All too often the authors make arguments that are simply too black and white (if theory x is not true, then y must be true), or simply use awful circular logic (e.g. we know God exists because it says so in the Bible). It has no problem pointing out these flaws in atheistic logic (which is fine), but will simply ignore them when they apply in just the same way to theism. From this the authors draw what they seem to consider solid conclusions that are “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Throughout the book they essentially acknowledge that “beyond a reasonable doubt” is acceptable enough as a conclusive state for theism, but not atheism.

For anyone with basic common sense, this book will just prove aggravating. For any who is gullible enough, believes everything they read, or has put his- or herself in a vulnerable mindset, they will likely find it inspiring and potentially life changing. Although no matter where you are, you will find it an interesting read that will make you consider the greater possibilities of life a little more deeply.

I don’t want to say too much more about the book, neither do I have too much more to say about it as a purely literary review, but I would like to do a multi-part series on the site, providing counter-points to many of the fallacies and arguments provided by the book. So, keep an eye out!

I’ve been a Last.fm member for a little more than two years now, and I’ve seen it go through quite a number of changes, and there wasn’t a point in time that I was frustrated with this amazing free service. I am in no way affiliated with the company that runs the site, I just think this site deserves all the credit and acknowledgment it can get. And after more than 18,000 tracks scrobbled, the most useful feature of the site is the music recommendation, which has helped me discover so many bands that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about — and it knows based on what I’ve and others have listened to and makes pretty knowledgeable suggestions. Ingenious!

Anyways, here’s the list of the bands I’ve recently discovered, rediscovered, and enjoyed…

• Botch
• Buckethead
• The End
• Keelhaul
• maudlin of the Well
• The Number Twelve Looks Like You
• Pelican
• Psyopus
• Pure Reason Revolution
• Riverside
• The Tony Danza Tapdance Experiment
• Vex Red

If you like any of the bands or albums I’ve previously reviewed, you may want to check out some of those bands and have a listen. Don’t forgot to start scrobbling your own tracks and discover bands that match your tastes! ]]> http://andrewfreiday.com/2007/07/08/recently-discovered-artists/feed/ http://andrewfreiday.com/2007/07/04/tomahawk-anonymous/ http://andrewfreiday.com/2007/07/04/tomahawk-anonymous/#comments Thu, 05 Jul 2007 02:20:37 +0000 Andrew Freiday Music Album Reviews http://andrewfreiday.com/2007/07/04/tomahawk-anonymous/ Wow, this is certainly not what I expected. Again, my expectations getting in the way, but I don’t think any fan of Tomahawk can deny that this album practically came out of nowhere in terms of musical anticipation.

For the first few tracks I was hard-pressed to believe that this was actually a Tomahawk album, and not something more from Fantomas. It took me a couple of solid listens before I started to see the resemblance. I’m still convinced this is a bit of a mix between Delirium Cordia-era Fantomas, a touch of Mr. Bungle, and a sprinkle of non-Patton Secret Chiefs 3.

While there’s no doubt about the Native American theme here, I don’t think this is an easy concept album to pull off. However, Tomahawk pulled it off and there’s no question about it. While the band was originally Mike Patton’s most "normal" band, it leads me to believe that there will be a lot of disappointed listeners out there. To the generic love-Patton-for-Patton fans, this will definitely be an awesome addition to the CD collection.

While the majority is typical Patton non-lyrical vocal mastery (a bit too atypical for Tomahawk maybe), there are still some great not-as-weird tracks on here, like Totem. But hey, that’s not why the hardcore fans are looking to this album. There is also a fair share of just bizarre tracks, the first that comes to mind is Antelope Ceremony, which finds Patton doing a bit of a vocal duet alongside a very odd (dare I say happy) guitar riff very repetitively. Going back to the other side, there is at least one or two tracks like Sun Dance which previous Tomahawk fans will recognize with a very familiar style and typical riffs.

