timaeus222

The panning bass is rather awkward, but I appreciate the effort to create an expansive stereo field, along with the wild-western-like pitch bending lead guitar adding emotion to the performance. The entrance of electric guitars at 1:23 helped improve the stereo field some more, and was a nice change of pace. The guitar amp/cab rig effects used could have been more interesting, but that's not a big deal. The solo at 2:32 kinda came out of nowhere, but it was good to have that to offset the generally slow, almost contemplative atmosphere of this.

The textures can get fairly bare here (like at 0:52 - 1:04), but when they aren't, like when the synth strings and/or piano come in, the track manages to drive forward and keep me interested. There's quite a bit of copy+paste of chordal and/or melodic textures from entire passages, but at least there was some alteration of instruments around what was repeated to change energy levels; for 2002, taking the time to do at least that is worth mentioning.

I think this aged fairly well. For something from 2001, the sound design aesthetics of this aren't too shabby. Sometimes the soundscape was missing a filler texture (e.g. 2:04), but other than that this is fairly standard house/trance music that develops in a reasonably OK manner.

Might find these links useful. ReMixes low on comments: - Threads started by Larry - Threads started by djp

I think this was successful in evoking the tropical carefree environment from the original. Maybe some instruments are a bit stiff, but it's executed fairly well overall.

Those toms can get anyone excited. That aside, I couldn't tell where this was going, at least until 0:47 when the rhythm guitar brought things into a bit more focus. The solo at 1:44 was pretty well-written, though I wish it was louder to again, bring more focus into the arrangement. The guitars could use some more meaty low end. I do like the live band feel of this, though, since it brings a spontaneity to what's going on here.

To be honest, 0:24 was where you really drew me in. Before that, I guess I didn't really get a feeling of hype. But once I got there, it kinda felt like not a menacing, but still rocking theme to a boss's rampage. I can see people liking it because it's not "ughhhhhhhhh more metal," but a semi-heavy side of metal.

About damn time December came!

So... where is everyone at?

I feel like ZackParrish could do this justice, evolving the same melody upon multiple dynamics.

On first listens the repeated mario SFX might be kind of awkward. But they're pretty intentional. The "boing"s are aptly-timed, for instance, and eventually I find the mario SFX in general to provide a charm that one might only find in a track like this that's specifically made for actual dance floors. They give something for people to relate to and "sing along" to.

This is pretty much top-notch pacing for EDM as far as I'm concerned. It's technically 4 and a half minutes, but felt shorter.

When Flex showed me the tracks for the album for further feedback, maybe I didn't mention it back then, but this was one of the more standout tracks for me. Great work!

Joe's contributions really made the track here. Totally evokes that feel of a caravan!

When an imminent arrest was to be made based on a witnessed shooting of an unarmed victim, Zimmerman claimed that his actions were for self defense (i.e. he claims that he had no intention to kill for the sake of killing). At the same time, the police could not find evidence from an interrogation to counteract that claim; it just so happens that by Florida's Stand Your Ground law, the police weren't allowed to make the arrest. About a year later, he even goes so far as to say that he was an "innocent American being prosecuted by the federal government." The attempted conviction involved an arrest based on Zimmerman's actions (the shooting), rather than his moral character (his claim of self-defense in some way justifying his actions). The Stand Your Ground law became a technicality that fell in line with his claims (not that I'm saying he cited that law), so by a technicality, the acquittal correlated with his claim of self defense. Their instinct for the arrest was based on the action. Presuming that he, with certainty, actually shot the victim, his claim of justifying actions that, gone unqualified, would have been illegal (i.e. an attempt at establishing his good-faith moral character) is opposed to how his observable actions were perceived at the time of the arrest. It's just an example of a probably guilty person acquitted, rather than an innocent person convicted. At its core, it returns to the perceived actions unfortunately overshadowing his moral character, which is the root of what I've been saying.

On the contrary; it is the "excessively flawed justice system" 's specific failure with regards to the lack of "presumption of innocence" that is what I was drawing from for the argument. So, the worse the handling of the "presumption of innocence" is perceived to be, the more it supports my argument here. It is the unjust result of "observable actions overshadowing moral character" that I'm saying is a provocative example intended to prompt "more critical analysis of a person's moral character in conjunction with his or her actions before making the claim that his or her actions 'sum up' who the person 'is,'" so that we avoid doing such things.

>_> Actually, I just do that to emphasize the important premises, assumptions, etc., in a sea of information*. * Yeah, metaphor in a casual response! [/awkward enthusiasm]

I don't know if you have a local Barnes & Nobles, but the Nook tablet is specialized just for e-books. Might want to check that out if you get the chance. Personally I do use Kindle though---as an iPad app.

