Via Billium:

Here’s a Skrillex + Damian Marley joint (via Billium):

The former U.S. district attorney who prosecuted B.C. marijuana activist Marc Emery in a cross-border sting is calling for the legalization and taxation of pot in Canada and the U.S.

via

The media publicized OWS a few months back, waited for a bunch of mayors to raid in concert, and then pulled coverage. This created the illusion that the protest was over.

So there’s some not-being-aired-or-talked-about footage (via) of a bunch of swine cracking citizens’ skulls. You can hear the lack of police force legitimacy in the voices of the people.

I’ve said recently that I would have felt safer with the Fanshawe rioters than with the swine that showed up to stop it. I wonder when the violence started. I’ve met very few nice swine — mostly they seem like people who should be avoided. A large number of Fanshawe students are there doing Police Foundations, and mostly they’re not cool to be around unless they’re smoking weed.

I haven’t gotten to this point yet, but: is a background in policing a negative attribute of a potential hire? I might start factoring that in to my HR decisions — and, yes, I have interviewed ex-swine already. Even they want to escape their horrible jobs.

It looks like they — almost to a pig — can’t deal intelligently with high-stress situations.

Got a bit bored/frustrated. Went for a walk and an iced coffee (I’m experimenting with thermal loading), came back, and contacted another Indian developer to get a comparison quote. Now that’s procrastination.

At some point I should make a todo list, to leverage structured procrastination, but I’m currently procrastinating on that by actually doing things which would go on — OMG IT’S ALREADY WORKING. Kidding: I’ve been feeling pretty great recently* and am using the energy to make positive changes.

Your mileage may vary — just do the bare minimum you feel comfortable with.

* Sam Harris: “most people who smoke weed everyday would do better smoking less. Most people who don’t smoke weed would do better smoking more.” — I’m currently dry and I’m thinking about cutting back to one-to-five (major) sesh(s) per month.

Harper is to the right of Pat Robertson.

Now that we have C10 watch for full jails, more jails, new jails, happy police and screw unions, unhappy judges and prosecutors, and increased incarceration of people under the age of 30. Watch, also, as the Hell’s Angels give no fuck and keep making money.

This, of course, is no accident but rather the Tories’ actual agenda.

In related news, see the sour watermelons in our tumblr feed (via a buddy who was just down South for GDC). Reports indicate that California cannabis is not to be fucked with. This is yet another market the Conservatives are fucking us on (the first was our first-mover advantage in green tech).

Big honking government: bad for beeswax.

I work pretty close to this studio, which does monthly Ganja Yoga:

Today I (largely) finished The Dance Music Manual, a big textbook on how electronic dance music is produced, from math and physics through machinery and software to psychoacoustics, aesthetics, and culture:

Although both these genres are still produced and played in clubs to this day, the increased popularity of 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA or “E”) amongst clubbers inevitably resulted in new forms of trance being developed. Since this pharmaceutical stimulates serotonin levels in the brain, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to place clubbers into states of trance with tribal rhythms, and instead the melodies became more and more exotic, slowly taking precedence over every other element in the mix.

The book is hilariously written in parts — the author makes no distinction between the words “subsequently” and “consequently”, for example — and so it requires some interpretation to really understand. The included CD, while not required, is interesting listening if you want to hear tracks being built and instruments being synthesized.

It’s rare that I run into a book which is perfectly suited to my competence in a subject. Most are too simple, some are too complex. This book provided me with exactly what I needed, including the first-ever cogent argument I’ve heard against weed: since weed makes music better, don’t smoke it while learning to compose — it’ll impair your critical faculties.

I’ve been listening to Sublime quite a bit — Everything Under the Sun — and in, I think, the Westwood One Interview Bradley talks a bit about their influences: “anything from the Ariwa Sounds label”. So I started listening to that — I think the label is trying to position itself as the roots of dubstep or something. Anyway.

Here’s a good mix of early 90s digidub, and here is a 100 song YouTube playlist of Macka B tunes, which are pretty great. I think I just heard a sample Tupac used! Here’s his song about being Vegan:

As a practising Rastafarian, Macka B’s music is based around the political and spiritual message of the religion, with an often light and humorous touch. Working with the Mad Professor, he combined dancehall and dub styles of reggae, although has avoided a more commercial crossover approach. He takes his name from the Judean rebels against the Romans, the Maccabees.