Science fiction is going to age poorly. A lot of it is already hilariously dated. Look at most of Star Trek. They’re flying at FTL speeds through space with artificial gravity, teleportation, lifelike androids, and replicator technology, but their screens absolutely suck. More and more of those inconsistencies are going to add up over the centuries and make things ridiculous after a while.

The number of new things that people enjoy dwindles with age. Just about everyone agrees that the music that was being made when they were teenagers is the epitome of the art. Are you going to be able to enjoy anything when you’re 2563 years old?

The older you get, the faster time apparently moves. Having grown up in the 80s and 90s, on some days, even “The year 2000!!” still feels like it should be the future to me. I can’t imagine what even a few centuries would do to this phenomenon, let alone a millennium or megaannum (I had to look that word up.)

On the upside, presuming I’m the only immortal, I’ll be the only person currently alive to see if they actually finish that performance of Organ²/ASLSP in Halberstadt.

Say what you will about the chaebols running the country and the rampant corruption, Korean roadworkers are incredibly fast and efficient. There’s never some guy standing around doing nothing.

In the 90s, “gay” had become a catch-all term for “thing I think is stupid”. I’ve heard LGBTQ people intentionally unironically use the term in this manner.

It’s not so bad. They were these pre-cooked things you were intended to just chuck in a deep-fryer for a few minutes. “High Liner” brand. A Canadian staple since 1899. Haha!

It’s common practice in Korea. They sell ramyeon (Korean ramen) as snack food in bags like you’d get a bag of chips in NA.

I ate frozen fish sticks when I was a kid. Just took em out of the freezer and gnawed on them.

Kimchi and cream cheese on crackers is good, too.

I finished Battlefield Earth.

The thing is, I remember enjoying it. I mean, it wasn’t literature, but it was a lot of dumb fun.

Grainstorm

It’s a ridiculously versatile granular sampler synthesizer. Obviously not for everyone, but it’s super fun to just make weird soundscapes with. Even with just your phone mic.

I too choose this guy’s dead wife.

I would look at that, but I bounced off VIM hard, so probably not for me.

the death of Atom

I’m still in mourning.

Often, all this music software is used in solitude

Beethoven composed in solitude, too.

Yes, there’s something about a live performance that can’t exactly be reproduced jamming with yourself in your bedroom, but that doesn’t mean that great music can’t come out of both processes.

Beato is definitely channeling a little “git offa mah lawwn!” vibes. The reason we don’t get any more Led Zeppelins or Pink Floyds or whichever brand of classic rock he worships at the altar of isn’t because there aren’t talented musicians making music. It’s because the circumstances that those artists thrived under no longer exist, and likely never will again.

Synthesizers and music technology in general.

I could write an essay or two about how much has changed in the past fifty years. Most of it for the better.

Yeah, and if you went past the mode you wanted, selection was one-way. You had to flip that select switch down over and over and hope you didn’t go past it the next time around.

Combat on Atari 2600. It was the game that came with the system.

I moved to a smaller city in South Korea in 2004 to teach English. A short while after I got there, I met a couple who were from a small town down the road from the small town I grew up in in Eastern Canada. Apparently we even went to the same small university (3000 students total) together and I somehow managed to never see them there.

I have blown so many hours on Towers.

I know it’s a bit of a silly example, but in the public school in Korea where I taught for a while, teachers would write their Windows passwords on post-its and stick them to the monitors. Haha!

It’s music! Screens are hardly a necessity. Many electronic producers these days are going “DAWless”. Mind you, dedicated hardware has come a long way. Things like Elektron’s Digitakt and Synthstrom Audible’s Deluge (and a bunch of other options) verge on being hardware DAWs themselves.

If you do everything via VST in DAW, then yes, you want lots of screen space. I downsized to 1 monitor recently, and I really miss the second when I’m in DAW.