A.C. Flory's Blog, page 108
March 19, 2017
Barcarolle by Offenbach
The Offspring and I were talking last night, about some of the loveliest arias in opera, and neither of us could remember the name of this one, so I looked it up [thank god for Youtube].
This glorious version is sung by two, young sopranos with amazing voices…and tiny waistlines! The days of girth are gone. 
March 13, 2017
New genetic modification techniques – Australia
The following is a quote from an email I received today regarding the approval of new GM tech in Australia:
Next week Dr Michael Antoniou, Reader in Molecular Genetics at King’s College London School of Life Sciences will be visiting Melbourne. He is here to discuss his concerns with a range of new genetic engineering techniques that the Federal Government is currently proposing not to regulate.
If the Government deregulates these techniques anyone from amateur biohackers – to industry – would be free to use them to genetically modify plants, animals and microbes. And they could enter our food chain and our environment with no safety testing and no labelling. The results could be catastrophic.
The key phrase is ‘proposing not to regulate‘, closely followed by ‘no safety testing‘ and ‘no labelling‘.
Genetic modification is here to stay and we have to accept that, but we do not have to accept a wild, wild west style free-for-all. Surely an ethical approach is not too much to ask from our government, even the Liberals?
The ‘GM 2.0: What the Government isn’t telling you’ forum is being held next Monday:
6.30 (for a 7pm start) – 9pm, Monday 20th March
William Angliss Institute: Rm. A337, Building A, 555 La Trobe St., Melbourne
Please email Louise Sales for a ticket if you can attend [they’re free].
If not, please get people talking about this issue. Isn’t it time our opinions were heard? Corporations may stand to make a lot of money out of this, but you and I will be the bunnies who have to live with it.
cheers
Meeks
Filed under: GM food, My soap box Tagged: 2017, Australia, Dr-Michael-Antoniou, Friends-of-the-Earth, genetic, March-20, modification, non-regulated, science, speaker, techniques
March 11, 2017
Alien 3 ending and music
I have always loved classical orchestral music – think Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky etc – so the soundtrack of Alien 3 was a real departure for me, and in many ways it paved the way for the music I love now.
My favourite piece in the whole soundtrack by Elliot Goldenthal is the Adagio. It’s the score for the final scene and it’s very powerful :
Part of the reason this piece had such a profound effect on me was definitely visual – the themes of The Cross and The Mother can’t help but resonate, even with an ex-Catholic. But I believe those themes would not have been half as powerful without the music that gives them their emotional context.
And now for the reason I was reminded of this music in the first place. I’ve had the following track on repeat for over an hour. It’s by Max Legend, and it’s called Adagio for Strings:
The two tracks are nothing alike and yet…they are both beautiful and uplifting in a way I can’t describe.
Happy Sunday,
Meeks
Filed under: Music Tagged: Adagio, Adagio-for-Strings, Alien-3, Elliot-Goldenthal, Max-Legend, religious-themes, Ripley's-Sacrifice
March 10, 2017
Say hello to Max Legend!
In case there was any doubt, I’m in love with a new composer, and his name is Max Legend! Raw, driving, powerful yet lyric, ML’s music is not gentle. It doesn’t yearn, it stirs…no, it doesn’t just stir, it kicks arse. And that is the exact feel I’ve been looking for all summer.
Many writers use music to set the mood for their storytelling, but for me, music is not an optional extra, it’s a necessity. And not just any music. It has to be the right kind of music for the story I want to tell. Without it, I write words, but they’re not connected to my heart. Does that make any sense?
Yes? No? Maybe? This is why I dislike writing about the writing process. Every writer is different so something that makes sense to one person may make no sense at all to another. For me, music acts like a portal that carries me straight past the logic centres of my brain to the weird, messy, parts.
But the right music doesn’t just take me to my ‘creative side’. It also helps to translate all those messy, nebulous thoughts and feelings into a linear progression of words that end up telling a story.
No two people will ever experience a story the same way, and no two people will ever respond to a piece of music the same way. But sometimes, if I get it right, they may share a feeling, for a little while. To me, that’s what real communication is all about.
So…I’ve finally found my way into the next story. I won’t publish excerpts on the blog because I’ve learned not to make anything public until its well and truly done. But I will post the odd bit of music, and for the forseeable future it will all be from the brilliant mind of Max Legend.
