Sure, I knew what they meant. But if they are sloppy with their terminology on the knucklehead stuff then it doesn’t bode well for the esoteric stuff to follow.
My point was not to showcase my confusion, rather to reinforce the fact that music theory texts are just generally low quality, and music theory as a field seems to be okay with that.
but it doesnt say that. you paraphrased the book in a way that makes it look sloppy but it was your paraphrased version which is sloppy. if you read through the book when it defines this stuff, it introduces accidentals as "characters that can be placed before notes to raise or lower them" and then in the section on the major scale it says "All major scales use the notes of the musical alphabet in order; no notes are skipped and no notes occur twice." i dont think this is ambiguous
Just look at real estate prices in New York, SF, Boston, etc. Yes, people REALLY like cities. Even the wealthiest people who can afford anything still choose cities
How much of this is because that's where the jobs are? Take that away and where would people choose to live? Wasn't there a notable exodus from SF, for example, during covid when many jobs went remote?
Most of the stuff people do in cities was shut or severely degraded during Covid, not just the jobs. If you can't take a quick walk to your favorite cafe in the morning or stop by a cool art event in the evening, yeah, city living gets relatively less appealing.
I'm genuinely surprised that you don't know lots of people who enjoy living in a city for its own sake and not only because something is keeping them there.
Well, nice to meet you, I'm a city dweller who works from home and can technically live where ever I want. I choose the city because I like it and I want my family to have nice things. I like walking to the kid's school and not owning a car and being close to amenities.
"If there is no longer a reason for people to live close together, decentralization is the most likely outcome."
Umm what? Humans are social animals and many people LIKE living in cities in close proximity to other people and close to amenities. I do not see a future where we decentralize and spread out because of AI.
We have also seen this play out with WFH/Covid. The recall into centralized structures, regardless of the technology available to mitigate the need, was fast and broadly applied.
Our current social structure is actively resistant to decentralization and I don't see that changing unless there is some forcing function to break that hold and keep it broken for new norms to settle into expectations.
My 10 year old brain was blown when I discovered the Buddy Holly music video on the Windows 95 CD. I just couldn't comprehend the idea of a music video being played on a computer. Felt like magic. Such different times.
True, although when my friend showed me PlayStation could load videos from CD ROM, I was blown away because it looked so effortless for a small system.
12 year old me didn't know who Weezer was, yet, but I knew Happy Days thanks to Nick at Nite. I was blown away, and my dad (who was the reason I knew Happy Days) thought I was crazy because he had no idea what it was. It didn't just feel like magic, it was magic. A whole music video right there on my Packard Bell.
I wouldn't say social media is just "filling a void". I feel like it's more accurate to say that social media is exploiting weaknesses in the human brain for profit and causing harm to individuals and society as a whole. I'd even say that it's preventing people from filling that void because it's sucking away people's time.
Imagine if a tobacco executive said "you remove cigarettes and people will just replace it with alcohol or other drugs or another vice altogether". It may be true for some people but overall we've reduced harm by fighting back against cigarettes
That kind of algorithm doesn't show you anything besides the messages in your inbox. It's never making a decision to show you X instead of Y, it's just deciding the ordering in which you see them.
Modern social media is choosing from a vast pool of content and the algorithm's entire goal is to maximize engagement for monetary gain (at whatever cost to society). There's only so much "engagement maxing" you can do with an email sorting algorithm especially if the premise for an email inbox is that you'll always only ever see your emails and nothing else.
For those who are inclined, I recommend running instead (even if you think you aren't a runner)
My body has been completely transformed from 15 years of running. I'm 5'7" and 135 pounds at age 41. My face looks thin, I have a better body than most 20 year olds. I gave myself the best gift that I could possibly give myself.
If they could distill 15 years of running (5x per week) and put it in pill form, I truly believe it would be the most valuable thing medicine has ever created.
All it takes is 45 minutes per day for 5 days per week. And you can actually have fun while doing it! It takes a long time to get to that point but it's so worth it.