Being a Native-inspired album, I’ve certainly noticed a bit of a wider range of soundscapes, and Mike Patton’s vocal chanting may be some of my favourite of his yet — and after about 50 listens I’ll have started to pick on them, and I’m sure I’ll be chanting them in my car on the long drives to work.

I wish I had more to say about this album, but I’m not sure I do. I’ve given it a few listens, and I’m pretty happy with it. It’s going to be hard to make this a short-term, repetitive listen, but I do see it as something I’ll come back to again and again over time — which is the way I am with all of Patton’s work.

While at one moment I’m really excited about this album still (after listening to it constantly for two weeks), I can’t help but feel a little disappointed at the same time. It’s definitely Ion Dissonance, but it’s just a bit too much of a jump from the previous two albums (Breathing is Irrelevant, Solace). I was expecting the same math metal chaos as before, but instead got something that I might even be more inclined to compare to Meshuggah. That’s certainly not a bad thing, it’s just… different.

Instead of mind-blowing riffs in bizarre time signatures… I got mind-blowing rhythmic breakdowns in bizarre time signatures. Both are very excellent things, but the latter was the reason I got into Ion Dissonance in the first place. I may sound a little harsh here, and I’m sure I’ll take some heat from that over the random blog-stumblers that decide to comment. However, the other week I did a bit of marathon, going through the 3 albums in reverse order, and although there is certainly change between them, it’s change I can enjoy.

Where with Breathing is Irrelevant I would listen over and over and find new licks and riffs that I didn’t notice before, with Minus the Herd I listen over and over and am still blown away by nothing but the little things. For me it’s been these little things that have kept me coming back… especially drum fills and the perfect mixing job.

I did find out that they released a video for ‘Kneel’, it didn’t do much for me, but it’s definitely great to see Ion Dissonance getting enough from both the fans and the record company that they’re entitled to a music video this time around. The stand-out track for me on this one is unquestionably ‘Scorn Haven’, which I simply cannot get out of my head, and ‘The Surge’ is also up there.

Overall this is a fantastic album, one of the better ones I’ve heard in a long time, and it definitely has proven itself as one that I can listen to over and over again. It’ll take more time before I can decide whether or not this is something that I can keep coming back to, or if I’ll get tired of it after listening to it so much.

Since this is the case, I thought I’d generate a small list of my own all-time favourite albums. I really have no reason to do this, I just like to read some of the comments people leave about my (”awesome”/”horrible”) taste in music. So here it goes, in no particular order…

dredg - El Cielo

Although this list is not meant to be in any specific order, dredg’s El Cielo is definitely my number one, no doubt about it. It’s certainly self-centered to say, but some days I think this album was simply meant for me. There isn’t a moment on this album that I think could be different in any way — from start to finish. And it’s a concept album about sleep and dreaming. It’s a shame that it’s no longer being printed, or so I remember reading, so I’ll have to pick up a second copy, as my first has been played and worn many times.

Tool - Lateralus

Among a list of my favourite artists, Tool is definitely #1 or #2 (right beside dredg). As such, it’s no surprise that I have to list Lateralus in my top albums. It’s always a hard choice for me to pick between Tool’s album for a favourite, but I always end up coming back to this one. The new album, 10,000 Days, has some amazing individual tracks (a favourite being ‘Rosetta Stoned’), but as an entire album it’s just not the same.

Failure - Fantastic Planet

I wouldn’t quite list Failure on my list of favourite bands, but this album is certainly a jewel on it’s own. It’s definitely one of the odd ones out in my CD collection, but I’ve always loved this album. It has some mind-blowing tracks that I just can’t get enough of. It’s definitely my ‘going for a drive at night’ album, and it will be for a long time. While Fantastic Planet doesn’t have repetition value in this case, it has longevity on my list.

Ulver - Perdition City

This is the newest addition to my top albums, but it’s another that I’ve been going back to again and again. I hate that I don’t have much to say about this one, but there really isn’t. It’s a great all around album with some particularly amazing stand-out tracks. It’s a great, almost eclectic mix of sounds that have been put together in a seamless way to create an album unlike anything else I’ve ever heard.

