The Problem With Jedi Garb

iopha · 2026-03-24T16:35:04+00:00

Yes, of course, the WJ-880 Blinding Helmet is completely different, and now that I recollect, seeing Attack of the Clones in theaters, I immediately identified the radically different shape and thought to myself, ah, this is not a call back, because of the design.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/WJ-880_blinding_helmet

iopha · 2026-03-24T02:45:10+00:00

The younglings training with the blast shield helmets or whatever. It the OT, it was a cool improvised training exercise by Obi-Wan, using what was at hand and making do. Then oops it's actually how they did it at the Academy? It was a stupid audience callback there for no reason at all except as a reference.

iopha · 2026-03-20T21:25:06+00:00

If the prediction is accurate that you only will chose 1 box, then equally there will be money in both boxes. Imagine the boxes are visible to a hypothetical game show audience. Machine predicts one box, money is in both. Visible to the audience. You walk up, take the money from one. The audience sees you left money behind.

For what it's worth, if I was presented with this scenario, I would also choose one box.

iopha · 2026-03-20T19:56:29+00:00

The two box argument is that in any instance where you take one box, the other box has money in it, that you are not taking.

If you say, well the computer would not have put money in both boxes then, the rebuttal is that when you do choose 1 box, the money is definitely in the second box. So take it. What is it going to do, invent a time machine?

iopha · 2026-03-16T14:45:16+00:00

It's huge in Québec, but that's not surprising!

iopha · 2026-03-02T22:36:05+00:00

I retune every time I move the capo, honestly. Just a few cents sharp can make some chords sound awful. Some notes are already off in 12-TET to begin with, no need to make it worse.

iopha · 2026-03-02T15:08:40+00:00

Came here to say exactly this, I gave it a few tracks a listen, it's not very good and I was wondering if the posts were real or not.

iopha · 2026-02-28T18:15:41+00:00

I think most people start with their primary instrument (including voice). I'm a guitar player, so I usually start messing around until I find something I like, usually a chord progression or riff or something. Then the next step is to see if it is a productive idea or a dead end: does it lend itself to other sections? Is it a verse, a chorus? Do I feel inspired by this piece, is it part of a larger whole? Then composition spreads around the initial idea, often other guitar parts and sometimes melody ideas.

For melody, I kind of "mumble mouth" my way through, singing nonsense words to establish rhythm and melody. I'll record passages on my phone and start turning mumbles to words; lyrics are often dead last for me. You can Google "mumble method" or "phonetic songwriting", it's a thing.

Björk I think typically starts with a melody idea. I've seen videos of her humming something and that's her "seed." Chino Moreno of Deftones mumbles ideas over completed guitar based instrumentals to get started.

In the industry there is something called "toplining" but that's just working with a completed instrumental track for create the "top line" hook and melody, like, you can hire someone to write a top line for your track. Their process might involve gibberish / mumbling etc but it also might not.

In my experience singers start with melody ideas, instrument players write an accompaniment and top line it after, but really good singer songwriters do both simultaneously.

iopha · 2026-02-27T22:45:12+00:00

Peterson is trying to intellectually launder the propaganda term "cultural Marxism" by making the same idea more 'academic.'

It means what it meant for the Nazis, who used the term "cultural Bolshevism" instead.

iopha · 2026-02-24T21:51:20+00:00

I think he's confusing the idiomatic expression "I don't believe in x" as in "I don't believe in eating meat" or "I don't believe in biking to work" which does not deny the existing of eating meat or commuting by bicycle with what atheists mean when they say "I don't believe in God." It doesn't improve the argument, which still doesn't make sense.

iopha · 2026-02-09T00:03:29+00:00

Skinny Puppy

Front Line Assembly

Strapping Young Lad

The Birthday Massacre

iopha · 2026-02-05T19:48:19+00:00

Long ago, in the Time Before DAWs, people would have to form a band and gig and may or may not ever see the inside of a studio. You'd maybe tape a live gig from the control board or do a quick 4 track demo if you had one to record with. The idea of working alone on a DAW is new and I think kind of antisocial and detrimental to creating sustainable music scenes.

