Oops, just noticed I didn't post this week! My mistake.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Releases of the week 17/11/2018 - 23/11/2018

Featured Release

Oneohtrix Point Never - Love In The Time Of Lexapro (EP) (Prog Electronic, Ambient)

Oneohtrix Point Never has dropped off his new EP, Love in the Time of Lexapro....
The new effort follows producer Daniel Lopatin’s impressive 2018 album, Age Of, and The Station EP from July. It contains a pair of new songs and alternate, collaborative versions of two Age Of tracks.
The two previously unreleased originals are titled, “Thank God I’m a Country Girl” and “Love in the Time of Lexapro”. The latter title track has been an audience favorite on Lopatin’s Age Of tour, but has never been properly recorded and released until now. Also included is a rework of Age Of’s “Last Known Image Of A Song” from veteran Japanese experimental musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (The Revenant), as well as an updated take on Age Of highlight “Babylon” featuring additional contributions from (Sandy) Alex G.”

Source: Consequence of Sound

Stream Links

Other Notable Relases

Dipset - Diplomatic Ties (Trap, Hip Hop)

Listen to single

Rita Ora - Let You Love Me (Pop, Electropop)

Listen to single

Boosie Badass - Boosie Blues Cafe (Hip Hop, Blues)

Listen

Art Brut - Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out! (Indie, Rock)

Listen to single

Feel free to discuss or feature any and all other releases in the comments below

Discussion Points

Have you listened to any of these releases yet?
What are your thoughts?
What are you looking forward to listen to?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past?

// All feedback on this format welcome below.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

I currently have a Nexus 6P whose battery dies at 35% and unfortunately nowadays with unreplaceable batteries, that means I have to replace the phone (sigh).

For my next phone, I'm seriously considering a CAT S61.

CATs (caterpillars) are a line of smartphones made for heavy-duty blue collar work. They're built to withstand shocks, drops, accidents and various intense situations. The S61 is a high end hybrid which pulls in USB-C, NFC and various other modernities. This makes it very tempting. The big pros for me are shock/drop resistance+waterproof and a headphone jack, microSD slot, no stupid notch, and a superb battery.

Where the CAT loses is on display resolution, camera quality and probably CPU/graphics card but having never owned one, I don't know how bad these are. It's also much thicker but that I really don't care about. It also doesn't seem to be compatible with lineageOS (and even if it were, I don't know that there's drivers for the various custom hardware bits such as the thermal imaging camera).

Before I drop $1k on one of these, anyone here got any hands-on experience with the CAT line?

My friend and I are considering finishing a prototype of a Reddit app. We've already agreed to the following features on first release (if we keep going).

• Similar urls to current Reddit website (so you can change the URL to reddit.com and see the same page)
• voting, commenting, posting selftexts and links
• Directly uploading image posts may come later if it looks complicated
• Masstagger integrated.
• Dark theme (other options in later releases)
• Primary use case: desktop and mobile web.
• Performance first. Reddit's 1 minute load time on default mobile, missing/broken features on i.reddit.com/.compact, and a few tiny complaints on the desktop site are the primary reasons we are considering writing this app. Native is not in our collective skillsets or radar, so we're going to go the extra mile to make sure the app respects both your time and your battery where possible. We did do some research and found that Reddit has actually been negligent in this regard on mobile web, meanwhile we have years of experience in the subject.
• Mailbox (send/receive messages, orange icon on new message/comment reply/thread reply).
• No infinite scroll
• View source JSON of comments/posts.

What are some features/ideas that members of this community would really like in a Reddit app?

Filling in again this week.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Intro

Hello everyone,

Today we cover equilibriums and phase changes. Through that we will get a basic understanding of how things like pressure, temperature, density, volume, etc. are related.

The previous chapter can be found here: https://tildes.net/~science/8ao/. I highly recommend that you read it before continuing.

A collection of all topics covered can be found here: https://tildes.net/~tildes/8al/.

Subject

Summarized

"Equilibrium" is fancy word for "balance". A system is in equilibrium when it is in balance with the surrounding systems. Any system will naturally attempt to be in equilibrim, and will adapt its physical properties to do so.

A phase change is the transition of matter from a state (solid, liquid, gas, or plasma) to a different state. This happens due to a change in internal energy, changing how a material is bonded.

Now that we have it summarised, lets dig a bit deeper.

Equilibrium

A system always tries to be in balance with its surrounding systems. We maybe don't think about this a lot, but we are all very familiar with this principle since we observe it every day.

If you have a cup of hot cocoa, it will cool down until it has reached ambient temperature. At this point, the cocoa is considered to be in "thermal equilibrium". If we fill a balloon with air, it will expand. It will do so until the air inside the balloon has the same pressure as the air outside the balloon. At this point, the balloon is considered to be in "barometric (pressure) equilibrium".

Just like when we talk about energy, there is a relationship when we talk about equilibriums. We have something we call (you may remember this from basic chemistry) an "ideal gas". An ideal gas is a good way of looking at this principle. Since the temperature, volume and pressure have a direct relationship.

Pressure-volume-temperature diagram for ideal gases.

In the diagram above we can see that if we change one of the three variables, then one (or both) of the other two variables has to change too. For instance, if we heat some air in a canister, the air will try to expand. But being unable to change in volume, it will instead increase pressure. [1]

Phase changes

Any material has a set of phases. The ones we'll discuss are the solid, liquid and gaseous phases. Unless we control the material's environment very carefully, materials will always follow this order when energy is added. Solid becomes liquid, liquid becomes gas, and vice versa. For instance water; ice (solid) becomes water (liquid), water becomes steam (gas). So each of these transformations is a phase change.

So when water is solid (ice), the molecules are in a grid. The molecules do not move around much, maybe a little bit where they stand. But they all still stand in a grid.

When the water gets heated up, the molecules will start to move. Molecules have a natural attraction to each other due to subatomic forces like the van der Waals force. So the molecules will no longer stay in a grid, but they will still keep each other close due to this attraction. So a material that sticks together but freely moves around is called a liquid.

Once the material overcomes this natural attraction, the molecules can go anywhere they want. And that's when we get a gas. Or steam, in the case of water. All of this applies even for materials we don't usually imagine would melt or evaporate, for instance steel.

Here is a visual representation of the three states.

Now comes the fun part. Ice is water that is at 0 degrees Celcius or below. Liquid water is water that is 0 degrees and above. But wait! Does that mean that water can be both solid and liquid at the same temperature? Yes, indeed. A material requires a certain amount of internal energy to become liquid. That is why internal energy and temperature is often used interchangeably, but is not exactly the same.

