Redemption: The Bizarre Changes In My Political Views The Morning After

Had I planned this blog post last night, it would have been a rant post about how everyone was wrong and I was right. That’s an exaggeration, but I think you get the feeling I’m talking about.

However, I woke up this morning with a re-aligning of my political views.

Firstly- and one of the most drastic for me- is that I finally accepted Tony Blair as a good Prime Minister, maybe one of the best. This doesn’t forgive his war, it doesn’t forgive the privatisation of various public services that started under his watch, or enjoying the poisoned apple of the Murdoch press. But, on a continuum, if we returned to a Blair administration today, it would be a far more progressive government than the one we are staring at now. It would certainly help more of our most vulnerable in society. It wouldn’t be as radical as I would have liked… But it would be much more of a positive force for good. And, on top of that, have the mandate of the British people.

The second for me was finally accepting the EU referendum result. I think it will make life harder for us in the long run, and think it will be a sad day for internationalist politics as a whole when it happens. But I am at the point I would rather be under a Labour government- whether Blair or Corbyn- whilst leaving the EU than the Tories.

I found more subtle things changing within me as well. If I were to re-join the Labour Party, I would much more likely vote for a moderate candidate than when I voted for Corbyn a few years ago. I agree with Corbyn much more- but would rather a Labour government actually in power, able to enact at least some of these beneficial policies.

This isn’t where I lay the blame on Corbyn, unlike most on the centre-left. At the end of the day, he was voted as leader by members of the party. He was elected- twice- on a platform that was clear to members, and that he delivered. Sadly, that platform turned out not to be one that would have won this election.

Now isn’t the time to ostracise movements such as Momentum. Instead, invite them to the table, to return the party to the coalition of varied views that make up the centre-to-left spectrum; along with New Labour, Progress, Compass, The Fabian Society, The Co-operative Party and of course the trade unions.

This is the Labour party I would like to return to. We are far, far stronger united and with the common goal of Social Democratic values; improving the Welfare State; improving the lives of the most vulnerable in society than apart.

Exasperation.

Exasperation. That is the only word I have about the state of political play at the moment. Now, more than ever, it seems impossible for anyone to have a balanced view: whether "Brexiteer" or "Remoaner", alt-right or "Social Justice Warrior"... Every point of view has a box, or a label, that it belongs to: and every point of view has an ulterior motive. "You would think that" being the natural response.

At this point, I believe it only fair to state my own views. I am a passionate believer in the EU. Some of that is because it melds with my values: that we can be greater as a whole than the sum of our parts. And, that with political as well as an economic union, we are much less likely to go to war. That could be labelled as a rather extreme position, but that position extends internationally. I also strongly support our membership of the UN. And the politics of compromise across nations set a gold standard for the rest of the world. I believe leaving the EU will be one of the biggest mistakes of our generation.

Despite having what some would describe as an "extremist remain" point of view, my personality also very strongly veers me to the solution with the most compromise between groups. Was I an MP, I would have voted for Brexit 4 times by now. This has certain caveats: if I were elected in my constituency specifically on a "stop Brexit" message, I would not have done (i.e. as a Lib Dem or Green Party MP). But, were I a Labour or Conservative backbencher, I would have very likely voted for each of these "deals" (which, let's face it, are nothing of the sort: they are merely the withdrawal agreement... Or rather, the agreement about how we will start to negotiate a deal).

I would do this because we had an election just a year AFTER the 2016 referendum. More than that, one of the strongest messages of the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum was how important the link between a constituent and their MP is. The excuse that the MPs party campaigned on a "leave" manifesto isn't good enough for me. Under our current voting system, the burden is on the voter to find out where their MP lies. Put simply: in 2017, the people had ample opportunity to vote in a Brexit MP if they so desired. (Ironically, I would have far more sympathy if an MEP didn't vote along with their party in the EU Parliament!! As you vote for a party, rather than an individual).

Meanwhile, we have a newly formed Liberal Party... Which basically are the eurosceptic Lib Dems who were kicked out or left their old party. To me, before the EU referendum, the whole selling point of the Lib Dems were that they were a democratic party... That individual opinons are taken into account and voted on... "Democratic" is literally in its name! The stereotypical Lib Dem was portrayed as wearing shorts and sandals at conferences; something I have heard some Lib Dems are "thankful" is dying out. Personally, this makes me sad! To me this suggested, when it came to policy-making, you didn't have to be a stereotypical suit. It spoke of a party that contained a wide range of views. The Lib Dems were a party that were able to go into coalition even with the "evil Tories"... something that, to me, is a very open-minded thing to do. I will always think the Lib Dems were sincere in that coalition; whether the Tories were is debateable. The betrayal for me was the University Fee fiasco; simply because that was a pledge individual MPs made, rather than purely being a party policy... It comes back to the MP-Constituency link. Personally, I believe the Lib Dems acted as a buffer in that coalition... Just think, if the coalition still existed, there probably wouldn't even have been an EU Referendum in the firstplace!!

