crunchysteve

If you're of delicate constitution, don't read this, search for kittens and puppies. Find all the kittens and puppies, because that's what I feel like after this morning's news and realisations. If you can handle the truth, click through. You have been warned, though. Here be kitteh and puppa.

I think I've settled on a style for posts on my creativity blog. Rather than crosspost, I'm just going to link from now on.

Anyway, this is an imperfect examination of what makes creativity and those things which might hold us back.

It's blogger, so log out of any big tech browsing accounts before clicking through if privacy is important to you.

A quick look at "the toobs" before rising and this comment on Elon's Nazi salutes...

It's crazy how he went from the Henry Ford of our generation, to the Henry Ford of our generation.

Lets hope Elon eventually spends his last days like Henry Ford, too. Alone, in relative poverty and hated by his children.

Case in point: A BBC investigation just found that half of all AI-generated news articles have some kind of “significant” issue, whether that be hallucinated facts, editorialization, or references to outdated information.

Ed Zitron, tech journo, has another zinger on how AI doesn't work, isn't a product and is doing nothing for the world but emit carbon at faster and faster rates. If you like well researched, honest (as in admits previous mistakes and links them), deep dive journalism-with-a-capital-J in the tech sector, subscribe to Where's Your Ed At. OpenAI is a scam, its purpose is probably linked in some nefarious way to the Trump coup and Accellerationism - my loose hypothesis based on nothing in particular otherthan OpenAI loses more money than it makes by a factor of 1.25.

My take on this AI hype is it will probably crash the majority of the server infrastructure industry, not just the AI sector. A crash that will be orders of magnitude greater than 1929 and 2008 combined. The bubble is just about guaranteed to burst, even with DeepSeek's potential to reduce running costs.

The "known knowns" of 2024-YR4. There's no need to panic, it's not a planet killer, it can potentially be "nudged" it'sn't going to end civilisation. https://youtu.be/tCdQQIgd8M8

Having just watched this before getting up and having breakfast...

As a lifelong scifi fan, I've consumed a tonne (well, a fair few kg) of this kind of story in my time. Until now, I've just revelled in the legends, but watching this, I've realised there is an ethical problem with "generation ships." Consent.

Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were volunteers and knew the risks. Collins went back as commander of Apollo 13 and got first hand experience of the life threatening risks. Space is treacherous and still largely unknown in Earth's perihelion (a wanky word for orbit), let alone beyond the heliopause, the end of the Sun's domain. What business do volunteers to crew a generation ship have, committing unwitting future generations of crew to such unknown?!

It's one thing to risk your life on a tall ship to make a months long journey to another land, like has happened in previous centuries and generations, but how thoughtless and selfish do you have to be, to commit your children and their children, and so on, to your dreams of adventure?!

My father was one of the so-called "10 Pound Pommies" who were given passage from the UK to Australia and 10 "quid" to cover travel expenses. He made the choice for himself and himself alone. He met mum in Launceston, Tasmania, and he committed to living in Australia. Until he naturalised, in 2014, he remained a British citizen, but he returned "home" only once. He never committed me or my sister to a future he could not know in any form, he stuck around for us for the duration. He never expected anything unreasonable of us other than what all teens think is unreasonable as part of their growth.

As a young man, not having had children myself, yet, I might have lept on a Generation Ship, had the opportunity presented, without a second thought. I realise now, having watched the above, that this is an ethical minefield, bordering on abusive. This is a one way trip, the trip to the stars at a fraction of light speed, who is anybody to make that choice for the unborn?! This is not exploration, this is enslavement!

My dad, didn't make a migration decision for me, half of who I am was destined to live in Australia. He made a decision for a better life than he could have had in the UK and built that life. He did not commit me to any unknown, alien world, or my dughters, or the children and grandchildren they have, to an uncertain life, confined to a space ship, and a world that we cannot know is habitable. Or not. He committed himself to the prospect of a better life and built that better life, with mum's help, for my sister and me, based on knowable outcomes.

Second and subsequent generations on an interstellar mission can rightly claim denial of consent. Anybody who would advocate, develop, fund or volunteer for a generation mission is a fascist. Unless the world is almost certainly coming to an end in the foreseeable future. Even then, what of those who aren't chosen? How would such crew be chosen? This is ethical conflict all the way down. Am I right, Mr Sagan?