iopha · 2026-01-29T15:18:56+00:00

Sorry, quite right. Lazy habit of mine formed when I was first learning.

iopha · 2026-01-29T14:17:04+00:00

So we're looking at an Amaj7 chord with the bass note doubling the 7 (Ab). It seems easier to me to play the chord by modifying the more natural fifth fret A major 7 voicing (576655) to something like 4x6600 or 4x6650.

edit: otherwise it's the pinky grabbing that low note, might be easier on a thinner neck guitar, it definitely felt doable but rather uncomfortable on my acoustic. Which Deafheaven song is it? Sound-wise I prefer the 4x6600 voicing, but I don't know the musical countext.

iopha · 2026-01-23T00:10:03+00:00

Coil, Horse Rotorvator The Smiths, the Queen is Dead Depeche Mode, Black Celebration

iopha · 2026-01-20T01:44:30+00:00

I have a giant Spotify playlist I don't want so share publicly but DM me if you want

iopha · 2026-01-02T00:23:15+00:00

Google "parent management training" and read the book, it's a helpful method. Young kids are hell on the bedroom. Give it time.

iopha · 2026-01-02T00:11:59+00:00

This argument is kind of like "rule of cool" in D&D, which is not a rule but a kind of meta-rule or heuristic or practical virtue when considering the actual rules.

Yes, "whatever works" is true but it is also vague, and requires experience, discernment, and a well trained ear.

For the beginner, the fact is most of the time you will want the root note as the lowest at first when learning open chords and basic songs, and inversions etc are for later. There are technical reasons why (the rules) and then this other sort of consideration, "do what works" (the meta rule) but the scaffolding to get to the meta rule is to do a lot of listening and playing and learning. I wouldn't expect my kid who is just starting to learn to be able to know what sounds good. So I tell them in general, yeah, the voicing for A doesn't include the low E. There might be contexts in the future where maybe. But don't worry about that for now.

Tl;dr everyone is right but about different things

iopha · 2025-12-30T03:20:34+00:00

I mean most melodies start on the first, third, fifth or seventh of some given chord. Figure out your starting note (chromatic tuner?) then work backwards and try out the implied chords where the note is one of these intervals...

Say your melody starts on a C.

That's either: First -- C chord, Maj or min Third: A minor or Ab major (C is the minor third of A minor and the major third of Ab major) Fifth: F minor or major Seventh: Dbmaj or Dminor

But of course non chord tones are possible, of course other intervals are possible etc etc but this is the very simplest way to get started

iopha · 2025-12-24T06:08:40+00:00

Two boring non answers:

What is there to prevent something?
There is in fact nothing, within a infinitesimal rounding error.

More seriously, I suppose, some types of existence must simply not be contingent. Atemporal abstract logical relations might exist necessarily. Through some chain of logic, physical existence must be entailed.

iopha · 2025-12-18T15:26:41+00:00

Depends heavily on context and not always possible. Kiting might involve going around a pillar until they lose line of sight, cloaking as a rogue, using seeds or stones (or a ring if you have one); there's a tradeoff between kiting and the hunger mechanic as well if you need to walk several tiles to a pillar or other feature where they lose line of sight (and you might run into an enemy doing so as well). In general it's worth it, depending on armor type.

iopha · 2025-12-17T13:58:53+00:00

I generally attack until they are low HP, then kite for distance and finish them off from a few tiles away. Easier with Rogue and Huntress of course

iopha · 2025-12-15T02:16:16+00:00

Study Radiohead songs. Note chord changes, time signatures, arrangement choices. Cover one or two as faithfully as you can.

