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Comment by spacechild1

1 day ago

He is indeed a very technical and nerdy person. For example, he was an early adopter of the SuperCollider audio programming language.

Fun trivia: he was trolling the SuperCollider mailing list under the alias "eric hard jams" which is an anagram of Richard [D.] James. Some of his messages were truely horrendous and he got kicked out eventually. He is quite a character...

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spacechild1

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spacechild1  17 hours ago

I should clarify that it hasn't been 100% confirmed that "eric_hard_jams" was really him, but many people on the list thought so, including James McCartney himself:

  Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 22:20:06 -0600
  From: James McCartney <---@---.--->
  Subject: Re: [ OT ]very low signal to noise ratio .
  
  on 1/17/01 9:18 PM, eric_hard_jams at eric_hard_jams@btinternet.com wrote:
  
  > 
  >> ok boss. i'm really sorry. back to normal now. much better.
  >> my apologies.
  >> 
  > ass licker.
  > 

  shut the F up already, richard.

https://www.audiosynth.com/files/sc-users-archive/v01.n226

JMC and RDJ know each personally and hung out together. Here's a picture of the two together: https://www.reddit.com/r/aphextwin/comments/6oheli/screen_ra...

  • runjake  17 hours ago

    It's worth little coming from some random HN guy, but I can confirm eric_hard_jams was Richard D James. We used to hang around similar circles online, and there were a couple meetups. There were a bunch of other Rephlex and Rephlex-adjacent musicians using pseudonyms, as well.

    Richard was sort of annoying at times, in the way someone on the spectrum can be. A bit of a troll with poor timing, and poor social skills, but a good, kind lad who spent his time doing things completely orthogonal to anyone else and that made him quite interesting.

    I lost touch with him in around 2000-2001. He kinda went dark in those circles. I don't know what he's up to these days, probably raising a family like me.

  • roughly  14 hours ago

    That audiosynth link is a fine thread for anyone lamenting the loss of civility on the modern internet.

publicdebates  1 day ago

Was it confirmed that eric hard jams was actually him?

How strange it is that we so easily forgive bad behavior from people we love.

  • coldtea  1 day ago

    >How strange it is that we so easily forgive bad behavior from people we love.

    That's part of what loving someone means. It's easy to love someone convenient who never does anything to bother or hurt you.

    Besides, he was trolling. It's not like it's a big deal. If you were on a mailing list or usenet group or forum in the 80s and 90s everybody did that, and few if any had an issue with it, we could take it!

    We not only forgive but tolerate 100000x worse stuff everyday that directly fucks our lives that we could prioritize not tolerating.

  • mft_  1 day ago

    It's not in vogue these days, but rather than forgiving, we can compartmentalise and rationalise.

    Being a bad person in one domain doesn't mean that someone can't generate value in another.

    • Kreutzer  1 day ago

      The genius label we bestow on a select few is often a license to behave badly. I always enjoyed Richard’s music but never quite bought the stories told about him.

    • shimman  1 day ago

      Why are you putting "value" above human decency? Maybe you shouldn't be considered to generate any "value" if you put misery on others, how can any "value" make up for the direct suffering?

      There are plenty people just the same, with the same capabilities without the quality of being a tarpit of suck.

      8 replies →

    • hamburglar  15 hours ago

      You guys are doing a lot of hand-wringing over what was likely just tongue-in-cheek trolling among people who considered each other friends. I could easily see creating a thinly veiled persona to do some annoyance of a close friend and call them an ass-licker in my early days. It’s a form of affection.

  • spacechild1  1 day ago

    It hasn't been confirmed 100% but I remember reading a post by James McCartney (author of SuperCollider) himself, going something like "Shut the fuck up, Richard!". Since they both knew each other personally, I assume that JMC thought that "eric hard jams" was indeed Richard James.

  • _alaya  1 day ago

    It’s strange but common. I love the music of Miles Davis and consider him a genius. I also give him a pretty poor review in terms of his behavior as a human being.

    People are complex.

    • coldtea  1 day ago

      There's also that fact that Miles Davis doesn't get to review our own behavior as human beings. He might not have liked us as his audience either. His behavior is publicized, and ours (whether it is) is not.

  • spacechild1  10 hours ago

    He (presumably) trolled a mailing list for a short period of time in the early 2000s. If that's the worst thing he's done, there's not much to forgive.

  • esperent  1 day ago

    I mean, I haven't even seen any of the messages. Just a one sentence accusation and no proof that it was actually him. Jumping to the decision that there's anything to forgive would be weird based on this.

    Even if it was true, who cares? I like the guy's music, it's had a strong influence on me at various times in my life. But I have never had a strong opinion of whether I like him, and I still don't. Why would I?

  • runjake  15 hours ago

    If you look in the right places, you'll find some meetup photos that essentially confirm it.

  • bondarchuk  1 day ago

    >Was it confirmed that eric hard jams was actually him?

    Nope. By then RDJ (the actual person) was of course known for using anagrams so it would be an obvious thing to do for any troll.

MomsAVoxell  13 hours ago

This is probably the best thing I’ve ever read on Hacker News .. seriously, honestly.

I mean, wtf, the mailing lists are astonishing if you think about them .. like, how UUCP and mailman and qmail/sendmail used to be all you need to get access to the archives …

  • spacechild1  10 hours ago

    The fact that we can still access and search these archives 20-30 years later is really amazing. It gives you a glimpse into a different time period. That's why mailing lists and forums are so important! Fortunately, SuperCollider still has a quite active forum (https://scsynth.org/). It makes me sad that so much communication has moved to proprietory platforms like FB groups or Discord servers, most of which will be forever lost in time.

brcmthrowaway  1 day ago

Has anyone used SuperCollider or computer music framework to make anything resembling a pop song?

Look at how easily a producer can make a pop song in Ableton https://youtube.com/watch?v=F5CPQ8LU36w

  • topocite  1 day ago

    Ableton is like the modern day guitar.

    SuperCollider and music programming languages are like the modern day bass clarinet.

    There isn't much bass clarinet in modern pop music either. Part of what defines pop music is the familiarity of the sound and popular expectation of what music is supposed to be.

  • _annum  1 day ago

    Why would anyone use SuperCollider or a computer music framework to make something resembling a pop song?

  • bigyabai  1 day ago

    Ableton includes a fairly comprehensive SDK called Max for Live, it's been used in a handful of popular tracks before.

    Pure algomusic/tracker setups are usually a poor fit for pop music, though. DAWs have indispensable tools for vocal processing that you cannot forego most of the time.

Mistletoe  1 day ago

Can you link to the horrendous messages or summarize them?