tom moody

belated smear response

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"Straw man" made me think of some random trash-talkin' last year I never dealt with. This is a comment I posted on Rhizome.org today, in a thread where my name came up:

Will Brand claims "there was a guide a few years ago to arguing with Tom Moody that described the strawman accusation as cheap to produce and costly to disassemble." If Brand can produce this "guide" and provide some context I'll be happy to respond to the accusation. Secondhand reference to a disappointed person's attempt at satire seems about par for Brand, as a writing technique.

My criticisms of Brand got me perma-blocked as a commenter on Paddy Johnson's blog (this happened a couple of months ago). But it's like playing whack-a-mole to stay on top of his disinformation across the wide internet. I've been letting some of it slide.

romney in first debate

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Janet Ritz (Huffington Post) claims that Romney used a creationist debate tactic of rapidly inundating your opponent with lies. (hat tip Bill):

The Gish Gallop, named after creationist Duane Gish, is the debating technique of drowning the opponent in such a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments that the opponent cannot possibly answer every falsehood in real time. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education.

Matt Stoller (Naked Capitalism) notes that Romney was lying but reminds us that Obama isn't really an opponent of Romney on most issues:

[Obamas'] second term agenda is to cut Social Security, Medicare, frack, cut corporate taxes, bust more teachers unions and pass more neoliberal trade agreements. He is proud of this record. So are his people. But he knows he can’t run on it because it’s unpopular, so instead, he presented himself as a nice likeable guy.

"Synthpop Affinity"

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"Synthpop Affinity" [mp3 moved to Bandcamp]

More tunes from the FM7 softsynth (a bass sequence and a sample and hold break), accompanied by the drum sample kit used in the last music upload (backwards cymbals, too).

"Aye-aye-aye (2012 Mix)"

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"Aye-aye-aye (2012 Mix)" [mp3 removed -- a further revised version is on Bandcamp]

Another redo of a 2005 track, with a techno house flavor. Was recording MIDI drum patterns from an Electribe groovebox and using them to trigger unrelated ROMpler sample kits -- pretty sure that's how this one was done. (The pattern might also have been a Battery demo.) Using MIDI note transposition in Cubase I could test how the pattern sounded with different configurations of drums or even playing virtual keys in softsynths.
In this one the pattern is triggering a Battery kit and three FM7 softsynth patches. One of the latter is making the weird vocal "I" or "aye" (or "ice") sound.
The original mix beat one or two ideas to death for three minutes. I shortened the song and included dropouts and one or two more ideas!
This is still going to be really harsh at high volume - the samples don't take this MIDI shotgunning well - but it purrs along adequately as a quiet piece.