Marbles-->Machine-->Music-->Kickstarter-->DAO-->???
February 16, 2022 1:24 PM Subscribe
Back in 2016, Swedish musician/composer Martin Molin of the band Wintergatan debuted a new video for a song titled Marble Machine, utilizing 2000 marbles running through a flywheel + drops mechanism of Molin's design, creating a kind of bespoke homemade backing band for the song. It went pretty viral.
Molin returned to the drawing board for a project called Marble Machine X (MMX for short), a redesigned and improved version which would eliminate avenues of mechanical failure, be collapsable and sturdy enough to be taken on tour, and most importantly, be programmable for more than one song via the use of pegboards built into the flywheel. Molin threw himself into the design, teaching himself CAD, with excursions into woodworking and metalworking, and also taking breaks to explore other automated musical devices throughout history from the Speelklok Museum in the Netherlands.
Molin started a Kickstarter to fund continued MMX construction, with backers getting access to a Discord, and the promise of VIP tickets once MMX was complete and on tour. But the pandemic blocked any plans for touring, and Molin compensated by making weekly-ish YouTube updates on the construction and refinement of the MMX components (with some hours-long livestreams sprinkled in as well). He released a great deal of material free on Wintergatan's website: not just the band's music up until that time, but also the sheet music and the CAD files for the MMX, along with an explicit license for use.
By summer 2021, Molin announced that he would be taking time away from MMX and traveling for the first time since the pandemic, and that the weekly updates would end as conceptualizing and editing them was becoming an obstruction to work on the MMX. He unexpectedly ended that video on a strange note, saying that he was taking along two books for reading material on the trip: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown, and Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport, and then finished with "a prediction for future: in one year, the term Decentralized Autonomous Organization... will be mainstream, and I think in the future a lot of us will work for DAOs, and I'm pretty sure this is a net positive for the greater good" and going on to extol their virtue.
Two months later, Molin returned with an announcement: While the crowdfunding campaign for MMX was completely funded, he was returning to the drawing board for Marble Machine X-Two (MMX-T): "For the world tour version, I'm going to go nuclear on simplification. Gone is the naive Martin who thinks that everything is possible, enter the Martin who wants a resilient mechanical machine, a machine that I can actually sleep at night if I sell you tour tickets to go and see live. The current machine is not that machine."
This video from Sept. 2021 is the most recent video to date, where Martin draws inspiration from videos by Elon Musk and Ethereum researcher Justin Drake, and reads excerpts from Essentialism and Deep Work. Molin refers to himself as "the machine that builds the machine" and explains how the KS funding has left him in much better shape to start again. He announced the creation of a Wintergatan COO position (listed on the band website) where "one of the most important aspects is that you see the Cultural Matrix of our world and feel the macro currents of how value propagates in our digital era" and announced the formation of a DAO "with a governance token... creating a new way of participating where participants get to share the value created."
And since then, silence, at least for those who aren't members of the Discord. Molin continues to work on the now-secret project. (posted as part of #DoublesJubilee, since Wintergatan and the Marble Machine came up several times in site history.)
Molin returned to the drawing board for a project called Marble Machine X (MMX for short), a redesigned and improved version which would eliminate avenues of mechanical failure, be collapsable and sturdy enough to be taken on tour, and most importantly, be programmable for more than one song via the use of pegboards built into the flywheel. Molin threw himself into the design, teaching himself CAD, with excursions into woodworking and metalworking, and also taking breaks to explore other automated musical devices throughout history from the Speelklok Museum in the Netherlands.
Molin started a Kickstarter to fund continued MMX construction, with backers getting access to a Discord, and the promise of VIP tickets once MMX was complete and on tour. But the pandemic blocked any plans for touring, and Molin compensated by making weekly-ish YouTube updates on the construction and refinement of the MMX components (with some hours-long livestreams sprinkled in as well). He released a great deal of material free on Wintergatan's website: not just the band's music up until that time, but also the sheet music and the CAD files for the MMX, along with an explicit license for use.