The final part of this essay/long-form ramble was about "truth". This was the thing that started me off writing in the first place: how will Brexit directly benefit or harm me as an individual? Versus: How will remaining in the EU benefit or harm me as an individual?... However I might do this tomorrow. I might never do it.

Ubuntu Studio Review: My Favourite DM, Compositor, Workflow, Latency… Part 1

So recently I have been using Ubuntu Studio as my primary OS, mostly to benefit from its support for creating MIDI music, and also its support for the myriad of devices I own, some of which not even Windows easily supports anymore.

Now, back when Ubuntu Studio first came onto the scene, it used Xubuntu (or the XFCE desktop environment) as its base. This made sense; it offered virtually everything that Gnome did, just a bit flashier. So that hardware power could be devoted to music making. Or photo-editing. Or whatever floats your boat. It was also seen as the “lightweight” desktop environment at the time.

Since then, however, things have changed. The “lightweight” monicker has now been taken by Lubuntu/LXDE… which has in turn moved over to QT, now being called LXQT. This also makes sense; I have always found QT very lightweight when I have used it on Windows. Meanwhile, there have been constant wars over the direction of Gnome and KDE for the last 5 or 6 years, with Gnome fragmenting more it appears… With Mate, Cinnamon, Gnome-Shell and now Gnome-Flashback on the scene.

Just to complicate matters… I personally loved the Gnome-Shell environment. I loved swiping to the top left corner to find my apps and windows; I loved the removal of the minimise button; I loved the translation of the mobile metaphor to a desktop environment. I acknowledge not everyone liked this… And admit I used Cinnamon rather than the official Gnome-Shell in the past, only because it was the first to receive extensions and meant I could customise it just that little bit more. In this environment, XFCE feels a bit homeless.

So, I decided today: I would install, and try out every sensible combination I can think of, in order to decide which one works the best. There won’t be any scientific basis to my conclusions, so please accept them merely as a hobbyist music maker. I don’t intend on doing clean installs or going the whole way. Just go with the combination that feels right.

Despite not being scientific, I aim to evaluate each interface/environment combination based on these headers:

• Performance: How does it run? Are there many slowdowns? Am I still able to do what I need from the software?
• Ease-of-Use: This will be rated based on how much setup is required after booting up. Potentially, I may include how hard it was to get the system into the state I wanted to as well.
• Graphics: This overlaps with the previous two a little bit. Does the interface look nice and consistent, across GTK and QT/KDE apps? Even if it requires some extra initial setup. Also, does it just look… nice? Here, I compare with MacOS… Or at least, how people describe it. I have only owned one Mac in my life, and I’ve never liked the Apple fetishism. Really, here, I want to be able to show that Linux/Ubuntu can be a decent alternative to a Mac.

So, that is my basis. I think to begin with I will be using SDDM + KDE as my starting point. Additionally, I am using the kxstudio repository, as I prefer using Cadence for managing my JACK/ALSA audio.

Finally, I wish to repeat, there is nothing scientific about this. It is likely you may be more technically minded than myself, or alternatively more audiophile than myself. This is an experiment for me as much as you, the reader! Enjoy!

Energy Drinks, Cigarettes and Health and Safety

There appears to be a bizarre trend with the British, of which I’m a member of. It seems to be the flow of logic that is best summarised as “actively pointing out the splinter in other people’s eyes, whilst having a log in their own”.

And what better example to think of than energy drinks. Personally, I drink energy drinks as an alternative to coffee. I don’t generally like hot drinks, as I don’t deal well with heat or warm weather full stop. As an energy drink is the equivalent of a few cups of coffee, it seems a sensible drink to have in moderation.

And yet, people go to great lengths to tell you they are bad for you, that they can kill you, that they can cause all manner of side effects. I kid you not, I have even had smokers tell me these drinks are bad for me. To which I feel like saying, statistically, they are far more likely to die of a whole range of illnesses than I am. Even with non-smokers, people are quite happy to get paralytic every weekend without people raising as much as an eyelid. Indeed, alcohol intake is generally seen as probably not good for you, but a social norm, so worth it.

And yet, as a country, we regularly like to moan about “health and safety gone mad”, despite this being an accurate description of my fellow Brit. “Those are bad for you, you know”, “your shoelaces are undone, you will trip” (for the record, in my 30-odd years on this earth, I have never once tripped on the incredibly rare occasion my shoelaces have been untied).