No human should ever commission, nor crew, a generation ship,unless for the purposes of direct survival of the species, in the case of imminent, and definite destruction of human or all life on Earth. Even that reason is sketchy, at best. Interstellar travel should be banned until faster than light propulsion is found possible, and then, only within the bounds of a single generation for the return journey.

On November 11, 1975, I was in grade 8, my second year at high school and, at the end of this date's school day, I brought home 2 mates to hang out, listen to music on the radio, talk shit. You remember being a teen, right? Me, Stu and Pete were thick as thieves and hung out a lot.

We arrived at my place to find mum had 3 radios going, trying to listen to the 3 local radio stations' news bulletins and updates all at once - the kitchen radio, mine and my sister's. Worse, she'd dragged the old black and white telly out of my room, showing the ABC and had the lounge room telly running, showing TNT9, both local TV stations adding to the cacophony in the open plan kitchen/sunroom.

"Jeez, mum! What's going on?!"

Apoplectic with rage, all mum could manage was, "The bastards! It's a coup! The effing bastards!" Stu and Pete made their excuses, there'd be no music and teen BS this day, and bid a hasty retreat. We laughed about mum's fury for years after, but this day was not the day for the hang we'd hoped for. And I was getting caught up in the fury a bit, too.

This was actually a coup. On Remembrance Day, a day Australia used to celebrate as the end of "The Great War" (WWI) and the successful defence of democracy against the tyrany of the old, Imperial ways. I was young, then, just turned 14 only 2 months and 2 days before this day, but as the story unfolded, and dad came home, "You've seen what they've done, then?" we settled into a night of quiet horror, watching news footage of the vigil outside Parliament and Whitlam's historical speech, "...Well, may you say,'God save the Queen,' but nothing will save the Governor General!" This may have been Australia's first ever "rolling news coverage" event. Normal programming was disrupted for hours. My sister, 8 at the time, played with her dolls, had dinner with us and went to bed after dinner, disgusted that the rest of us seemed uninterested in the usual TV viewing. Mum's only break from bearing witness, to supervise Cathryn's going to bed. I think I took myself to bed around 9pm. That was the end of hope for Australia's left and poor. That was the end of my innocence.

"The dismissal," as it's now called, has never been officially recognised for the coup it actually was. We still ostensibly have a democracy, as good and as bad as any in the "global north," much like Canada's, maybe a little better than Britain's, nowhere near as "effed" as the USA's, presently. But Labor are gutless, the Liberals worship the US Republicans like fanbois'n'girls, the Greens are bourgeois as fuck ("Liberal Lite") and One Nation, oh FFS, more crackpot and racist than the Trump Cabinet. And nobody speaks of the coup, the day Australian democracy took a beating it has genuinely never recovered from.

We celebrate the end of a war 107 years ago this year, but we never question the constitution damage that blocking the entire Supply Bill as a means to bring down an elected government on the 11th day of the 11th month. The Senate was given the ability to block parts of supply bills (budgetary bills) in order to prevent a government bankrupting the country, or to check for potential corruption. It was never intended to bring down governments. The use of it to do this in 1975 was, I believe, utterly unconstitutional, but like Britain's system, if a thing happens in Parliament and there is no Crown or Parliamentary ruling against it, it becomes part of the weight of constitutional law. Now, in Australia, the ticking time bomb of the "constitutional legitimacy" of blocking the budget to overturn a democratically elected government sits there, waiting for the right "constitutional criminal" to come along and burn Australia's Reichstag for us.

Am I shrill? Perhaps. But it's a legitimate concern. It's a gaping loophole that weakens democracy in this great (as in enormous) southern land. And, Australia, we need to remember this. We should have been remembering this in the mainstream for the last 50 years. Not just old "trots" like me, all of us. There is no living memory left of The Somme or Gallipoli or The Western Front, and there's certainly been no commitment in the intervening time, to end all wars, quite the opposite, in fact.

I propose, beseech even, that we remember the coup, for what it was, a bona fide attack on democracy by an opposition willing to use any means necessary to wrestle power from the elected government.

So, on November 11, please, maintain the rage. Labor, Green, Liberal, Independent or "Cooker," this could be used again, by any evilly intended Party, against my affiliation, against yours. Lest we forget that, on this day in 1975, Australian democracy was damaged and still needs urgent repair.

Made Today

For Christmas, the missus gave me the limited edition Lego record player. Yes, you can build a 1/4 scale(?) model record player out of standard lego bricks and other bits! It needs a home in my creative space. A shelf near my lego Mars rover, Perseverance. Close to my guitars. (Real ones!)

