Subversion

160k MP3 [right/control click to download]

Subversion by D.P/M.A, artwork S.G. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

So, here it is – without much fuss. The first track by my band, or to be correct, duo. I’m leaving the artist name stay within the mp3 tags before I register it, out of small paranoia.
I’ll bother with that, a social networking profile and other stuff at a later date.

I must add that this song has rough edges, mostly timing wise (not my fault as the drums, unusually, were recorded after the guitar and the guitarist has problems with rhythm).
This is due to the vocalist/guitarist not wanting to repeat his parts at this time and I’m not stressed to push it at this time. If you can overlook those issues we think you’ll enjoy it if you’re into this kind of music.

I don’t want to tell you what kind of music it is, because I think it’s best to not be judgemental on a genre, but a clue is that it’s a guitar based song, obviously.
There are lyrics within the file if your player supports it.

Any comments are appreciated – good or bad.

I would recommend putting some EQ on it to appreciate it fully, although I seem to do that with most songs of even other artists on my MP3 player.

Enjoy.

One Day Goodbye Became Farewell

It’s August.

I know it’s August, because well, that’s what it says on my The Simpsons calendar (I’ve been buying their fun calendars for over a decade now) and I also got a leaflet this morning informing me about the Notting Hill Carnival which rolls in – a bit tiredly for some time now – every August end.

I think this my might be a long post, we’ll see.

‘One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell‘ (a Morrissey title – I’m not a big fan but I can very much see the humour of a National Front Disco) seems a fitting title (modified) as it sums up two or three things that are arising or have arisen on this colourful August.

The first is that after ten years in a relationship which had it’s limitations but also greatness, it’s all just popped like a balloon. I didn’t see this coming, maybe because I’m emotionally blind, or I have not wanted to accept such a scenario, which has become as familiar to my friends, happen to me. I have vented about it, in fact even tweeted about it somewhat, but in reality what happened to me is as boring to retell as it is to see in a soap opera. But I’ll have to get by and the little optimist in me is saying “give it time.” I just hope it’s not a lot of time.

But not all farewells are sad.

I’m just two thousand words from completing my novel which I started in 2007, launched from a novel writing course I started in 2006.
It’s still not entirely finished as at least 30-40% of the early part of the story needs fair rework as it was done prior to finishing my course and learning appropriate structures and devices; but the latter half will just need a read through most likely, so I’m hoping – depending on the speed of my approach – that I will have everything, or most things, wrapped up by year end. I was accurate in predicting that I would finish writing this before I hit 30, so hopefully this prediction will be right too.
And this might be the last of my journal entries on this project. Or maybe not; I’m not good at closing things.

The last thing is not so much as a goodbye or farewell, rather than a hello and welcome!

I think I’m only a week away from posting the first of a wad of songs (also started in 2007) after many frustrating moments with recording over the past few months (Mo cost included: A drum sampler [£150], a portable e-drum kit [about £1000] and a trigger finger pad [£60]).
There is still stuff to do, but seemingly not much. Also, even if it’s not a perfect outcome, we might revise this bit of music at a later date but neither me or D.P. want to keep this thing in the oven any longer. We plan to have three or four of our eleven tracks online, so once the first one’s done, the rest should flow out.

Last things to report are I’ve just ordered a copy of  ‘Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?’ by Rebecca Culshaw.
I’ve been fascinated by HIV/AIDS scepticism upon finding vitamin D articles occasionally road in, and have followed Henry Bauer’s blog on it.
I know the subject is controversial and it makes me seem a challenger to everything, but potentially anything without an answer after years deserves scrutiny and I think the arguments presented by some parties are very sound.

Very lastly, I’m looking forward to the imminent new Slayer album ‘World Painted Blood‘. I’ve heard two songs from it and they sound fine. It’s Slayer, you always get from them what you get from a can of baked beans; red covered goodness!
It mightn’t be the most cerebral music at times, but sometimes something to shake up your brain is all you need to get by.

More of the same…

It seems like I’ve neglected this blog – probably because I have. But I have been around online as you might’ve seen on the Twitter feed on the bottom right.
I have criticised Twitter, but I’m also able to be a great hypocrite. I still think it’s a waste of time, but I find time to waste.

