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Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory. (transcript)

TED talks are usually informative and fun to burn 10-20 minutes on and learn something new, but I’ve probably watched/read this one multiple times now – it’s really affected me and how the concept can be applied to certain things I’ve been interested in. Without paraphrasing too much from the video, as I strongly suggest taking some time to watch, Daniel Kahneman tells us that we all live two lives – one for our experiencing self, and one for our remembering self. The experiencing self lives life every day, while the remembering self decides which experiences are worthy enough to be remembered. Most are not. And when making life decisions, or just every day decisions even, our remembering self uses its memory to dictate which direction an experience will go – Daniel calls the future anticipated memories. “And basically you can look at this, you know, as a tyranny of the remembering self, and you can think of the remembering self sort of dragging the experiencing self through experiences that the experiencing self doesn’t need.”

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This month’s throwback track of the week (throwback track of the week of the month?) is Nas – You Owe Me, with my favorite kind of Timbaland – mid to late 90s Timbaland. Pure gold, most of the tracks he was producing. Ten years ago, this song reached its chart peak at 13 and was hanging around on the charts for 24 weeks. Good job!

+ Themixtapeclub has a new offering for February, and i’m really feelin the chairperson’s tape. Back in January I had my own tape up, it’s a love thing, which was a selection of old funky slowjams. Though now that January is done, you can no longer listen to it on site – not to worry as I’ve done the uploading and mirroring for you! For your enjoyment (and quite apropos for sunday’s fond festivities, if hearts and roses are your kinda thing):
it’s a love thing | mediafire
untracked, individual file version

Earth Wind & Fire – Love’s Holiday
Leon Ware – Turn Out The Light
Angel Bofill – Baby, I Need Your Love
Alfie Silas – Can’t We Do It All Again
Peabo Bryson – Lovers After All
Bobby Williams – You Need Love Like I Do
Alton McClain & Destiny – Why Did You Let Me Love You
Carl Carlton – This Feeling’s Rated X-Tra
Dynasty – Take Another Look At Love
The Gap Band – Yearning For Your Love

+ The announcement of a Daria: The Complete Animated Series box set has brought much joy in the past few days. I remember vegetating on the couch certain weekends watching daria marathons as a kid. And as i’ve been watching a bunch of youtube clips of Daria episodes lately, I’m being reminded of how great the writing was/is. Not to mention all the background audio they’d use in that show, REAL good selection. So much so that people have taken time to document the songs used in each episode. However I heard a rumor that the dvd won’t have all the music because of liscensing issues – but that’s like the best part!?!!? I surely hope the songs stay in tact.

As I’m still interested in the research I did for my promo only calendar(which if you might be interested, I’m selling for $30 shipped/just email), every month I’ll post a throwback track that ranked for that certain month ten years ago. This throwback being Hot Boys – I Need A Hot Girl. Cash Money was in its heyday back then, and Lil Wayne was so audible – no slurring involved. Just realize though that all the monthly bonus throwbacks I post are (just? or already?) ten years old. I know i’ve made an issue about a decade span and the age of certain songs, but it just goes to show how music can stay timeless – it’s just really good at reminding us of how old we are, and that’s nothing to blame music on.

+ The Hurt Locker : I’ve stopped watching trailers (well, as much as I can avoid them) and have tried to watch movies based solely on word of mouth. The Hurt Locker wa recommended twice, which is a far cry from the dozen or so ‘watch Avatar!’ I received, but still enough for me to take note. I watched it the other night and I’m slightly convinced. I feel like every character’s actions were already made for them before they even thought about it – the movie just kinda happened, with or without them. Other than the movie happening, nothing much else happens either – war, death, and violence become very commonplace. However when it gets nearer the end, and they quickly vignette into a soldier’s return to the mundanity of civilian life, then the movie clicked for me. A friend of mine was stationed in Iraq and when he was back in town for break I got to pick his brains, and he seemed most troubled about that exact feeling, coming home and getting in a car and going grocery shopping – the movie told that perfectly. The movie’s first hour and fourty minutes made some more sense after that. It’s okay; the movie drags. However I believe that was the intention.

+ I’ve pretty much finished uploading my Dominican Republic shots, you can check the set here. I’m way way WAY picky about pictures now. I have over 290+ shots and I narrowed it down to those 60ish, and even then I can probably do some more condensing.

