better at reciprocating in ways that were actually useful, that would've been good -- but then maybe we wouldn't have become friends in the first place if I hadn't needed 'saving' in the first place, I don't fuckin' know. And I hope my saying all of these things doesn't make anyone think any less of Aivi because your relationship with them is, very likely, not at all personal like mine is. And you know as well as I do how good they are at what they do. Aivi took the time to ease me out of things. Aivi did NOT suddenly up and vanish for thousands of years. While the dynamics of the situation might bare sharp points of similarity, Aivi is not like Pink Diamond and I'm not like Spinel -- not in the present, anyway. Stories help us because they share THREADS with reality but it's always important to recognize those threads for what they are and not confuse them for ropes. And me ranting and tossing all of this out there is something part of me has wanted to do for months but needed to take the time to grieve and process and accept. And maybe it's selfish to be posting all of this, I don't know. But it helps me accept myself and them a lot more. "Finally something finally news about how the story ends" Aivi likely has brand new friends, better ones than me, and I'm willing to bet some of them worked on this movie. And it turned out pretty good, all things considered, probably in part because Aivi was able to focus on it That person I became friends with, she doesn't exist anymore. Just like how who I used to be when Aivi first me, he doesn't exist anymore, either. We both changed, and grew in opposite directions, I guess. We've found happiness and growth and relief in different ways. In the end the Movie helped me come to terms with all of this in a way Angry Spinel younger me couldn't have still hurts yo
"Isn't that lovely?
Isn't that cool?
Isn't that cruel?
And aren't I a fool
to have happily listened,
happy to stay,
happily watching her drift away"
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thebiggaylion · 6 years
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Bassnectar @ EDC Orlando 2016
Hey everyone, I’m back!  Sorry for the delay, had to let the guy behind The Big Gay Lion take care of some business.  I hope everyone’s Pride Month has been going well!  While I had to take those few weeks off, I was wondering whose set would be “right” for my return, and I think the outspoken Bassnectar is the best choice.  He’s absolutely on the right page for PLUR, and that ain’t nothing new.  Enjoy this twelve video post!  And you guessed it... because there’s so many in this original post, I had to split it up.  There’s two parts, and each have four embedded video frames.  If you’re paying attention, you know that doesn’t add up.  That’s because this time around the slow motion ones don’t have their own embedded frame.  Make sure to look at the links underneath each frame for the “normal speed” versions!
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YouTube | Facebook | Instagram Bassnectar’s got some dedicated fans, doesn’t he?  I think I’m remembering correctly that one of the first totems I remember seeing at EDC Orlando 2015 (but didn’t recognize at the time) was his logo!  I was very excited to catch his set, even though Nicole Moudaber was playing at neonGARDEN.  Shortly after his intro, I started taking this video, and... (spoilers ahead) THAT happened.  And this wasn’t the only time it happened, either!  There was an extended period of Bassnectar not having anything to play through, so I decided to take this opportunity to go get in the mood.  As far as timelines go, go ahead and insert everything from my Nicole Moudaber post after this video.  I walked down Electric Avenue, visited neonGARDEN for a while.  Continue on for where things pick up after that jaunt! Bass Against Machine - King Kong https://soundcloud.com/highchai/08-bass-against-machine-king-kong
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Slow Motion:  YouTube | Facebook | Instagram Normal Speed:  YouTube | Facebook | Instagram Once I started hearing very strange noises back at circuitGROUNDS, I knew the hardware problem had been resolved, and Bassnectar was back on.  I took the long way around Lake Beardall to get back, and decided I was going to keep filming some slow motion shots.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think about the need for quicker exposures when recording in slow motion, so the next two shots (and their "normal speed’ counterparts) are a bit dark, a bit fuzzy, and ultimately not terribly exciting. We Bang & Mister Black - R U Ready https://soundcloud.com/dubstep/we-bang-mister-black-r-u-ready-premiere
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Slow Motion:  YouTube | Facebook | Instagram Normal Speed:  YouTube | Facebook | Instagram Yeah, like I said.  Not terribly exciting.  But hey, at least this one has a bit more color!  And you can see the flickering LED inside the floating daisies on Lake Beardall going back and forth to create a purple light.  Neat, eh?  At least, I THINK that’s what’s causing that... Corporate - Ice https://soundcloud.com/dirtyduckaudio/corporate-ice-original-mix
