Nah I haven’t been playing- don’t have the coordination to

but I recently bought it for my bro since it was on sale- and have been watching him play it ever since.  Kinda addicting stuff…

Loved this one part- where your character talks to this Salarian named Mordin who’s a doctor that once was a part of some special task force…and known around the block for killing people just as often as he helps/heals others.

Anyway, this one part:

the commander says something along the lines of “we let our captors live after they released us”
Mordin: risky, I would have killed them myself 
other dude: but you’re a doctor, you’re supposed to help people!
Mordin: many ways to help; can heal people or kill dangerous people. 

I didn’t really have a point with this post. 

Ask me if you want details.  It needs to be reenacted on the phone. The fail is so bad it cannot be expressed just in words.

So my music class has gone through everything from Gregorian chants through Mozart and Wagner…and now we’re in the avant-garde modern music phase- i.e. not real music era.  (Stuff like chance music, demonstrated by John Cage’s 4’33”…. which literally was a complete waste of my 4’33”)

  That is, until we got to Steve Reich and his interpretation of minimalism.  From what I understand, the theory behind minimalism is essentially the repetition of relatively simple ideas such as a specific rhythms or chord, short musical phrases etc., the overlapping of which culminates in a pretty complex sounding piece haha.  Reich also did some pretty cool stuff with minimalism with a concept of phasing one repeated/simple part (a specific rhythm clapped out in this case) with one that is changing throughout.  

And the video is just a visual delineation of the patterns/changes in rhythm in the two parts respectively.  

Another minimalist piece by Reich that I like, which sounds nothing like this clapping business, can be heard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA2YrlfEe6Y&feature=related

Music for 18 Musicians, Part II  

slim3:

Haha if you know four chords you can pretty much play every pop song in existence.

He touches on things that I’ve heard many times now- how disposable the slaves are today, how people get enticed into slavery by the promise of work etc. But I was surprised by how optimistic the talk was-

For instance, he gives us a bit of perspective:

-The 40 billion dollars generated from slave labor is the tiniest portion of the global economy to ever by represented by slavery
-Slavery has been pushed to the edges of our global society and without us even noticing is standing on the precipice of its extinction waiting for us to boot it off completely. 

In other words, modern slavery is conquerable. 

He also speaks on the cost of freeing slaves- and the difference between buying people out of slavery and actual liberation/sustainable freedom. 

- how it costs just 150 dollars in india and about 400 on average worldwide to afford individuals this sustainable freedom. 
- so it would be about 10.8 billion dollars- not that much on a global scale…this is what Americans send on potato chips and pretzels…intel’s fourth quarter earnings.  - moreover, he talks about the dividends that result…that it’s not just “money down a hole”.

He ends with the following:

“Are we willing to live in a world with slavery?  If we don’t take action, we let someone else jerk the strings that tie us to slavery and the products we buy and our govt policies.  And yet, if there’s one thing every human being can agree on- I think it’s that slavery should end.  And if there’s a fundamental violation of human dignity that we would all say is horrific, it’s human slavery.  And we’ve got to say, what good is all our intellectual, economic and political power, if we can’t use it to bring slavery to an end?  if we can’t do that…if we can’t do that- we have one final question to ask ourselves… are we truly free?”

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/kevin_bales_how_to_combat_modern_slavery.html  

Just reblogging Jso’s picture of the Duke team celebrating their victory Monday night.  Just to add on:

“To me it was a game that we won, but they didn’t lose.” Coach K

Am I lame for thinking this is a cool quote? :)  I don’t get why people hate on Duke. They’re just a chill group of people who are good at what they do, and aren’t afraid to give credit where credit is due. 

And yeah, I guess I’m kinda Dukie wannabe. 

jay-so:

I think this picture appropriately captures the Duke Blue Devils:

2010 NCAA Champions AND a great group of guys who really care for each other.

I am so honored to have been a part of this historical event!

hilarious, thanks joy.