For those who are a bit intimidated by the thought of starting running, especially if you are a bit older, you don't need to run hard or fast. Slow jogging (zone 2) results in great cardiovascular improvements. Don't be afraid to start by alternating jogging and walking.
And if you can't spare 45 minutes 5 days per week, do it 3 days a week instead. Something is better than nothing.
I'd actually recommend an incline treadmill. Roughly 10% grade 3mph will give you the same caloric burn as a run but will be significantly easier to perform and save your knees from the wear and tear of running.
The whole "running destroys your knees" thing is a very persistent myth. Running can cause temporary knee injuries, especially in beginners. In the long run it actually strengthens your knees. There has been quite a lot of research on this but unfortunately, it's still in the cultural zeitgeist that running is bad for your knees
Of course, every person is different. Anecdotally, my knees and hips are so much stronger now than they were 15 years ago after running over 20k miles.
It is a bit crazy that everybody seems to agree that diet and exercise are important, and yet it seems like society is hell bent on making those things very hard to do well.
I went to the mall recently (big mistake) and I had to get lunch at the food court. I don't think there was a single gram of fiber across the 10 or so restaurants. So much of America is drive-thru garbage. Yup -- you don't even have to stand up to get your Big Mac. You can endanger other people by eating it while you drive.
We tell people to get exercise and then force them to have 9-5 desk jobs that have a 45 minute car-commute each way. And what's so much worse is that people are paying a ton of money for that car that's slowly killing them. It's not entirely their fault though -- that's just the way our society is set up. Walkability is a luxury only the rich can afford.
Then, 20 years later you show up to the doctor and the standard course of action is to prescribe a bunch of medications. The doctor says "you should exercise more and eat better" and many people just don't.
There's no master plan, it's just that technology is making life more efficient, and more productive. It's also the downside of freedom: you're free to make bad choices too.
Should we ban cars to force people to hike uphill to work? It would mean people would have to live in smaller apartments in cities, and the workforce would have less talent. But we could do it.
Should we ban rich foods in the mall? Do we want to live in a world where the government forces healthy choices on people? Many would argue the downsides outweigh the benefits, and most of us live in democracies.
Society is not obligated to make the choices you want to make easier for you. That will never change, so you might as well focus on yourself and your own habits.
I'm saying that we could enact policies that encourage better habits by default. For example, we don't have to build car-dependent suburbia. Car-dependency is a choice we made. We've largely outlawed the building of walkable cities through zoning codes. There are literally millions upon millions of people who are forced into car-dependent suburbia and stuck with 9-5 jobs where they have to spend 1.5 hours commuting. It's no wonder people find it difficult to exercise. Add kids into the mix and it becomes almost impossible to find the time to drive to a gym to exercise 5 days a week. Many of these suburban cities are openly hostile to people not in cars.
That whole thing I just described is a series of policy choices. We can't save people from themselves but we can encourage better lifestyle choices. People would walk more if there were more stuff to walk to. People would bike to work if it were made possible.
Also, honestly, a world with fewer cars would be a much better place.
Exercise is taxing, and healthy food isn't as tasty or easy as junk food.
Humans are natural experts in min-maxing calories spent vs calories consumed. Then we solved food ~100 years ago and its been a kid in a candy shop ever since.
Gotta find exercise that is fun though. Don’t just try one thing and give up, it takes time to find what you enjoy.
I’ve been swimming for 15 years, but only got into bouldering 1.5 years ago. I tried running and cycling but it always felt like a chore so I could not stick with it.
The food problem is much harder to solve for IMO, even shops are designed to get you to impulse-buy junk. Although one minor tip is to do groceries when you’re full, not when you’re hungry.
A lot of healthy food is much more tasty because it's mostly plants, which is where almost all flavours come from. The trouble is a lot of the time it it's branded as healthy it won't have much salt or oil etc. They make it taste bad so you think it's good for you. But food consisting of mostly plants can be both healthy and delicious, you just have to prepare it like Indians or Italians.
