scout's notes and blog entries (recent entries at the top)

may 8, 2023 - origins of house music

i feel like house music being essentially a revitalization of the disco movement led it to become one of the more influential genres of electronic music. because of the surplus of disco and more synth driven experimentation coming in the early nineties, e.g the tb303 bass being used for "acid" music. there as a lot of different experimentation in disco music as well. it essentially was a mesh of the philly soul movement and elements from funk. i see a lot of reasons how the two could be connected. i saw a comment on this specific house set by frankie knuckles that said this: "Just soul in it's purest form ❤, as a 53 year young man, Franky is one of a kind, big love and hug to all Franky Knuckles fans. he'll be missed 😢". it hit deep for me especially with the soul part

jan 4, 2023 - procrastination

i hate having the trait of procrastinating. it's awful just having no motivation to do anything leads to me thinking "i can do this later" when something like an assignment is due tomorrow. it's not a trait that i like but that i just have, which sucks but i can manage. the same is with blog posts, i want to make them, i just either dont have the time or just think that "eh, i have nothing to talk about" when i do. it's the same with my dream journal. i wake up after one and i want to write it down, but my brain just kind of shuts off and says nah, you can do this later. just kind of sucks.

dec 31, 2022 - new years

new years is coming up and the parades and everything are sponsored by planet fitness. why?

dec 30, 2022 - editing

been editing a lot in premiere and it's taught me a lot about discipline and patience. really feeling good about my own future in film making.

dec 26, 2022 - kanye

every time i listen to kanye's pre yeezus music, i’m reminded of who kanye really is. a broken man whos legitimately mentally ill. he recorded mbdtf at the lowest point in his life, and now we’re at what i believe to be the true lowest point in his life. he’s forgotten about his values, his friendships, his charismatic, optimistic personality and everything that made him who he was and why we loved him, in return becoming a sociopath who’s so concerned with being a contrarian who’s different that he’s dug himself into a conservative, anti-Semitic, hilter-loving hateful rabbit hole that has turned him into a shell of his former self. the same fuckin man who made "Spaceship", a song about the troubles of the working class, now brags about his wealth constantly in interviews among other things? this is a broken shell of a man who, in a fruitless pursuit for validation, has destroyed his life with almost no way out in sight. all i can do now while listening to his music is hope he realizes who he has become, and tries to save himself before it’s too late. donda would be disappointed.

dec 24, 2022 - my love of music

listening to this old album i have reminds me of my love for music. it spans far an wide, and it's a vice for me to show creativity and personality in my own art. this is a short post, i know, but that's all i have to say today i'll get back to doing this daily, no worry

dec 18, 2022 - preservation of internet culture

i was watching some videos on youtube with some friends a couple nights ago, and we arrived upon frycook games, a dub made by a member from a metalcore group, and from then on we spiraled into a rabbit hole through the internet archive, that led us to other unearthed internet content. unsurprisingly, these internet videos were quite satirical in concept due to the nature of the original video, and led us to some YTPs that were extremely confusing. these YTPs vary to almost postmodern editing masterclasses to literal children making screen recordings using iPad video editing software.

a common theme in this niche of internet depth is a central theme of vulgarity. example a: a YTP created by jallerbo named Spinge Binge: The Sex Joke Event Horizon (how insightful). part of a three-part series of YTPs, this specific video is filled to the literal brim of sexual innuendos and general vulgarity, ranging from sex jokes to squidward dressing in a kkk outfit. in the sense that these artifacts from a past era of youtube are to be preserved, it shows us a glimpse into a past era. inherently, the content at hand is quite simple in nature, source material being movies or tv shows commonly watched altered using video editing software, but it's the way that the videos are presented that creates something abstract they're compiled in a fashion that basically defies all construct of the original source.