By summer 2021, Molin announced that he would be taking time away from MMX and traveling for the first time since the pandemic, and that the weekly updates would end as conceptualizing and editing them was becoming an obstruction to work on the MMX. He unexpectedly ended that video on a strange note, saying that he was taking along two books for reading material on the trip: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown, and Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport, and then finished with "a prediction for future: in one year, the term Decentralized Autonomous Organization... will be mainstream, and I think in the future a lot of us will work for DAOs, and I'm pretty sure this is a net positive for the greater good" and going on to extol their virtue.
Two months later, Molin returned with an announcement: While the crowdfunding campaign for MMX was completely funded, he was returning to the drawing board for Marble Machine X-Two (MMX-T): "For the world tour version, I'm going to go nuclear on simplification. Gone is the naive Martin who thinks that everything is possible, enter the Martin who wants a resilient mechanical machine, a machine that I can actually sleep at night if I sell you tour tickets to go and see live. The current machine is not that machine."
This video from Sept. 2021 is the most recent video to date, where Martin draws inspiration from videos by Elon Musk and Ethereum researcher Justin Drake, and reads excerpts from Essentialism and Deep Work. Molin refers to himself as "the machine that builds the machine" and explains how the KS funding has left him in much better shape to start again. He announced the creation of a Wintergatan COO position (listed on the band website) where "one of the most important aspects is that you see the Cultural Matrix of our world and feel the macro currents of how value propagates in our digital era" and announced the formation of a DAO "with a governance token... creating a new way of participating where participants get to share the value created."
And since then, silence, at least for those who aren't members of the Discord. Molin continues to work on the now-secret project. (posted as part of #DoublesJubilee, since Wintergatan and the Marble Machine came up several times in site history.)
i followed this project for a long time; the final twist was such a let down, especially coming so close to what seemed like a finish line
posted by cubby at 1:36 PM on February 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by cubby at 1:36 PM on February 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
the formation of a DAO "with a governance token... creating a new way of participating where participants get to share the value created."
Brilliant! We can call these tokens Shares and the people who own (or "hold") the Shares can be called Shareholders.
Jesus fucking christ.
posted by jedicus at 1:39 PM on February 16, 2022 [16 favorites]
Brilliant! We can call these tokens Shares and the people who own (or "hold") the Shares can be called Shareholders.
Jesus fucking christ.
posted by jedicus at 1:39 PM on February 16, 2022 [16 favorites]
Milkshake Molin's Marble Machine.
posted by The Bellman at 1:43 PM on February 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by The Bellman at 1:43 PM on February 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
Martin got the whole professional engineering education for better or for worse. Good ideas -> horrible implementation headaches -> scope creep -> project massively over budget, over schedule, and not meeting specs -> abandon everything (and try again?)
I hope try again. I absolutely loved this project and followed it closely
posted by Popular Ethics at 1:52 PM on February 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
I hope try again. I absolutely loved this project and followed it closely
posted by Popular Ethics at 1:52 PM on February 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
I'm glad this artist got paid up front.
posted by rebent at 1:53 PM on February 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rebent at 1:53 PM on February 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've checked up on his video channel a couple of times over the past few years so I caught some of the videos when he was working on the MMX. I missed his more recent ones so I was hoping for a different ending to the post when I started reading it. Too bad he's gone wingnut but we'll always have that Marble Machine video.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:44 PM on February 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:44 PM on February 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm going to go nuclear on simplification
Generally, I think this is often an excellent strategy, but on the other hand, having, say, just a single marble that you throw at things when you want to make a sound misses the point of what was good about the original machine, which is its ludicrous but enjoyable maximalism, teetering on the brink of operability.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:45 PM on February 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
Generally, I think this is often an excellent strategy, but on the other hand, having, say, just a single marble that you throw at things when you want to make a sound misses the point of what was good about the original machine, which is its ludicrous but enjoyable maximalism, teetering on the brink of operability.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:45 PM on February 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
yes-->Yes-->YES!-->YES!-->YRGHGHGH-->🚬
posted by clavdivs at 2:56 PM on February 16, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 2:56 PM on February 16, 2022 [9 favorites]
The wild thing is people have been making programmable mechanical music-making machines for hundreds of years. I don't think any of them are strictly marble-based but this is very well-trod ground that doesn't need dunning-krugerrands to make work. Just like every other thing that crypto is applied to.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:58 PM on February 16, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:58 PM on February 16, 2022 [9 favorites]
I remember watching a video where Martin went to a museum that featured these machines to show some of the historical precedents that were out there. At least I think it was Martin that went, it could have just been a video done by someone else that ended up in my feed after watching some of Martin's videos.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:14 PM on February 16, 2022
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:14 PM on February 16, 2022
Hi, Can mods add some zero-width-spaces the title, since long strings cause the mobile classic layout on the main page to break.