At the moment there’s much to report since last time other than incremental developments. I’m writing the final parts of my novel, still haven’t started a music demo (though this should change after splashing more money to kill current recording issue) and the next installment of my Harry Potter like vitamin D saga will be around late September or so.

I would love to be more amusing or informative on this post, but this is all I can say at this time.

To DD, or SPD? That was the question

I’m still working on my novel…But I’m not in the mood to talk more about that yet. Needless to say though I’m climbing on and I’m seeing more of the peak.

This post is to say that I’ve finally (stress) begun working on a music demo. Technically I should’ve started late May but I have a wonderfully boring story about order delays for equipment and then wrestling with familiarity.
Today though I feel (or maybe yesterday to be precise) is the day that songs brewing since sometime in 2007 are finally hitting the canvas.

I’ve begun laying down a drum track using a Roland SPD-20, which to those in the know is deemed as V-Drums in a box (i.e. a compact electronic kit of high calibre) .
I’ve found step recording by MIDI helpful in maintaining a human feel yet allowing me to edit my performance in a less painful way than pure audio. Plus given the odd trigger issues with electronic kits (or, read as an excuse for not hitting properly), this is the sane way to record with these units.

Until last year I had a long-serving acoustic drum kit, but I sold it.
I don’t own a car for travelling to be easy, it was hard to record without buying an expensive mic set and frankly it was consuming too much space and annoyed my old neighbours even when purchasing muffle pads.
In 2004 I purchased a cheap Yamaha DD-55 electronic drum set which due to it’s size I was able to take to a friend’s house and play thrash metal covers. Eventually we thought about writing songs, just for fun. I had been in bands with this person before in my teens but they never flew; in fact I semi-retired in 2001 in my early twenties.
The DD-55 isn’t a patch on my SPD-20 (in fact there’s a large price difference alone, including all accessories) but it sounds good enough and is responsive enough for indoor play, so I essentially thank that for pursuing any form of music. I had dabbled with software drum machines (ReBirth, and Orion) and still do, but I still like playing live most.

Earlier this year we accumulated 11 songs (writing very slowly), so I thought, okay, this is getting a bit proper, I’ll buy something a little more advanced to record with and here I am – nailing track 1 of a 4/5 track demo. We have a band name, have a demo name and of course song titles. But I feel very self-conscious about saying anything more until we have some product to give, I’m very aware this could all go wrong and this all becomes just talk.
Essentially we’re taking this one step at a time. I’m not looking for a label ( is anyone now?) and haven’t even thought about playing live; we’ll consider those questions as they unfold. For now I just want to record what we made, and if it flies that’s good. But first and foremost this is for ourselves – and I think that’s healthy. I’m not at the age (though not that old) to really care much about rock star aspirations or whatever.  Also, a current book I’m reading is hammering home the fact that happiness is found more easily in what you already have and what’s more realistically attainable given your situation.

Now I’m losing sight of what I’m trying to say…But yes, there is something brewing. Not much ingredients in the pan yet, but the gas is on. Watch this space. We may share some stuff as it’s being cooked.

Terminator Salvation, opinion

I’m back…So is The Terminator, somewhat.

I headed to the local cinema early this evening (I’d never been to the Electric down ‘bello in all my years of living so far) with my biggie me – that is, my father – and checked out number four in the Terminator series which was released in the UK two days ago.

I hold quite an affection for the Terminator series, I literally grew up with it.
I saw the first film on VHS before I’d reached double digits, one of the first few 18 cert (now reclassified 15) films I’d caught in my childhood (thanks again, Dad), fell in love with it and saw the second on VHS as I was still young to see it at the cinema on release.

Fast forward ten years (or rewind about six years back) and Terminator 3 came in to resurrect the genre. Sequels are usually very bad (T2 wasn’t), but a third instalment let alone further ones seem like Hollywood necrophilia.

When I first saw T3 I was appalled as it was big on stunts, thin on story (yet another Terminator sent back in time – how unsure was Skynet of it’s assassins?) and basically a panto re-run for one beefy future American governor. It did however do a not bad job of re-opening the closed wound of T2 and providing a dark ending to allow further films.