Isis - Oceanic

This is relatively new on my list, but it’s album I’ve recently been coming back to again and again. I’m always up for a concept album, and I just love the incredible soundscapes that can be found on Oceanic. There’s nothing better than putting this on as I’m getting to bed, and just listening to all the instrumentation.

For more on what I’m listening to, check out my Last.fm music profile.

The problem for me is that they don’t seem to be working for me.

I had my first lucid dream a few years back, during my final year at high school, which was soon after the first time I had read through the book. It was a pretty exciting event, something I had been really interested in achieving but had only first really attempted at. Unfortunately, I think it was more just beginners luck than anything else. Soon after, interest passed when I was more focused on schooling, and university came around and the idea soon just became an ideal rather than something I even made an effort to strive for.

My first lucid dream was induced through the MILD (Mnemonic Induced Lucid Dream), which was originally developed by Stephen LaBerge . Essentially, the method insists that you are constantly remembering your intention to induce a lucid dream. This was really quite simple, and at the same time I was constantly doing reality checks during wakefulness. This is what I believe help me more than anything. At the time I had gotten so used to looking at my wrist watch constantly, then looking back the watch again. Sure enough, one night when doing this in a dream I noticed that the time on my watch had changed significantly from the original time I had checked. This was fantastic. I realized I was dreaming, I became lucid, and it lasted a good few minutes. It’s something I still remember pretty clearly to this day.

Recently I had been interested in doing the same thing, but it’s just not that easy this time. I got the book and decided to start from the beginning, trying all the techniques and exercises. To start, I had my dream recall down pretty well. I could generally remember at least one dream each night for several weeks straight, except for the odd string of days when I might not remember any. A significant portion of the time I was even able to vaguely “realize” that I was dreaming, but was never able to become lucid. I knew what was going on, but I couldn’t control anything in the slightest. I knew I had that prerequisite down for the rest of the book.

I begun doing reality checks again, using the same wristwatch technique that worked previously, but I quickly forgot and was looking at my watch constantly (like I do all day every day) without even thinking about it. I flipped through the book more and tried to do some of the relaxation techniques, specifically the 61-Point Relaxation method, but with no avail. Recently I had begun working on the more extensive MILD techniques, which includes listing personal dreamsigns, but that became too much work for me. I used the example daily targets given for memory practice (Prospective Memory Training exercise, page 63) but just couldn’t meet any of the memory targets — even with writing them on my hand.

Further, I attempted WILD (Wake Induced Lucid Dreaming) techniques, specifically the Count Yourself to Sleep Technique (page 90), but found myself constantly losing count and or simply getting bored. It really feels as though there is no technique that can work.

I’ve put a lot of effort into making this a daily part of life, at least on some barely significant level, including publishing a public website (dreamtome) where anyone can journal and log there dreams, as part of recognizing dreamsigns and increasing dream recall — two things I realize are really important, the second of which I feel I have accomplished at least. Now I’m at the point in the book where I can’t go any further until I start having lucid dreams at least somewhat regularly. My plan for now, I suppose, is to continue with my wristwatch reality checks that worked previously, and just really focus on making this happen at least once more — but at the same time, without getting too focused and breaking it.

This whole experience is an interesting exercise in mental ability and stability, and an interesting look at the human psyche. But even that might be looking at it a bit too deeply.

From start to finish, I was chained to this book, always ready to keep reading more. It never disappointed me, and I was always looking for someone to share with what I had just learned.

There wasn’t a part in this book that I found unnecessary or over-worked. From the brief introduction to the drug, to an entire history of his research (including the struggle to find funding and allowance), to his conclusions and final thoughts, it was fantastic. Thankfully I didn’t have many expectations about this book before I started reading, but it far surpassed any preconceived notions I might have created.

Strassman’s journey from proposing idea to finding volunteers and administering the drug was really interesting in inspiring. He providing full detail into his entire life for those number of years, and all the things he went through, and it seemed that it was all worth it in the end, without a doubt.