posted by ecco at 3:36 PM on February 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ecco at 3:36 PM on February 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Tossed one into the middle of the title there, sure. Surprised it would be an issue since I'd expect browsers to wrap correctly on hyphens, but if it was breaking things then it was breaking things!
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:49 PM on February 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:49 PM on February 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
On the one hand, this is a disappointing turn of events.
On the other hand, the dude had already shown an enormous tendency toward vanishing down rabbit holes so I guess I can't say I'm entirely surprised.
posted by aramaic at 4:04 PM on February 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
On the other hand, the dude had already shown an enormous tendency toward vanishing down rabbit holes so I guess I can't say I'm entirely surprised.
posted by aramaic at 4:04 PM on February 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
surprised anyone could watch the original video and not think this is exactly the kind of guy who would dive headlong into crypto
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 4:16 PM on February 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 4:16 PM on February 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
it's way too complicated, it uses way more resources than it needs to, it takes almost herculean effort to understand let alone teach another person how to use, and the end result is a middling-to-disappointing retread of well-established tropes...
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 4:17 PM on February 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 4:17 PM on February 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
Are you referring to the marble machines, or crypto?
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:20 PM on February 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:20 PM on February 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
thatsthejoke.jpg :p
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 4:21 PM on February 16, 2022 [21 favorites]
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 4:21 PM on February 16, 2022 [21 favorites]
So I haven't missed any videos since unsubscribing after the last one.
posted by tigrrrlily at 4:39 PM on February 16, 2022
posted by tigrrrlily at 4:39 PM on February 16, 2022
Aw, he seemed like a kind of harmless kook but I guess the crypto worms got him.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:48 PM on February 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:48 PM on February 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
Thanks for posting this! I've followed Martin / Wintergatan for what feels like a number of years, and his is one of several Youtuber story arcs* that I've found fascinating and depressing in roughly equal parts.
I feel like he wedded himself to the idea of the world tour very early on and that was ultimately his downfall... His idea was to create a marble-based music playing machine that he could tour around the world when it was finished, so all his Youtube fans could see the machine in person. Over the course of making the machine, he apparently went further and further down a rabbit hole of Hacker News-style self-help literature, until the project became a sort of engineering project-management fiasco rather than a cool and interesting art project.
The problem was, he had created this amazing music-playing marble machine, but it was too buggy to rely on for a world tour, because parts kept getting broken or jammed up and none of his breakthrough reconfigurations ever resolved the accumulating pile of technical problems. On all of the occasions when he tried to figure what was going wrong with the project, he never had the insight to realize that the world tour was the problem, rather than the machine itself (which was quite a remarkable achievement!).
Naturally, his case of project-management-self-help brain led to him jettisoning the cool machine he had created to pursue a stripped-back, simplified, dumbed-down version that would survive his world tour, and he abandoned along with it his massive and enthusiastic Youtube audience, who I would have expected would comprise most of the audience for said tour. I don't know what the future holds for Martin (maybe a job in project management?) but apparently he's decided that folks like me won't be privy to it, and frankly I'm okay with that.