This really does become madness when you consider most of the “EU health and safety madness” comes from laws originally drawn up by us Brits; British lawmakers, politicians and civil servants.

Or, in plain English, its OK to point out other people’s flaws, but not our own.

It all seems a little narcissistic, don’t you think?

Moving Forward; EdX; TypingClub dislikes British Keyboards

So it has been a fair few months, and I'm at the point I'd usually not bother with blogging anymore. Or create a new blog. My plans foiled once again by my own lack of self-determination and laziness. To be fair, however, I have moved back into Lincoln at last and living on my own again rather than holed up at my parents' place (not to mean any disrespect to them, however, as they have helped get me through this last year).

So now I am finished with the move. And it seemed appropriate to start typing a post again.

I do have some ideas for apps in the works, with lots of diagrams and labels to show how I want them to look. My aim is, having a precise specification of what I want to create, I will then be able to abstract from that the skills and tools I need to (finally!!) start feeling like I can develop something (as opposed to wasting oxygen).

I am also enrolled on an edX.org course. This was always my aim once I had moved. The course in particular is the Introduction To Computer Science And Programming Using Python Course, and I'm really hoping I can keep up with it. So far I have watched the first video and read through the first set of materials. Maybe with an App in mind, I'll actually be able to see it through to the end!

I have also gone back to using TypingClub to improve my touch-typing ability now I finally have an actual desk with full-size keyboard again. I have hit a stumbling block, however... In the fact it doesn't support British Keyboards. Meaning, from a particular point, I will never be able to progress further as it will always be expecting a hash key (rather than the £ sign, which takes its place on the British Keyboard). This seems a bit odd to not have fixed, as all it would have taken is to swap the keys around on their end. I'm not bothered about the US spellings, as I'm not using the site to learn how to spell but rather I am there to learn how to type. But oh well... I shall try to contact them to see when/if they will fix it, and in the meantime keep following the previous exercises until I can't improve anymore. The previous exercises included many actual typing experiences anyway, so it should keep me entertained for a while!!

At The End Of Basic Front-End Dev Projects: My Current Issues w/FreeCodeCamp

Up until last week, FreeCodeCamp had been like a dream come true. It had brilliant small, measurable and achievable goals in order to help keep momentum in programming learning, even if you only had the energy for the smallest commitment in the day. It reminded me of the feeling I got when I very first coded with Codecademy: how simple it was to begin, as well as continue, straight from the homepage.

However, I have come to the end of the "Basic Front-End Development" block... And I've reached a sudden roadblock. Technically, yes, we should know everything we have been taught up to that point. I have a reasonable idea of how to use <div>'s and <div class>'s in order to group elements together. I even figured out, through my own research, the one thing I had always wondered... How to create a neat menu along the top, that also follows you as you scroll the page (it turns out it's just an unordered list, with some extra CSS!).

However, the biggest stumbling block was creating my own portfolio page. The "Tribute" project was much easier, as it was easy enough to create an "Ironic" page that incorporated the lyrics of Tenacious D's tribute. I found I completed a rudimentary page pretty quickly on my first attempt, without looking anything up.

Then I got to the Portfolio project. And, I put my hands up (as I increasingly regularly do): the biggest obstacle to my learning is that I am a top-tier perfectionist. If I know exactly what I want, I'll end up creating ridiculous amounts of work for myself to incorporate even the smallest, unimportant element... Even if it means I make no progress with the actual page.

This can be a helpful and important skill; as I mentioned, I have now learned something about creating navigation bars which, even weeks after first learning it, hasn't left me. The problem came when I really wanted that bar to contain a "now playing" section, displaying my currently playing Last.FM track.

In a nutshell, the biggest problem in creating a portfolio for myself is my own ridiculous set of standards. The task was significantly easier when I forced myself into the easier task of emulating my brother's stylish website... But even then, I came up with problems like trying to get a navigation bar centred, and the problems that developed with page colouring when I attempted that.

More than that, I feel as if FreeCodeCamp went from being a course that was very easy to follow, with gamification seemingly ingrained into its soul, to a task where I was suddenly thrown at the deep end. Again, technically this is stuff I have just been taught. But I feel the course could have benefited from another guided example for creating an entire web page within its learning environment (maybe with fewer hints and cues) before asking us to create our own site.

The thing is... I do have a rudimentary Portfolio page created from this as well. And I have made the decision just to submit it; as I know doing so will get me out of this rut, and looking at the continuing course, it goes back to the format of small, achievable tasks.  I intend to go back and improve it as I become more knowledgeable, as well as e-mail/submit this in some way to help improve the course (hell, I would even be willing to help create the learning materials for it).

