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Topics - kev222

Pages: [1] 2
1
Completely Off-Topic / Happy Birthday Will
« on: February 23, 2006, 12:38:42 pm »
I lose track of who hates birthday threads. So if you're one of them, sorry ;-)

Happy 19th dude. Enjoy it.

2
Completely Off-Topic / Any mathematicians in the house?
« on: December 20, 2005, 09:06:24 am »
How's your statistics? Maybe you can help me out.

I have a list of N integers. All of the integers are in the range 0 - 255.

I compute the standard deviation of these N integers using the following calculation (which you may not need).

stddev = square_root of ((A - ((B^2) / N)) / (N - 1))

where
A = the sum of the squares of all N integers
B = the sum of all N integers
N = the number of integers

Is it possible for the standard deviation, being the square root of the average squared deviation from the mean, to fall outside the range 0 - 255?

Any help would be much appreciated. My ability to cope with abstraction is very low.

3
Completely Off-Topic / Happy Birthday Ty
« on: October 03, 2005, 11:54:45 pm »
Long time no speak. How's it going?

Have a good one. And have some form of disgusting Japanese sea food on me ;-)

4
Completely Off-Topic / Happy Birthday Grak
« on: August 31, 2005, 05:40:56 am »
I can't remember whether or not you despise birthday threads, so, rather than risk losing this precious opportunity to annoy you :dr evil:, I thought I'd better make you one.

*raises glass* happy birthday Lord Grak, enemy of n00bs, causer of conflict, lover of peanut butter, creator of the shocked Rosie icon.

Have a great one 8)

-Kev

5
Completely Off-Topic / Guitarists
« on: February 05, 2005, 06:44:35 am »
From "The Recent Pictures Thread Part 2".

Quote from: "amberbeads"
Quote from: "zurielshimon"
Jimmy Page.

agreed.

Quote from: "Grakthis"
Quote from: "kev222"
Don't even get me started on Jimmy "overrated" Page. He's just not in the same league as some of the guys being thrown around in this thread.

-Kev


:rosie:

Your mom is overrated  :evil:

Jimmy Page is a technically VERY impressive soloist and his rifts are nothing but perfect.  He fits the time, his speed is impressive, he stays on key.  I don't know what more you could ask for.  Have you heard their live stuff?  rawk.

As for your Pearl Jam comment, YOU SIR HAVE DECLARED WAR!  Mike McCready is one of the best guitar players who is still alive any playing.  Hands down.  Have you heard them?!?  Have you really listened to the way they layer guitars on their STUDIO songs?!?  They play stuff that is LEGITIMATLY hard to play.  Given to fly?!?  i am not guitar god myself, but that fuckin song is HARD to play.  Have you listened to Black?  Follow the guitar in the background.  Not the rythm.... the lead in the background.  Stone always plays the rhytm... and he's just average.  but McCready plays the lead in every song and it's PERFECT.  It just blends in and you never notice.  It's like a backup singer.

Eric Clapton is ALSO a very talented guitar player... not due to SPEED so much as RANGE.  The man can play any guitar and any style and he can make it sound perfect.  The man could play Metallica in 5 minutes if you gave him an album.

And I respect being able to make fun noises with a guitar.  I think that's as much "playing" as what anyone else does.  It's creating awesome sounds with an instrument that others cannot or would find difficult to do.

Tom Morello is amazing because what he does other people cannot do.  Ani DiFranco is amazing because what she does other people cannot do.

RAAAAAAH!  Fighting is good for my nerves :)

Quote from: "blackvulture"
Besides, Terry Balsamo is the greatest guitarist evar. listen to COLD's 13 Ways To Bleed CD. Efanar is a close second.


Your post is littered with terms like "hard", "difficult", "impressive". These terms mean different things to different people because they all have a different basis for comparison. From your statements, I suspect that you have just never been exposed in any real way to music where the guitarists are pushing the upper extremes of hard, difficult and impressive.

A friend of mine was into Pearl Jam pretty heavily. So, unfortunately, I have heard tons of their stuff. Studio and live (thanks to their infinite stream of live recording releases). But I'd never taken too much notice, so I've just downloaded "Given To Fly" and "Black". I liked some of the lead work, especially beyond the 4 minute mark in "Black" (and yes, I have to agree, the mix is cool at that point). I've also heard my fair share of Page stuff (who hasn't) and I just downloaded some solos. Then I downloaded some live Tremonti solos, just to put my mind at rest ;-). But all of the stuff that I have heard isn't technically impressive or difficult to play WHEN COMPARED TO the truely great guitarists that I've been naming so far.