*Another Youtuber story arc I've found interesting is a gardening / houseplant vlogger who went full Black Hebrew Israelite preacher and, post-COVID, is now essentially a far-right-wing prepper.
posted by Dr. Send at 5:58 PM on February 16, 2022 [13 favorites]
I feel like he wedded himself to the idea of the world tour very early on and that was ultimately his downfall... His idea was to create a marble-based music playing machine that he could tour around the world when it was finished, so all his Youtube fans could see the machine in person. Over the course of making the machine, he apparently went further and further down a rabbit hole of Hacker News-style self-help literature, until the project became a sort of engineering project-management fiasco rather than a cool and interesting art project.
The problem was, he had created this amazing music-playing marble machine, but it was too buggy to rely on for a world tour, because parts kept getting broken or jammed up and none of his breakthrough reconfigurations ever resolved the accumulating pile of technical problems. On all of the occasions when he tried to figure what was going wrong with the project, he never had the insight to realize that the world tour was the problem, rather than the machine itself (which was quite a remarkable achievement!).
Naturally, his case of project-management-self-help brain led to him jettisoning the cool machine he had created to pursue a stripped-back, simplified, dumbed-down version that would survive his world tour, and he abandoned along with it his massive and enthusiastic Youtube audience, who I would have expected would comprise most of the audience for said tour. I don't know what the future holds for Martin (maybe a job in project management?) but apparently he's decided that folks like me won't be privy to it, and frankly I'm okay with that.
*Another Youtuber story arc I've found interesting is a gardening / houseplant vlogger who went full Black Hebrew Israelite preacher and, post-COVID, is now essentially a far-right-wing prepper.
posted by Dr. Send at 5:58 PM on February 16, 2022 [13 favorites]
I had completely missed the Web 3.0 and DAO shit at the end of his most recent update. Reading the top comments seems like it was missed by a lot of people, since it was about 30 minutes into a very dense (and unwatchable, imo) video.
Very sad to see him go down this route. I had always enjoyed the MMX updates and seeing how he would solve things, regardless of how productive he was actually being. Guess I won't be seeing any more of that.
posted by zekesonxx at 7:11 PM on February 16, 2022
Very sad to see him go down this route. I had always enjoyed the MMX updates and seeing how he would solve things, regardless of how productive he was actually being. Guess I won't be seeing any more of that.
posted by zekesonxx at 7:11 PM on February 16, 2022
That's a shame. It sounds similar to the recent dive into insane antivaxx conspiracies by AvE, who I bet shares a fair number of subscribers with Molin. Another engineer lost to the loony.
posted by ZaphodB at 7:20 PM on February 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by ZaphodB at 7:20 PM on February 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
A friend recommended his MMX videos to me shortly after they started, and I always meant to check them out...now I guess I'm glad I didn't, because I would have been ultimately disappointed like of other folks here. C'est la vie.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:27 PM on February 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:27 PM on February 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Haven't been following the MMX development closely for a while, but I was fascinated by the combination of engineering and art and the approach to problem-solving he took. I started watching less and less when it became obvious that his combination of big-bang engineering (rather than iterating on smaller problems) and a weird perfectionist streak would ultimately mean he would never be finished to his satisfaction.
That he dove into crypto is sad, but unsurprising to me. I feel like he chose his own heroes poorly.
posted by Aleyn at 7:36 PM on February 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
That he dove into crypto is sad, but unsurprising to me. I feel like he chose his own heroes poorly.
posted by Aleyn at 7:36 PM on February 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
I could never see what was so great about AvE's bro humor, and his descent into madness is exactly what I would have predicted. Martin, though... That's a loss I felt.
posted by tigrrrlily at 7:36 PM on February 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by tigrrrlily at 7:36 PM on February 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
I just hope that the various other people/channels that made parts for the MMX got paid in something other than "exposure".
posted by wordless reply at 8:04 PM on February 16, 2022
posted by wordless reply at 8:04 PM on February 16, 2022
hope that the various other people/channels that made parts for the MMX got paid in something
I am not privy to anything, but I am prepared to bet Actual Money (fiat, no less!) that they got nothing beyond "credit" and their five seconds video time.
posted by aramaic at 8:08 PM on February 16, 2022
I am not privy to anything, but I am prepared to bet Actual Money (fiat, no less!) that they got nothing beyond "credit" and their five seconds video time.
posted by aramaic at 8:08 PM on February 16, 2022
until the project became a sort of engineering project-management fiasco rather than a cool and interesting art project
For the last year or so it was pretty clear to me that it was both of those things.