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YouTube | Facebook | Instagram After a while, I pretty much got my old spot back.  Man, this was a really great circuitGROUNDS stage, wasn’t it?  Real talk, it’s been my favorite so far.  Sure, the “2.0″ of this design that we saw at EDC Las Vegas 2017 and EDC Orlando 2017 had larger trapezoids, but the accompanying screens to either side--and the 360-degree design--really made this a phenomenal venue!  I’ve seen what Insomniac has done for the EDC Las Vegas 2018 circuitGROUNDS stage and wrap-around elements.  It’s growing on me.  If EDC Orlando 2018 gets that design for it’s venue, I hope it can fill enough of us Headliners’ views to not seem lacking.  Regardless, these visuals are doing the most, so I wanted to get a video of it all!  Who doesn’t love a kaleidoscope? Bassnectar - Loco Ono (Bassnectar & Stylust Beats Remix) https://soundcloud.com/bassnectar/loco-ono-bassnectar-stylust Bassnectar feat. Lafa Taylor - Speakerbox https://soundcloud.com/bassnectar/bassnectar-speakerbox-ft-lafa-taylor
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Slow Motion:  YouTube | Facebook | Instagram Normal Speed:  YouTube | Facebook | Instagram And who doesn’t love moving the glass inside a kaleidoscope around nice and slowly so you can focus on the subtle changes?  I really love how the bright white lights seem to be rotating as they strobe.  I wonder if that’s an effect of a rolling shutter, or if that’s the electricity / commands hitting the electronics for “on”, “off” at different intervals?  Either way, it’s pretty awesome! Bassnectar feat. Lafa Taylor - Speakerbox https://soundcloud.com/bassnectar/bassnectar-speakerbox-ft-lafa-taylor
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YouTube | Facebook | Instagram Speaking of awesome, you know how I love tech.  And green lasers!  So during a huge green laser flood, I decided to see if the lasers were reaching the stadium that EDC Orlando usually wraps around in a big hug.  Not only were they indeed clearly visible, but they also looked really cool!  Since this moment, I will often look backwards during a performance, just to see what the laser pattern looks like on a flat surface haha.  The guy behind The Big Gay Lion says he’s been doing it, too! Excision & Downlink - Heavy Artillery (SKisM Remix) https://soundcloud.com/weareskism/excision-downlink-heavy-artillery-skism-rmx
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YouTube | Facebook | Instagram Bassnectar’s set is ending, and I wanna get a decent position for Hardwell at kineticFIELD, so on the way out, I get a new vantage point to circuitGROUNDS, and it’s looking good!  I paused for this video, and the next two as well.  Being up front is totally electric, but you usually miss out on some of the visuals being that close.  I think I noticed myself standing a bit further back for EDC Orlando 2017.  One, because the husband of the guy behind The Big Gay Lion liked his breathing room, and my biggest fan and his friends never really got all that close either.  I think I might try to get a bit closer for EDC Orlando 2018, even if I have to trek up there by myself!  I’m sure I’ll meet some new friends, anyway! Proko - Make It Work https://soundcloud.com/prokobass/proko-make-it-work-1
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Slow Motion:  YouTube | Facebook | Instagram Normal Speed:  YouTube | Facebook | Instagram Those light sweeps were looking great, so I took this one in slow motion.  What a unique sound Bassnectar has!  At least to these lion ears, that is.  If he happens to come around again, I may just have to see him a second time! Proko - Make It Work https://soundcloud.com/prokobass/proko-make-it-work-1
Speaking of, did you see the kineticLOVE stage announcement for EDC Orlando 2018?  It’s not entirely unexpected, as EDC Orlando has gotten the EDC Las Vegas kineticFIELD design since kineticCATHEDRAL in 2014.  But, it’s nice to see them talking about us for 2018!  I’ve seen a few artists already announcing late fall shows for central Florida, so I know the industry is indeed planning for November and such... so, where’s that EDC Orlando lineup, eh Insominac?  Usually we don’t get it until August, but I’m hoping with the earlier-than-usual pacing of Insomniac’s behavior towards EDC Orlando 2018, that we’ll see the lineup sooner?  I just knew such an early announcement was going to test my heart health...  Don’t forget to use the split posts if you need to go easy on your memory by avoiding everything all crammed into one post!  Love ya’ll, see ya next time! 🏳️‍🌈🦁❤
Out and proud in as many places as I can manage!  Join me, would ya? Facebook | Tumblr (Index) | YouTube | Instagram | Twitter | Web
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blackrectangle · 6 years
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No ads
Farhad Manjoo over at The New York Times, of all places, actually got something extremely right. Advertising is killing the web. Under the weight of online advertising, sites are polluted not only with ugly design, but bad information. There is a lot to not like about the web, and advertising itself is the cause. It's such a core feature of the web that I think we've forgotten how fast and elegant sites can be when they aren't trying to load a dumpster's-worth of advertising code in the background.