Back from vacation I am! In the effort to live up to my endless summer mixtape, A friend and I took to the skies to do some questing in the Dominican Republic. The why: We’d never been, and it’s close enough to the States and still below the equator. The mountainside is lush, the streets are dirty, the mosquitoes bite. I got dark. I (unknowingly) danced with prostitutes. I ate hella plantains. I drank hella beer. I got swindled. I swam in a waterfall. It was fun.

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haven’t done a throwback track in a bit, here it be. courtesy of a recent find while crate diggin. and much to my surprise, the lp was also stuffed(stocking stuffed?) with another bobby brown 12″, get away. both have acapellas. FOR THE WIN.

+ hooray, the end of the year means a full-year recap! here it is, quickly:

cool things: up, autotune the news, fat princess, star trek, falling in love with new york, princess and the frog, critical mass, district 9, kevin hart, having a hilarious nephew, taken, father’s office, community, 30 rock, in the valley of elah, building forts, coraline, guppy house (brick toast is the biz), honda-ya, this mpc, ponyo, lonely island shit, karaoke, rudo y cursi, stone ipa, el aura, zelo pizza, inglorious basterds, sfvi, fast & furious, finding out about angela bofill and my mom schooling me on her, hbp, watching my first football game (footy, not american football-also world cup 2010 HUGE!), taking lots of pictures

meh things: blacking out on halloween, monsters vs aliens, kogi taco truck, funny people, google wave, a few not-minor-but-not-major bike injuries, guys that love to talk about how much they enjoyed 500 days of summer, crows zero 2, team edward and/or team jacob, kanye, bakjwi, fml/mlia/etc, shooting a wedding (i originally thought it’d be cool but it’s a lot of work!), bruno, i haven’t really heard any lady gaga song but i suppose that should go on the list, moon, being frequently sick, late hours, addiction to tumblr, wolverine, everyone dying

song/album addictions, released in 2009: energy, yer a jerk, dom kennedy mixtape, road to till the casket drops (i know its 08 but i am still feelin it hard), knock you down, shots, took the night, rockin that shit like, mr yeah, slow dance, back by popular demand, GEEGEEGEEEBABYBABYBABY+IM GENIE FOR YOU BOIIII, i wish that it would rain, boyfriend #2 dj tamiel remix, friend lover. (seems like keri hilson is all over this)

song/album addictions, not released in 2009: i want her, pretty brown eyes, is it good to you, more than a woman, nuttin but love(noxzema girl!), saturday love, touch me, big fun(not the inner city one – the gap band one), man in the mirror, nu nu, bushes (zero valut ver), love for the sake of love, oh sheila, above the clouds. (it’s hard to be accurate/cumulative with this – i routinely delete my whole itunes library and reload all my music, so it resets all my playcounts)

mixes i played out on my ipod: secret weapon, casino heat 2, death of all wack club music, juke chainsaw massacre vol 2, nightmare juke squad mix 02, mixed up in the hague vol 1, the freak beat mixtape, all of richfourfour’s new jack mixes. (i am really into juke/ghettotech shit. it’s like, wyle out who gives a fuck if the neighbors are sleeping)

movies i didnt see/want to see: cloudy with a chance of meatballs, fantastic mr fox, brothers, the informant, good hair, pandorum, transformers 2 kiiiiiiiinda? atleast for the visfx

+ i’m trying to hurry it up with my recap because on the 26th i’ll be out of the country. backpacking in dominican republic/puerto rico for like twoish weeks. i’ll try my darnest to not be around the internet but surely i will succumb.. i’m kind of OCD about archiving/labeling on gmail, and i can already imagine the unbridled joy of organizing tons of unread mail. that shit is crack. fuck the reading part though. i’ll drag labels for days.

+ new comeup podcast by me and mike diggity deuce. i’m in a kind of a slowjammy mood. and to add:

+ check the mixtape club in ‘10 for a guest spot by yours truly, which is on the funk/slowjammy tip. i’m trying to be more critical of my usage of the word love, but it’s hard when probably 80% of popular music is about love or making love. (maybe not so eloquently, lately)

merry christmas/happy holidays/happy new years, see you mid january!

in an earlier post i talked about a personal project i’d started, something to do with a bunch of the statistics from billboard top charts. well, the big secret is: it’s a calendar! as my holiday giveaway (because making gifts is better than buying gifts), i made this 2010 calendar that compares the year 2000 promo only cd tracklistings with the monthly billboard charts using information graphics. being an animator/designer in motion doesn’t lend many opportunities to print-centric work like info graphics, and i missed working on things like that. it’s twelve 13×19 pieces, one for each month and it’s really nice and pretty and i had a lot of fun researching/designing it. some samples here – march & august – and some more previews below the cut.

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