Archive for the 'recommendations' Category

Butter Vaughn Kingson

Published
by
aaron
on January 15, 2008
in music and recommendations
. 3 Comments

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I am somewhat slanted and self-promotional in talking about it, but I think it’s a project worthwhile, and entirely in need of sharing. Butter Vaughn Kingson is a musical group comprised entirely by my friend Lee.

Lee makes music in a way that is compulsive and honest and endearing. He has made nearly 30 albums of music since June 2006, and with a steady stream of between 10 to 30 new tracks every month, there’s not really much end in sight. All of which, by the way, are available on his website entirely free through torrents without rights management.

Every time I speak to him about why or how he is able to create and keep on creating, Lee maintains his (here paraphrased) mantra of: “I want to make the most popular song ever!” Regardless of whether he makes one single song we can all agree on, there is enough here already for each of us to enjoy at the very least something.

Butter Vaughn Kingson has been making music since he began learning music, and if anything these albums are a documentation of one person’s eclectic tastes in music translated in to the physical process of developing songwriting, guitar and vocal ability. It has been an absolute pleasure learning, listening and creating from/with/to/with him. I love Lee for more reasons than his songs, but songs are much easier to download through torrents.

You can find and download any and everything from Butter Vaughn Kingson at buttervaughnkingson.blueandbrownbooks.com (this song below is my current favourite, but please check out more from Butter Vaughn Kingson’s site, there’s a flash media player on the main page.)

 
icon for podpress  I'm Just a Shell: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On Freedom of Will

Published
by
aaron
on November 15, 2007
in books, language, recommendations and thoughts on...
. 1 Comment

Warning: Long and Convoluted Reading Ahead

What is freedom really? What does a person mean when they say their freedom is impeded upon? What do we mean when we talk of government (the verb, not the noun)?

This of course relates to the most “Introductory” of “Intro” questions “Are we as human beings in control of our own will, or are we determined by our biologies, god or some other higher control?”. I would say that how you answer this question relates entirely to several issues we’ve touched on so far. Namely, the question of ’something rather than nothing’, and the majority of the ‘A Cat Named Schrodinger‘ series that looks at epistemological foundations.

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A podcast I’ve been listening to for some time now is Philosophy Bites, which is a short philosophy podcast that is very well produced and well presented. As an aside, far too often ‘philosophy’ podcasts, blogs, etc. are too whimsical, mild and broad (the present company included!). Bites is a short and concise presentation of an idea or notion or thinker often by someone who has committed a great deal of their own work to the topic at hand. I highly recommend this as it stays true to the tradition and the academic pursuit itself, in the format of a kind of interview or seminar.

On a recent edition of Philosophy Bites was Quentin Skinner and his attempt to define the state by way of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. The reason I bring this particular discussion up is not for any specific contention with Hobbes, or Skinner’s interpretation, but that it is all together a typical and well presented view of ‘the State’ and what we typically think it means ‘to be governed’ thereby making a case for how we typically view the notion of freedom, and freedom of will.

Hobbes is the grandfather of the liberal democracy, and furthermore this idea of Leviathan is the foundation of all social and political philosophy thereafter. Also, for the upcoming Letters to Nana I’ll be discussing the idea of ‘Social Contract‘ and ‘State of Nature‘ at length, and this might help with some clarification. (Although, saying that it is by no means required listening. These are very accessible ideas!)

… Continue reading ‘On Freedom of Will’

tumblr: The Blue and Brown Crumpled Balls of Papers

Published
by
aaron
on November 14, 2007
in recommendations and tools
. 0 Comments

You may or may not know of The Blue and Brown Crumpled Balls of Papers, an aggregate of junk from RSS feeds, and/or any other item of interest one might find at random. I only suggest this out of hope that you might find it somewhat stimulating in your quest to ward ‘the boredom’ off.

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this is powered entirely by ‘tumblr‘, one of the easiest and (just recently updated) slick-looking tumble-log interfaces I’ve come across. Not only will it import any feeds from your Twitter, or blog, it also works seamlessly with Google Reader’s Shared Items (see the post on Google Reader if you missed it).

This is an easy way to keep track of items of interest, and share them in a larger space. It’s also a great ‘lazy blogger’ tool. Do you have friends (or family) who send you endless ‘FWD:’ emails? Random pictures or embedded youtube clips on your myspace? Instead of putting them in your ‘almost spam’ folder, try recommending a tumble-log instead. I’m fairly sure tumblr is a perfect tool for them, free, easy, and it makes your junk look half-presentable.