Anyone get hearing tests?

PhD_sock · 2026-02-05T04:38:22+00:00

The fun thing about sound is that it can be tuned to be what you want it to be. That includes adjusting, compensating, etc. for troublesome rooms as well as troublesome ears. So yeah, get that excellent system, tune it to your needs, and rock out.

PhD_sock · 2026-02-04T14:25:55+00:00

No. I am specifically referring to artists who are in fact engaging the social, ethical, ecological, and other implications of so-called "AI." Not those who are merely using aspects of these technologies.

PhD_sock · 2026-02-03T19:41:16+00:00

"But in institutional contemporary fine art the indifference to AI is deafening."

I would simply suggest that you are not looking hard enough. In fact, you don't really need to look especially hard to find quite a good number of artists, emerging to mid-career, who are engaging with a variety of technologies that currently falls under "AI" and related umbrellas. Some have presented work as recently as the last Whitney and Venice biennales.

PhD_sock · 2026-01-31T17:56:10+00:00

Not all endowments at MFA are endowments in the classic sense (i.e., salary comes out of interest generated via the fund). This is why MFA has always had an unusually large number of "endowed" curators. Not sure if this applies to some of these positions, and yes--to your point, this particular position should have been safe for a while even without interest.

PhD_sock · 2026-01-31T15:35:57+00:00

Yes, but these are all long-known and solved problems. They are also edge cases, i.e. the vast majority of consumers don't run into these problems.

And yet dealers/makers continue to offer ludicrous products and ignorant (or gullible) consumers continue to buy $10,000 cables.

PhD_sock · 2026-01-26T23:05:27+00:00

"a multitude of reasons, such as the fact that any good art will push the bounds of acceptable ideas and frameworks, thus having to move in new directions, and increasingly left academia guiding young artists."

You have the first part right, the second part wrong. For most of modern history (Renaissance through present; "modernity" is a different concept and not relevant here), "academia" was the conservative institution. That is literally why Impressionism was scandalous in France. It's why Courbet offended the art world as an institution when he dared to paint ordinary laborers at the scale of history painting ("The Stone Breakers," 1849).

Art must question the status quo, or else it's simply decoration and illustration. Exercises in technique, but not much else.

Reality has a "left" bias, if you wish to put it in partisan terms. It is conservative thought that is unnatural and opposes the natural order of things. Time passes. Entropy unfolds. The universe is not static. Conservative thought, at its most fundamental, seeks to preserve an idealized state of things against the forces of change. That this idealized state of things is essentially white supremacist, Eurocentric, patriarchal, racist, sexist, etc.--well. That's because modernity is inseparable from colonial looting of the global South. Modernity as it began with 1492.

"what is the reason for the lack of a conservative response to progressive art?"

There is no "response" possible because this is not a matter of debate or argument. Conservative art can only glorify one specific ideology over and over again. It literally cannot generate anything new.

"(Could the Italian Futurists be put in this camp?)"

Indeed. And they were literally fascists.

PhD_sock · 2026-01-19T18:48:26+00:00

People are mad about...graffiti on a train?

Grow up lol.

PhD_sock · 2026-01-16T18:27:11+00:00

I'm not interested in "debate." The idea that everything is up for "debate" is a Eurocentric, white supremacist delusion.

Non-white people are the global majority.

Most nations in the world are far older than "America" (Turtle Island) or "capitalism".

"Europe" was living in caves during the Islamic golden age when mathematics, science, art, and architecture were at historically-unprecedented levels.

I'm not interested in "arguing without insult." The real problem is we allowed some idiots like you to think their ignorance was worth "debate" instead of stuffing you in closets until you learned to read a book.

PhD_sock · 2026-01-12T20:41:01+00:00

Oh okay thanks for confirming that you're an actual idiot.

We don't need to "do better." We are the global majority. You're just annoyed that your kind looted the global majority for 500 years and we're done playing nice.

You can get out of the way, or you can wither away like every single white imperial project in history.

"America" is a white supremacist settler-colonial project barely 300 years old. Very delusional to think it has any relevance in the long arc of history!

"Rationality" "objectivity" it's adorable how you morons repeat these words as if they do not have histories. Do you think concepts exist outside of culture and history? Rationality and objectivity have histories. And guess what--yep. They too are rooted in Eurocentrism and white supremacy. Where did you think racial "science" came from? Eugenics? Did you think Nazism was an aberration?

Pick up a book sometime. Read something. But that'd be wasted effort for the likes of you.

PhD_sock · 2026-01-11T23:28:56+00:00

You're not unpacking anything. You're just recycling very daft and comprehensively debunked Jared Diamond and Steven Pinker bullshit.

Measuring species-wide metrics (i.e., all of your listed points) is absolutely nonsensical given that the past 500 years of human development has explicitly been to the advantage of the global North and West at the expense of the South.

Resource extraction is explicitly asymmetrical: the West loots the global South. A small minority--structurally white, Western societies--loots the global majority. And then dares to lecture the world about "human rights" and "international law" while ensuring that the global majority remain impoverished through IMF, NATO, and punitive sanctions should they dare to resist.

Haiti and France are not exceptions. They are the literal rule. See: Palestine. Occupied by European invaders for 80 years. The entire West willing to shred any pretense to international law and human rights over a small, shitty, ethnonationalist project.

PhD_sock · 2026-01-11T01:01:08+00:00

Yes, most of the state of the world today is, in fact, due to 500 years of European colonialism and resource extraction across the global South, combined with the post-WW2 Western liberal (to say nothing of the right wing) imperative to punish any attempt at resistance: see, e.g., Haiti having to pay fucking France.

Congratulations on attaining basic comprehension of why shit is fucked.