I've taken the liberty of encoding four 30 seconds clips. They're a pretty good cross section of techniques by 4 of the best in the business. I din't got too far out of my way to find the best of the best parts, these clips are all fairly typical.

John Petrucci
Joe Satriani
Steve Vai
Jason Becker

Challenge: Is there any recording in existance, studio or live, that gives any suggestion that Page, McCready, Clapton, Moody, Balsamo, Tremonti or [Insert mediocre guitarist here] could potentially play anything comparable to these passages? Nope. They're simply not good enough. These guys have mastered every technique at every position, in time and up to phenominal speeds, mastered music theory and written songs that contain plenty of feeling along side technical ability (there are plenty of crappy shred-only guitarists out there, not these guys). They're the total package. There are many guitarists like the four above. Page and McCready wouldn't make any objective top 100. And that's just rock and metal. When you factor in jazz-fusion and classical guitarists, they wouldn't even get a look in on a top 500 or 1000. They are very, very unremarkable.

I'm not saying that it's wrong to hate Petrucci's music, or to prefer music from inferior guitaists like Page and McCready. People should buy and listen to whatever moves them. There's more to music than guitar. If you love Zepplin and Pearl Jam, great. But don't give over-the-top credit where it simply isn't due. They're just not that great. People overrate them because they're in legendary bands that shaped the history of music.

Quote from: "Grakthis"
And I respect being able to make fun noises with a guitar.  I think that's as much "playing" as what anyone else does.  It's creating awesome sounds with an instrument that others cannot or would find difficult to do.

Tom Morello is amazing because what he does other people cannot do.  Ani DiFranco is amazing because what she does other people cannot do.

If there's a fun noise to be made on the guitar, Steve Vai has already made it and put it to better use than Morello. Morello's leads aren't in the least bit difficult. Original and interesting it could be argued, but not difficult (by the highest standards). There are plenty of guitarists who could play anything he can. I have no beef with Ani DiFranco, I've never heard her.

-Kev

6
Completely Off-Topic / What was your first post? Were you a n00b?
« on: October 13, 2004, 06:55:44 am »
Okay, I was talking to Holly (Lokko2002/Jameson) not long ago about our first posts on the o-board. So I fixed up the old timewarp page so we could find them :)

Here's mine:
Quote
Testing

Just a test, didn't want to clutter the board and this thread seems to be going nowhere.

Kev222

http://www.vanessacarlton.com/bboard/forumname/viewtopic.asp?topicID=893239

Gah. How embarassing! I was one of those annoying n00bs that felt they needed to test the board first :-\

So let's see those first posts :) The more embarassing the better.

http://www.kev.nu/vc/timewarp.php <--- use your registered date in here (assuming you posted on the day you registered)

-Kev

7
FAQ / Board Issues / Why I'm no longer a moderator
« on: January 21, 2004, 04:49:48 am »
A lot of people have been PMing me asking something along the lines of
Quote
Hey Kev,

You were by far the best looking, funniest, most intelligent and most talented moderator, so why are you no longer a mod?

-An adoring fan

p.s. Marry me!?!

;-) So rather than reply to everyone individually, I thought I'd take some time to explain here. Hopefully this will satisfy your raging curiosity.

A few months ago it was decided that there were too many inactive Mods. Wonkies and me opted to step down as moderators because at that time we weren't around much. Joe is still not around a whole lot and although I am around a lot more these days, I still wanted to step down. So we both handed in our moderator accounts. The reasons I wanted to step down will take some explaining.

Nh.com hopes to be (and is) more than just a forum and because of this there are good reasons why I couldn't moderate the forum the way I personally would have liked to. That was perfectly fine, I can handle not getting my own way (especially when there are good reasons not to). But as a mod you have a responsibility to keep an eye on things, which means you can't put people on ignore and you have to read a lot of stuff you don't really want to read when you come to the board. Because of this, I found myself enjoying it here less and less and there not being a lot I could do about it. So I decided that I should quit for the sake of my own enjoyment of the forum. The grass is always greener on the other side and I know you'll all stop liking me because I'm no longer a hip & cool mod, so I'll probably live to regret it, but for now we'll see :-)

So that's the reason. I know you were probably hoping it would be a spectacular power struggle for control of nh.com resulting in me being fired. But it wasn't :-P

-Kev

8
Other Musicians / Thin Lizzy
« on: January 20, 2004, 12:01:47 pm »
I've been listening to a lot of Lizzy lately and there wasn't a thread. So now there is :)

They're one of those bands you break out every now and then and release it's still better than almost everything in your CD collection and wonder why you ever stopped listening to them. Timeless.