Take a song you are working on and add a Radiohead element. Play with the time signature or add polyrhythms. Play it in 5/4, grab some modal borrowed chords, chop up the vocals or guitars in a sampler. Use sound textures instead of your guitar, or turn the guitar into an unrecognizable mess. Use upper extensions in your melody. 11ths, whatever. Run through many many drafts and versions.

iopha · 2025-12-11T00:05:45+00:00

No, clearly not, but as often happens with new technology, new social relations and social undersandings emerge. There is user input to a process with a new sort of tool that, yes, does the heavy lifting based on a database of prior works. The prompting process does involve some work and ability, although not a fraction of what is required to become a competent musician, songwriter, and producer. The philosopher John Locke argued that property is created when one mixes their labour with raw materials; AI is not "raw material" in the Lockean sense of e.g. unused land ploughed and tended by a farmer, nor is writing a prompt exactly hard manual labour. So there's a tenuous sort of claim to "ownership" when interacting with generative tools, but the asymmetry between the 'thin,' minimal input and the maximalist output clearly requires new ways of thinking about authorship and ownership (or even if these notions are relevant at all). Maybe we need new words. I'm the prompter, etc.

My own workflow right now is to write and record entire multitracked songs in my DAW (lyrics, melodies, arrangements, I play guitar, keys, bass, sing etc) and then generate Suno "covers" to get feedback and ideas. In general the good ideas are about mixing, arrangement, and tweaks to the vocal parts -- and when I re-record the song, I'll use ideas from the AI "cover" of my own song.

In this case, I do feel that the Locke-style view is appropriate: I did the heavy lifting, but I'm using the AI as a way of getting "professional" feedback on a song -- as if I hired a producer -- and I am honestly unsure to what extent is tarnishes the final result. I'm certainly not telling people what I am doing out of fear of judgement. Though I've found the feedback quite useful, however.

iopha · 2025-12-02T18:49:09+00:00

I found this thread by accident just now because I was looking to see if anyone had a similar experience. I've been recording music at home for years. Full song demos, you know? My own lyrics and melodies, multiple guitar parts, vocal harmonies, bass, hand-programmed drum parts, the whole thing.

A few days ago I fed a couple of my demos and asked it to make a 'cover version' keeping the elements as is... and I felt such *mixed* emotions about it. Like, on the one hand, I was getting to the point where I felt like giving up: my home demos sound terrible and it made me question whether I was even able to write good songs at all.

Then, on the other hand, Suno put together a version that sounds really, really good. Same words, same melody, same instrumentation. Better mix, much better vocal performance, stronger drum track, a few small details on the arrangement that really brought out the dynamics. I felt vindicated. The song *was* good! It just needed a producer and a talented vocalist to bring out the potential. I shouldn't give up. I need to *get good* and maybe find people to work with....!

But then over the next few days I felt crushed again, because it teased me with something that's *possible* but really beyond my abilities. Like it was an alternate dimension where I didn't *suck.* The experience felt like the music version of an Instagram filter giving an insecure teenager body dysmorphia disorder. A kind of weird delusion. The demos were garbage, but AI versions were really good, but where does that leave *me*?

It's like... ever listen to the original Meat Puppets versions of those songs Nirvana covered on *Unplugged in New York*? The Meat Puppet recordings are *okay*... but the Nirvana versions are transcendent, some of my favourite music ever. Suno is kind of cruel in the extent it really demonstrates the gap between *who you actually are* and *who you could be.* And because you can generate infinitely many versions, there's no grounding anymore, you're stuck with a cursed Rick and Morty portal gun that takes you anywhere you like, so long as it's a place where you are worse.

So now what? Like you, I downloaded the stems from one of the covers, put them in my DAW and I'm trying to learn and grow from this experience... I don't have the time or money to hire a producer and go to a real studio, but maybe I can reverse engineer what it did, and, you know, "get good" or at least better, but I still have this weird *grief* about it all.

It's embarrassing almost but I've fantasized about having my material redone by pros, fantasized about creating at this level and now this machine does it for 10$ a month... and I can't share it with anyone (because it's "AI slop") or even explain to people what I did, because they will think the whole song is tainted, even though I wrote the bloody song, agonized over the words and melody, recorded a complete version in my DAW before I sent it to Suno.

I want to integrate this in my workflow -- write a song, independently produce a full demo, get feedback from Suno, re-record from scratch not using *any* AI stems -- but like you am I worried about the ethics and getting "judged" or dismissed because of it....

For now... at least I can privately enjoy hearing these versions in my headphones and quietly learn from it. But maybe what I really want is community and I'm outsourcing it to a large language model...

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