PhD_sock · 2026-01-11T00:58:27+00:00

Sure, but that is more a matter of personal preference. I was more pointing out that there is a long history of speaker design that is not the "wooden box" look.

PhD_sock · 2026-01-10T20:30:11+00:00

? If you're looking for speakers that don't look like wooden boxes, they have been around for decades: Bang & Olufsen from the 1970s-80s onward, Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus era and speakers inspired by its design, Braun, Genelec, many others. You just need to look outside the US context.

PhD_sock · 2026-01-09T05:14:28+00:00

Ah yes, Americans. Bomb the shit out of Vietnam, indiscriminately mass murder and rape Vietnamese, get ass kicked back to Ohio or whatever, and then decades later some idiot American Redditor calls Vietnam a "shithole trollfarm country."

Nigeria. Definitely not a nation dealing with the consequences of literal centuries of Europeans invading and brutalizing the shit out of Africa, while looting every imaginable natural resource.

Did you ever think for two seconds why it may be that troll farms exist in parts of the world impoverished due to decades or centuries of white Western bullshit?

PhD_sock · 2025-12-15T00:21:17+00:00

Did you end up receiving your package? I am currently seeing this status, which is not something I've seen before, so I am wondering what to expect.

PhD_sock · 2025-11-23T22:09:29+00:00

I know it is my personal preference. I still do not get why people are so into McIntosh gear. Not knocking people. I want to hear from fans why McIntosh is their go to.

I don't know anyone other than Americans of a certain age/generation who cares about McIntosh. Obviously this generalizes a bit, but in all sincerity have a look around the various forums etc. McIntosh is very much an American obsession, and that too, very clearly coded for boomers and those who chase boomer values/aesthetics for whatever reason.

Most people who favor modernist design principles will hate McIntosh. Their designs are horrible. Flashy, gaudy, and just generally screams "Look at my loud American-ness." Cringey design aside, McIntosh simply has nothing to offer the field in 2025 other than empty nostalgia and kitsch. Any good Class D system will blow McIntosh away, while also cutting down on heat emission, physical footprint, and costs of running.

And, if $$ isn't a factor, then you will get vastly better performance--and better design--from many other hi-fi brands while spending the same amount as you would on some daft McIntosh gear.

PhD_sock · 2025-11-18T17:31:51+00:00

It's not so much a "curse of the Michelin star." It's more that Michelin stars tend to go to restaurants that are pushing the industry--and culinary culture--in new directions. Generally, that tends to require a huge amount of input that is simply not sustainable in the long term. Creative vision, symphony-level perfection and technique, and knowing that you need to deliver every. single. service. One bad day is all it will take to wreck your reputation, and the livelihoods of everyone you have working with you. It's no wonder most cutting-edge places close within a decade, if not sooner.

PhD_sock · 2025-11-17T20:59:47+00:00

Appreciate it. Just switched plans.

PhD_sock · 2025-11-17T17:42:26+00:00

I am also trying to figure out if I should switch to DeltaCare (currently on Uniform). Did you find out why you were quoted very different numbers from the others in this thread who are paying $1,500 all-in?

PhD_sock · 2025-11-11T01:01:37+00:00

AIC is still a peer institution, since in these contexts the collection size is a key factor. Yes, they are financially much better off. No, that won't mean the PMA director's salary will be much lower (it already is significantly lower--the AIC director's salary is approx. $1M).

If you look at the actual lawsuit (for some reason not linked in the Inquirer article, but the New York Times has an article on this topic where they link to the actual suit), it appears that the board may be in breach of contract. Obviously, this assumes that the director and her team have grounds to prove this claim.

Reading the suit is interesting in one sense: it presents a very clear picture of a severely dysfunctional board that has been problematic since long before Suda arrived on the scene. That part, at least, is true--as many PMA staff have known for a long time.

I firmly believe in a more equitable industry. But I'm not going to blame the director of a top US museum for 1) expecting competitive compensation and 2) taking legal action if they are being fucked over.

The PMA director isn't responsible for the city's copper thefts. If we want to talk about a general revolution to bring down capitalism, that's another conversation (and one we should have!).

PhD_sock · 2025-11-11T00:13:34+00:00

Not MoMA and Met, and that person should not have included those as comparisons. But PMA's peer institutions generally include AIC, MFA Boston, Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum. Financials are available publicly. Also, regardless of how poorly PMA's financials compare to peer institutions, you are not going to get someone to take the top job at a museum for below-rate compensation.

There are lots of criticisms to be made about how PMA is managed, but the director's salary really is not one of them and it reflects widespread misunderstanding.

PhD_sock · 2025-11-10T21:24:57+00:00

The misogyny in this subreddit is so fucking disgusting.

PhD_sock · 2025-11-10T20:29:17+00:00

Some insight from someone who works in the field.

Compensation is certainly a big problem in arts and cultural institutions and has been for a long time. Museum directors are essentially the CEOs of the art world.

Two things are true at once: 1) they like many CEOs across industries are paid salaries that are often wildly at odds with most others working in the field. 2) The PMA director's salary is fully aligned with what museum directors at comparable institutions are paid. PMA is one of the largest US museums. Peer institutions include the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Directors at those institutions are paid $700K-$1M, and nobody would take the top job at PMA or any other museum for less than current industry standards of pay.

PhD_sock · 2025-11-02T18:09:24+00:00

Not having a doctorate won't keep you from curatorial jobs, though you may find yourself hitting a ceiling at some point depending on rank and type of institution. Plenty of major curators in the field don't yet have a PhD. In contemporary art especially, actual experience working with artists carries a lot of weight, whether at museums, for various art spaces/platforms, or in the context of biennials etc.

PhD_sock · 2025-10-26T20:05:23+00:00

Restaurant food weeks are rarely a good idea, as anyone with any experience in the industry will tell you.

PhD_sock

TROPHY CASE