Tuesday, August 30, 2022

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.

Saturday, August 13, 2022

"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.