But the progressive loss of original writer/producer James Cameron, original heroine Sarah Connor and finally the big Governator himself didn’t bode well. It seemed like Queen feat. Paul Rogers and that ended like a wet fart.

But I will say that Terminator Salvation isn’t that bad. I can honestly say it’s not a patch on the first two bonafide classics, but it’s better than T3 as it’s not another ‘killer-and-hero-go-back-in-time-in-order-to-kill-or-save-future-hero’. With T4 the war is on, this is it. And Edward Furlong of T2 has grown into Christian Bale.

Where T4 is bad is that it is quite thin on plot. It’s there but it’s undoubtedly padded by stunts and eye candy, while the first Terminator had very little and was electrifying. I thought the character of Marcus Wright was a nice new twist to progress the story and compensate for Arnie, but couldn’t help thinking, as Bale once hinted, that Sam Worthington (Marcus) and Bale should’ve swapped their given roles. Also given the more interesting conflict for Marcus, I’m surprised Worthington’s face wasn’t featured more prominently in advertising for it.

Undoubtedly there will be a T5, but I think that should be the end of it. Mugs like me go because they’re interested out of respect for the first two, and some of that is satisfied in a cliché way (I.e. “I’ll be back.” is used, as is a likeness of Arnie in a cameo and a few other things for Terminator fans to spot).

The star of the show is young Kyle Reese (Anton Yelcin). To me he looks nothing like Michael Biehn but he marvellously captures the mannerisms of the original character and you are sold that this is Reese as a teen, and it’s satisfyingly perverse when Connor meets his much younger father.

Other losses though is the complete loss of humour from the first three and perhaps a strong female character (first two films and somewhat in the third). The one strong female is merely a cutout.
Helena Bonham Carter has an interesting token role in the film though.

It’s a ‘fun’ brainless film and being a nut I will likely buy the DVD, but I don’t think T3, T4, or indeed a T5 will be up there with the originals. This is just about money now, but it could’ve been much worse.

No fooling

My April Fools’ sensor was working just fine yesterday, however there were a few good ones on the web I willingly walked into.

Anyway, just thought I’d check in – in the spirit of journalling for my novel – to say that after editing my current block of writing this month, I now only have approx. 10,000 words to write (*cheers for the sloth!*).
My course encouraged me to write constructive things but on this occasion I’ll just say whew!

Not because I dislike what I’m producing, but I’ve had this baby in my belly for so long that I want to see it than just feel it kick.
But I still need the Summer to do overall editing, and say August/September to have it sales ready with promo material for the web (check that flash talk).

In others news, my six stringed friend and I are on the way to finishing sketchy rough demos (just for our own listening, and believe me, that’s fortunate for cyberspace), so by April end we will be working on our demo proper and all that. I also need to purchase some gear which I’ve long put off.

I heard the leak of the new Depeche Mode album…All I can say is those thirteen tracks need to get off the beta blockers and onto the treadmill. However, I’m looking forward to seeing them live before year end, and this time (which will be my second time) away from home turf.

Let’s see, what else? Oh yeah. I have come to the conclusion that Twitter is pointless for me, but I’ll keep my account active to share interesting links and info, as well as mandatory Twitter user nonsense (like “I have nothing better to do so I’m wasting 140 characters here.”).
Some respected, or not so respected celebrities, are better not read on Twitter as they don’t half talk crap.

I know that in net tribes(?) that I’m blogosapien than socionetpath (take that Collings English!) so there’s no point in me trying to evolve.

I regards to other active blog topics – the vitamin D thing is still alive, just in hibernation.
Also, though I’m not personally familiar with HIV/AIDS, the arguments and articles I’ve read have magnetised me to the skeptic/rethinker side (I don’t like the word denialist as that implies mainstream thought on it is concrete). I came across this topic, unsurprisingly by looking to see if there was any useful data on HIV/AIDS and cholecalciferol…I’m not sure if there was as I got sidetracked.
I like to think of myself as rational when adopting alternative opinions. I don’t jump in without trying to prove myself wrong. I never try to prove myself right when in doubt.

