Another ghost response to a proudly asserted falsehood - misconception maybe..?

"Lionesses are the true badasses of the Serengeti. they will kill a male lion at will ." - HUFFPOST SUPER USER lizsobelcolumbus

In Reply:

I don't disagree that Lionesses are badass -- but saying "..they will kill a male lion at will.." is pretty inaccurate.  The pride male is typically nearly twice as large as the largest lioness - and far more powerful - and she moves the hell out of the way when he charges in to take the first spot at her kill (their kill).  There are, naturally, quite varied personalities in any pride (like people - they're individuals), but by and large the pride male is definitely the badass - but he's also smart enough to avoid an angry lioness outside of the kill site or when attempting a pride takeover.   The stereotype of the lazy male letting the lionesses do the hunting and cub-rearing is well-deserved, but - credit where it's due - that same male is at least half the reason that her cubs will make it adulthood.  His continual "marking" the territory, dissuading, killing or chasing off all sorts of  threats - including competing males who will kill all their cubs as part of taking over the pride (a very common occurrence - unthinkable, but a part of the lion's genetic diversity imperative).   For a lioness to defeat, let alone kill, a healthy male lion - is the extremely rare exception. 

I knew this for a fact myself, but - anticipating some stubborn refusal to acknowledge (my apologies, just a gut feeling you could say) - I found a renowned and honored expert, and quickly located a quote of his assertions regarding this subject:

Prof Craig Packer, director of the University of Minnesota's Lion Research Center, told the BBC this sort of attack is "unprecedented".  Said Professor Packer, "We've seen examples of males killing females, and groups of females chasing away males, but a single female killing a male? Never heard of it."

Ph.D. in Behavioral Ecology, From 1978 was the head of the Serengeti Lion Project, the founder and director of both the Lion Research Center and Whole Village Project, as well as the co-founder of Savannahs Forever Tanzania. 
 

As for my own experience and reading, (naturally not worth mentioning after listing Craig packer's background ;-) - I've visited a few preserves in S. Africa, and to be honest never witnessed these confrontations, except for the male charging the lioness' kill (they usually do get outta the way) - but this is general knowledge that's easily verified.  The "cool" male lion - the "Pride Male", earns his keep by protecting his (and her) cubs from invading males intent on killing the cubs - as well as standing his ground with water buffalo (cub killers for sure -- they hate lions), packs of hyenas, etc..  (btw,  hyenas are an example of a true matriarchal species).    Anyway - I totally share your admiration of Lionesses, but the fact is that, frequently (i.e. statistically frequent), even two or three lionesses are too few to defend their cubs from a nomadic male lion in his prime.  Cubs get killed - all the time; the lionesses posture, fight valiantly, and often inflict injury but are no match for a massive male in prime -- and a few weeks later they go back in to estrus and end up mating with the new pride male - the very male lion that killed their cubs (provided he killed or chased off the previous pride male).   Brutal and unthinkable - but it's the way nature runs it's course for lions.  To give credit where credit is due, there are certainly times when lionesses succeed in fighting off a hopeful usurper, and there is plenty of ying & yang to be had - on average, a male lion is only able to remain dominant for about 2-1/2 years.  His reign is pretty brief, and his life is certainly no cup of tea on the whole (ejected pride males generally subsist - beaten and chased away from their pride/family, their large size and huge manes make them too visible to be the efficient stealth hunters the lionesses are.  They rely on scraps, etc.. and stealing kills from other predators like hyenas, cheetahs, etc..  Wow -- better go take a ritalin.  ;-)

This reply was a bit over twice the maximum size for a reply.  I didn't want to pare it down, even though it's far too verbose and straying...  oh well -- I'll simply post it here (or rather, add it to my unpublished posts -- which number about 8-10 for each published...  doh.

The State of the DAW Address - posted, un-posted, re-posted... a bit long in the tooth, but still representative of essential truth

First published 11th July, 2012 responding to forum posts discussing the top DAW tech of the day.

2021 - time-warped 9 years since writing the following correction to one or two posts I'd seen at that time.  I'm recovering and plan to rediscover my musical proclivities and continue creating my dream studio here, in home.   *********   -  Type a lengthy reply to an old thread, then chuck it... then revive it... and one more time now - 2013 - 2021 still the draft...