The water molecules in ice will use the supplied energy to get excited and start moving around. This continues until the solid-liquid water reaches a point where all molecules move around. At that point it has completely become a liquid. While water is in solid-liquid state, the amount of internal energy dictates how much is liquid and how much is solid. The exact same thing happens with water at 100 degrees. It can be steam or liquid, but not fully either until it reaches a certain amount of internal energy.

Here is a diagram of this process.

Another fun tidbit that makes water special: Water has a lower density as a solid than it has as a liquid, when both are at 0 degrees Celcius. This means that per unit of volume ice weighs less than (liquid) water. Therefore ice floats on top of water. This is the only material that behaves in this way. And thats extremely important to our existince, since it helps regulate heat in the ocean.

Steam engines (and implication)

We have learned a few new things today. But there is one really important wrinkle to all of this. A system always will try to be in balance. And this we can exploit. Pressure is a type of "pushing". So thats a type of work! And an increase in thermal energy can lead to an increase in temperature. We remember that from the ideal gas. So if we cleverly organize our system, we can create work from heat! This is the basis behind most heat engines (simplified a ton). We supply thermal energy to some gas or fluid, and extract work from this gas or fluid.

A classical example is the steam engine. We have water inside a closed system. When we heat up the water, it will turn into steam. And this steam will want to be much less dense than water. As a consequence, the pressure inside the water tank increases drastically. We release a small amount of this steam into a closed piston.

Here is an animation of this in action.

The piston suddenly gets a high pressure level. As we remember, it will want to be in equilibrium with its surroundings. Currently the pressure inside the piston is much higher than outside the piston. As we remember from the ideal gas law, a higher volume will mean a lower pressure. So the piston will be moved, as the steam expands to reach a pressure balance. The movement from the piston will drive something, like a wheel. The steam is removed from the expanded piston, and the piston will return to its closed position.[2] Then the process is repeated again and again, to have the piston continously move something.

All that from a bit of water in a tank and some supplied heat.

Whats next?

Next time we will talk about another important property. Entropy! In the previous topic I had a lot of questions regarding the quality of energy types, and what specifies heat from work on an intrinsic level. Entropy is the big answer to this. From that we will also cover the heat death of the universe, which would be a good introduction to "a laypersons introduction to nihilism" if we have any philosophers here.

Note

[1] For solid and fluid materials (as well as non-ideal gassess) this becomes a lot more complicated. If we ever do a "layperson's intro to fluid mechanics" we will cover it then.
[2] This described design is very inefficient and very simplified. Usually the piston is made so steam is supplied in turns supplied to either side of the piston. Then the work will both removed the steam that already performed work as well as move the piston. That way you can have continous movement in both directions.

See for instance this image.

Following on from the Tildes 0.5 year survey in which 72% of users stated they used an Android device, and 24% used an iOS device, I thought it'd be fun to ask people in a longform manner to talk about their current phone, and their dislikes & likes about it. What has your upgrade history been like?

I'm currently utilising an iPhone XS (no "Max") in 256GB. This is my first phone upgrade where I've felt like the changes are a step sideways rather than forwards from what I've previously experienced. The minimal bezels are very nice, and once you understand how the iOS experience fits into the overall vision for Apple's phone lineup, the notch becomes an immediately obvious choice—a design compromise for the time being until we can place the sensor array under the display.

Face ID is acceptable. It fails a bit more often than Touch ID ever did, but it fails in different situations, and also works better in others. For a first generation iteration it's acceptable; if it can get more diverse with time and work better in extreme sunlight and at wider angles, it'll become definitively better than a fingerprint scanner.

I talked a bit about the OLED display in the XS in this comment here, where I can distinguish the pentile crosshatching pattern, and again, I feel that the OLED is a case of better in some situations, worse in others. The inky blacks are fantastic, but the dark ghosting is a compromise I'm less happy with. Apple's IPS LCD panels are so good, they had a high bar to meet here.

The camera is again truly fantastic; not enough to ever make me consider selling my Sony mirrorless, but the computational photography aspects makes taking challenging photos more of a breeze than ever before.

Finally, after living with a plus-sized phone for the past 4 years, a step back to a smaller form factor with a similar sized screen is a breath of fresh air—I can finally tie my shoelaces up with my phone in my jean pockets again.

The watch & AirPods & continuity integrations will keep me happy in the Apple ecosystem for a while yet, but I'd need to see a very compelling new feature of aspect to a future phone to upgrade in the next 2 years at this point. Phones are lasting longer than ever before, as they should, and Apple knows this.

Previously I've owned

• iPhone 7 Plus, Jet Black 256GB. The Jet Black finish coupled with the weightier frame & thicker body definitely resulted in this feeling like the most polished iPhone 6-style design to date. Runner up for my favourite phone. Further more the P3-gamut display significantly improved image quality. I wasn't happy enough with the iPhone X to consider an upgrade.

• iPhone 6 Plus, Silver 128GB. Might be my least favourite phone of all time? Too thin, slippery, suffered from bendgate; and had display issues which gave it a bad rap. Touch ID was cool; however.

• iPhone 4, Black. Might be my favourite phone of all time, purely from a design standpoint? Utilising the steel frame around the edge of the phone as an antenna was completely unheard of back then and truly a fantastic design innovation. The sandwiched glass profile was both a fingerprint magnet and truly gorgeous; and the Retina display was breathtaking. I'd love to see a return to this design profile.

• iPhone 3G. My first phone. I distinctly remember jailbreaking this device to change the cellular provider name in the top left corner & enable some extremely low quality video recording; this was also the good old days of fantastic games like Tap Tap Revenge.

How about you?

Filling in again this week at Whom's request.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Hello everyone!

I've recently got an idea for a Database as a Service I'd like to create. The only issue is - I don't know how to create or host a database!

I've only ever used Mongoose/mLab with Javascript, and a minimal amount of Postgres with Python.

If I'm looking to create a database that will, eventually, be able to store images, songs, and videos, where should I start my homework?

