Review: Peter Hook and The Light

Peter Hook and The Light
The Big Top, Limerick, Ireland 
10 November 2022

The revenant is that which returns. 

This thought is foremost after hearing Peter Hook and The Light, who tour the catalogue of Joy Division, keeping alive songs that otherwise can only be appreciated in recorded form. The group animates these tunes through exaggeration, adding metal guitar flourishes, over-pronounced dynamics, and fist-pumping choruses to songs ("Love Will Tear Us Apart", "Transmission") which don't deserve the fate of such normative interpretations. Could these sensations make me feel the pleasures of a normal man? In part, yes.

About M1 Killers and Bad Reviewers

I am in a position where I regularly need to recommend computer and audio hardware to students, artists, and others. I can't test all of it myself, so I rely on people who dedicate themselves to this task. Essentially I act as an aggregator, leveraging my ability to spot BS. My evaluation process is made difficult by the number of poor reviewers on YouTube. In truth, it takes a lot to be a good reviewer. But there are far too many popular channels that are driven by brand loyalty instead of technical knowledge.

I started writing a comment for one such video, cleverly entitled "They said THIS was the M1 Killer.. <crying laughin emoji> AMD 5900HX Mini PC!" Yes, I should have known what I was in for from the title alone. Unfortunately with half a million views and hundreds of positive comments, such content gets far more praise than it deserves.

My comment got out of hand, in terms of length if nothing else, so I relocated it here to my blog.

"Aesthetica" by Max Bense, partial translation to English

Max Bense (1910-90) was an important philosopher, publishing over 80 books. Unfortunately none have been translated from German to English. Of particular interest to many digital artists is the volume Aesthetica: Einführung in die neue Aesthetik, published by Agis Verlag (Baden-Baden) in 1965. 

As a small contribution, I have translated the introduction and one key chapter of Aesthetica, so that English readers can finally get a sense of this work.

Tips for sharing drives between computers

Operating systems each have their own native ways of formatting hard drives and allocating storage for files. Here is a practical summary for Windows 10, macOS, and Linux. Included are some little-known facts on compatibility that can save you serious headaches!

Portable Audio Recorders Summary 2022

It's three years on from my last audio recorder summary (July 2019) and so time to update my comparison table. This time it's quite compact, largely due to vendors streamlining their offerings. Please download the PDF. I've included columns for those characteristics I find most useful to distinguish between recorders. YMMV, but it should be a helpful starting point.

On Censorship and the Zaporizhzhia Fire

Introduction

This article exists for several reasons. First, to stop the spread of fear over a potential nuclear disaster in Ukraine. We are all overburdened with worry at the Russian invasion of that country. The last thing we need is further hype and extremist announcements. Unfortunately, these are accepted at face value by too many people.

Second, I wish to assert that the censorship of Russian state broadcaster RT is a demonstration of Western propaganda. Since there is almost no free press in Russia, RT exerts unparalleled influence. But this is not to say that Russians naively accept all that it publishes. Outside Russia, RT is a useful way to gauge what the Russian government thinks. How can we fight disinformation if we don’t know what that consists of?

I will perform a media analysis of the coverage of the attack and seizure of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (NPP). To do this, I made a snapshot of several websites on 5 March 2022 between 1300 and 1400 GMT. These articles are from the online versions of RT (Russia), Kyiv Independent (Ukraine), and Al Jazeera (Qatar). All are government-funded agencies.

On propaganda and the Ukraine crisis

Current events in Ukraine are worrying in and of themselves. But they are doubly troubling in how they are being reported, bereft of historical context, full of unsupported assertions. This article will highlight certain evidence that challenges the dominant narrative.

Please note that this article was written in the week before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Such state violence must be condemned in the strongest terms. The provocations of NATO and the West do not justify such actions. Nonetheless, it is important to understand a context that goes deeper than the simplistic equations Ukraine=good, Russia=evil. 

Buying a laptop for everyday use

The focus of this blog is generally on higher-end hardware for video production. I've written several articles on that subject in the past year. But this article is for people who:

a) Need a laptop but have minimal funds.

b) Don't want to contribute unnecessarily to e-waste.

c) Don't want a crappy commodity computer that might fail at any time.

d) Don't want to buy from Apple (see a and b). 

What men can do to stop male violence

We live in a society where the dominant patriarchal order offers men individual and institutional power, resources and opportunities, respect and status, and control over their lives. Women, as a group, do not have the same privileges, a fact that is continuously demonstrated. If a woman is not safe even to walk down a public thoroughfare, there can be no argument that we live in a fair society. 

It's not up to women, the victims of these assaults, to change their behaviour. It's up to men.

How fast are Apple M1 computers for video?

Since Apple introduced their new M1 "system on a chip" there's been incredible hype over the capabilities of their laptops. In this article I will summarise information provided on the Blackmagic forums, in order to judge the worth of these systems for video editing. The results may surprise you.