Anyway, here I present https://glitchwalker.github.io (oh, yeah, I used GitHub instead of the site they suggested; as I already have it set up to update game mod projects, and I preferred the workflow of having the entire site working and editable on my own computer already).

Free Code Camp is free to use and is available at https://www.freecodecamp.org. The learning materials are also open source, and free to use within any setting.

Thank you for being my voice. #RIPCHESTER

The thing that hits me as I grow older is that people keep dying. When you're a kid, it's maybe the famous people you faintly know on TV, or a great-grandparent you are too young to really remember (my heart goes out to anyone who had a traumatic loss as a child). The older I get, the more I find it's the celebrities that I listened to and grew up with... The deaths in our own communities become people we had closer relationships, closer members of our family and friends.

In terms of celebrity, no death has hit me quite as hard as that of Chester Bennington. For so many reasons... some of which I will try to get down here.

It is such an odd feeling, as I haven't really followed them for a long time... More than that, they are so deeply ingrained in the 00s nu-metal scene... I can't be the only person that loved them as a teen, then "grew out" of them... Thinking they were the heaviest metal I ever heard in my youth, whilst thinking of those songs more like pop music really as an adult. This isn't me trying to slate the band, I'm trying to explain my honest thoughts before Chester's death... And what I would probably think still were he still with us.

The honest truth is, despite these thoughts... I fucking love Linkin Park. It's so easy, with hindsight, to see them as that poppy, teeny band with baggy trousers pretending to be rockers. But the reality is they were a huge influence... There is no one quite like them. And I'd argue, without Linkin Park, there would be fewer fans of rock music in the world.

Up to the moment that they came onto the scene, even nu-metal had that feeling of sweary, screaming, sex-obsessed rocky stoners. Linkin Park crossed that divide with more melodic vocals, more personal emotions and a unique innocence that is incredibly rare in any form of popular music these days (highlighted by the fact their first two albums, as far as I'm aware, had no swearing). Few of those listening would even realise these lyrics were written by a guy who suffered child abuse; they spoke to anyone and everyone going through school and feeling their voice wasn't being. They spoke to anyone that ever felt they weren't being listened to (which, really, at some points is all of us). And they literally crossed genres, between hip-hop and metal, between rapping, screaming and singing. I remember the "Numb/Encore" mash-up being on the charts forever, and it's easy to see why... It could appeal to such a massive audience.

The band used this to grow into other genres... To a certain extent, trying to disown their previous work. I can understand why. There are some that could describe Hybrid Theory and Meteora as a smear on their career... There are others that probably felt like me, feeling a bit too old to enjoy their older work, but not really being a huge fan of their newer work. The reality is every album they released had sales most artists could only dream of. And, arguably, they had earned the right to put out whatever they wanted to create.

Despite some reports to the contrary, I had never, ever, gotten the impression they were "sell-outs", or that they were just trying to gain sales. In fact, the only time I had ever considered this was when Meteora was released (sounding like a continuation of Hybrid Theory). I still loved that album, however.

I'm realising I'm actually spending very little time on the man himself, but rather the band he was the lead singer of. All of my emotions seem tied to the work of the band itself... It was through this band that Chester spoke to me in tracks like In The End and Numb when I was suicidal, depressed, lonely. Part of me feels it's an exaggeration to put them on par with The Beetles, Michael Jackson, or David Bowie. But My honest opinion is that they had the same worldwide impact all these other artists had. And as a listener, you felt a certain, anonymous, intimacy with Chester. Without knowing his situation, you felt and empathised with the fact he was drowning in his skin... That, in the end, it didn't even matter.

This isn't more obvious than the recent music video to the track One More Light. It's a song I may never have listened to were it not for recent events. As the video went on, it was like watching a montage of my youth. With one event, that song now has such a powerful meaning for me... Like the band's own epitaph. You listen and, along with its music video, feel like maybe he is talking about himself, or suicide in general... when in actuality it was written in memory of a friend who died of cancer.

The reality is he seemed to have a tortured youth, which led to substance misuse, self-loathing. Despite that (maybe because of his experience?) he became the lead singer of one of the biggest bands in the world. He always felt like a beacon of hope; an example of how you can't choose the hand you are dealt, but you can still follow your dreams. To hear of his death breaks down that construct in my head. I had the same experience with one of my closest friends... Another person who had been through the worst of life and seemed to pull through and find success/happiness... But ended up ending his own life. The meaning of their songs feels, in some ways, forever changed... Maybe even more intimate, and sincere, than we had ever imagined cranking up the volume after a day at school.