Going down a ThemTube music rabbithole tonight, kicking off by the Ningen Isu track.

Now I'm on a music video of an Indian band mixing nu-metal and bollywood, English and Hindi(?). The video is just titled "Gaddar", don't know if that's the band or the song, but it's actually really good!

Intriguingly, it definitely has political themes, but there are titles saying they're "politically neutral", but also against "divisive" political parties and standing up against "fascism and communalism" 🤔

#listening to Grab 'Em by the Pyongyang, by Nuclear Power Trio:

https://piped.video/watch?v=RmuiAuDmB_g

The music video has what looks like DeepFakes of Putin, Kim Jong Un and Prez Agent Orange playing basketball : P

#music #metal #NuclearPowerTrio

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> I skipped it, but you've encouraged me to watch it now!

I started watching at ridiculous o'clock and started nodding off half way through. I enjoyed what I remember of the first half so much, I think I'll just rewatch from start.

#Listening to Heartless Scat by Ningen Isu (人間椅子 / 無情のスキャット). Somehow the Japanese can make an epic heavy metal video with the frontman in a kimono, the drummer dressed for a night out clubbing, and the bassist in an Uncle Fester costume...

... and it just works! Gold.

https://piped.video/watch?v=CbI79e5iZKs

#music #metal #Japan

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> a legal requirement that said provider inform users of the changes a certain amount of time before they go into effect

Right, but that still allows the provider to hook you in under a generous ToS, get you locked in and facing high switching costs to leave their platform, and then change the ToS so something you never would have agreed to if it can be there from day one.

IMHO this is a fraudulent practice. But unlike nostr:npub1te88hqz88e6dwu5tskrptdazrvhvf6xdysyawye5j9xnewuwqfksn8u0yq, IANAL.

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Careful observers familiar with Shihad's discography will notice I didn't mention the self-titled 1996 album released between Killjoy and The General Electric. That's because it's forgettable cheese, and not really worth mentioning. General Electric was a triumphant return to form, before they changed their to Pacifier* in 2002 and put out yet another album of lame, poppy, tissue paper.

* Shihad apparently sounded too much like "jihad" for epically precious, post-911 US audiences.

Oh and in case anyone is thinking righto, the classic "I like your old stuff better than your new stuff", eh? No. I just listened to Churn, their first full album, and TBH I probably wouldn't again. The band were clearly pretty green when they were recording it, and it doesn't have anything like the riffage or vocal power of a tack like The Call from Killjoy, or My Mind's Sedate, from their 1999 album The General Electric.

I mean, have a listen to the Feel the Fire single from Old Gods, released in 2021. I turned it off after about 10 seconds. Way, way too sugary for me. Not what I expect to hear released under the band name that was on the cover of You Again. The epic single from their classic 1995 album Killjoy.

Not. At. All.

I don't mind the members of Shihad deciding they're sick of metal and alternative rock, and wanting to put out saccharine pop music while they save for their retirement. We all choose our trade-offs. But I do object to them doing it under the name "Shihad". It's like buying a bottle of good quality local whisky, pouring a shot, and realizing that some enterprising f%&ker has put Ribena in the bottle : /

#music #Aotearoa #NZ #Shihad

There's only one other thing I'd change about Tuba (a pretty minor inconvenience). Writing a post requires clicking a fairly small button, tucked away up in the top-left corner of the app. Having a posting box as part of the main body of the interface is pretty standard for fediverse web apps, and that would be my recommendation for a better #HX (Human eXperience). Failing that, make the button bigger, put a word on it (eg "Post" or "Compose"), and put it somewhere more obvious?

(2/2)

#Tuba

So far, my only major grizzle about Tuba is that notifications are on by default (a bit of Dark Pattern IMHO and not good for Digital Wellness). Even worse, I can't find any options in the Preferences for turning them off. I just turned off all notifications in my OS settings, problem avoided.

But for people who like notifications, and want to be selective about which apps can notify them, that's going to be a pain.

(1/2)

#Tuba #DarkPattern #DigitalWellness

So far my only grizzle with Tuba - and it's a pretty minor inconvenience - is that composing a post requires clicking a button, which is fairly small and tucked away up in the top left corner of the app. Having a posting box as part of the main body of the interface is pretty standard for fediverse web apps, and that would be my best #HX (Human eXperience) recommendation. Failing that, make the button bigger, put a word on it (eg "Post" or "Compose"), and put it somewhere more obvious?

#Tuba

I've been getting frustrated with the limitations of using Semaphore in a browser. No offence to its developers, they've only just forked Pinafore, which had been in maintenance mode for quite a while, and I'm thrilled they've stepped up to continue development under a new name. But the lack of Edit Post, for example, has been hopping back to FediLab so much it's making my head spin.

So far, I'm pretty happy with my Tuba experience. No sad trombone for Tuba! ; )

First, Tuba asked me to enter the name of the server I use. So I typed in "mastodon.nzoss.nz". It was happy with that (no "https://" required) and redirected me to the default Masto app in my browser.

I was already logged in, so I landed on a page asking me to approve Tuba for reading and posting to my account. I clicked approve and (after giving my browser permission to open links in Tuba) it returned me to the app. I got a confirmation message that it was set up and ready to use.

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> Not my call

Of course. But sometimes casual suggestions can plant seeds. Such a seed is going to have a *much* higher chance of germinating at DefCon if planted by someone of your stature, than if it comes from random fed-heads like us : )

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> There's also my own polyjuice project: a set of libraries and tools for Matrix in Elixir

Were you aware of Niklas' work on the SDK? It looks like he's still a long way from a 1.0 implementation of the full matrix spec. Is there potential for collaboration?

nostr:npub1r9jrhg4d249sn7z7pyunpsa9zcdr7rjtg90x3w3e78a7jrp7wadsvw4h54 This may well interest you, and there may be some references or links that lead to additions to your funding list:

https://www.bcg.com/publications/2021/fixing-digital-funding-in-government

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Although before I supported a party proposing even that, I'd want to see some NPOV economic assessments of what abolishing GST would to the balance of tax paying between workers and wealthy. I note that its not part of the tax policy of any of the economically left parties (Greens, TPM, TOP, Winston First), and there will be reasons for that. The political challenge of persuading voters of it hasn't stopped all them proposing other radical tax policies.

(2/2)

"The song changed everything. Before ‘Tubthumping’ I felt we were in a mess. We had become directionless and disparate... It’s not our most political or best song, but it brought us back together. The song is about us – as a class and as a band."

#DunstanBruce, #Chumbawumba, 2016

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/chumbawamba-tubthumping-feature/

#TubThumping #AgitProp

This Pitch Meeting sums up nicely just how far Marvel Studios has drifted from the sublime to the ridiculous. Secret Invasion looks like the movie equivalent of eating a jar of live maggots. Hard pass:

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=T8z4CNl25YM

Like I said the other day, I'm done with the MCU. In fact, I'm done with Disney's horrific butchering of my favourite story worlds in general. Life is too short to be insulted while just trying to enjoy a bit of escapism.

#movies #SuperHero #Marvel #MCU #PitchMeeting