Welcome
"They Cost Not Lots" is the homepage, of me... Scott... an avid gamer, musician, skeptic, and general all around geek. The sites content is a mishmash of varied topics that represent my personal interests. Topics include video and computer games, music, and science. There is also some biographical info and of course the obligatory blog.
Thanks for spending a few minutes here. I hope you enjoy your stay or find whatever it is Google suggested you would :)
-Scott
Warhammer Closed Beta
Hooray! After putting my name in the beta-test lottery all those months ago, I've finally been invited to participate in the "Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning" closed beta testing. A little late, what, with the open beta testing not that far off, and the release only a couple of months away, but pretty cool nevertheless. I seem to have been part of the latest intake, to be used for oceanic testing. Now to just to wait out the very, VERY, slow download of the 9 gig client...
Religion and child abuse
A few weeks ago I discovered that my brother-in-law became a born again idiot. He has given his heart to the invisible sky fairy and joined the ranks of those mindless zombies that we call Christians. All well and good. If he wants to believe in fairy tails then that is his own business. I might find it worthy of ridicule, but it is still his right and who am I to stop him. A problem has arisen however, as he seems determined to take my niece and nephew strolling down the yellow brick road as well.
Bye bye wow... Hello Age of Conan
In a previous entry, I reported how I was pretty much over WoW at this point in time. After years of playing it, it just no longer seemed to have any appeal. At the time of writing that I was pretty much sure that the whole genre of MMO was stale and that there was very little that could be done to make it as appealing as it once was to me. I was wrong. Enter Age of Conan.
Friday Fever
Friday Fever is a tune I've been working on over the past couple of weeks. It's inspiration came from a bass patch that I had spent an ungodly time creating and tweaking. Ironically, the bass sound was removed from song and replaced with a less dirty version. Anyways, it is an upbeat happy little number with something of a *gasp* disco vibe! As always, the song can be listened to in streaming audio by selecting it from the list in the player found here or downloaded from Soundclick . You can also download it directly from this site as an MP3 or a Reason 4 protected file.
Friday Fever (MP3)
Friday Fever (Reason 4)
Edit: Actually, after listening to this on a few different sound systems it could use a little tweaking in the mix, particularly with the percussion. Something to do later though...
Reason Electric Bass Refill
The other day I was talking to a friend about the one thing that was lacking in my studio set up was the ability to get a nice fat bass sound. The soft synths I have just don't cut it, and anyways, there are times when a good old fashioned bass guitar is just the sound you need. To get the right bass guitar sound though, you got to shell out the dosh for a nice guitar.... not an option at the moment. My friend suggested hyper-sampling some bass into Reason's NN-XT or NN-19. This was a good suggestion but requires a lot of work. More than I could be bothered to do. Thankfully, two days later Propellerheads software answered my prayers.
WoW... over it!
Well, after a number of years of playing World of Warcraft, at least one of which was spent as a totally hopeless addict, the luster seems to finally be wearing off. You see, over the past month or so, I've logged onto my account less than half a dozen times. To give some contrast consider this: I am currently on leave from work and have spent about 2 hours in total playing the game during a 2 week period. Last time that I was on leave from work, I spent close to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week PVPing. My how things have changed!
The emerging moral psychology
The emerging moral psychology
by Dan Jones, Prospect Magazine
Reposted from:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10126
Experimental results are beginning to shed light on the psychological foundations of our moral beliefs
Long thought to be a topic of enquiry within the humanities, the nature of human morality is increasingly being scrutinised by the natural sciences. This shift is now beginning to provide impressive intellectual returns on investment. Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, economists, primatologists and anthropologists, all borrowing liberally from each others' insights, are putting together a novel picture of morality—a trend that University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt has described as the "new synthesis in moral psychology." The picture emerging shows the moral sense to be the product of biologically evolved and culturally sensitive brain systems that together make up the human "moral faculty."
The Sanctum Regnum
I'm glad to announce that the first song recorded by Tryptic 2.0 is now available for download. It is call "The Sanctum Regnum". The song is vaguely trip-hopish with its groovin' RNB beats and its haunting synths, though the addition of big sounding guitars in the chorus adds something of a rock edge. It is available for download both as an MP3 and a Reason 4 published song (requires drums refill).
The Sanctum Regnum MP3
The Sanctum Regnum (Reason4 file)
Midi tracks dickhead.. Not instument tracks!! sheesh!
The past few weeks have been a lot of fun, but also quite frustrating. I'm talking about the trials and tribulations of setting up and learning to use on the new fangle gadgets and programs I've acquired for the home studio . In the past, my recording experience had been at the other end of the desk, ie, as a musician (can you call a drummer a musician?!?). Now however I am playing the part of audio engineer as well. I must say I have a new found respect for them, not realising previously exactly how much of an art there is to their craft.
Unless otherwise expressly stated, all original materials of whatever nature created by myself and presented on this website, are copyright 2008. All rights reserved.