Month: September 2017

  • Conjure One – Like Ice (feat. Jaren)

    Conjure One – Like Ice (feat. Jaren)

    This one starts off with an arguably unremarkable, 1 minute long intro. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad. An intro is valuable to emphasize the part when the melody gets going. I just think that this intro doesn’t really do justice to the song.

    The melody is groovy yet dreamy, showcasing the strong, evocative voice of the one called Jaren. She’s accompanied by an army of synths and sparse piano arrangements. Rhys Fulber (of Delerium^ fame) doesn’t waste a beat here (which I measure by thinking if I would like the song if I would listen to the instrumental-only version). Even after a couple of listens I can still find new intricate sound textures. The lyrics are quite good too and that’s always a bonus.

    “When the sun was strong
    And shadows grew so long
    She stole her way
    Into your empty heart

    And she moved like ice
    She was cool and blue like ice
    No flaws on her, no imperfections
    She changed your direction
    What could you do”

    YouTube (decent quality):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy1KQZKl1hA

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy1KQZKl1hA^

    For Spotify Users (high quality):

    https://open.spotify.com/track/0AOzhhZwRRhq2dS84aNoIV^

    For Deezer Users (high quality):

    http://www.deezer.com/track/85020419^

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  • Germany, Nationalism and the NFL

    Germany, Nationalism and the NFL

    A far-right party has just entered the German parliament^. It is a frightening indicator that even a nation that has put people through – and gone itself through – terrible suffering at the hands of such ideology is not safe from a wave of worldwide nationalism that threatens to do great harm to our society in the near future. In the meantime, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean the very same nationalism is mocking sportsmen’s civic attitude^. I’m referring here to Trump’s comments about National (American) Football League players who kneel during the singing of the national anthem in protest of the racial segregation in their country.

    To call somebody that has gone through grueling physical trials to reach the pinnacle of a sport a “son of a bitch” is the lowest I’ve seen Trump sink since taking office. This is why for me this is even more important than the predictable election result of a German right-wing party. Regardless of Trump’s policies, as president of the United States he is also a trend-setter, especially in countries within the USA’s sphere of influence (which is not limited to NATO countries).

    Trump has an issue with sportsmen using the NFL as a sort of political platform in order to protest racial discrimination. It is sad that he has the slightest negative personal gripe with this and outright preposterous that he goes public with it. The very fact that people have become so desperate as to use sport as a means of protest should make every American think twice about the dismal situation in which their divided federation finds itself. Trump, of course, should read a bit of history, as there have been at least four major boycotts of the Olympic Games^: this is not the first time sport has been used to draw attention towards an outrageous situation.

    The players’ respect towards “the flag” is called into question. This is incredibly misguided and it’s sad that some people even consider the notion. I like to think that for some Americans their flag means more than a tool for encouraging people to consume and die for in unjust wars. I’m sure that quite a few Americans like to think of their flag as a symbol of everybody. Those players are defending what that flag – any flag for that matter – should really stand for: a symbol of union. Instead, they are mocked by a person who preaches division by trickling poison into the hearts and minds of those desperate enough to take it (and there’s plenty of those across the world now-a-days).

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/02398-GermanyNationalismNFL-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Germany, Nationalism and the NFL’ desc=’A far-right party has just entered the German parliament. In the meantime, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean the very same nationalism is mocking sportsmen's civic attitude.’]

  • Zentriert Ins Antlitz – Pasiphae

    Zentriert Ins Antlitz – Pasiphae

    A mysterious buildup leads into a red-hot melodic core that fuses orchestral arrangements with powerful electronic textures. It all leads to even more mystery and evocative sonic landscapes. The audio sample used in the song is perfectly chosen, contributing to the melody’s feeling of cosmic adventure.

    This one is definitely a body mover, but I prefer the “eyes-closed brain massage” part of it even more. It’s also one of the best songs I heard in 2017.

    You can listen to the melody for free, in good quality, on BandCamp, which is one of the best websites when it comes to supporting artists. You can also purchase the (dark electronica) compilation (by Tympanik audio, a label that has several other amazing dark electronica artists such as Geomatic^ and Subheim^) which contains the song from this same location.

    https://tympanikaudio.bandcamp.com/track/zentriert-ins-antlitz-pasiphae^

    YouTube (decent quality):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRFXvAQu_U8^

    For Spotify Users (high quality):

    https://open.spotify.com/track/3POp3C3pUYt64c9VskLW0e^

    For Deezer Users (high quality):

    http://www.deezer.com/track/73907200^

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/02095-ZentriertPasiphae-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Zentriert Ins Antlitz – Pasiphae’ desc=’A mysterious buildup leads into a red-hot melodic core that fuses orchestral arrangements with powerful electronic textures.’]