March 6, 2017
Extreme Weather: Storm Chaser Photography
Feast your eyes on some of the most beautiful, and terrifying, photos of storms I have ever seen. For my money, the one with the windmill is the most disturbing.
Jonas Piontek is a talented self-taught photographer, travel enthusiast, student and storm chaser from Grünberg, Hessen who currently based in Lich, Hesse, Germany.
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Filed under: Uncategorized
March 4, 2017
Manipulation of the ‘filter bubble’
In my previous post, ‘Is Facebook the Real Big Brother’, I talked about Facebook and manipulation. Here, now, is a TED talk from 2011 about the ‘personalisation’ of the internet, and how it locks us in rather than freeing us up.
I have to say I was shocked when I watched this TED talk, especially as Eli Pariser foresaw the problems we’re now facing…6 years ago. I was also shocked because I had no idea that even my searches were being ‘tailored’ for me by Google.
“From human gatekeepers to algorithmic ones.”
When I do a search, I want it to be relevant, yes, but I also want to see what’s out there. I want to choose what I see, because if I can’t see the things that I may not like, I may be manipulated into seeing things that are skewed for someone else’s benefit.
Cambridge Analytics already boasts that:
it knows us better than we know ourselves and
used that knowledge in both the Trump election and Brexit.
Truth or bullshit?
Given the company’s connection to billionaire software genius Robert Mercer*, and Mercer’s connection to Breitbart and Bannon, I can’t shrug it off as bullshit. But if Trump and Brexit are possible, then Eli Pariser’s filter bubble could turn out to be more like a noose.
My thanks to Honie Briggs for the link to the TED talk.
Meeks
*The Guardian expose is here and you can Google the details to check their validity:
Filed under: My soap box Tagged: Brexit, Cambridge-Analytics, Facebook, filter-bubble, Google, manipulation, news, personalisation, Robert-Mercer, TED, Trump, Yahoo
March 1, 2017
Is Facebook the real Big Brother?
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Image courtesy of orwelltoday.com
I read George Orwell’s ‘1984’ in the mid-70’s, but even then it was pretty obvious that his prediction of a world ruled by ‘Big Brother’ just wasn’t going to happen.
For starters, the technology simply was not there, and then there was the disconnect with [Western] society itself. Rather than being downtrodden and submissive, individuals in the ’80’s had never had it so good. So I filed 1984 away as another example of science fiction getting it wrong.
Now, let’s jump to 2017 and the article I read in Quartz this morning:
Facebook says it can sway elections after all—for a price
Essentially, the story is that Facebook didn’t sway the 2016 election with ‘fake news’, but in the future, candidates might get themselves elected by buying into a paid campaign:
To the majority of its users, Facebook seems like a passive platform for sharing news and engaging with various communities. But the social network is also a sophisticated multibillion-dollar advertising giant that is, at its heart, in the business of persuasion.
‘Advertising giant’. Wow. Of course…
I’ve never enjoyed spending time on Facebook, so I’ve never really taken the Facebook phenomenon seriously, yet now I feel as if the wool has literally been torn from my eyes. Or perhaps it’s just that so many disparate pieces of information have finally coalesced into a new picture of the world. Think about this:
As at February, 2017 there were ‘ 1.86 billion monthly active Facebook users’ [https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-...]
Facebook already possesses masses of information from and about its users,
This information is provided, free of charge and voluntarily, by the users themselves [every ‘Like’ is data],
The users provide this information because at some level they either trust Facebook or enjoy the experience enough to suspend doubt,
Facebook makes its revenue from advertisments,
Facebook advertisements are tailored to the likes and dislikes of its users,
Newspapers are going out of business because their advertising revenue is drying up,
News media online are finding it hard to attract subscribers – i.e. people who pay for news – because the internet is awash with the stuff, much of it on Facebook,
Every company with a product to sell is scrambling to find a way of attracting customers because the old ways are no longer effective.
So, what do all these ‘bits’ actually mean?
Close your eyes and imagine that Facebook is not a social media platform. Imagine instead that it is the biggest market research company in the world. Now, picture that market research company analysing all the data it receives from users and using the results to offer targeted ‘audiences’ to advertisers. For a price, those advertisers will get to place their advertisements in front of the people most likely to buy their products – the perfect, closed loop sales environment.
“So what’s wrong with that?” you say. “Facebook is merely doing what commercial TV has always done, just better, and it’s still the quality of the advertisment that ultimately sells the product. In that sense, it doesn’t matter whether the product is a brand of toothpaste or a politician up for election; boring adverts get tuned out.”