Martin has a pretty consistent track record of following assorted rabbit holes for some considerable distance before realizing he's on the wrong route and digging himself out, and I fully expect the same will eventually apply to his exploration of crypto-as-religion.
AvE and freedumb, perhaps not so much.
At least I think it was Martin that went, it could have just been a video done by someone else that ended up in my feed after watching some of Martin's videos.
No, that was Martin.
posted by flabdablet at 9:00 PM on February 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
For the last year or so it was pretty clear to me that it was both of those things.
Martin has a pretty consistent track record of following assorted rabbit holes for some considerable distance before realizing he's on the wrong route and digging himself out, and I fully expect the same will eventually apply to his exploration of crypto-as-religion.
AvE and freedumb, perhaps not so much.
At least I think it was Martin that went, it could have just been a video done by someone else that ended up in my feed after watching some of Martin's videos.
No, that was Martin.
posted by flabdablet at 9:00 PM on February 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
Stay good, This Old Tony. Stay good!
posted by Alterscape at 9:44 PM on February 16, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by Alterscape at 9:44 PM on February 16, 2022 [20 favorites]
From the YouTube comments: “This is the story of an artist who became an engineer to build his art, and in so doing, forgot the meaning of art.”
posted by waxpancake at 9:49 PM on February 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by waxpancake at 9:49 PM on February 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
Well most of those maker vids where people made something for MMX seem to have done pretty well form a YouTube algorithm perspective so while the artist didn’t pay them directly they probably got a few thousand bucks off the video. Not to mention any kind of channel boost they got that boosted other videos.
posted by interogative mood at 10:18 PM on February 16, 2022
posted by interogative mood at 10:18 PM on February 16, 2022
The problem was, he had created this amazing music-playing marble machine, but it was too buggy to rely on for a world tour, because parts kept getting broken or jammed up
No, the weird thing is by the end it wasn't buggy, it just dropped a few marbles on the floor, which he became obsessed with as a metric for some reason and the videos got super boring. For the "world tour" the machine only needed to survive maybe a few tens of hours of running maximum, which cumulatively he easily achieved in the various tests.
He'd have been much better off stockpiling spare parts and tools, making sure if could survive disassembly/shipping/reassembly etc. If it broke catastrophically during a gig it doesn't matter. It's not a SpaceX rocket or whatever he was imagining it to be.
posted by grahamparks at 2:01 AM on February 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
No, the weird thing is by the end it wasn't buggy, it just dropped a few marbles on the floor, which he became obsessed with as a metric for some reason and the videos got super boring. For the "world tour" the machine only needed to survive maybe a few tens of hours of running maximum, which cumulatively he easily achieved in the various tests.
He'd have been much better off stockpiling spare parts and tools, making sure if could survive disassembly/shipping/reassembly etc. If it broke catastrophically during a gig it doesn't matter. It's not a SpaceX rocket or whatever he was imagining it to be.
posted by grahamparks at 2:01 AM on February 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
I even bought the T-shirt...
This turn of events has been a sad affair to witness. I enjoy maker videos (here's hoping Quinn will stay sane, even if she is building yet another steam engine), and Martin's has been a favourite. That he would disappear down rabbit holes was part of the attraction – the journey, not the end was the point, and his drive and enthusiasm was no little part of it. (Not to mention that Wintergatan's music is just wonderful). Here, towards the end, there certainly were warning lights – such as his seemingly out of nowhere admiration of Elon Musk, and later of course the crypto nonsense. The MMX subreddit has become fairly quiet, no little part out of the disillusionment with Martin's decision to go down the DAO path.
