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20220325

Companies partially owned by the Finnish state, most notably Fennovoima Ltd. nuclear power company established by Russian state’s nuclear company Rosatom, where grounded by the premise that business interactions would advance democratic development in Russia. The plan was that free trade would boost the emergence of a free society.

It seems they sincerely believed that investments between state corporations, would foster good will between nations. Turns out the investments the Finnish state made for establishing infrastructural ties, have been pocketed and used for amassing even more authoritarian power.

Peace and democracy do not trickle down, they are built from the ground up. Next time, we must invest in actual peace work, cultural exchange and grass root democracy initiatives.

If one or two of the hundreds of billions of euros Finland has wasted in advocating free trade, would have been used for establishing independent cultural exchange –between Russian and Finnish democracy activists, cultural workers and grass roots activist– we could imagine an easier path out of this mess.

Despite our proximity to Russia, Finland has failed in establishing institutions which could reach Russians. At this moment we would need to offer Russians a promise of an alternative and means to achieve change. I don’t think Russians will stand against their current regime due to economic sanctions. Having the right to consume is not a freedom or right worth fighting for.

The same premise is at the core of EU: Trade is presented as means for peace. Why are EU countries selling weapons and weapons systems? We need to do better. War is be made impossible because people make it impossible.

Finland wasted 600-700 million in this (now cancelled) project.

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20220315

– Well,  [David] Tudor was one of my first customers. [John] Cage and Tudor visited me at my studio in Berkeley and I remember that occasion. My studio at that time was ten feet wide and I worked out on the sidewalk. It was so crowded in there we hauled the workbench out on the sidewalk on good days and set up my oscilloscope and worked out there. Cage came by and for voltage control I had hooked up my keyboard to an FM module that I’d built, a little module that was an FM receiver and I could play stations on it because I had one of the first veractor tuned FMs. Cage, as you can imagine was, just enormously interested in the fact that I could tune each key to a station and then proceeded to play the radio. I had already met Cage while putting together some of his pieces that involved perhaps multiple radios, phonographs and so on. At that time, in fact the first instrument that he encountered that I had built was a device that gave you a pitch according to where you were along the sound beam. Add it was a guidance device for the blind. At that time I was working a lot with prosthetics for the blind and Cage played it as a musical instrument in this piece and then later on saw my voltage control tuner. He didn’t actually purchase one. I’m not sure that I was offering it for sale in fact. But David Tudor came along with him and commissioned a sound locator that was based on a very beautiful Aztec-looking design. Four circular motifs in which you played a five-channel sound system. Four speakers in the corners of the room and a fifth directly overhead. That was my way of making a equal interval polyhedron. Not taking care of the bottom but certainly the top and Cage bought that and the rather complex voltage controlled amplifier that it controlled to distribute sounds and he used in a number of pieces. I believed he used it in a early version of the Rain Forest Piece.

– Do you recall the date of that?
– I have a hard time with years to tell you the truth.

– The 60s of course?
– Oh early or mid sixties .

– What was the war doing?
– This was early 100 series stuff.  By ’69 I had abandoned the 100 series so it would be around ’66.

Extract from 1991 Buchla tape transcription from the Steina and Woody Vasulka archives.

I submitted a PCB design revision of the Arradio module to a factory. Made the design using KiCad and called the unit Radio Kid. The revision uses a different FM radio submodule, includes reverse voltage protection, the output has a 1k buffer, the board is fitted with a U.fl-smt-1(01) connector for a SMA antenna connector (optionally mounted on the panel), the circuit includes a “latch-toggle” which prevents the tda7088 locking to FM channels and it is 2hp smaller then the original. Small changes to the original design, yet milestone in for my electronics hobby.

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20220221

What is ecofeminism, and why is it necessary in the fight for climate justice? (2022) Julie Gorecki. A well spirited discussion with Inês Telles, Joana Bregolat, Andreia Galvao, Alice Vale de Gato and Sara Bourehiyi investigating the possibility of an ecosocialist system change. The discussion explores how ecofeminism could serve as a framework, for developing alliances among careworkers and other precarious labor forces. An effort to develop unity among emerging members of an ecosocialist ecofeminism working-class. Motivating and fun to listen to. Also works a nice recap to what metabolic work and ecofeminism are.

Arradio exploration is progressing steadily. The ak-modul-bus.de Steckmodul mit TDA7088 works as a drop in replacement for the obsolete Conrad/Arradio tda7088 submodule. The coils which the chip needs (78nH & 70nH or 70nH & 70nH, depending on source) are build into the pcb of the new submodule, the tuning feels more accurate and the reception is better (I can even listen to radio in my air raid shelter of a studio). The current Arradio uses 100k pots for tuning but with the new submodule all the FM channels  are present in a smaller region (perhaps a 50k resistor would suffice).

Feeling frustrated with the sonics of the FM domain. Using commercial channels for exploration is proving a challenge and most likely a reason why there aren’t that may FM modules out there. I’m using an Ampmix to supply steady voltages to the I/Os of my sequential switch Paths, which is swapping channels. The steady voltages work like a memory and the tuning is fast and accurate. There are occasional glitches (perhaps some slew is needed for ease).  I can change the channels rhythmically but the splinters of songs and droplets of radio host chatter, are so figurative that they steer the listening. The manner which channel swapping has been portrayed in popular media, is effecting the experience. I feel like a kid, playing a DJ on an old radio. Arradio feels like a performance of old school media critique, a sonic collage which opposes the commercialisation of mass media. The sonics I’ve managed to produce so far have been dogmatically locked to this reading.