What about mens rea (criminal intent)? As an example, why would that be defined in the U.S. constitution if excusing poor behavior is somehow "the only reason" for arguing that "moral character is something that can exist outside of people's observable action"? We're getting on a tangent here, but the point is, whether or not you personally care about a person's train of thought, the U.S. criminal justice system cares (or... it tries to, to be more accurate), and that's pretty unfortunately significant. Sure, practically speaking, this "excuse" allows some people to justify their own actions in how they "perceive the effects of [their own] actions," potentially in contrast to "what others perceive," but that is bound to happen anyway. We agree that others' perception of us, such as an officer's perception of a particular so-called criminal, more greatly affects us than what we argue to justify our actions. Where we disagree is how we should treat the offender. As a more specific example, many innocent people who get arrested are going to believe that simply because they know they're innocent of a given crime, that they can't be convicted for something. But in fact, it's still quite possible (see the first paragraph here). Maybe someone mentions your name when he/she gets accused of a gang rape, because an officer interrogates him/her and assumes that he/she had accomplice(s), one of them being you (perception)... again, even if you had nothing to do with it (reality). If and when it happens, your life is in the toilet while you're being taken in. If you're in college, you just acquired a semester and a half of absences waiting for a verdict (because it's about 6 months between the initial arrest and your trial). If you own a car, a home... you've lost it. And that is one result of observable actions overshadowing moral character. In other words, THAT is a major issue in the U.S. criminal justice system. That is an example, I would say, of why I think we should prompt more critical analysis of a person's moral character in conjunction with his or her actions before making the claim that his or her actions "sum up" who the person "is". Now to make this actually relevant, Neblix was saying that "policing sexist actions to try and fix the sexist society (what Anita is trying to do when she judgmentally casts gamers as sick people because they enjoy this stuff) will not work, but that treating the sexist society at the root of its sexism will in fact work." What I said above essentially pairs up with this statement that addressing the so-called "sexist actions" alone isn't good enough, in that I am saying that the person's action does not "sum up" who the person "is"; hence, it is not good enough to go that direction.

Except I didn't. To be absolutely clear, I'm saying that the relevant definition of thinking is the part where I said, "[ . . . some form of deliberation + outside influence] -> decision". What I implied (or at least intended to imply) was that deliberation is a more focused area of thinking, as I had broken down the role of deliberation in being the common process for coming to a decision, sometimes affected by outside influences, and thus converging upon a course of action. Never did I outright say that the "the way people's actions make other people feel doesn't matter," nor that "the negative effects of these things don't actually matter," i.e. that the results of our actions don't matter (it could be extrapolated, but it would be a straw man). In fact, I said this in an earlier post on page 100: The degree of separation I'm emphasizing between what you "are" and what you "do" is meant to prompt further analysis on perception vs. reality. Simply because you perceived a person's observable action as being wrong in some way (perception) doesn't mean you've accounted for how they actually came to their decision (reality) to perform such an action. i.e. although a person's observable action is easy to see (perception), probing into their minds to substantiate the rationale of their thinking (reality) is much more difficult (otherwise police investigations would be pretty easy, no?). Essentially what I'm saying is that actions DO unfortunately matter in the end (the most, even, because they are observable), but it would be worse to compound that and say that their action has essentially 'summed up' who they "are" as a person. If we only focused on the person's action, what's to say they weren't coerced in private, for instance? It doesn't fully account for who the person "is," i.e. their moral character.

Yeah. :/ Still excited though!

I heard this is coming out next February or so.

Deliberation is essentially a self-constructed thought process one makes within a society. Or, in your words, a "magical internal mechanism." From a philosophical standpoint, [person + some form of deliberation + outside influence] -> decision -> action. Action resulting from improper/unrefined deliberation does not fully account for action resulting from refined deliberation, because deliberation affects the decision made and thus the action made. For instance, a truly sexist person (whom no one else confronts) would likely continue to believe in being sexist, if his/her deliberations tend to consider little about society's reaction to sexism and any negative effects that arise as a result of such actions by said sexist person. Such deliberations, I would consider unrefined. So, addressing the process of deliberation is a pretty good place to start to affect the decision made and thus the action performed. (What may conflict with this approach though, are outside influences like media.)

Equating "actions" as being what a person "is" removes his/her deliberation from the equation. Here's what I mean... The actions don't necessarily define (determine the prominent qualities of) the person; they are simply observable expressions by the person. The person, more often than not, deliberates (or ought to), and thus tries to determine his/her courses of action. Society perceives a person's actions as who they are; that happens, but it may be specious and/or rash. We should always consider perception vs. reality when speaking to how a group of people "is" as compared to what they "do", because what a person does is not inherently linked to careful deliberation. Any action that comes about from "improper"* thinking does not account for any action that would come about from more refined thinking. Wouldn't you say that if we refined the thinking of a sexist person, he/she would be less inclined to act in a sexist manner? I think what Neblix wants to do is re-examine any "improper" thinking within society, rather than "waste . . . time and human resources" to address the so-called reinforcement from media (i.e. games) on such thinking, because media is born from a society. Honestly, I think the former is more difficult, though I agree that ideally it should help. * To be more specific, I just mean "acquired from problematic contemplation."