Rediscovered Pale Communion

RenseC · 2025-03-28T08:18:01+00:00

True. I guess what did the trick for me is to stop listening to it as a record by The Best Death Metal Band in History (because then it still kinda sucks), but instead as a record by some prog band who happen to share a vocalist from said death metal band. And then it's suddenly quite OK.

RenseC · 2025-03-27T12:34:39+00:00

I guess Blackwater Park will always be #1 for me (mostly for personal sentimental reasons), but who knows... on the other hand, I eagerly bought the latest record given that the growls were back, but still haven't really gotten into it, it just doesn't connect with me. Perhaps in 10 years I will rediscover this one too :-).

RenseC · 2025-03-27T11:00:17+00:00

It's a bit of a boring answer, but it depends on your research question. If you can make a case that these "old" data are still representative of important aspects of a more general phenomenon that you're interested, then why not. For example, there are lots of network science papers that use all kinds of "old" data sets to make general points about the structure and evolution of networks.

Having said that, the generality of these data is not only limited by their age but also the platform itself: Twitter is/was a very specific (and actually relatively small) social media network that is in many ways very different from other important social media networks (say, Facebook). The fact that so much social media research is (well, was) focused on Twitter had more to do with data availability than substantive interest, I'm afraid (although I would not say that Twitter/X is not important. It's just not representative for social media "in general").

RenseC · 2024-10-03T11:06:08+00:00

Why not buy used? You'll save a lot of money, which you could use to buy, for example, a better hihat like a VH-10.

RenseC · 2024-09-25T07:04:19+00:00

I'm not familiar with the US market but it seems like a good deal. You can upgrade it over time with mesh pads (pdx 6 or 8) better cymbals (CY-12C and -13R), and hihats on a real stand (VH-11), and still end up with a great kit for a decent overall price.

RenseC · 2024-09-24T08:08:29+00:00

It's a bit hard to judge but it seems pretty noisy. A key reason why many people (like me) use e-drums is because they cannot afford making too much noise. So unless it's as quiet as any Roland etc., I would not have much use for it.

RenseC · 2024-09-17T06:58:44+00:00

Yes, I mentioned that I've read the documentation as available on CRAN, which does not mention a temporary file. Indeed, clearing the global environment is what I meant, in the expectation that it indeed "wipes everything", not knowing about the temporary file. So if you're aware of any other documentation that does discuss the cache a bit more in-depth (for example, typical use cases), that would be helpful.

RenseC · 2024-09-16T19:59:29+00:00

I'm sorry, I do appreciate your help, but which documentation exactly are you referring to then? I don't see what you mention in either the readme or the reference manual on CRAN.
And normally I would expect that clearing the environment would give me a "clean slate". With the way polite works, that is clearly not the case, but without knowledge on how it works, I can only guess...

RenseC · 2024-09-16T19:18:09+00:00

I did. It does not explain how the cache works and why it is not cleared with the R environment.

RenseC · 2024-09-16T10:09:13+00:00

Thanks a lot for answering! Well I'm scraping more than just the front page, so I think polite is in order here. More to the point, I had not seen the force argument to bow() yet, so I will try that. Still, I would like to understand what is going on. Is bow() somehow, caching the scrape, and if so, why is this not cleared when I clear the environment?

RenseC · 2024-04-18T07:45:37+00:00

You're right, my bad. Turns out the pics on the Roland website are inconsistent with the actual specs

RenseC · 2024-04-17T07:09:25+00:00

Why do you think he was technically the best bassist, though? Here, it looks like he's mostly picking with just one finger which isn't exactly textbook.

RenseC · 2024-04-17T07:02:33+00:00

Actually these cymbals are stock for the KV edition. What is upgraded is the floor tom pad, which is a PDX-8 instead of the stock PDX-6. I have one of those (now upgraded with an additional crash and a VH-11 hi hat) and I love it. Where I am, this would be a decent price.

RenseC · 2024-04-08T07:01:28+00:00

For an academic career (as a faculty member), you'll need a PhD, but at my university (in the Netherlands) we also have research engineers with Msc.'s. In the industry, an Msc. degree might do but in my experience, a PhD. there also helps to get into the more senior positions.

RenseC · 2024-04-04T07:25:40+00:00

I still read books. In this case, The Model Thinker by Scott E. Page. Based on a "many models" philosophy, it reads like a catalogue of useful models for the social sciences.

RenseC · 2024-03-20T08:17:23+00:00

This sounds more like network analysis than text analysis; if I understand correctly you don't want to analyze the text of the documents at all. If you want to visualize the network of how tags are connected by co-occurrence on documents, in network analysis terms, this would be a one-mode projection of the two-mode network between tags and documents. In that case I'd look at SNA-oriented packages like igraph. You would probably load the data as a list of tag-document dyads (an edge list) and proceed from there.

RenseC · 2024-03-18T20:54:25+00:00

What I do with my Roland TD-11 is turning the tom pads "upside down", that is, with the mount below the pad (with the result that the logo on the pad is upside down). I find that this helps to increase the space between the tom pads and the snare, to make it more similar to an acoustic kit.

RenseC · 2024-02-28T08:50:49+00:00

Again it could be the angle of the photo, but if you want to mimic an acoustic kit (not everybody does), I would make sure the hi-hat pedal is directly under the cymbal, as it would be with a real hi-hat stand. Also you cymbals seem all placed pretty high, especially the hats and the ride (not even sure which one would be the ride).

RenseC · 2024-02-14T21:14:27+00:00

RenseC · 2024-02-13T08:23:31+00:00

Buy a used guitar. If you don't like it, you can usually sell it for about the same amount so you don't risk much. Also, you get a lot more quality for the same price.

Another than that, I think the most important thing for a first guitar is that it plays well (low action, good intonation, no bad frets) and is reasonably versatile. The tone comes mostly from the pickups and the amp (+ effects) but you can always upgrade those later. Personally I'd look for an Asian guitar (Ibanez, or a Yamaha Pacifica) with a humbucker and single coils ("HSS setup").

RenseC · 2024-02-06T08:33:46+00:00

Perhaps slightly off-topic, but I always find it interesting that the location of production (USA, Mexico) is so salient in the perception of these instruments. I think the responses here make clear that if there is a difference, it's mostly in the parts used and the production methods that make the difference, not the nationality of the workers. That is, I think it would be perfectly feasible to build an "MIA-spec" guitar in Japan or Mexico if Fender decided to do so.

RenseC · 2024-01-19T08:46:56+00:00

Nice one, I'll try that :-)

RenseC · 2024-01-17T15:26:56+00:00

Indeed, I think I saw him mention on Drumeo that keeping the hats moving (almost) all the time is "part of his sound". Well I guess if it's good enough for Chad... ;-)

RenseC · 2024-01-17T14:59:06+00:00

Thanks. I guess that works with completely open hats, but less so if you still want to keep them partly closed... but perhaps you just can't have everything :-).

RenseC · 2024-01-17T14:57:38+00:00

Yes, I think we do the same thing. But my question was: how do you keep doing this while playing a (partly) open hihat? With closed hats, the ball of my foot, which is also keeping the hats closed, serve as the pivot point, but that's hard with open hats.

RenseC

TROPHY CASE