  • Behind China’s Success

    Behind China’s Success

    Like pretty much everybody that is up to date with current events, I’ve been following China’s rise as a high-tech superpower with great interest. The article below touches on some very important points concerning innovation while showing some interesting statistics about one of China’s innovation hubs, Shenzhen:

    http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21720076-copycats-are-out-innovators-are-shenzhen-hothouse-innovation^

    But there’s more than patent applications that will power China’s success. The country’s social system is more competitive than many of its Western adversaries. Many Westerners (including me) would have ethical qualms in toying with genetically engineered human embryos. I’m quite sure that China is willing to go further and faster with such experiments. It is quite possible that this is an even greater game-changer than our so-called efforts into artificial “intelligence”^ (for a reality check regarding the marketing trick sold as “intelligence”, check the linked article).

    China has lots of natural resources (land, minerals) and it knows how to use them (unfortunately it also generally has less moral qualms about damaging the ecosystem compared to other countries). Combine all this with a government which (like it or not) has been more constant than many of the competing superpowers and you get the textbook definition of “game-changer”. The following years will no doubt be very interesting (and hopefully we’ll see some good decisions being taken going forwards).

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/02390-ChinasRiseTech-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Behind China's Success’ desc=’About China's rise as a high-tech superpower.’]

  • The Danger with Artificial “Intelligence” Is That It’s Not (yet) Intelligent

    The Danger with Artificial “Intelligence” Is That It’s Not (yet) Intelligent

    Albert Einstein once said that “our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal”. He said this in December 1917, almost a hundred years ago, after seeing Europe ravaged by the First World War. Regardless, Einstein continued contributing to that same technological progress. Human curiosity and our desire to achieve are incompatible with stagnation. We will have to deal with this by being careful with the technology we will inevitably develop.

    Like many have said before me, Artificial Intelligence (AI) can either be our salvation or our doom^. It is a far bigger game-changer than nuclear bombs. But the problem is that there is NO Artificial Intelligence yet, and there won’t be for quite some time to come. Everything that the world’s corporations are selling now-a-days as “smart” or “intelligent” is actually a mindless human construct. Sure, it’s advanced, but if a rocket is more advanced than a spoon, that doesn’t make it in the slightest more intelligent than the spoon. They both lack one of the prime ingredients of intelligence, which is self-awareness. And therein lays the true threat.

    Right now, our so-called artificial “intelligence” is nothing but a tool that corporations can and will use ruthlessly against one another (and against the people of one another). This is already taking place on the stock market, something I wrote about last year^. Back then, I highlighted the fact that exactly because these algorithms are not intelligent, they will be used to enrich and empower whoever spent money in building them, regardless of their morals or social affiliation. And let’s not forget that software is far easier to steal and smuggle than radioactive material. Put the wrong AI in the hands of the wrong people and…

    War Games

    Creating algorithms that are able to play (and utterly eliminate human competition) in war games is not a new concept. The military has had an interest in this for a long time now. But what is truly worrying for me is how the development of life-exterminating programs has been handed over to civilians (software engineers for example) in the disguise of “harmless fun”. For example Google and game developer Blizzard are cooperating on creating strategy game algorithms^ that can defeat human players. Even Elon Musk’s allegedly harmless and ethical Open AI has given birth to a bot that can defeat human players^ in the virtual battle arena. I have a great deal of respect for Elon, but even he can’t keep AI from being developed into a weapon of war.

    Musk specifically wants AI research to be highly regulated, allegedly to make sure that it cannot harm humans. Let me loosely translate “regulation”: we will make sure that AI is a slave to its human masters. That’s what “regulation” usually means when used “to protect us” from something: bringing it under somebody’s control. And like anything that is slave to the human masters, it can be used for nefarious purposes, just like nukes. This is not to say that we should create a super-intelligent life form and give it the power to decide if it wants to keep us around or exterminate us. But rather than using the word “regulation”, I want to propose that we use the word “responsibilization”.

    What I see right now is talented civilians that are (for the most part) unknowingly developing the weapons of tomorrow. It starts with an AI controlling harmless characters doing battle in a computer game. Then the military will “borrow” that work and use it to drive an army of drones. But this isn’t even the problem. If one country doesn’t resort to using automated weaponry, another will. There probably is no way of stopping this. It is understandable that nation-states want to defend themselves (given that society is, for the most part, still stuck in the “an eye for an eye” era). The problem is bugs.

    Our software is buggy

    Having worked as a software engineer for more than 15 years, I know that finding a flaw in a software program is much more difficult than noticing a flaw on something produced in a factory. This is one of the reasons why our software is so buggy. No matter how many tests we throw at it, there’s almost always something missing. As a matter of fact, the immaterial nature of software required us to abandon thoroughly planned ways of work (implementing an already agreed-upon design) in favor of something that is called “iterative design” (shorthand for “tweak it and re-do it until you do it right”).

