Maybe this is just a sign of working in a technical field for too long, but my mind always jumps to counterexamples first. So I was surprised they didn't even acknowledge the existence of blind musicians.
Classical musicians need to sightread, so that pretty much excludes the blind.
Pop is a different field. Bands are more manageable because the individuals all have separate lines and are supposed to be listening to each other. Which is how blind musicians like Stevie Wonder signal changes through their playing rather than through eye contact.
In an orchestra you have entire sections of somewhere-between-6-and-24-more-or-less people all trying to play the same lines while facing in the same direction, while another section plays something else next to them and/or behind them.
Classical musicians need to sightread, so that pretty much excludes the blind.
Yes and no. I agree that it's very difficult for classical musicians who are completely blind, but there are talented musicians who are legally blind and make use of assistive technology. I know an oboist who plays very well in orchestra despite only being able to see two or three bars of sheet music at a time.
Bands are more manageable because the individuals all have separate lines and are supposed to be listening to each other.
I think the issue is the other way around really. Yes, the musicians in a band all have separate lines, but it's all very coherent -- a melody and some harmony. In symphonic music you might have 24 violinists all playing the same notes, but that's the easy part -- the hard part (and where you really need a conductor) is when one melody is bouncing between the 1st and 2nd violins (with supporting harmonies in the lower strings) while a counter melody is being played by the clarinets and French horns and the trumpets are furiously counting 57 bars of rest before they interrupt in 3/4 time.
When I directed the local univeristy basketball team's pep band for a time we had a blind musician. All he needed was a recording of his part done on any instrument (which took me under 5 minutes to prepare per song) to participate fully. He was even able to take auditory cues for things like signaling an early cutoff. I don't remember him carrying over once.
It's definitely too far a stretch to place it at the center - but for those who have experienced it, it is definitely a part of musical performance /for them/, and a not-insignificant part.
There might also be some unexplored areas in this article, with regards to the role of eye contact in /improv/, especially jazz improv and the like. There's a lot more communication that occurs both through instruments and non-verbal cues in that setting.
When I've played keyboard in a group setting, I've noticed I'll use eye contact to let someone know that we're feeling out-of-sync - perhaps in tempo, for less experienced groups, or to mark a chord transition or harmonic opportunity they're missing, or to encourage them to push a bit more in a section where they're withdrawing too much.
I _love_ my Mockulus Qwest no. 9. I’ve taken to wearing it to bed so I get to earn Zuckbucks whilst I sleep!
[P.S. Palmer Eldritch is a genie, Suckerberg’s man boobs are the digital reincarnation of those of Augustus Caesar, and Peter Teak is a modern Medici (and all-round handsome rake)!]
I would recommend anyone interested in this topic read ‘Dawn of the New Everything’ by Jaron Lanier, which is really quite honest about both the positives and negatives of VR. Having only recently had a chance to try it out, I feel like it’s really just another medium (a rather intense and currently flawed one I find), like other interactive media, with potential for expression, utility, unique communication and imagination, but also for disconnection from reality/escapism, addiction, dystopia, tracking, control etc. A lot of pronouncements in this article and the Wired one feel as overblown and one-sided as the hype is on the other side of the fence…
There are perfectly good use cases for VR/AR whereby we could save on travel/pollution by telepresence collaboration, help people with eg. disabilities, perform remote work in hostile environments, offer therapeutic treatments, experiment with identity etc. or just as another form of daft escapism or art (and a potentially more active one than some at that). Nothing stops people from using it for short periods and then enjoying rich and fulfilling real lives, in the same way that you’ve got couch potatoes vs. people who just enjoy the escapism of occasionally watching a couple of tv shows/playing games etc. …I do find FB’s closed/sign-in etc. subsidised uber-tracking thang is worrying though…
VR in fact kinda forces you into only using it for short periods. You get tired much more quickly when moving with motion controls vs. sitting with a keyboard/controller :D
Oh, so they’re ‘rebooting’ it. I wish they would hire a writer with the imagination to do something completely new without all that baggage. …I agree - there’s darkness in Columbo, but it’s much subtler and is tempered by the kindness and charm of Columbo himself. I see why they do it, but the ‘just one more’ episode netflix-thing easily gets tiresome and ends up prolonging some plots/story arcs unnaturally and unsatisfactorily. The little of ‘Discovery’ I watched I felt no engagement with at all - the writing I thought was generic and boring and the characters seemed two-dimensional - but maybe I’m just behind the times: ‘Enterprise’ grew on me a few years down the line (though not the opening theme!)