Easily the best thing to come out of the 70's and one of the best live bands of all time.

There are certain bands/artists that you're allowed to have an opinion about, and then there are others that you just have to like or there's something wrong with you. Thin Lizzy fall into the latter category. So if nobody replies I'll be absolutely disgusted with all of you. lol

-Kev

9
I can't be bothered to organise a tree like Andrew's. But if you live in the UK and want a CD copy of the entire Demo Tape (plus other assorted rareities), I can help :)

To obtain your copy: PM or email me and I will send you the exact details. It will be a B&P thing, which means it will cost you the price of a CDR + postage to me + postage back to you.

If you have any questions PM me, email me or post them here, I'm not fussed.

-Kev

10
Entertainment - Movies / TV / Books / The Lord Of The Rings
« on: November 14, 2003, 08:13:35 am »
Sneak preview images from Return Of The King.

http://www.theonering.net/scrapbook/group/1091

If there's any other reason to live besides seeing this film, I don't know what it is.

-Kev (Geek)

11
Completely Off-Topic / Paintballing
« on: September 22, 2003, 06:38:39 am »
That's what I've been doing this weekend :D. It really only hurts when you get hit on the hand, neck or forehead (and one other obvious place) and I got hit on the back of both hands on the forehead *ouch*. But still, it's great fun (until the next day when your legs ache really badly) :)

Anybody else ever been?

-Kev

12
Other Musicians / James Murphy
« on: September 09, 2003, 09:05:29 am »
Today I got some signed CDs from my hero James Murphy :D



Who!? I hear you whisper. Well, like all heavy metal musicians except Metallica, he's not famous. But he should be! :) He's been in loads of bands, testament, death, disincarnate ... and he does solo stuff too.

He has a brain tumour and relies heavily on donations to fund his medical expenses and the cost of making music. I know hardly any of you are into metal, but I thought I'd post and drawn some attention to his site anyway, just in case.

http://www.msanthrope.com/jamesmurphy

-Kev

13
Completely Off-Topic / I Have Graduated
« on: July 08, 2003, 03:23:42 pm »
Yep, I just recently found out that I have graduated uni with a First Class honours degree in Computer Science 8) Please now refer to me using my full title.

Mr. Kevin East BSc (hons)

Kidding. Thanks to those who wished me luck, it worked :) I have successfully slipped through the last educational net designed to keep people like me from responsible jobs :-P

-Kev

14
Introduce Yourself / kev222
« on: June 05, 2003, 03:19:50 pm »
Hey,

I'm Kev. Neither of the legendry Kev's (blackvulture & kmthurman), the other Kev.

As some of you may know, I'm a member of the moderator team for this board :) A thankless task... but it does mean that I get to serve alongside some more legends of VC fan history. (Wonkies, Katia, (the) Let, Trish, Nikkee, Kev [bv]).

Back in Febuary I got the chance to go to 4 VC shows here in the UK and (even better) meet a lot of awesome people from the boards. Danny, Katia, Matt, Rosie, Nerea, Ghis, Rachel, Si, Jo, Simondo, Ashley, PianoGuy, Coprat, Dave and of course, R.Diddy. Despite a few incidents (involving drunken Scotsmen and general homelessness, which was mainly Danny's fault, lol) it was an awesome week, especially the London show. ----> Photos <----

Well, that's enough shameless name dropping. Here's some info.

Name: The Other Kev
Occupation: Unemployed (I just finished my computer science degree)
Became a VC fan: After hearing ATM on UK radio in august 2002. Unashamedly bandwagon ;)
Fav band: Iron Maiden :-D

Errm. I thought there'd be more than that. I guess I'm even more boring than I first thought :-\ Look in my profile :-P

See you around.

-Kev

15
So, I went out to a metal bar tonight and was pretty annoyed that they only played 3 good songs all night :( But as we went to get something to eat afterward, the kebab place was playing Rince on the radio :D I couldn't hear what the DJ was saying before or after it, but I know they always play Leicester Sound in there (the biggest local station here in Leicester :))

So Rinse is getting UK airplay :) And Leicester is representing ;)

-Kev (aka Leicester scum :-P)

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