I can create the backend and the frontend with no issue - just stuck on this part here. If it's of any relevance, I most frequently use the MERN stack.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

[seen on reddit but no discussion - if it's not okay to seek out better discussion here after seeing something fall flat on reddit, I am very sorry and I'll delete promptly]

I've had some experience in this realm for a while now, but I'm having a little trouble with one issue in particular. Before I divulge, I'll present my thoughts on best practice and and what I've been able to implement:

• Terraform everything (in accordance to terragrunt's "style guide" i.e. organization)
  THIS IS A BIG ONE: for the jenkins master task, make sure to use the following args to make sure jenkins jobs aren't super slow as hell to start:

-Djava.awt.headless=true -Dhudson.slaves.NodeProvisioner.initialDelay=0 -Dhudson.slaves.NodeProvisioner.MARGIN=50 -Dhudson.slaves.NodeProvisioner.MARGIN0=0.85

THIS IS A GAME CHANGER (more-so on k8s clusters when the ecs plugin isn't used... hint, it's shit).

• Create an EFS (in a separate terraform module) and mount it to the jenkins ECS cluster at /var/jenkins_home. Makes jenkins much more reliable through outages and easier to upgrade.
• Run a logging agent (via docker container) like logspout or newrelic or whatever IN USER_DATA and not as a task - that way you get logs if there are issues during user_data/cloud_init... this I'm actually not sure about. Running a container outside the context of an ECS task means the ECS agent can't really track it and allocate mem/cpu properly... but it does help with user_data triage.
• Use pipelines and git plugins to drive jobs. All jenkins jobs should be in source control!
• Make sure you setup docker cleanup jobs on DAY 1! If you hace limited access to your cluster and you run out of disk due to docker cache, networks, volumes, etc... you're screwed till the admin ssh's in and runs a prune. Get a docker system prune going or the equivalent for each docker resource with appropriate filters... i.e. filter for anything older than a few days and is dangling.
• Use Jenkins Global Libraries to make Jenkinsfiles cleaner (I always just use vars instead of groovy/java style packages because it's easier and less ugly)
  Jenkinsfiles should mostly call other bash files, make files, python scripts to generate and load prop files, etc. The less logic you put in a Jenkinsfile (which is just modified groovy) the better. String interpolation, among other things, is a fuckery that we don't have time to triage.
• (out-of-scope) Move to using k8s/EKS instead of ECS asap because the ECS plugin for jenkins is absolute shit and it doesn't use priority correctly (sorry whoever developed it and... oh wait abandoned it and hasn't merged anything for years... for for real it's cool, just give admin to someone else).
• (cultural) Stop calling them slaves. "Hey @eng, we're rotating slaves due to some cache issues. If you have been affected by race conditions in that past, our new update and slave rotation should fix that. Our update may have killed your job that was running on an old slave, just wait a few and the new slaves will be ready" <--This just doesn't look good.
  Hope that was some good stuff for you guys. Maybe I'm preaching to the choir, but I've seen some pretty shit jenkins setups.

NOW FOR MY QUESTION!

Has ANYONE actually been able to setup a proper jenkins user on ECS that actually works for both a master and ephemeral jenkins-agents so that they can mount and use the docker.sock for builds without hitting permission issues? I'm talking using the ecs plugin and mounting docker.sock via that.

I have always resorted to running jenkins master and agents as root, which means you have to chmod files (super expensive time and cpu for services with tons of files). Running microservices as root is obviously bad practice, and chmod-ing a zilliion files is shit for docker cache and time... so I want to get jenkins users able to utilize the docker.sock. THIS IS SPECIFICALLY FOR THE AWS ECS AMI! I don't care about debian or old versions of docker where you could use DOCKER_OPTS. That doesn't work on the AWS Linux image.

Thanks! And happy Friday!

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

I was watching my favorite weekly space show on YouTube, TMRO, and I learned about Astro Live Experiences (ALE.) They will soon launch two test satellites which will be able to provide a burst of 30-40 man made shooting stars at a prearranged time and place, for a fee.

Japanese company ALE is the first "space entertainment" company of which I am aware. The only event in the same ballpark was New Zealand based RocketLab's Humanity Star which caused a large amount of controversy. ALE's initial technology will allow a 200km radius of earth to see their multi-color shooting star show. According to the interview on TMRO, in the long term, they are planning to allow image rendering and even artificial aurora.

This type of business seems inevitable as we advance into space. I can see some benefits and some downsides to this technology. What do you all think of this?

^{Maybe this topic belongs in ~misc}

cool to see i'm not the only person writing poetry on here anymore. shoutout to @precise and @zoec for sharing their works recently. def looking forward to more in the future.

bishop.

do you think i'm pretty?
do you think of me at all?
i've been laying here and shrinking
oh my god i'm feeling small
every bit of stock that i had
in myself, i auctioned off
invested it in you, hoping
you'd return my calls.

mama i just need a hug
baby need a little love
miss how every day you'd tell me
"baby you look cute as fuck"
now you're gone i'm feeling rough
wonder if i'm good enough
used to be so confident
now i'm into hella drugs
every time i look into the mirror
i start pouring up
yeah she was your better half
you're the worse, and quartered up.
your nose is too big, hair thin
need a tummy tuck
need someone to show you love
warm kisses and tummy rubs

you were my rock and now i sniff rocks.
we had a ball, and now i pop bars.
suicidal thoughts, and crashed cars.
i'm not good enough for any heart.
catch a bag, catch a nose job.
dark eyes, need to nod off.
5'6 never get tall.
take my brain with a sawed-off.

god i wish somebody told me
that the world was gonna roll me
up into a piece of paper
light my ass on fire - smoking.
laying in the dark and dosing
tryna keep my eyes from closing
took you to my favorite cities
love was in St. Louis, growing.
boy you're getting kinda fat,
acne's bad, already know it.
chipped a tooth back in the crash
people cannot help but notice
looking down at my whole world eroded
can't seem to control it
guess this is the life i've chosen
getting high and never coping

mama i just need a hug
baby need a little love
girl what happened to the old
days of us not giving up
you gave me euphoria
fuck, i never needed drugs
i know we had some hard times
i guess i didn't love enough
i know that we would argue, we
would yell, and i would wanna cry
but at least i had someone
to hold and didn't wanna die
hope you have a better life,
peacing out for now cus i'm
gonna take a couple drugs and
pray to god i die tonight

Google knows a lot about its users. Facebook knows a lot about its users. FitBit knows a lot about its users. And so on.

But what happens when these companies all sell their data sets to one another? It'd be pretty trivial to link even anonymized users from set to set by looking for specific features. If I went for a run, Google tracked my location, FitBit tracked my heart rate, and Facebook tracked my status about my new best mile time, for example. Thus, Google can narrow down who I am in the other sets using pre-existing information that coincides with theirs. With enough overlap they can figure out exactly who I am fairly easily. Furthermore, each additional layer of data makes this discovery process from new data sets even easier, as it gives more opportunities to confirm or rule out concurrent info. So then when, say, Credit Karma, Comcast, and Amazon's data enter the fray, my online identity stops looking like an individual egg in each different basket but a whole lot of eggs in all in one. And they can do this across millions/billions of users--not just me!