another commonly known factor in the ytp community is the concept of "YTP Tennis". quite literally, this is a battle between two creators that involved creating a ytp, then making a ytp out of that said ytp. rinse and repeat, and it eventually devolves into these videos being a display of editing chaos. a lot of these old ytp's are lost to time now due to the impermanence of the culture of YTP. these creators usually grow out of making the content due to the fact that the subject matter usually devolves to immaturity. these old creators that i've explored today are long gone, aside from jallerbo, who is operating under a different alias. it's a reminder that even though the content has been preversed, the actual atmosphere of the past is still a relic.

dec 16, 2022 - scams

how do people fall for some things that are so obviously false? like, for example, the pet rock fad. yeah, that was a legitmate concept to a lot of people! they addvertised it as a collectible, something you take care of, it's a fucking rock dude. just makes me laugh how that was a legitimate concept. maybe i'll look back on things i do now and say "wow, what a scam". it's the marketability of things that leads to "Scams". it's advertising.

dec 15, 2022 - school

being free of worry and doubt with school is the best feeling ever. genuinely, this should be a crime to feel this good. it's so nice just knowing that yes, you don't have anything to do. i'm excited to just relax and finally get back to doign what i want, instead of having to panic over some assignment that won't affect me much in later life. i know school is used as an aid and tool for learning for all, but the fact is that the system itself needs a handle on what content they're actually teaching to peers and students. i feel like in middle school and high school this is especially prevalent.

school is focused on work. due dates, grade averages, scores, quality, keeping yourself to that high standard that allows you to feel good about the work you've done. having this pressure put on anybody has to create some sort of stress, right? it's hard, the weight of everything kind of coming down on you doesn't feel good at all. i feel especially strong about middle school. that transition period is all about preparing you for high school, which is comparatively so much better due to the newly acquired freedom you have. it just sucks that school is taught as rigidly as it is for some.

dec 14, 2022 - fusion and fission

so recently, a new nuclear breakthrough came in the form of fusion energy. a usa laboratory has successfully sparked a fusion reaction that released more energy than went into it. this new breakthrough does mean a lot, it's one of the first reactions of its kind, but there's still a lot of room and time before it becomes a main option for a clean energy source. the main issues now pertain to increasing the net energy profit, and keeping it a sustaining reaction.

about all the fusion tests we’ve done now were not properly self sustaining, and did eventually fizzle out. these recent reactions that have created ignitions only last fractions of a second, which shows that sustainablity for these reactions is still a far away concept, and is one of the main obstacles. Gregory Fiete, a professor at Northeastern University, says that this recent reaction is "not something believed to be scalable to renewable energy", which i agree with due to the scale of the reaction.

also at Northeastern, Oleg Batishchev, another professor, speaks that "You can use electricity to burn hydrogen, for example, but you need the electricity to produce it, so there’s no gain here unless the electricity is free. If you use a match to light another match—you’re not gaining much from that. But if you use a match to start a big fire, well then you’re gaining a lot because you have a fire." what we've achived is a breakthrough, but it's going to take time before it reaches a scale of energy that will sustain any communities.

dec 13, 2022 - sleep / daily events in philosophy

sleep. sleep is a very essential part of the human body and psyche as well, which is odd, due to the fact that most philosophers from olden ages (e.g plato) were distasteful of it, saying "Asleep, man is useless, he may as well be dead" and “It a disgrace and unworthy of a gentleman if he devotes the whole of any night to sleep”. it's not uncommon for Plato's studies and writings to go on into the night, but i personally did not know that he despised it this much.

speaking of des, descartes had his own differing thoughts on sleep, saying that “asleep we can in the same way imagine ourselves possessed of another body and that we see other stars and another earth, when there is nothing of the kind.” philosophers are natively focused on epistemology and metaphysics, as always, but sometimes during short moments in the author's writing and reading, they stray away from where they usually reside in mental headspace. i feel like it is a good return, because for me it shows that these philosophers, are in fact not just stuck in their own theoretical headspace, they're just regular people.