There is an element of truth in that objection, and if that were all that Facebook does, I’d simply shake my head and say ‘buyer beware’.
But Facebook doesn’t just use data to push advertising to users. Facebook also hides information from users.
The official story is that the Facebook algorithms ensure your timeline displays only the information you actually want to see. In truth, much of the information hidden from users is advertising ‘spam’ of the “Please buy my XXX” kind. Given how boring such spam is, most users see Facebook’s actions as no different to the spam filter of their email.
The trouble with this view of Facebook is that email spam filters do not make money by selling a different kind of spam back to the user. Another difference is that real spam filters require the user to tell them what’s junk and what’s not, and even then, they often get it wrong. I know mine does. So how can we be sure that Facebook’s algorithms are any better? The simple answer is that we can’t, because we never get to see the ‘spam’. Facebook’s algorithms could be wildly wrong, but because we are never given a choice, we never get to find out.
I’m sure that the bulk of Facebook users will see this as pure convenience, but I see it as manipulation. And as far as I’m concerned, when manipulation is teamed with propaganda [selling advertising campaigns to politicians], I see the potential for a very dangerous situation.
While Facebook remains unchallenged in its ability to provide targeted advertising, its ability to manipulate users will probably remain merely a potential danger. But what happens when/if some other social media platform comes along to challenge Facebook? What if revenues begin to fall. Will Facebook continue to do the ‘right’ thing and distinguish between paid advertising and ‘content’? Or will it try to cheat the system the way German car maker Volkswagen did?
For those who don’t follow the news, Volkswagen created software for some of their cars that would make it appear that the car was EPA compliant when it was not. Why? Because it was cheaper to create the software than to make the cars truly compliant. Read money and shareholders’ profits.
The problem with Facebook is that it has the capacity to do more than just cheat the system. It has the capacity to completely subvert the system, effectively selling votes by manipulating what users do and do not see. It’s not such a big step to go from not seeing spam to not seeing ANY information that competes with the world view of the politician with the deepest pockets.
That’s why I see Facebook as having the potential to become the Big Brother of our nightmares. And if the unthinkable does happen, it will have done so with our free and willing consent.
Meeks
Filed under: My soap box Tagged: advertising, cheating-the-system, data, Facebook, manipulation, market-research, politicians, profits, propaganda, sales, targeted, users, Volkswagen
February 28, 2017
Spotlight on #Indie, Chris James
Six months ago I published Repulse: Europe at War 2062-2064, and those of you who know me well, also know what I saw when I looked at that word “Repulse” on the cover, and therefore why its modest success is just a mite ironic. Altogether, this little book has managed to get itself over 3,000 […]
via Repulse: Six months of #Gratitude — Chris James’s blog
Chris James is an Indies Unlimited buddy from way back, and he’s also a very good sci-fi writer, but that isn’t the reason I reblogged his post today. I did it to give the rest of us a good news story with a dash of hope.
Self-publishing can lead to success, Chris is proof of that, but it rarely happens ‘overnight’. Behind every ‘Repulse’, you will find years of patient effort during which the only thing that keeps you going is pig-headed obstinacy.
The moral of ‘Repulse’ is that success is possible, if you have the intestinable fortitude to keep slogging away at it. Please read Chris’ post and take heart.
much love,
Meeks
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Chris-James, how-to, Indies-Unlimited, science-fiction, self-published-authors, self-publishing, success
February 25, 2017
A hate crime, and Trump doesn’t care
Their names are Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani. Mr. Kuchibhotla is dead now, and Mr. Madasani is wounded. 51-year-old Adam W. Purinton, apparently did not like immigrants and believed it was his right, as a white male, to take their lives into his own hands. It started in a restaurant in Olathe, Kansas where Mr. […]
via The Pointless Death of Srinivas Kuchibhotla — Filosofa’s Word
Filed under: Uncategorized
The Innerscape Post Mortem
Apologies for the misleading title – I haven’t killed off Innerscape. The post mortem is actually about the lessons I learned while publishing Innerscape last year. You thought it all went smoothly, didn’t you? -sound of maniacal laughter-
The Truth about publishing before Christmas – Guest Post by A.C. Flory
Filed under: Innerscape Tagged: amazon, competitions, ebooks, lessons, marketing, publishing, rewards
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