The studio/workshop already has more amazing stuff than Willy Wonka's factory, ranging from power tools, through the electronics workshop, camping and cycle touring gear storage, racks of components. Then, into the studio, there's a burgeoning collection of EDM gadgets, including a modern reproduction of a Roland TR-606 "analog" drum machine (it's mostly digital electronics tbh), a Korg Volca Bass (sorta Korgs answer to the Roland TB-303), may aging Alesis SR-18 digital drum machine. My wall of guitars, my compact, 1550 watt, compact, double three-way audio system, my red tolex Australian designed, Chinese built, Strauss guitar amp, clad in red tolex, that screams modded out, 1980s, AC-30 tones. Where to put the baby turntable homage?

Build a shelf, for the side of one of the workshop shelves! This is that shelf...

A bit of srap ply and pine, a few recycled screws. I especially love the edge rounding, done with a bench sanding disk. Job done. Another will be added in a few weeks.

Ongoing Builds

There's my eBike solar charger. This is a pair of 36 volt, 3 Ampere Hour LiFePo piles charged via an ISO rack mount MPPT controller, driven by a 100 watt, 18 volt (MPP) solar panel that's about the largest I could legally carry on a bicycle. I may be upgrading to a recumbent tadpole trike this year, so second 100 watt panel could be added as shady roof. The dual battery management and MPPT box is built and has been tested against short and open circuits. Yet to hook up the panel or batteries to it. It charges one while the motor is powered by the other. Flick the main power switch to center, then the other side, and it'll charge the second battery, while the motor drinks from the first. Not something I plan to use everyday on the bicycle, but is intended for use cycle touring. (Bikepacking to North Americans.)

My CNC build is coming along, albeit a bit here, a bit there. Not much more to add. It'll be a while before it cuts plywood or thin aluminium sheet. The printer works, I print a part. The printer fails, I assemble already printed parts to the growing fram of V-slot and right-angle gusset castings.

Another ongoing build is Solébot, the MIDI controlled, solenoid operated (Solé...), robotic (...bot) drum kit. Apart from giving EDM beats an acoustic sound with natural "Room Feel tm" and human-like swing and latencies, it's also an accessibility option into live drumming when hooked up to my 606 clone. The electronics work, the 3D printed parts fit the electrical parts, the master control box is built up, I just need to finalise a workable hi-hat mech and wire it all up. Doesn't sound like much... Yeah, I know, right?

My EDM workstation has made some limited music. No jams I'd record and share, yet, but the MIDI chain works, the 606 clone is current master clock, I just need one of those Behringer Pro-800 desktop synths for my YouRock midi guitar, which leads me to...

Design Works

The eGtr. I have a YouRock MIDI guitar from 2010/11. YouRock went broke bringing this thing to market and barely a handful of these hybrid MIDI/game controller instruments survive today. The system support app won't run on Apple Silicon Macs and can't be downloaded from anywhere, anyway. This leaves me with a YouRock stuck on MIDI channel 1 and default touch settings.

So, I've embarked on designing a 3D printable, polyphonic MIDI controller that you play like a guitar. I could get a Fishman MIDI pickup for my Ibanez Blazer, but maybe a kilo of PLA filament, a custom printed circuit board, a little hardware, a set of strings and a bit of clever arduino code will give me a combo of a playable guitar and a guitar MIDI controller for a bit less than a Fishman setup. Maybe I'll just buy the damned Fishman, there are some real hurdles to making a playable guitar that works well as a button-style MIDI controller. Meanwhile, trying to solve the electro-mechanical difficulties is an interesting puzzle.

Wrap-Up

That's pretty much it. Apart from design ideas that are always coming and going, at least. Not much other than that, really.

This playlist...

I do love me some garage, punk and, provided it's not too rapey or right-wing, heavy metal!

Grow UP, Steve!!!

Nah, why FFS?

This came across my YouTube feed today...

I'm often proud of boasting that I have left social media behind, but I do still use YouTube for how-to vids and discovery of new (or new-to-me) music, so I also get a lot of algorithmic choices laid on the virtual table. The thing about "the toobs" is I have very limited parasocial connection on that medium. Fave artists, challenging thinkers, gifted designers, yes, but I don't call them friends. At most, I have a relationship like I might with an adult education instructor, but to a lesser degree. I publish videos infrequently, I have 28 subscribers and 38 videos and have had my channels since 2005 or so. It's my antisocial medium :-D So, the above video...