That’s a really good point: like having a degree of immunity through prolonged exposure! Though couldn’t all that disinformation also mean that they eventually are bludgeoned into believing in whatever version of ‘reality’ has been constantly presented/ represented (or that they just simply ‘switch off’)? …reminds me of the idea of the ‘Overton Window’:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
That’s an interesting question. I’m sure as you say that there probably are such operations (…do you have articles/information you can find to link to?), but perhaps they are disguised differently, more effectively countered or perhaps subtler/different in nature? I would guess: firstly the KGB doesn’t exist any more, its successor (for the Russian Federation) is the ‘FSB’, but I would imagine that there’s a lot of crossover between the two in terms of tactics/specialities? (…esp. given the president started his career in the KGB…). Agencies on all ‘sides’ always have used various disinformation campaigns historically at one time or another (ideas of P.R./public relations initially concretized by Edward Bernays?:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays ). You could cite that the CIA would sometimes fund ‘soft power’ media like artists/films/music etc. that perhaps ‘worked’ in different ways, whilst KGB famously planted eg. fake news articles/plants to journalists etc.? The USSR seemed to excel at finding weak points in political/civic culture/society and exploiting those pressure points? Maybe the countering of these types of tactics is part of the idea behind isolating Russia’s internet, as China has more or less effectively done - also this could be an exportable commodity to authoritarian regimes - you can see the attraction perhaps to eg. customers of NSO group …counter to the old quote from Bill Clinton about ‘nailing jello to a wall’. The Russian Federations’ political model differs, perhaps in degree at least, to eg. the U.S.’s in that although a ‘representative democracy’, there is maybe a higher degree of integration, even if that is through networks of money/power/influence/intimidation etc. between the state and media and a higher acceptance of suppression of counter-narratives? The USA/Europe’s strength is partly built on freedom of information/ travel/ diversity/ flow of goods/services I would argue, but that can also be (rather cleverly) used against them in a kind of low-level assymetric ‘warfare’. A lot of ordinary people on both sides have neither the time nor will (and maybe effective education?) to try and separate facts from fiction basically and so these types of ops succeed... So: a difference in operational ‘philosophy’ and a historical/cultural background of different areas of ‘success’ to draw on maybe?
Why though? What is it that has changed their business model or people’s minds? Ask yourself that. What is it that is particularly biased? Opinion pieces and ‘advertorials’ etc. that they are forced to adopt because of falling revenues and fragmented attentions are bound to be biased.
The NYT is actually doing great financially. They lost their credibility because they did the one thing that a journalist can never do, lost their neutrality. They let Trump get under their skin, lost all skepticism, and started printing anything negative about him even if it was only a rumor. It's basically an organ of the Democratic party now.
Oh for the love of Buttigeig, if the Democratic Party had an organ, I would hope it would do a better job of stating policy and sticking to it. If The Times is your idea of a lefty boogie man, life must be pretty easy.
Please distinguish between Democratic Party and actual leftism. I don't like NYT because they keep lying us into stupid wars, which isn't leftist at all.
>"Please distinguish between Democratic Party and actual leftism."
I am so tired of this trope. Nothing is ever 'true leftism' and yet everything that opposes 'the left' is automatically binned as authoritarian, fascist, hard-right, *-ist, etc.
...everything that opposes 'the left' is automatically binned as authoritarian, fascist, hard-right, -ist, etc.*
Yes that happens, in the New York Times. It's wonderful for a center-right organization like Democrats to pose as leftist in their party organ. Rational people, including rational actual leftists, are less likely to try to "de-platform" anyone.
You should read more. Everything fallingknife said is backed up by statements from insiders. As one wrote:
> Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions.
...
> But the truth is that intellectual curiosity—let alone risk-taking—is now a liability at The Times. Why edit something challenging to our readers, or write something bold only to go through the numbing process of making it ideologically kosher, when we can assure ourselves of job security (and clicks) by publishing our 4000th op-ed arguing that Donald Trump is a unique danger to the country and the world? And so self-censorship has become the norm.
> What rules that remain at The Times are applied with extreme selectivity. If a person’s ideology is in keeping with the new orthodoxy, they and their work remain unscrutinized. Everyone else lives in fear of the digital thunderdome. Online venom is excused so long as it is directed at the proper targets.
This resignation letter was also heavily refuted by other insiders, most specifically that Weiss was actively insulting her co-workers in the middle of meetings. Who should I be believing?
Claiming that she was also insulting them is not a refutation. It's quite possible for both statements to be true, but whatever insults she may have used wouldn't excuse behavior like this:
> They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m “writing about the Jews again.” Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers. My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.
It's just confirmation bias, the desire to avoid information that conflicts with their worldview. Comments like hobs' contribute nothing to the conversation except partisan dismissal of a differing viewpoint.
What's ironic is that this attitude was described in the quote hobs responded to:
> If a person’s ideology is in keeping with the new orthodoxy, they and their work remain unscrutinized. Everyone else lives in fear of the digital thunderdome.
Credibility is a thing, and if you have none yourself your words don't mean much. NYT can take a long walk off of a short pier, but this person's words are worthless.
You continue to assert this without any reason or evidence. If you want to publicly claim that Bari Weiss has no credibility, at least cite something more than your own opinion.
>"except partisan dismissal of a differing viewpoint"
My thoughts exactly. The other thing I find so frustrating is that people online will assert that bias is a terrible thing and that people should be open minded. But they also assert that it is a bad thing to be an "enlightened centrist" and they immediately become dismissive of anyone who utters the term "both sides". It's maddening.