Even well-designed sites are bad. Look at the Outline. Every article has a weird animated slideshow thing in the middle of it. And that's on a site that is pretty restrained. Don't even bother with regional news websites.
I think one of the more baffling instances of advertising making things worse online are twitter promoted tweets. Not only is this a tweet (99% it's an ad) that is forced into the users' timelines, but if the tweet has an attached video, the video will have a pre-roll ad for it. What winds up happening when you're scrolling through your feed is you'll see a split-second image of something and then it jumps to the same annoying pre-roll ad you're always used to seeing. It's a little silly and frustrating. I can't understand why anyone pays to promote tweets...
Which is why I'll also take this moment to reaffirm my interest in a truly open web where people can just post what they want to have their own spaces, apart from overt corporate control, to communicate with the world. I know almost no one reads this. I don't care. I'm still going to keep doing this.
Anyway, give the piece a read.
There's "retro gaming" and then there's "historical gaming"
It's kind of a clunky term, but I think that "historical gaming" is a more accurate way to describe high end enthusiast vintage gaming. The kind of people that insist on using CRTs and original hardware whenever possible.
Over at the Verge there's a piece about the Analogue Super NT. In the ephemeral world of retro gaming, emulation is widespread. Many emulators recreate the hardware architecture of the game system in software. The Super NT, however, uses hardware to recreate hardware and because of this, it is able to create a more faithful emulation of the Super Nintendo as it was in the early 1990s. In fact, it probably runs games slightly better than the Super Nintendo.
The article refers to the creators of the project as having an almost hi-fi like obsession with accuracy in the design and performance of the hardware, and I can certainly respect that. It's also apparent that this may be part of the key to archiving and keeping the past alive. If there weren't companies out there making analog hardware like tape decks and turntables, we would have lost even more analog music than we've already lost through the digital migration.
This also made me wonder, at what point does "retro gaming" turn into some new form of historical reenactment?
How valuable do you feel?
The Atlantic has an article on the company WeWork. In it, the company is revealed to be less valuable than its venture capital goals, but at the same time, the basic logic of the piece is that WeWork (and other startups in this bizarre world) are really only as valuable as investors "feel."
In the show Silicon Valley, one of the lines that stuck out to me in the first season was when one character was lamenting the lack of revenue. Another character said that this was a good thing, since when you don't have income, your estimated value can't really be determined. You could be worth billions. And now we're to the point that even with income, if a company is clever enough and slick enough, we can pretend like that doesn't matter and that they'll soon be worth billions.
This reminds me of a point that John Oliver (and a few other nightly joke shows) brought up: That Donald Trump's wealth fluctuates with how he feels. While that notion was derided at the time (rightly) that's exactly how startup investing works on a certain level. There are plenty of people at VC firms to crunch numbers but at the end of the day "how it feels" is really what moves the needle.
Physical Goods
I moved in the past month, and now that i have an even more stable living arrangment, I've found myself being less afraid of owning physical goods. I don't think I'll ever go back to the cluttered life I lived when I had many hundreds of DVDs on my shelves, but I bought a CD for the first time in probably a decade. That CD was Thundercat's 2017 album "Drunk."
It's an amazing album and benefits from the higher fidelity of CD, plus I wanted to be able to listen to this CD when the internet goes down or in some dark time when all of the music streaming services go offline. Ownership, at some point, does have its advantages.
By the way, a remix album of "Drunk" is coming out this year. "Drank" is a wild re-envisioning of Drunk slowed down and chopped. It's extremely disoriented in the best way possible.
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