I don't know for certain that this is a thing that happens, but... I have to assume it definitely is happening, right? How could it not? With how valuable data is and how loose protections are, this seems like a logical and potentially very lucrative step.

Right now, is there an aggregate version of "me" that exists in a data store somewhere that is a more comprehensive and accurate picture than my own self-image? After all, my memory and perception are imperfect and biased, but data stores aren't.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

hey all! just wanted to share a really interesting response to the title question i came across today.

this discussion spawned on the /r/justfuckmyshitup subreddit, a page dedicated to those with bad haircuts, and was based around rising (you guessed it) emo rapper, bexey.

as with many others in the genre, most of bexey's following is still very underground even though popular tracks like 'cutthroat smile' and 'stay alive' have reached 2.9 million and 7 million hits, respectively, on youtube.

while a bit of controversy surrounds bexter as he was once a good friend of late emo rap frontrunner
lil peep
(linked: 'your favorite dress') though has been rumored to have stolen several of peeper's clothes after his death, the musical point of discussion quickly turned to the question in the title:

when did rap turn into this? we need to start over.

not shortly after, user /u/GNAR-gemniii responds.

This is natural progression in genres of music.
Hip hop starts somewhere, has it's defining characteristics established, then people start pushing the genre in different directions because the same old same old has been done before.
We're in a weird sort of teenage state with hip hop right now, where people are taking the genre and mixing in characteristic of other genres - some good, some bad. This, combined with the 'viral' nature of social media means we get people who do crazy things to stand out like the above, as part of pushing the genre in all these weird directions. This guy specifically is a blend of modern trap production with goth and emo influences (if you couldn't tell).
as always, there are gonna be people who do it better than others, and people who rely on gimmicks for attention. This guy is a solid 6/10 talent wise, but has an image that appeals to a younger generation. This pattern is as old as music and culture, and people said the same things about every genre when we start getting some really wacky stuff that doesn't really fit within the confines that we would normally associate with the genre.
Nu-metal is a great example of this. traditional rock and metal music had been done to death, so we had this infusion of hip hop characteristics in to metal. In its infancy, a lot of it is really bad as people figure out what works, then as the subgenres become more popular you have people who hit a nice groove that combines the best characteristics of both genres into something that actually appeals to people who might like one or the other, and can now appreciate the other part of the blooming subgenre. something like Limp Bizkit or Kid Rock vs. Linkin Park or Korn. They're very similar genre wise but you can see maturation of the style and the progression of people doing it well.
We've already had some really nice subgenres blooming out of hip hop. Cloud rap is one that I think blends very well, and has been around long enough for people who were inspired by the artists at the forefront to come out and do it themselves, sometimes pushing it even further. Recently Lil Peep was an artist that many felt blended nicely the attitude of punk rock / emo / grunge with the banging beats that dominate modern hip hop currently. In the past couple years NY has had a surge of artists who grew up listening to the boom bap greats that paved the way for hip hop and are now blending that into the modern trap beats. The Underachievers are a personal favorite who demonstrate their understanding and respect for the origins of hip hop by showing master of both old and new styles (infused with the ideals of hippy counter culture) on their album Evermore: The Art of Duality. Seriously it's great, give it a listen. If you like old hip hop you will definitely like some of the songs at least, and it could open your eyes a bit and see how they translate traditional skills on top of more modern production.
As the genre continues to dominate main stream music we're going to have people inspired by artists in these weird hip hop subgenres come out and do it better than their idols, giving us a further refined and more tasteful progression of the subgenres that are currently in their infancy.
As time goes on, we forget the gimmicky trash that tends to flare out quickly and tend to remember the ones that did it well. Within the next 10 years i feel we're going to see some of the subgenres really shine and define themselves separately from the genres they have their roots in.
I just love the culture so on some level I can enjoy some objectively not that great music because I appreciate the art and what these artists are trying to do.
e. Don't even get me started on how metal has stagnated and it's energy has evolved into modern dubstep.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

I am currently looking for an apartment because I am moving away for my masters. My girlfriend and I have contacted 15-20 people and we have received 2 answers. Both tried to scam us.
I noticed he was scamming because of the way the message was formed, it has a very typical structure. If anyone wants I can share it. I also noticed the pictures looked too good, a reverse image search showed that it was from a hotel.

This time I had the email address, so I sent him a mail asking whether this link also contained pictures of his apartment. Behind that link there was a picture of goatse lol. I am not sure if imgur counts my views twice, but so far it has had 3 visits. Just felt the need to share

We're at week 14, friends. Here we've got this week's user-voted record: Public Strain by Women!

Taken from @Cleb's pitch:

Noisy post-punk that sounds exactly like the image the cover depicts: Marching your way through a cold wasteland in the middle of a blizzard. It builds a wonderfully hopeless atmosphere and comes together so well.

Here's the place to discuss your thoughts on the record, your history with it or the artist, and basically talk about whatever you want to that goes along with Public Strain. Remember that this is intended to be a slow moving thing, feel free to take your time and comment at any point in the week!

If you'd like to stream or buy the album, it can be found on most platforms here.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

For anyone who doesn't recognize Patience Phillips, she was Halle Berry's Catwoman in the most terrible superhero film - Catwoman (2004)...that I really enjoyed it. Probably because it wasn't well-received, it's often overlooked when talking about things like "the first female hero on screen" or "the first black hero..." sort of things. And technically, Catwoman's not a superhero.

Spoilers ahead. I'm also going to keep my points to the story and characters themselves. I honestly had no issues with any of the actors.

The good

• The theme and social commentary on make-up, beauty products, self-harm/addiction and image issues woman do face. The added layer of cooperate greed. The idea of what you see in the mirror vs. what others see (and if they're right), alongside what you want to present to the world or to specific people - honestly this movie has probably one of the best takes on "the cost of beauty" that I've seen in a while, and since.
• The scene where Tom thinks he's saving a jumper, but Patience is actually trying to save a cat. This random scene turns out to be a great storytelling scene when brought up again after Tom arrests Patience for murder and she asks him what he first saw the first time they met.
• Laurel is probably the most interesting character in this movie. There's a really well-framed shot of her photos being removed from her company lobby in favour of a younger model. I think it's one of the best scenes in the movie. Laurel is capable, powerful, rich and very accomplished, but somehow her relevance still fades as her beauty does. (I can honestly say I generally can't stand the evil step-mother wrestling with her fading beauty and taking out her bitterness on some young snow white-y girl, but this one worked for me.)
• I loved that Batman wasn't in it (but didn't really like that a love interest still had to be introduced).