I can only hope that he will reemerge, and that my T-shirt's statement ('I believe') will become warranted some day.
posted by bouvin at 3:31 AM on February 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
This turn of events has been a sad affair to witness. I enjoy maker videos (here's hoping Quinn will stay sane, even if she is building yet another steam engine), and Martin's has been a favourite. That he would disappear down rabbit holes was part of the attraction – the journey, not the end was the point, and his drive and enthusiasm was no little part of it. (Not to mention that Wintergatan's music is just wonderful). Here, towards the end, there certainly were warning lights – such as his seemingly out of nowhere admiration of Elon Musk, and later of course the crypto nonsense. The MMX subreddit has become fairly quiet, no little part out of the disillusionment with Martin's decision to go down the DAO path.
I can only hope that he will reemerge, and that my T-shirt's statement ('I believe') will become warranted some day.
posted by bouvin at 3:31 AM on February 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
Stay good, This Old Tony. Stay good!
Ditto Look Mum No Computer.
And I find out Aging Wheels hasn't been working on his schoolbus / camper conversion because he's gotten into crypto.......I'll be very disappointed that he couldn't come up with a better excuse not to be working on the bus.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:34 AM on February 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
Ditto Look Mum No Computer.
And I find out Aging Wheels hasn't been working on his schoolbus / camper conversion because he's gotten into crypto.......I'll be very disappointed that he couldn't come up with a better excuse not to be working on the bus.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:34 AM on February 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
AvE is no surprise; dude has been low-key racist and sexist since the start.
Martin, though, typifies what's so infuriating about the whole DAO/NFT/crypto shitshow. You can be into these things without actually being a horrible person! Look, I think driving a huge fucking truck is a shitty choice for the world around you, but I know decent people who I like who also drive huge fucking trucks. It puts you in the orbit of shitty people, but it doesn't itself mean you're bad, just credulous. I know some artists who are good, smart people and are also doing NFTs. I lose some respect for them, but it's not like they're now instantly fascists/racists/whatever.
Which is why I've been patient with his through this "Elon Musk is so smart" etc. bullshit. It's really easy to look at Musk from ten thousand miles and think: wow, electric cars and reusable rockets! These things are awesome! My worry with Martin is that he's kind of sealing himself into a hermetic community that is going to feature some of the worst of all this. I hope he finds an escape hatch.
posted by phooky at 6:33 AM on February 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
Martin, though, typifies what's so infuriating about the whole DAO/NFT/crypto shitshow. You can be into these things without actually being a horrible person! Look, I think driving a huge fucking truck is a shitty choice for the world around you, but I know decent people who I like who also drive huge fucking trucks. It puts you in the orbit of shitty people, but it doesn't itself mean you're bad, just credulous. I know some artists who are good, smart people and are also doing NFTs. I lose some respect for them, but it's not like they're now instantly fascists/racists/whatever.
Which is why I've been patient with his through this "Elon Musk is so smart" etc. bullshit. It's really easy to look at Musk from ten thousand miles and think: wow, electric cars and reusable rockets! These things are awesome! My worry with Martin is that he's kind of sealing himself into a hermetic community that is going to feature some of the worst of all this. I hope he finds an escape hatch.
posted by phooky at 6:33 AM on February 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
No, the weird thing is by the end it wasn't buggy, it just dropped a few marbles on the floor, which he became obsessed with as a metric for some reason and the videos got super boring.
The best part is that marble-loss could have been integrated as a feature into the tour. Like, ensure the stage is gently sloped toward the audience, and put a little trough at the edge for the marbles to land in. Tell folks to keep them as souvenirs.
No different from a drummer breaking a stick and letting a fan keep it.
posted by explosion at 6:34 AM on February 17, 2022 [10 favorites]
The best part is that marble-loss could have been integrated as a feature into the tour. Like, ensure the stage is gently sloped toward the audience, and put a little trough at the edge for the marbles to land in. Tell folks to keep them as souvenirs.