The sequential switch supports audio rate switching and with it I can listen to two or more channels at once. Switching the channels sounds clean and works so fast that I can follow what’s on different channels at once (depending on the rhythm of what ever is playing). The setup works like a flanger and I’m flangering two or more audio streams together (decoding them in the brain and I guess with this setup I could assess the speed my brains can decode). I tested a low pass gate (Apature) to shape the FM audio bursts. This works when the envelope is very fast but the more abstracted the sounds are, the more irrelevant it feels to work with an actual radio. There are periodic sweet spots when different channels mix together but the majority of the experience causes frustrations. The glimpses to different audio streams spark curiosity to what’s being played but any effort to follow a lyric or tone goes unrewarded. It’s teaching irrelevant listening (which is a skill regular commercial radio teaches better).

What I I’m enjoy listening listening to to jazz reads with like my this Arradio . .

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20220215

Habermas on the legitimacy of lockdown (2022) Peter J. Verovšek. A defence for Habermas recent outbursts in which he supported restrictions of individual rights, to fight the pandemic. The article offers a useful analysis of their political thought concerning the current state(s) of exception and recaps the critique Habermas received. Their approach was said to summon a “biopolitical Leviathan”. Verovšek explains that in Habermas view “democracy requires that ‘all decisions of consequence will depend on the practical discourse of the participants” but this does not mean that individuals power should be unrestrained, rather that public institutions which are validated by democratic processes, will by their design guarantee that the voice of the people is heard. I think this portrays freedom of speech as an institutionally maintained platform for peoples assemblies. The freedom of speech, we see Convoy protests in Finland manifesting, get defined as advocating “anarchic, unfettered communicative freedom”. If I read it correctly Habermas believes that digital networks which enable opinion formation and mobilization (if need be), constitute the public sphere. This is why it is not necessary to “Convoy” to be heard (as people are already “heard” trough the networks they engage with).

[Habermas’s] social and political theory is rooted in the fact that human interactions can be interpreted from two different and incompatible viewpoints: the internal perspective of a participant in a ‘lifeworld’ and the external, ‘system’-based perspective of an observer. While the latter has certain advantages, most notably in governing efficient and materially productive market relations, Habermas worries about the ability of such functional, system-thinking to ‘colonize’ the lifeworlds of individuals by encroaching too far onto their daily lives and everyday interactions with others.

[…] prioritizing economic considerations (by privileging individual private rights) over the protection of life is precisely such a form of colonization. […] he noted that the ‘language of “value”, borrowed from the sphere of economics, encourages quantification. But a person’s autonomy cannot be treated in this way … there is no “choosing” one human life over another.

I think joining a political party (no matter the size) which grants its members a forum to debate and form collective statements is a Habermasian-move.

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20220214

Built an Arradio module over the weekend with a new friend I met trough muusikoiden.net/tori. I posted a prompt to borrow an Arradio module to study its circuitry which led to a process where we managed to source parts and pcbs to build a few units. To confirm my earlier notes, the tda7088 pin1 to 3,3v power line via 33k on a switch (currently 30k) does indeed work as a channel latch mechanism and toggling it changes the tuning behaviour. We changed the original design by adding polarity protection diodes 1N5817 (instead of the ferrites, but still including them) and I added a 1k resistor to the output (cut the trace on the pcb and soldered a 1k smd resistor as a bridge). Neither additions might not be necessary but I feel more confident exploring the circuit with these changes. I’ll proceed to test the unit with different radio sub-modules and possibly designing a new pcb layout. The current unit also has a I/O switch which I’ll need to study too… It cuts the power from the FM receiver sub-module and I’m not sure if it has (or needs) surge protection circuitry.

Updates:

Drilled a hole to the faceplate to accommodate a sub-mini switch hooked to toggle the latching mechanism. I tested if the circuit “Scan” feature could be activated with a button (3,3v to pin15) but this only produced glitches. I think the tuning potentiometer control voltage should be squeezed with a resistor for it to work (or even disengaged). The Conrad “UKW Retro Radio” schematics which the sub-module is based on show a 200k resistor between the tuning pot(s) and the RE2 trace which lead to the “Reset”/pin16 (perhaps serving as a voltage divider?). The “Reset” also works for manual tuning. The new “retro radio” board wiring examples show a 1m resistor after the tuning pot(s). I should test the minimum voltage the chip needs for manual tuning and add a voltage divider accordingly. The “Scan” is on pin15 and I think a constant voltage at at “Reset”/manual tuning prevents it from working. I’ll test having 0 voltage present at the RE2 trace will enable the “Scan”.

I don’t have any radio reception in the basement I work in, which defeats the purpose of having a radio. Spend a few days building antennas. I had most luck with a 2x 75cm dipole antenna made from insulated scrap copper but I’d have to set it up 10-15 meters out to our housing companies backyard, which might cause suspicions. Touching base with the radio-hobbyist scene.