The bad

• That she's call Patience Phillips...but honestly this is the warning to divorce this from any Catwoman or female superheros (or anti-heros) you know.
• Patience doesn't earn her "powers" - Selina Kyle (Catwoman in basically all other versions) works obsessively to perfect all her abilities. She's an insanely good cat burglar, not a magic cat.
• Patience doesn't earn or drive her own growth. There is basically no growth as a character. A magic cat ghost could have simply possessed Patience's body and the story would be the same.
• Oversexualization of Catwoman...which I didn't even know could be a thing until this movie. Black leather for a sexy Catwoman - awesome. Whatever the belt thing was - grossly missed the point while trying to copy Pfeiffer's patched up catsuit.
• I'm also not the biggest fan of make-over tropes in general.

The ugly

• The basketball scene - just everything about it.
• The hate that surrounded the movie because Catwoman wasn't blonde (or Michelle Pfeiffer), and that Batman's not in it.
• The physical punch-them-out fight scene between Laurel and Catwoman in the end - just why? This isn't a movie at all about physical strength, and having a "face like marble" isn't a real power. (To be fair, I don't like this showdown in really any superhero movie, with the exception of The Death of Superman.)

The cheesy

• The crazy cat-lady Patience goes too, and her tossing a cat toy at her
• The sushi eating scene
• The in case of date emergency kit her friends gave her.
• Laurel seeing her cracked beauty in the moment of a showdown fight
• The cat scratches on Tom
• Her best friend hooking up with her doctor
• The comparing signatures on the coffee cups
• Her Marvel-like comic book name

Final thoughts

So yeah...I would recommend this movie, and really hope that when they do make another Catwoman film that it might share some themes. Have you seen this movie? Did you hate it? Who's your favourite Catwoman? What would you like to see in a Catwoman movie?

Once there were three tribes. The Optimists, whose patron saints were Drake and Sagan, believed in a universe crawling with gentle intelligence---spiritual brethren vaster and more enlightened than we, a great galactic siblinghood into whose ranks we would someday ascend. Surely, said the Optimists, space travel implies enlightenment, for it requires the control of great destructive energies. Any race which can't rise above its own brutal instincts will wipe itself out long before it learns to bridge the interstellar gulf.

Across from the Optimists sat the Pessimists, who genuflected before graven images of Saint Fermi and a host of lesser lightweights. The Pessimists envisioned a lonely universe full of dead rocks and prokaryotic slime. The odds are just too low, they insisted. Too many rogues, too much radiation, too much eccentricity in too many orbits. It is a surpassing miracle that even one Earth exists; to hope for many is to abandon reason and embrace religious mania. After all, the universe is fourteen billion years old: if the galaxy were alive with intelligence, wouldn't it be here by now?

Equidistant to the other two tribes sat the Historians. They didn't have too many thoughts on the probable prevalence of intelligent, spacefaring extraterrestrials--- but if there are any, they said, they're not just going to be smart. They're going to be mean.

It might seem almost too obvious a conclusion. What is Human history, if not an ongoing succession of greater technologies grinding lesser ones beneath their boots? But the subject wasn't merely Human history, or the unfair advantage that tools gave to any given side; the oppressed snatch up advanced weaponry as readily as the oppressor, given half a chance. No, the real issue was how those tools got there in the first place. The real issue was what tools are for.

To the Historians, tools existed for only one reason: to force the universe into unnatural shapes. They treated nature as an enemy, they were by definition a rebellion against the way things were. Technology is a stunted thing in benign environments, it never thrived in any culture gripped by belief in natural harmony. Why invent fusion reactors if your climate is comfortable, if your food is abundant? Why build fortresses if you have no enemies? Why force change upon a world which poses no threat?

Human civilization had a lot of branches, not so long ago. Even into the twenty-first century, a few isolated tribes had barely developed stone tools. Some settled down with agriculture. Others weren't content until they had ended nature itself, still others until they'd built cities in space.

We all rested eventually, though. Each new technology trampled lesser ones, climbed to some complacent asymptote, and stopped.

But history never said that everyone had to stop where we did. It only suggested that those who had stopped no longer struggled for existence. There could be other, more hellish worlds where the best Human technology would crumble, where the environment was still the enemy, where the only survivors were those who fought back with sharper tools and stronger empires. The threats contained in those environments would not be simple ones. Harsh weather and natural disasters either kill you or they don't, and once conquered---or adapted to--- they lose their relevance. No, the only environmental factors that continued to matter were those that fought back, that countered new strategies with newer ones, that forced their enemies to scale ever-greater heights just to stay alive. Ultimately, the only enemy that mattered was an intelligent one.

And if the best toys do end up in the hands of those who've never forgotten that life itself is an act of war against intelligent opponents, what does that say about a race whose machines travel between the stars?

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

welcome back, class!

i'm actually kinda having fun with this project lmao. dive into the comments and let me know what you lot are thinking! this is the second installation in, what i believe will be, a four part series. enjoy!

in the last chapter, we learned a little about how rap in the 90's began to get a bit more introspective, self-reflective, and focus on some generally harsher, more grating topics. while all eras definitely have their hype music (see: "Nuthin' But a G Thang" x Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg or "Slob on my Knob" x Three 6 Mafia, we slowly began to see songs like "Slippin'" x DMX or "Rock Bottom" x Eminem which slowly began the trend of rappers using their music to really peel back the curtains of their lives, using their music as an escape into catharsis from their daily struggles.

however, emo rap does seem to have something else happening inside of it. it's not just simply sad or emotionally-charged rap music, that's been around for quite a long time! what's that extra layer that gives us the gritty, rough, and often-whiney nature to modern emo rap? for that, we turn to the name of the genre itself.