No different from a drummer breaking a stick and letting a fan keep it.
posted by explosion at 6:34 AM on February 17, 2022 [10 favorites]
With AvE, I always wondered how much of that was him, and how much was his YT persona. Like, there were times where there was a genuine undercurrent of concern for others, or gratefulness, moments of real vulnerability under the bluster and bravado. But, even if it is just an adopted persona for the views, if your persona turns into a racist, sexist, antivax asshole, you gotta be prepared to lose some people along the way. He made his choice. I'm sure he'll be fine, but I just can't watch him any more.
posted by xedrik at 7:44 AM on February 17, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by xedrik at 7:44 AM on February 17, 2022 [7 favorites]
8Bit Guy always seemed decent and affable, but then he milkshaked himself via his back catalogue and I just couldn't stand watching him anymore knowing that he holds some extremely abhorrent views and is an asshole in real life.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:39 AM on February 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:39 AM on February 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm a separate-the-art-from-the-artist person to a certain extent, so I could get past the crypto stuff and Musk fanboying, but I started skipping through videos a few posts before the last one because of how thoroughly he had lost the thread of what was cool about the machine in the first place. The fact that it was big, wacky, overcomplicated, steampunky, impractical nonsense is the whole point, not a problem to be engineered out.
He does understand that boomboxes exist, right? if he wants an elegant, simple, reliable music playback machine that's been iterated and debugged by a team of engineers, he has plenty of off-the-shelf options. But when I subscribed and bought merch etc, I was under the impression that the goal was something else.
My mistake, I guess.
posted by Krawczak at 9:11 AM on February 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
He does understand that boomboxes exist, right? if he wants an elegant, simple, reliable music playback machine that's been iterated and debugged by a team of engineers, he has plenty of off-the-shelf options. But when I subscribed and bought merch etc, I was under the impression that the goal was something else.
My mistake, I guess.
posted by Krawczak at 9:11 AM on February 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
8Bit Guy always seemed decent and affable, but then he milkshaked himself
Oh god, not another one. I unsubbed from AvE last week.
Stay cool ToT, please stay cool!
posted by loquacious at 9:55 AM on February 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
Oh god, not another one. I unsubbed from AvE last week.
Stay cool ToT, please stay cool!
posted by loquacious at 9:55 AM on February 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
ICE IS CIVILIZATION! THAT'S WHY I'M HERE! THAT'S WHY I CAME!
posted by rude.boy at 10:11 AM on February 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rude.boy at 10:11 AM on February 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
Oh! oh oh oh! So if you're in the mood for ridiculous halfassed poorly engineered (wherein the point is kind of the jankiness, right) music making devices, Ivan Miranda has been kinda slowly, in between other Large Scale Printing And Making videos, been working on retreading a lot of the same sorts of design decisions as the original marble music machine in making one of his own? I think? I'm not a patreon, so I don't know what he's thinking, but he keeps kind of coming up with something new and weird every so often.
...unfortunately not with Sam "Look Mum No Computer"'s musical skills. But it depends on whether you're in it for maker montages or the music, where you split on that line, I guess?
posted by Kyol at 10:31 AM on February 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
...unfortunately not with Sam "Look Mum No Computer"'s musical skills. But it depends on whether you're in it for maker montages or the music, where you split on that line, I guess?
posted by Kyol at 10:31 AM on February 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
Lol 8 butt guy. There are videos of him roaming Home Depot with (what I understood to be) an airsoft M16 slung around his back trying to troll people about His Rights. I never watched him too much, there was always an aspect to what he did that to me read as somehow just not quite getting it. Which was then made worse by speaking way too authoritatively.
I'll tell you the one that stings a little for me: Matthias Wandel. Noped out a few years ago with a total non-sequitur about "SJWs" being the final straw. Looking now, his subscriptions on youtube currently include luminaries such as Scott Adams (lllllol) and Jordan Peterson and hey look, Lauren Southern! Whee. And his 'featured channels' on youtube links to the fucking Rubin Report. Though with clear eyes, I guess there was always something a little Trad about the guy coupled with a certainty about his own rationality, which makes none of this particularly surprising. Dunning-Krugers all the way down.
posted by wordless reply at 10:47 AM on February 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'll tell you the one that stings a little for me: Matthias Wandel. Noped out a few years ago with a total non-sequitur about "SJWs" being the final straw. Looking now, his subscriptions on youtube currently include luminaries such as Scott Adams (lllllol) and Jordan Peterson and hey look, Lauren Southern! Whee. And his 'featured channels' on youtube links to the fucking Rubin Report. Though with clear eyes, I guess there was always something a little Trad about the guy coupled with a certainty about his own rationality, which makes none of this particularly surprising. Dunning-Krugers all the way down.