    In other words, we realized that we can’t build software right the first time around, so then we will try a few times until we reach the desired result. Doing that with, say a multi-million dollar bridge project isn’t exactly what your government would consider a sound plan. Developing artificially “intelligent” software, which may very well one day oversee military assets, as a sort of iterative software experiment would be outright crazy. Even with human supervision, using such technology can lead to tragic results.

    So what to do?

    Because we can’t (and shouldn’t) deter human curiosity and because we can’t stop corporations and military interests from developing artificial intelligence, what I believe we should do is to educate. The risks should be made clear to everybody even considering toying with this stuff. Corporate responsibility has never been more important.

    And yet we live in a day and age when companies are often led by unscrupulous investors^. Imagine that some of these people are building something that is several orders of magnitude more powerful and influential than the atom bomb. And it’s not happening in some cordoned-off remote area of the desert. It’s happening right under the governments’ noses, in the very cities where we live.

    For a long time now our technology has been evolving much faster than our society and our anatomy. As all life forms, most of us are born with a powerful survival instinct. A lot of our violent tendencies come from there. But thankfully, our consciousness provides us with the means to override instinct. There is also another highly beneficial trait that evolution has given us: empathy (*).

    Perhaps this is the true test of artificial intelligence and any technology that grants vast powers to its inventors. The society of a species that wields advanced technology must be mature enough (read: no psychopaths, especially none in charge of countries or powerful corporations), or else it will suffer and potentially even self-destruct as a result of misusing that technology.

    We generally don’t advise guns being left on the table for the children to play with. Especially if the gun isn’t smart enough to say: “I refuse to shoot your brother”. Currently, our artificially “intelligent” programs are still at the exact same level as our revolvers.

     

     

     

    (*^) I am in favor of having empathy as a mandatory (perhaps the only mandatory) subject of study during all years of a child’s education, right up to and including university. Empathy should be studied starting from basic concepts and down to the most intricate psychological and neurological mechanisms as well as their manifestation in society. Only so do I believe we can avoid the risk of weaponizing pathological criminals – the danger Einstein was referring to.

    [ax_meta fbimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/02379-ANoI-Share.jpg’ lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/02379-ANoI-Thumb.jpg’ fbimgw=’1170′ fbimgh=’350′ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’The Danger with Artificial "Intelligence" Is That It's Not (yet) Intelligent’ desc=’Everything that the world's corporations are selling now-a-days as "smart" or "intelligent" is actually a mindless human construct. The debunked name should be Artificial Non-Intelligence.’]

  • Lulu Rouge – Landscape of Love (feat. Fanney Osk)

    Lulu Rouge – Landscape of Love (feat. Fanney Osk)

    Oh, my Music, I’m fascinated by you. Sometimes you blow my mind. This song is like a steady, patient wind that will either freeze or melt anything in its path, depending how you choose to feel it. The flawless punctuation will make sure that whatever path you take will turn into a memorable adventure. Just hit play and you’ll understand what I mean by “punctuation”.

    I always had a soft spot for minimal electronica. This melody hit me straight in the headheart. In the seven months that have passed since I discovered this tune, it has not yet been dethroned as “song of 2017” and I’m “losing hope” that I’ll come across anything better. But paradoxically, I also hope I won’t.

    After listening to the song for plenty of times, I went and looked for the video. That’s when the song went from “amazing” to “mind-blowing”. I didn’t expect such a gorgeous video. I now consider this pair as one of the best song-video combinations I ever saw. Every time I listen to this song, I roam seemingly-barren lands and challenge myself to find the love hidden among the human detritus.

    “My landscape of love
    Different patterns all around.
    My landscape of love
    Seeking for the special vow.
    My landscape of love
    Lonesome in my soul,
    I’ve found.

    Down the waterfall
    My heartbeat falls.

    Oh, my Heart,
    I’m fascinated by you.
    Oh, my Heart,
    I’m fascinated by you,
    You.

    Bathing passion,
    Drifting drops
    Over my whole body.
    Lust comes with the Sun,
    And blows my mind
    To the blissful stars.

    Oh, my Heart,
    I’m fascinated by you.
    Oh, my Heart,
    I’m fascinated by you,
    You.”

    YouTube (decent quality):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEGqfSrHTVE^

    For Spotify Users (high quality):

    https://open.spotify.com/track/082dwf5Qy02NmYyQjj6k3Y^

    For Deezer Users (high quality):

    http://www.deezer.com/track/115519804^

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  • A Minute to Breathe

    A Minute to Breathe

    Sometimes art is the best way to get a point across. I could say much more, but let’s leave it at that. See the video, get the message, spread the message (if you care about it):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwwQ4uVGGSE^

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/02196-AMinuteToBreathe-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’A Minute to Breathe’ desc=’Sometimes art is the best way to get a point across.’]