not only did the 90's prove as a time of great growth and evolution in rap, but it saw the expolsion of a new genre of rock music as well. with roots set in the 80's, emo rock first gained major commercial popularity with bands like Green Day and The Offspring quickly moving albums to the tops of the charts with songs like, respectively, "She" and "Self Esteem". as the genre fell face-first into the zeitgeist, we quickly saw a rise of early emo rock groups like Lifetime, Jimmy Eat World, and one of the most influential early emo groups - Texas is the Reason. throughout the decade, the prophecy foretold by the Rolling Stones in their track "Paint it Black" quickly began to unfold. teenagers were wearing black, goth kids slowly started to emerge from the depths of the underworld, and hot topic was finally starting to make money. the foundations and roots of emo have been set, ready and waiting to lead us into the 21st century.

the year is 2000, and pretty much everything is fucking awesome. we see the launch of the indestructible classic Nokia 3310. we get video games like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and of course, Pokemon Gold and Silver. the billboard charts are full names that make us go "oh yeah!" like Destiny's Child, Aaliyah, Erykah Badu, Montell Jordan, 3 Doors Down, Backstreet Boys, Creed, Madonna, and the list goes on and on and on.

the 2000s saw an absolute unit of a revival of the newly restructured emo genre, quickly launching off massively influential tracks like "All the Small Things" x Blink 182, and we even see the creation of the first emo-centric record labels across the late-nineties and early naughts. this means that a lot of the emo bands of the time had not only better representation and access to the innerworkings of the industry, but better access to resources which would help them promote and distribute themselves as well - this is what allowed a lot of bands to leap and bound right into the hot topic t-shirt wall.

one of the bigger labels we came to see was Vagrant records, moving to quickly sign groups like The Get Up Kids, Hot Rod Circuit, Dashboard Confessional, and Saves the Day. with the internet in their toolbox, some major corporate sponsorships funding the whole gig, and a huge amount of confidence in the future of emo, Vagrant set out on what's considered to be one of the most influential projects in the (still) early days of emo when they launched a nationwide tour with every band in their label in tow.

shortly thereafter, Jimmy Eat World launches the biggest single of their career "The Middle", Dashboard Confessional break heavy into the mainstream, and Madison Square Garden goes absolutely wild for Saves The Day, Blink-182, Green Day, and Weezer.

emo is starting to get big, and people are starting to realize that there's money to be made here.

this brings us now to the mid-ish 2000s. everyone's on myspace, everyone's got a motorola razr, everyone's getting into skating or bmx, and every chick with jetblack black hair or fishnets is going absolutely fucking crazy over Brendon Urie from Panic! At The Disco. this is the part where the big money steps in and major record labels start signing a lot of emo bands left and right. this massive cash injection into the industry saw the rise of a lot of bands which would go on to not only define the industry, but to define the middle school and high school lives of a great number of their listeners. as the emo singularity entered the phase of it's big bang, we saw the rise of a number of stars like Taking Back Sunday, Simple Plan, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, and many many many deep breath many others.

fueled by industry investments, teen angst, and a desire to be different, this led to an explosive rise in popularity for the genre, with many songs quickly moving to RIAA gold/platinum status and Billboard chart success like "Misery Business" x Paramore, "Miss Murder" x AFI, or "Check Yes Juliet" x We The Kings. this massive influx of success inspired some of the best parties, most genuine moments, and most cringiest photographs of our many young lives. very frequently this music was used as an escape for those who felt that their problems were going otherwise unrecognized or misunderstood, who felt that they were sad or alone, who hated the seeming lack of control that they had in their own lives - constantly living under the legislature of parents, school systems, or cops that always seemed to hate us edgy confrontational teenagers.

however, like Sam Smith would come to say, "too much of a good thing won't be good for long." what happens when a star shines too bright? what happens after a supernova?

things go dark.

it's now that we begin to enter the part of this whole movement that we've all repressed - and it starts with bracelets.

sigh.

it's 2010-ish.

vuvuzelas are hilarious, "TiK ToK" x Ke$ha is topping charts, and highschools everywhere are full of Silly Bandz and sex bracelets. we've reached a point of absolute pop culture saturation with the emo vogue. while songs of the previous era like "Welcome to the Black Parade" (linked earlier) or "Dirty Little Secret" x The All-American Rejects still hold an anthemic position in the musical zeitgeist, by and large, emo simply was no longer enough. the all-black motif was drab and dark. the music didn't cut deep enough, the lyrics didn't hit hard enough, the vocals weren't powerful enough. we needed something stronger, something more powerful.

this desire for harder hitting music led to an underground rise of hardcore bands like La Dispute and Pianos Become the Teeth. these bands were very much hitting in the right direction, blending the angst and yearning of modern emo music with the strength of metal instrumentals and vocals hit home with a good number of people still looking to hold onto the last bastions of the emo movement.

and, as we've seen before, as this demographic loves to live fast and hard, the remodeled emo genre quickly skyrocketed into popularity with bands like Asking Alexandria, Bring Me The Horizon, and A Day to Remember rushing to the forefront of the movement. the rough, gritty nature of the instrumentals paired with the phenomenally screamed vocals seemed to add several more layers of separation between what we were listening to, and the "traditional" music we had been brought up listening to. this was new, this was edgy, but more importantly, this was ours. this was music that we knew the lyrics to, music that we could sing along with because we'd teach ourselves how to scream-sing when we had the house to ourselves, and music that, most importantly, we were pretty damn sure our parents weren't going to get into. they started using myspace, we left for facebook - abandoning the customized purple, black, and sparkly profile pages of yore.

however, there was something missing here. this was music we could connect to, sure. we were glad to have the songs we did to relate with! even still, we got greedy. connecting to it wasn't enough. we needed music we could fuck to. we needed eyecandy. we needed music that was brutal, strong, and beyond comprehension. we got gluttonous.

now we begin to enter the scene age. flashy colors and attitudes replace the black nature of the previous era. ostentatiously hardocre and brutal instrumentals (or alternatively, very pop-y, electronically inspired instrumentals) back vocals sang by artists who's image was crafted under nature and umbrella of being unconventionally attractive to this new audience. this led to projects such as "You Aint No Family" x iwrestledabearonce, "Sex Ed Rocks!" x SMOSH & ISETMYFRIENDSONFIRE, and (oh god,) "Bree Bree" x Brokencyde.

i know my language here is pretty overtly negative, not to make it seem like i hate every band from this era. i actaully like iwrestledabearonce, and a lot of these bands hold a great amount of nostalgia in my life. tracks like "Knives and Pens" x Black Veil Brides were anthemic of this late-stage emo-rock era, checking a good number of the boxes above, and drawing attention to the struggles of people of this era. for example, it can be said that the way emo-rap heavily goes about drawing attention to drug use/abuse is very analogous to the way that a lot of this late-stage emo rock draws attention to self-expression and self-harm.

this era was loud while it was here, and saw the popularity of a lot of projects like the following before it quickly died out around 2014/2015:

We Butter The Bread With Butter

"Wake Up" x Suicide Silence

Pierce The Veil

Sleeping With Sirens

and, often, scene music held no semblance of it's metal roots at all! you may remember hits of the era like "DON'T TRUST ME" x 3OH3!, "Shake It!" x Metro Station, "Good Girls Go Bad" x Cobra Starship, or "Sexting" x Blood on the Dance Floor.

palette cleanser: "Dirty Diana" x Michael Jackson (The Weeknd Cover)

so here we've arrived. the year is 2014, and the billboard is topped with pharrell, meghan trainor's debut single, "Shake It Off" x Taylor Swift, and the debut tracks from the likes of Lorde and Sam Smith.