It’s hard to pinpoint any specifically interesting chapters or sections, as they were all very readable, but each became more interesting than the last as the mystery unfolded and further questions arose — all of which he answered with great clarity, incredible wisdom, and in such a way to leave you with your own opinions and thoughts. Strassman wrote it without forcing upon the reader his own opinion, but offered it fairly and intuitively, and was properly able to argue both sides so the reader could decide for him- or herself.

I was very captured by the book, and in my own personal study I noticed very striking similarities between the volunteers DMT accounts from this book and a number of OOBE experiences I’ve read about (especially in Robert Monroe’s Journeys Out of the Body, which I’ve also found incredible interesting and read multiple times). I’ve very deeply considered writing a brief research and opinion essay on the similarities I’ve noticed. However, that’s something to consider for another time.

As for DMT: The Spirit Molecule, I’ll certainly have to give it another read after I’ve finished passing it along to my friends.

It’s been in my experience with WROX’s code that one of the most invaluable classes that I couldn’t live without is the Collection (and associated CollectionIterator) class. The Collection class, as it sounds, essentially lets you build a collection of any type of variables or objects you desire (a Collection of arrays, or integers, or more commonly GenericObjects — also from the WROX code).

The Collection class also implements the CollectionIterator class, which itself implements the native Iterator interface, allowing for seamless looping:

<php
    $colIntegers = new Collection();
    // fill it:
    for ($i = 0; $i < 50; $i++) $colIntegers->addItem($i, $i);
    // and reiterate back through the collection just as easily:
    foreach($colIntegers as $integer) print $integer;
?>

As great as this was, it needed pagination in order to be more useful. Included in the WROX code was a GenericObjectCollection class which offered some pagination, but I hated the idea of having to switch back and forth between standard Collections and GenericObjectCollections, so I added a few methods to each the Collection and CollectionIterator class to allow for some hacked-up pagination. You can download the code below:

collectionandinterator.php.txt (Plain Text Format, 355 lines, 8.8kb)

It may certainly be beneficial to split the classes up into two separate files. There’s a bit too much code to analyze properly here, and make note of everything that I modified, but here’s a quick list of changes:

Collection

• Added $per_page property: indicates how many items in the Collection for each desired page.
• Added $page_number property: specifies the current page number
• Added canPaginate() method: indicate whether the Collection has all required data (per_page, page_number) for paginating properly
• Added paginate() method: Called prior to iterating, sets up the Collection for proper pagination, by providing per_page and page_number values.
• Added per_page(), page_number(), and num_pages() methods: Return the number of items per page, the current page number, and the number of pages based on total items respectively.
• Added pageMenu() method: Creates and prints a basic HTML menu listing off page numbers, each as links to the specified page, with the current page highlighted in bold.

There are some changes to the CollectionIterator class as well:

CollectionIterator

• Added $_currPos property: keeps track of which element of the current page is currently in iteration
• Added goToPage() method: “fast-forwards” the CollectionIterator to the appropriate starting position for the current page, as indicated by Collection::page_number()
• Modified rewind() method: If pagination is available, goes back to the start of the current page rather than back to the beginning of the entire Collection
• Modified next() method: Added $ignore parameter which, if enabled, does not count towards page_number items as it iterates towards the appropriate starting position (see CollectionIterator::goToPage()). If $ignore is false, it properly iterates through items of the current page, while keeping track of the number if items it’s iterated through ($_currPos), ensuring it’s still within the bounds of the page (Collection::per_page()). If it reaches the end of the items of that page, it simply stop any iteration by moving the $_currIndex beyond the bounds of Collection::length() (making CollectionIterator::valid() return false, thus exiting any loops).

To use in context, here’s a quick example:

<php
    /* create collection, fill it with items */
    $colIntegers->paginate(5, (int) $_GET["p"]);
    $colIntegers->pageMenu($_SERVER["REQUEST_URI&quot]);
    print "<ul>\n";
    foreach($colIntegers as $integer) {
        print "<li>{$integer}</li>";
    }
    print "</ul>\n";
?>

This will simply use the Collection of integers, as created above, and create a paginated list, with 5 integers per “page”.