The Mediterranean diet is tasty, but its supposed health benefits are mostly bunk; the whole "blue zone" longevity secret has far more to do with bad record keeping, pensions, and shoddy research than with diet.
"Ultra-processed food" is a vibes-level concept that is likewise more scam than science.
Except when you start eating real food made fresh from quality ingredients. Or sauces being cooked for proper times. There is so incredibly much more flavour to all of that food. It is seriously rewarding both from a nutritional point of view and a mental health side.
We really don’t need to eat so much as we do for the lives most of us lead. Yes, farmers doing heavy labour and cyclists riding the tour du France need to consume 3000 to 6000 kcal because that is the actual labour they perform.
Take small portions of high quality food that you enjoy. Pay attention to what you eat and how it tastes. They will last you longer both in appetite and in the mind.
I know junk food is almost the only thing obtainable on low budget and that is the real poverty. But not having the time to well prepare meals nor having the money to buy the proper ingredients and store them in a cost-effective manner. It is one of the costs of being poor. And it is a sad thing we have the world in that state while we have multi billionaires roving around as well.
People are ignoring climate change too even though they know about it. It’s hard to make good decisions over these long lifestyles, which is why pay as you go taxes or structured retirement savings as part of your paycheck work better than just telling people they should be prepared.
Exercise really is a wonder drug. The best of the best!
If only doctors could prescribe it and have people adhere to the prescription.
If only American culture weren't so car-centric and our daily lives involved some natural amount of exercising. We've built a society where only the privileged few can walk or bike to work. It's just too easy these days to barely move in our normal life. Drive to work, drive to the store, drive the kids places... you literally have to specifically schedule exercise (and ironically, many people will drive to the gym to walk on a treadmill).
It's not that simple. Owning a home is not just a better version of renting. It's a whole different thing with pros and cons.
Your mortgage is the lowest amount you'll pay. On top of that you have to manage the upkeep of the house, which costs both time and money. Lots of people go through phases in their lives where they move around and owning just doesn't make sense for a few 1 to 2 year stretches.
On the other hand, rent is the highest amount you'll pay. You generally don't have to worry about upkeep, and you're free to move. The commitment is lower and that has real value for certain people at certain stages of their lives.
I rented for 6 years in different areas until I figured out what I liked, and then I bought a house. Those 6 years weren't just wasted years. Those were very valuable years where renting really made the most sense.
> Your mortgage is the lowest amount you'll pay.
> rent is the highest amount you'll pay.
I don't like these 2 statements because they are only true at a starting point. If someone gets a mortgage today for $2k/month, 10 years from now it'll still be $2k/month, or even less if rates drop and they refinance. Rents OTOH will continue to rise with inflation. I had a $2k/month mortgage at my last house and the house next door rented for $4500/month.
Yes and no to both parts. Mortgages often come with things like property taxes and insurance, both which go up over time, and often by significant amounts. These things also apply to rents, but are wrapped in. In many areas rents will rise far above inflation rates. It would in theory be impossible to have a mortgage that is more than rent for the same property unless the landlord is making 0 money.
> On top of that you have to manage the upkeep of the house, which costs both time and money.
Well guess who has to pay for that in a house that is rented? It's the renter!
Just the same as when you rent a car, the cost for maintenance is included in your rental fee.
You're just as free to move if you own a house: Just sell it, or rent it out. Any inconvenience from doing that is easily worth the money you save by not giving it away in paying rent.
> Well guess who has to pay for that in a house that is rented? It's the renter!
On average, over time, in a free market, yes. But not necessarily in any specific case. The rent is a cap during the lease period, no matter what the landlord has to pay for maintenance.
D major: D E F♯ G A B C♯
D minor: D E F G A B♭ C
Db major: D♭ E♭ F G♭ A♭ B♭ C
Db minor: D♭ E♭ F♭ G♭ A♭ B♭♭ C♭
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