...and some guy named Young Thug?

Wait, who's this Bobby Shmurda guy?

2 Chainz?

YG?

something's a-changing... where's the industry headed?

find out next time on the emo rap deep dive - chapter three: dirty sprite.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Hi, I'm filling in for @Whom, since she told me she wouldn't be around to post this and asked that I make sure to post it.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Aphantasia is a condition where a person is unable to visualize images in their minds eye. If I tell you to think of a red apple, several people will visualize this apple and 'see' it. But those (like me) with aphantasia simply can't. Some of us have access to other senses within our mind (hearing, touch, smell, etc), some don't.

Do you have aphantasia? There's a simple test here.

In a similar vein, is anybody able to explain what visualizing looks like? Is it just like the sight I get from my eyes? Different?

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

• W.B. Yeats, 1919

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

This post will be discussing the nature of political correctness and its ramifications on our culture, intended to analyze current trends and provide a basis for discussion on a very relevant issue in our society. This is a long post, so buckle up.

DISCLAIMERS

Before I begin, I will begin a series of disclaimers, as I’ll be making a lot of claims in this piece, so sorry for the length. For the sake of this post, I will be assuming the role of a neutral character, with no intended leanings towards any political or cultural ideology. Any reference that I make towards a specific side of the spectrum of politics or to social cultures does not reflect my personal opinion on them nor show a bias/prejudice towards that side. I would also like to note that, while I’m trying to make this a quality read about politically correct culture, this isn’t a lecture, a thesis, a Pulitzer article, or even a simple college essay, and is simply very informal essay. A lot of what I say goes off of either whatever comes off the top of my head or things that I find out from a quick search on Google. Some things may or may not be correct, and if they are, please feel free to call me out for it in the comments.

With that said, let’s get into it: Political correctness. Defined by a Google search as “the avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.”, has become a powerful influence in the media that people consume as more and more creators, fans, and everything in between try to avoid language or dialect that would offend audiences. Our society progressively has become more and more PC (politically correct) due to an increasing attempt to remove toxic or otherwise harmful material, generally rhetoric like slurs or playing upon stereotypes, from media in an attempt to create a safer, more friendly environment and community, especially for those who often feel targeted by such harsh rhetoric. PC culture is inherently good-willed with an unquestionably noble goal fueling it. However, in the act of making more and more things PC, the media that is affected changes, for better or for worse. In the viewpoint of many, PC culture has become increasingly threatening to the quality of the media they consume, as the element of vulgarity that media possesses sometimes is attributed to their success or favorability. An increase in avoiding content that is in any way threatening to a certain culture has upset many because it dampens the reality of the content, affects its strength, or births new weaknesses. In short, people believe that making things more PC is making them less good.

The big question of this post is why PC culture matters to the opinions of those who digest media affected by it. It is a question with a myriad of answers, as its influence has been taken in many directions. As iterated before, some claim that it strips away the reality of the content and provides a false reality or delusional perspective; some claim that it softens content too much and dampens the quality; and others think that it is simply stupid to try to be so friendly with what content they make or consume. The element of vulgarity that political incorrectness adds to content makes things more interesting than what they actually are, ironically because they highlight or exaggerate the reality of what they offer, and taking that away from people or reducing it takes away that precious component by avoiding any sort of offensive material. Take SNL, for instance; their skits like Black Jeopardy plays upon Black culture/stereotypes and is widely acclaimed for the hilarity of their vulgarity, but were it to face a demand for more PCness, it would lose a lot of the charm it had because of the necessary avoidance of content that would offend Black culture. The problem with this is that offensive material is not always a great sin that must be purged away. Material that PC culture can see as offensive encompasses a great deal of things, from simple slurs to stereotypes of cultures and societies. While it is good, even preferable, that things such as slurs or directly offensive comments are censored or dismissed, other forms of content seen as offensive are necessary to provide an ounce of harsh reality to the content that is provided. A specific example of such a case would be how the news handled the increase of refugee crimes in Germany and Sweden since those countries took in more Syrian immigrants. PC culture would try to dissolve the correlation as one being the product of another, but non-PC content would assume that the increase in refugees led to that increase. While it is very offensive to assume that the large intake of Syrians has led to that increase, being too PC by dancing around the issue and saying that refugees from other countries relatively contribute the same amount to the violence would be feigning ignorance to a clear and very possible causality, ultimately affecting the quality of the news piece. The same could be said for many other things, like TV shows, blog posts, etc.; When concerning or including potentially controversial content, avoiding the elements that make them controversial or ignoring them takes away from the media’s effectiveness. In other words, being too PC and removing the gritty elements of something can remove the punch that it has and make it seem fake, uninteresting, or any other dissatisfying adjective.

That’s not to say that offensive material must be in abundance, however; one must never have too much of something, as it may upset the balance of acceptable and unacceptable content. But certain material like social commentary, often in the form of societal stereotypes or portrayals of a culture, is a necessary element to add truth or interest in whatever is being made, albeit it being handled with an utmost delicacy and respect. Saying that the increase in refugee crimes means that all Syrians are criminals, scum of the earth, and a true representation of how shit the Middle East/Islam is would be greatly offensive and also detract from the quality/esteem that that news piece may have. Having the PC to refer to them less offensively, as well as discussing the issue in a manner that doesn’t clearly perpetuate Syrians as the devil, allows for the controversial content to be taken more seriously, basically adding civility to otherwise provoking content. On a gentler note, Black Jeopardy often plays upon the tropes of black culture on relatable, universal grounds, like home culture or the more meaningful discrimination from white people. It doesn’t say that all black people act without genteel to one another or that all white people are evil/stupid, but plays upon familiar stereotypes and experiences shared by many people of both races and enhances their hilarity with their trademark controlled crudity. While this example reflects how PC culture can mitigate offensiveness, it can also bridge gaps between people by portraying them as equals, not separated the nature of their age, sex, race, sexuality, or disabilities. Diversity within a space, such as a profession, a community, or group, is PC culture at its best, for it highlights inclusiveness and unity that political incorrectness would draw borders with. It allows people of any background to pursue the same career choices or interests without discrimination or other forms of inequality, putting forward the message that despite the differences those people may have, they are still human beings, one alike to another, all part of one human society.