Nothing extravagant. It’s pretty quick and dirty in fact. If you’re not familiar with the WROX code where these classes originated, it’s definitely worth checking out and getting to use them. They’re extremely useful, and hopefully I just made it a little more useful.

I hate to offer a negative side to any review of this book, because it really was quite fascinating and readable, but also much like Pinchbeck’s novel which I reviewed a few weeks ago, it was slightly different than I had originally thought it to be. Beyond those two little tidbits, the two books really have nothing in common. My only gripe with "Death By Black Hole" is that it is a little bit more introductory than I expected it to be, although my complaints don’t stretch any further than that.

I really was expecting the book to be a little bit more in depth and more about the true "quandaries" of the universe. The book has "black hole" right in it’s title, and those little (rather, huge) mysteries I’ve had great interest in. I was a little disappointed that only a relatively small portion of the book covered black holes themselves.

Having just finished a course in school entitled "Life Beyond Earth", quite a bit of information in the first third of the book was a review of a lot of the topics and ideas I had just learned about. What might otherwise have been an unnecessary and boring review was turned around by Mr. Tyson’s excellent ability to capture the reader and offer a quarky side to astrophysics. Even relearning a lot the things I had studied so hard for over the last year in my course (basic existence and formation of stars, galaxies, planets, lagrangian points, etc), he was still able to make it refreshing and interesting.

One of the things I liked about the format of the book, which I might otherwise have found rather annoying, was the multiple-essays-stuck-together form. While transitions between chapters (essays) weren’t perfect for the reader going front to back — there was a bit of overlap and repetition — having it in this form will allow me to head back to the book again and again, and reread or reference the parts of the book I found most interesting and enjoyable.

Some of the more interesting topics from the book I found to be were the interaction between matter and antimatter; some of the insights into the different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum; and formation and lifetimes of stars. The section that surprised me the most, however, was entitled "Science and Culture" where Neil DeGrasse Tyson some of the oft misinterpreted or just completely missed topics and news of astrophysics. Most of this section seemed to me more about his personal, anecdotal experience, it was an interesting way to finish the book, alongside the "Science and God" section.

Overall, it was an extremely well written, capturing book. It’s a great reference and starting point as a brief look into some of the most interesting aspects of astrophysics and cosmology. And although I expected it to be a little bit more in-depth and less introductory, it still offered me a great overview of other topics in the field that I can look at a little deeper independently.

Hemi-Sync Gateway Experience. Wave 1: Discovery - Introduction to Focus 10. Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007: 10:30pm to 10:45pm.

Previous Hemi-Sync Gateway Experience Experiments:
» Wave 1: Discovery - Orientation

It was really quite hot, making getting comfortable somewhat difficult, but I was able to lay motionless by the time the breathing exercises (”Resonant Tuning”) had started. The voice slowly began to induce “Focus 10″ by counting upwards to 10, relaxing individual parts of the body, until the entire body is asleep but mind is awake. I passed the 3-count (i.e. “Focus 3″), but only remember reaching to about a count of 5 or 6. The combination of relaxing my body and (possibly) the binaural beats may have been enough to simply put me to sleep.

Although this was rather unsuccessful, I thought I might log this anyways. If anything, I really need to continue attempts during other times of the day when I’m not so tired. I’m certainly to try “Introduction to Focus 10″ at least one more time before moving on.

Addendum (May 27th, 2007): I should note that since I started attempting the Hemi-Sync tracks again, I’ve noticed that my dreams have been a lot more vivid and I was more readily able to recall them once I had awoken. This is something that I’ve recently had a bit of trouble with up to when I started practicing the Gateway Experience. Whether or not one is the result of the other is indeterminate. I should also make note that it is inefficient to log every, daily attempt during this, so I will hence force only write about the attempts that I deem noteworthy.