i'm not just saying that these people are so gargantuan in their knowledge that they're above the mortal coil, more or so that how they regulalrly operate and how they come off in their writings makes for a lot to be assumed about the people at hand, especially Plato. who knew Plato hated sleep? these little interspersed seeds and slices of life a just reminders that even our greatest minds experience the exact same things we do and experience. Aristotle commented on weather, Heidegger talked about buidlings, and Hobbes mentioned food several times. it's an interesting thing to view.

so it comes back to sleep, a common thing that about every person on earth has done at least once, it's another link between daily life and philosophy. as Nietzsche wrote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, “Blessed are the sleepy ones: for they shall soon nod off.”

dec 13, 2022 - mandela catalogue rant

holy shit, WHY is this series so convoluted? it's like alex purposely made this series super hard to decode and understand, and while it is an interesting concept, it's just so blissfully hard to grasp. i was watching a video about mandela catalogue, and caught a glimpse of the comment section. it read, "My headcanon is, if in this universe Adam was the one tricked, instead of Eve. I think, maybe, Gabriel was the one who betrayed God instead of Lucifer, becoming something worse than "the devil" we know, and actually winning". it's just odd to me.

sure, making your own headcanon is a common trope, and i'm not against it, but it's just something that doesn't need to happen with a series like the mandela catalogue. i wish for me it was easier to truly understand the meaning and/or context. i know about M.A.D., i know about alternates, i know about gabriel, and i know about thatcher davis and adam's past, but it's so blissfully hard to decipher and really get. maybe that's the point.

dec 13, 2022 - backrooms rant pt. 2

of course, kane is expanding to more than a liminal monster. not just some wacky weird creature, it's a form of bacteria, it's mold. that's what the monster is. it's not a classic liminal monster.

still isn't gonna stop me from talking about its appearance. kane being a 17 yr old animator and modeler and all that is awesome, but i wish he could've done a more interesting and/or tasteful approach to the monster. the way the monster walks in the original video doesn't have any subtlety. the events of this bacteria take place about a year after reunion, the video that recently came out, but i don't know where the series will go after this.

a friend of mine said about the bacteria that "the humanoid form is either the backrooms trying to replicate human life or the bacteria warping the dead bodies", which i would find fit, but for me it's just confusing. the bacteria lifeform in the original was a lot of people's first encounter with this series, so it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. i think it will be expanded upon more, though. now my main thoughts are centered around if async is still present when the first clip happened (i assume so, but who knows).

dec 13, 2022 - film making

watching diary films and more experimental films (I-Be Area, Gummo) has really opened up my eyes to film making. so many ideas thrown in my head that really makes something great. makes me want to pick up a camcorder and just record my daily life, or act something out. kind of expanding into different mediums and ideas, and i enjoy it!

dec 13, 2022 - burnout

getting burnt out as an artist and regular person sucks. you just lose all motivation to do the things that you actually enjoy, like making things or getting work done.

i can manage it in the way that i manage my creativity when it's at its peak, finding new facets for it. i think for myself, most of the burnout is related to school, since it puts such a pressure on everyone with grades and due dates. i know it's a neccesity, but it doesn't make much sense when you ask for a buffer and they just dont respond. like, at least pretend to care? it's disappointing at best and disheartening at worst.

dec 12, 2022 - backrooms rant

amid all the commodification and minimization of the internet there'll be people using the same concepts from the original backrooms video to make stuff that's truly postmodern and exciting and new, and i think we ought to encourage that as a way of art.

the original backrooms video by kane parsons eschews any concept of achieving THE horror of the backrooms through filmmaking and instead places a spooky scary creepy "liminal" monster in it to make mean noises and chase after you and jumpscare you. not only does it violate the basis of the backrooms, it's also the least cinematic, and also like the most insulting way to make a backrooms based film.

of course the spectrum of the series has changed a lot since, but some of the most found footage oriented portions still show the flaws in what most people see it as, just another thing capitalizing off the trend. it isnt.

dec 12, 2022 - stylistic output

having more fun with coding as a way to put myself out there artistically. kind of trying to spread out my horizons in a different way than just music, and i enjoy doing it!