Now that we’ve gone over the merits of both PC and non-PC culture, it’s time to evaluate the consequences that they each have on society. I say consequences because the developments both cultures set precedents for how media controls the amounts of PC put into their content as more and more new media juggles the amounts of friendly content they put in and the vulgar content they take out; and of course, vice versa. Political correctness has shown a powerful trendsetting effect in that once an action is called out for not being PC, it creates a rippling effect where all other forms of media avoid that un-PC element. If you take the Me Too Movement, once sexual harassment claims have been made against one big Hollywood figure, a million more followed in its wake, and now many Hollywood big wigs and US politicians reel in the fear of getting “Me Too’d” and losing their job/getting indicted. While it’s not a real presentation of PC culture at work, the Me Too movement’s rippling effect demonstrates how severe PC culture has influencing society, as now the sexually harassed don’t feel the need to cower behind the fear of denial and claims of insanity that would have been used against them pre-Me Too. And while it’s excellent that sexual harassers are getting what’s coming to them, the crossfire catches many unfortunate victims in the rise of Me Too and its anti-sexual harassment waves. James Gunn is a very relevant example of this, as his history of highly distasteful vulgar Tweets caught up to him and led to his expulsion due to Disney’s attempts to be PC. But Gunn’s expulsion has caused a big issue since he’s not actually a rapist or someone who has harassed his actors, but simply someone who made a couple of extremely stupid jokes, jokes which he had already apologized for 6 years ago. Despite apologizing twice, Gunn is still seen as too much of an un-PC person to work under Disney. This presents the problem of PC culture having too high of a sensitivity for things that they think are absolutely wrong and criminal. Gunn’s actions reflect the rising issue of where any hint of vulgarity in the publicity of an individual can be used against them to tarnish their image, something that has been in prudent effect by the Me Too movement. And while social justice demands that individuals like these who have a history of offenses must be reprimanded, the work that they have created shall suffer in quality after losing an essential component of what made them great. This is not to say that all individuals who have been accused and punished don’t deserve their fate, but merely a claim of consequence.

Sensitivity is the name of the game in today’s culture. People are becoming increasingly sensitive over things that present even a hint of harm towards an individual or group, attacking that thing like vultures in order to dispel the negativity whatever comment or element that object has to enforce a positive atmosphere. This particular trend is something associated with social justice warriors, or SJWs for short, which has become something of an internet slur because of the reputation that they carry of being agents of anti-vulgarity. They have become such an issue to many people because they are being claimed to attack the right to free speech that individuals carry, becoming a nuisance to many who now have to watch what they say with extreme delicacy, lest they become swarmed by attacks by those who denounce them for their profane statements. But their actions aren’t inherently bad, they’re just people trying to create a safer environment for people who frequently find themselves harassed by the world around them. It’s simply that they exaggerate their efforts to such a point that their actions carry a negative connotation with them. They even fight fire with fire, attacking individuals and harassing them to get them to stop their offensive comments through brute force. But when you fight fire with fire, it just spreads, and those who are attacked by SJWs and see them as a threat to their experiences will double their anti-PC nature to combat these SJWs, creating a loop of toxicity as both sides wage a war to maintain their ideal community. This is unfortunately the great conundrum of PC vs anti-PC: Two sides fighting for absolutes that can never be achieved. SJWs and advocates for absolute PC environments will never achieve it because there will always be people who want to speak their mind about people and things that others will find offensive, and anyone can get offended by anything. A truly PC environment would have to restrict all forms of communication, otherwise someone will eventually get offended and upset the “harmony” the absolute PC achieves. On the other side of the spectrum, an environment without any form of PC will find itself quarreling with each other all the time as people will lack the restraint to say offensive things and therefore find themselves at ends with whatever group their speech or actions offend. An environment without PC is an environment without rules, and an absence of rules will result in chaos.

Now the question to this is: Where’s the sweet spot? If too much PC and too little are both bad, is the medium the best? In truth, I don’t really think any balance of PC and anti-PC will ever be truly perfect. There will always be advocates for both sides fighting to increase the influence of whatever they fight for, and the balance will always tip to one side or the other. Fortunately for the human race, we have the ability to exercise a lack of care. The reality of this feud is that there will always be something you don’t like, and nothing you or people like you can do will change that fact. You can call out as many sexual predators, societal offenders, and all other forms of anti-PC individuals all you want, but you won’t stop people from doing it. You can label SJWs as thin-skinned and juvenile all you want, but you’ll only be feeding the fire. The only happy solution to this issue is to simply accept the reality that you can’t create a perfect world for yourself by changing everyone else. You can keep fighting the battles and win as many as you’d like, but you’ll never win the war. If you’re someone who wants the absolutes, you’ll never get it. The only semblance of peace you’ll get is accepting there will always be bad.

PC and anti-PC cultures both possess a merit to them valuable to our society: PC culture imposes civility and friendliness to all people, especially those who are frequently discriminated or treated unfairly, ensuring they feel safe, happy, and equal to their fellows; anti-PC culture, however, advocates for the freedom to say what needs to be said, and while it is vulgar, it is real, and reality must be embraced. People may always fight with each other for each side as they get increasingly sensitive, and sometimes even do something that turns the tides for them, but they will never truly defeat one or the other. The balance between them is always shifting and will never really settle, but the beauty of this war is that it teaches us about people, about their experiences and their beliefs, and help us come to terms with reality. Whether we want to change that reality for the better or champion its present merits, it is, and always will be, up to us.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to discuss, criticize, compliment, etc. in the comments.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

See image for what I mean: https://imgur.com/BGzLKGq

Basically, it can be hard to track new comments made in an old topic. In the recent one about tulpas, I checked in every so often to follow ongoing discussions but had to keep skimming the entire topic every time just to spot the new comments.

If there could be a kind of "recent comments" in the sidebar, it would save a lot of time and make it much easier to stay on top of evolving discussions: just click the comments you haven't seen.