There is a strong "lefty" contingent on YouTube, too, or the algorithm is leading me to believe so. These are my people, and the linked video (you really should watch it, dear reader) reinforces with evidence, some of it actually peer reviewed, a thing I have long considered true - the pursuit of profit, AKA capitalism, can never be ethical. Don't get me wrong, we live in a capitalist system so, those of us without the means of production are forced to play the game, lest we starve. The proletariate has a right to put food on the table, that doesn't mean they're condoning the system they have available to provide for that.

On the other hand, the owners of capital are willingly playing the game, and the game is inherently the pursuit of profit at any cost, as per Smith, Friedman, etc. The latter usually being at the expense of human rights, personal freedoms and the environment, in no particular order. Therefore, any attempt by capitalism to look ethical, is a ruse.

I was raised a socialist. These days I see myself as more of what Chomsky calls an "anarcho-syndicalist" although I prefer the more direct label - social anarchist. I beleive the only true freedom for all is in local syndicates of individuals, all equal, those syndicates syndicating with other syndicates, higher and higher to achieve more, but with each level of syndication beyond the local, they are subordinate to the syndicates that founded them. Rather than local, regional and national syndicates having rising heirachy (eg, like Australia's local, state and federal governments), the national syndicate would be equal to, but subordinate in dispute, to the regional syndicates and the regionals would be equal to, but subordinate in dispute, to the locals. The true definition of anarchy, not the idea that anarchy is petrol bomb throwing lawlessness that capitalists would have you believe, rather it would be a system of guild halls, each serving their communities and communities-of-communities, in truly equitable processes of consensus.

Laise faire capitalism is the "anarchy" of the common view, destructive, self serving, doing whatever the eff they want. A wealthy, powerful few, subverting governance to their own ends and hang the well being of all, "JUST GIVE ME ALL THE MONEY AND POWER!" as Elon might well say, and Donny has already."

Then there are the lies these capitalists tell. Nestle being recognised as a responsible global citizen, yet they lock up water and crop reserves for their own profit, union bust, pollute and have even used child slave labour. There are many other examples of companies doing one tiny thing, because it's all they need to do to hide the worst of what they do from us. Talk from billionaires about universal basic income schemes is about setting up a bribe to keep us from overthrowing their established paradigm - that of throwing us crumbs while they take the whole, fucking cake.

The Star Trek franchise is art showing a way forward. Starship captains are portrayed as having a responsibility to their crews, but also a responsibility to listen to their crews, Pike, Kirk, Picard and Janeway all have leadership, but are more first among equals than leaders. They have leadership skills, but these are moored in foundations of trust and community. The Star Trek chain of command above caotains is not leadership but community, where those with experience are deferred to but may be questioned. Even the mutineer, Burnham, redeems her reputation and becomes a Starfleet captain again, as well as a redemmed member of her community again, by proving her worth and her loyalty to all, rather than to authority. Starfleet is its people, despite trappings of heirachy, rarely is it the heirarchy alone, and even then, that tends to be the crisis to overcome. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one, although the one, or the few, may question decisions made in the name of the many. So a starship captain is not a leader, they are a facilitator, a co-ordinator and a mentor. Their junior officers are their source of authority, but only so long as they act in respect of the good of the many and provide sound answers to the questions of the one, the few or the many.

The Ferenghi are seen as "primitive" because of their rapacious mercantile, self-serving culture. The Ferenghi, and their constitutional "Rules of Acquisition" are less of an enemy, but a laughing stock. They sometimes win, but are usually very easily tricked by using their greed against them. We, the people need to begin working on the capitalists of this world in the same ways Starfleet beat the Fereghi, tricking them with their own greed.

Today, I learned of a resistance rising. I find it a little ironic that it's founded on the Patreon platform, however, a resistance needs money to survive in a capitalist world. But a resistance also needs community to bring the financial resources, so Patreon makes sense. I urge my few readers to watch the video I linked at the top of this post, then go over the the Patreon I've linked at the top of this paragraph. We need to change the world. Before it's too late. And we need to exclude capital when they say they "want to help" because what they want to help with is to keep us from changing the system forever. In the end, in a polluted, burning environment, we help each other up and we deny those who refuse to help because "they're doing very well in the system as it." Because that is the very nature of the problem we face.