However, I can’t offer any comments in regards to my backing of this thought as I have adopted it rather than extensively looked into it (unlike vitamin D/the lipid hypothesis).

Anyway, it’s now nearly 11:15pm and I need to sleep. It’ll likely be a little while before I post anything again, which is just as well as it’s older entries that are still getting the hits (typical!)…Maybe I should remove them and riddle them with ads that make me money?

AIDS conundrum

A couple of days ago I came across a 2hr video questioning the HIV/AIDS hypothesis.

Though the video has dated, the arguments have not. This is the first time I’ve ever witnessed the AIDS denialist argument (a misnomer because it’s only HIV as a cause that’s really disputed), and it was pretty convincing.

However, the theory that AIDS isn’t caused by HIV pretty much is the same as HIV is caused by AIDS. I can’t advocate a side but I do think that with the ongoing hurdles in understanding and curing this disease that a bit of fresh perspective is badly needed.
Mainstream thought has nothing to lose by allowing investigation, but it is controversial to say examine treated and untreated HIV+ groups – yet there are people who decline or accept medication by volition.

I’m not telling anyone to be lax about HIV or abandoning any treatments. I am maintaining a largely neutral viewpoint and every one is the master of their own health.

If you don’t have the time to watch the video, here’s some interesting points from it (I’m going by memory so I apologise for inaccuracies).

• There are at least 4,000 documented (at time of recording) cases of AIDS in people who are HIV negative. If the HIV virus is the cause of AIDS it should account for every single case.
• When a person is tested for HIV, they are tested for the presence of antibodies rather than the virus itself. This is curious because the presence of virus antibodies indicates immunity to it. So how can you make a vaccine without turning someone HIV+ and someone HIV+ already into the existing state?
• The HIV/AIDS hypothesis has not been peer reviewed (it was adopted by press conference) and there is no literature on HIV being a cause of AIDS; in fact some organisations offer large bounties for such data.
• HIV is seen by some scientists to be a harmless passenger virus. It resides in very few T-helper cells (for immunity) and does not destroy them, as it needs these cells to survive.
• AIDS medications like AZT (since replaced by combo drugs) have disclaimers that it’s side effects can match those of immunodeficiency. Indeed AIDS deaths have risen after awareness than before it was known.
• Gallo (the man commonly seen as behind the HIV/AIDS link) has admitted that HIV alone may not be sufficient to cause AIDS. In fact the definition of AIDS has changed radically a few times, one of which recently indicates that a cofactor virus is needed.
• AIDS is seen to be the result of recreational drug use, prescribed immune surpressants and possibly anal sex (i.e. sperm entering as foreign body to attack via the blood). In the developed world AIDS is still seen as homosexual male/drug abuser’s condition despite 80’s campaigns that it would be an enormous worldwide disaster. And it may indeed be that the immune destroying affects of hard drugs rather than clean needles are to blame.
• In developing countries (Africa, India) AIDS diagnoses are often reported in place of traditional disease names in order to qualify for funding. It is seen that due to the even gender divide of AIDS that the cause for this may simply be poor health and malnutrition. There is also a view that AIDS helps enforce a veiled racism and dependency from Western drug companies.
• There are people who are HIV+ and do remain in good health for a long period of time. Everybody inevitably dies so whether this is the result of AIDS is contentious.
• Prostitutes only really show HIV if they are also drug users.

Feel free to leave any comments – but don’t shoot this messenger! However I will add that there has always been malpractice in the medicinal world, so a healthy dose of skepticism for areas that alarm you is good mindset to be in. But I’m maintaining that I can’t support the mainstream or alternative sides unless a) HIV can eventually be treated and this corellates with being a cure for AIDS, and b) dissenters have the opportunity to prove their claims.

MMR: Jeni Barnett vs. Dr. Ben Goldacre

I was just watching London Tonight this evening (as I regularly do, criticise me if you wish!) and caught an interesting video segment from a Dr. Ben Goldacre in response to an anti-MMR piece by a radio presenter.