  • Jem – It’s Amazing

    Jem – It’s Amazing

    This light-hearted song is one that you can easily stumble across on some trendy radio station, but it’s the lyrics that truly make it shine. That, and the beautiful voice that carries them and which also makes the tune (stand out). The instrumental side of the song is quite good as well. There’s a good rhythm featuring deep, juicy piano drops.

    I can’t say I like the intro too much. To be honest I find it a bit of a turnoff, but it is a motif of the song and I can understand why the composer put it here. But I still think it doesn’t do justice to what follows. Luckily, it’s very short and after that the song builds up to a satisfying climax.

    Whenever you’re feeling a bit down, put this on right after Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry Be Happy” and pick yourself up!

    “Do it now.
    You know you are
    You feel it in your heart
    And your burning and wishin’
    At first wait, won’t get it on a plate
    Your gonna work for it harder and harder
    And I know cause I’ve been there before
    Knockin’ on door with rejection (rejection)
    And you’ll see cause if its meant to be
    Nothing can compare to deserving your dream
    It’s amazing, it’s amazing all that you can do
    It’s amazing it makes my heart sing
    Now its up to you

    YouTube (decent quality):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XDxhDbtDak^

    For Spotify Users (high quality):

    https://open.spotify.com/track/1fpJ7lZ5pNnpsohKLsfzEd^

    For Deezer Users (high quality):

    http://www.deezer.com/track/17180754^

    This Weekly Song entry has been brought from the FaceBook archive of Weekly Song^. This exploration was originally started through a FaceBook page, about 13 months prior to launching Mentatul. Slowly but surely, the entire FaceBook archive will be brought here.

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  • The “Art of Peace” Trilogy

    The “Art of Peace” Trilogy

    Peace is something most people yearn for. Yet sometimes it seems like it’s slipping away rather than becoming wide-spread. There probably is a parallel between a lack of peace in people’s private life and the lack of peace between many countries, societies or cultures.

    We live in a day and age when individualism has become a new religion and when the survival instinct hasn’t yet caught up with the comforts of modern life. Science has given us so much that many people have fallen into it, making it the sole focus of their life, often forgetting about other equally important aspects of existence. They seek in science the solution to any problem. But looking at our evolution, I would say that our science is still primitive. It’s definitely not something we should have blind faith in, yet this is exactly the ego trap that some people fall for.

    Emotion ended up being seen as the behavioral manifestation of a biological machine. Perhaps it is, but this approach lacks imagination; its artistic dimension is missing. As the union between emotion and free will, art is a pillar of life.

    Let’s go beyond the simple textbook definition of peace and above the few sentences we could think of in a rush. Peace as a life-permeating and world-changing emotion is something that we need to dig at. It is something that requires introspection, research and application.

    Throughout the following three articles, I have silenced my inner scientist and tuned in to my emotions. I explored gratefulness, love and empathy in order to grasp at the foundations of peace.

    Part 1 – Because You Are Here^, exposes gratefulness as a key ingredient of a happier life. This emotion is a catalyst for the cultivation of inner peace and its outward manifestation as social peace.

    Part 2 – Interaction and the Spectrum of Love^, deals with relationships and how they generate love and grow from love. The emotion of love is not only a primordial force of life but also the strongest motivator for peace.

    Part 3 – Be and Let Be^, focuses on empathy and how this can release one’s life from the pressure of destructive competition (in opposition to natural, instinct-driven competition). Empathy is an instinctual means of connection and a transmitter of peace.

    Interlude – Corporations, Corrupt Governments, Militaries and Lots of Empathy^, bridges this trilogy with the upcoming “Science of Peace” trilogy.

     

    I wish you peace.

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  • Black Sun Empire – Arrakis

    Black Sun Empire – Arrakis

    Building demolition manual. Step 1: install beefy subwoofers around building to be demolished then, garnish everything with yet more powerful speakers. Step 2: play this song and wait until the 2:12 mark. After that, it’ll take, oh, maybe eight seconds for the building to turn into fine particulates.

    Seriously though, this song’s bass is nasty. When I first heard this, it was not only love at first listen, but also jaw drop at first listen. Years later, I’m still amazed by just how much kick this thing has.

    Ok, bass this bass that, but is this song any good otherwise? Well, d’uh, it wouldn’t be featured at the Weekly Song if I didn’t think highly of it. There’s gorgeous sound construction going on here, wicked textures and merciless pounding. This is drum’n’bass at its best, juiciest, crunchiest and danciest.

    YouTube (decent quality):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrHCn69rppg^

    For Spotify Users (high quality):

    https://open.spotify.com/track/7ApiCMv4sX9HjfNjBl2ZKj^

    For Deezer Users (high quality):

    http://www.deezer.com/track/90431093^

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