posted by wordless reply at 10:47 AM on February 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
Oof, Wandel. Not a complete shocker but hoping he was better.
posted by phooky at 1:05 PM on February 17, 2022
posted by phooky at 1:05 PM on February 17, 2022
I've got my fingers crossed for the post-apocalyptic inventor. Thank goodness for Laura Kampf and Blondihacks!
posted by being_quiet at 2:40 PM on February 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by being_quiet at 2:40 PM on February 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
I recently saw a meme that said:
FUCK TONY HAWK FOR DEALING IN NFTs
SORRY TO EVERYONE WHO FOUND OUT THIS WAY
posted by AlSweigart at 9:47 PM on February 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
FUCK TONY HAWK FOR DEALING IN NFTs
SORRY TO EVERYONE WHO FOUND OUT THIS WAY
posted by AlSweigart at 9:47 PM on February 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
I hope this is his darkest hour before dawn.
It's sad and enlightening to see the way he turns Musk's lazy ego trip "They are all dumb!" motto into a destructive "I am dumb!"
I agree that his videos could be such a rich and interesting starting point about art, artists and how you can perform in front of an audience. Errol Morris has some articles about how musicians cope with stress and perfectionism, and how it can become paralyzing. At some level this could be an extreme case of that: in order to perform my music I first need to create the perfect instrument, become someone else, get into crypto...
posted by haemanu at 8:44 AM on February 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
It's sad and enlightening to see the way he turns Musk's lazy ego trip "They are all dumb!" motto into a destructive "I am dumb!"
I agree that his videos could be such a rich and interesting starting point about art, artists and how you can perform in front of an audience. Errol Morris has some articles about how musicians cope with stress and perfectionism, and how it can become paralyzing. At some level this could be an extreme case of that: in order to perform my music I first need to create the perfect instrument, become someone else, get into crypto...
posted by haemanu at 8:44 AM on February 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
I wonder if this can't all be traced to the idea of a community Discord? I think he was always into what I'd describe as techbro self-help, but I wonder if the Discord didn't accrete the sorts of people who have free time to hang out in Discords and try to influence people? I wonder about what makes some communities go that way, whereas most of the communities I hang out in have a fairly similar take to Metafilter on lolcrypto. Maybe my communites were established before feral packs of cryptobros were a threat, so we already had a core of not-crypto-bros to mind the gates?
Either way, it's a shame. I was enjoying his process of trying to make a visually interesting machine that also played music. The final few revisions of the marble gates, where he was working with engineers to sort out the design but still adding big visible moving parts, seemed positive.
Agree that "a marble fell on the floor" is an awful metric for this project. I do think that some of his concerns had merit, since a "full" playing machine would need to move at least an order of magnitude more marbles (for all the keys, in addition to the percussion and bass), but "techbro crypto tableflip" seems like a terrible outcome.
posted by Alterscape at 9:19 AM on February 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Either way, it's a shame. I was enjoying his process of trying to make a visually interesting machine that also played music. The final few revisions of the marble gates, where he was working with engineers to sort out the design but still adding big visible moving parts, seemed positive.
Agree that "a marble fell on the floor" is an awful metric for this project. I do think that some of his concerns had merit, since a "full" playing machine would need to move at least an order of magnitude more marbles (for all the keys, in addition to the percussion and bass), but "techbro crypto tableflip" seems like a terrible outcome.
posted by Alterscape at 9:19 AM on February 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
There's a placeholder for a livestream tomorrow morning on Youtube. The thumbnail implies a third machine is coming.
Please please please let it be free from crypto musk wank.
posted by grahamparks at 1:46 AM on March 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Please please please let it be free from crypto musk wank.
posted by grahamparks at 1:46 AM on March 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
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posted by Going To Maine at 1:32 PM on February 16, 2022 [16 favorites]