While elsewhere in this blog I have breathed fire on, what to me, is a surefire pharmaceutical scam, I take Dr. Goldacre’s side on this – but only to a (mostly large) degree for the time being.

You (at least if you live in England) may know that MMR uptake has decreased with reports that it’s linked to autism (though not in a hard hitting way thus far) and cases of measles, mumps and rubella are now rising.

People forget that measles, mumps and rubella are serious illnesses that have and can kill – I know well the gravity of measles when I contracted a severe form of German measles which produced a huge boil in an arm at the age of 5/6 and I was hospitalised for many weeks. And if I remember well, it wasn’t until just before I reached double figures that I had the MMR (or the equivalent if it had a different label in the late eighties) jab.

However, the MMR jab like other preparations can cause side effects in some people, and as with any drug you want to weigh the risks and benefits.

I agree, believe it or not, that there is a lot of sensationalist journalism on the ‘bad stuff’ because it’s newsworthy. This is a shame because it makes genuine articles seem like “crying wolf”.

The problem here is if the MMR jab is linked with autism, you have to look at two things: Are rates of autism rising regardless of the jab (and this would be interesting given the seemingly current decline)? And if MMR is directly linked (and we know for sure not everyone who has the jab develops autism) is it because the jab enhances a tendency?

This has to be proved and it has not yet been proved.

So far we have seen reports that some children who had the jab developed autism. However, young children are now given the jab at an age where they might just about start showing signs of it in the first place which may throw parents into a causal illusion.

However, though the MMR jab can save lives and money in the long run, why hasn’t there been research done into seeing if there are more natural ways to provide this protection (to touch on an other active topic, vitamin D is an anti-inflammatory and a deficiency has been hypothetically linked to autism, which is plausible given that autistics can have other concurrent disorders like diabetes or rickets from birth)?

My own measles was treated with a lengthy dose of oral antibiotics as well as liberal amounts of calamine lotion – to fight inflammation. So perhaps Omega 6, Vitamin D and other natural items fortified in baby and children’s food could be as powerful, as well as natural. This has to be tested.

Injecting viruses is not natural, that I will side with skeptics on! But while we don’t know the alternatives, the MMR should not be avoided. Think about it; though neither is better would you rather have a child with developmental problems or a dead one?

Better the devil you know.

Hacked Yahoo! account

I had a bit of a close call recently.

I received an email from Yahoo! that read:

Your password for this account has recently been changed. You don’t need to do anything, this message is simply a notification to protect the security of your account.

The problem was that I didn’t change my password.
Curious to check this wasn’t spam I logged into my account (typing the address by hand) and found I indeed couldn’t login.

Now, by fortune I don’t really have anything that important (semi personal, but nothing anyone can gain from or blackmail me with; I’m not stupid) in my account and don’t have Yahoo! email signed up that a spammer could utilise, but it still scared me.
I couldn’t even reset my password.

If this scenario happens to you, you need to remember this very legitimate email address: account-security-help@cc.yahoo-inc.com
Briefly and courteously explain your scenario and you will receive an auto reply for specific account information which you must offer so they can match it to see if it matches previous account owner records. Anything you remember will help.

Within a day I got my account back and seriously buffed up the admittedly shoddy original password (and just so you know, this was my only weak password due to signing up in the slightly more carefree days a decade or so ago).

The lesson of this story is don’t be lax about passwords. Don’t use dictionary words at all costs, especially for sensitive accounts and make them long, mixed cased and mixed charactered. If you worry about remembering passwords, download a free password manager. I was fortunate to have experienced this in a risk-less way, but others may not.

Twitter

I’m honoured to have received a few invites to social networking services like MySpace and Facebook but have always resisted due to a) not being bothered with the effort, b) wanting to avoid people I left buried in the past.

I’ve decided to ease my stubborn-ness and go for Twitter on invite. I have to admit I have no idea what I’m going to do with it or if I’m going to use it that much, but if you’re on there and want to make some linkage, you’ll find me here.

Do expect that I will use it in a mostly pointless manner most of the time. I have no intention to give up blogging primarily, although the recent lack of my postings anywhere online is attributed to getting stuck in with offline-only (for now at least) writing.