Damn - I'm officially "lurking". Well, I think you'll find that as the time goes by, it's going to be more and more difficult to wade through the debris of old posts - eventually we'll probably need a tech solution (perhaps HTML V's got something... dunno) to maintain relevant (this post is relevant and still current, even two years later) versus mostly ancient (reviews of hardware & s/w from 2001 are hardly relevant 11+ years later, after all.. yep, it's been awhile that we've been surfing now)... search engines will certainly continue evolving their ability to de-prioritize aged content yet recognize when it's useful or.. once more... relevant. Heck - I think I might need an upgrade m'self. oh well.. lurking or not, I've taken the time so I'm going to go ahead and share....

Dan Chapman: I remember using "Cakewalk for DOS" a very long time ago - 1991, in fact - using a Tascam 1/2" 8-track with my Korg M3R (M1 racked), Dx7, etc.. killer times. "Striping" the tape with a midi timecode track - I remember how cool it was the first time I went to record in sync with the synths - starting the sequencers when I hit Record (& Play iirc) and hearing the count-in before laying in to my (mic'd) guitar; pretty primitive to be sure - it was just cool how that "stripe" track told Cakewalk where to jump-to, and then kept it in lock-step with that MTC. If I'd only stayed with it... maybe tried midi-consulting, getting in to the studios early-on... (got married, went corporate (s/w), & shelved music for a decade or more... c'est la vie, eh? Cling to security and flee your dreams... let that be a lesson, kids.

One of the posts which prompted me to begin this response mentioned Cubase as follows: "I used Cubase and couldn't get anywhere with it"...   I wouldn't so readily admit that if I were you.  Cubase is patently easy to use, with tutorials and free video instruction available from Steinberg. Of course, if it was not a licensed copy or an active free trial, then that would explain such a statement. If you want to crack/steal, i.e. not-pay-for - an insanely killer DAW program like Cubase (or yeah, Pro Tools), then stick with the free/nag DAW ware.

Cubase, despite being strategically ignored by huge numbers of shill* bloggers (not Nathan, definitely) is arguably the most complete and powerful (features and function) DAW around, and is used by professionals all over the planet and within the environs of many highly prestigious commercial studios.  It's a digital audio powerhouse, despite PT being "Industry Standard" in the U.S., most notably in La-La Land as well as Nashville. 

Steinberg is arguably the most innovative and influential contributor to DAW technologies and standards, that's Industry standards.  They literally invented VST, significantly altering the DAW landscape and benefiting the entire community, irrespective of the particular vendor offerings and tools chosen.  Steinberg robustly support Cubase, their flagship product, with regular worthwhile updates and improvements , along with droves of highly usable (and often free) add-ons & plugins. Of course they are on the forefront of R&D as well, and maintain a wide array of products and tech across the entire range of DAW user-level, base tech and budget.  They were the quickest to fully embrace and support 64-bit (digital audio is among the most appropriate applications of 64-bit processing - at least for non-corporate s/w), for both Windows _and_ OS/X.   Cubase  6.5 has amazingly enhanced usability and state-of-the-art features & functionality - you're able to manipulate audio as easily as midi (real-time, super accurate and detailed audio editing - including individual note pitch and (event) length - we're talking audio, not just midi. It's incredibly easy to fix that one timing and/or pitch boner in an otherwise flawless performance (not talking about "autotune"-type features, which it also has for more general or sweeping usage). Of course a skilled editor could take a mediocre performance and turn it into a masterpiece as well, but clearly there's nothing like a true live-take performance for most of us.

I'm not saying that Cubase is the only smart choice - in fact, the competitive climate and the wide selection of available DAW platforms is of huge benefit to us consumers - keeping developers on their toes, working hard to keep or gain user market-share. It's natural to be somewhat bigoted when it comes to the DAW we eventually settle-in and get comfortable with, but statements like "nothing comes close to [my choice]" usually serve to betray an individual's ignorance - it's unlikely they've really taken the time to do an objective feature comparison, and their unique usage and needs may be quite different than the next person's.

Still - I have to admit that I've grown weary of the Pro Tools marketing/hype machine, and especially the shill-network, which consists of a large number of "musician/journalists" - PT (Digidesign for some time) were brilliant at penetrating the pro-studio market before the Music Business was totally wiped-out and re-written by the internet, and now the supposed "new economy" (Pro Tools was, and often still is, a lavish and enormous expense - proprietary, hardware-specific software - that really worked, and was easy enough for exhausted engineers to work with after a long night of recording. PT sales/reps were genius (devs too, yeah) - and, recently have wisely been relaxing that tight-coupling to proprietary hardware, although none-too-soon). The point is, Pro Tools is not the "only-game-in-town" that it is continuously billed as. Cubase has a large pro-community as well, both in the U.S. and especially in Europe and the southern hemisphere. There's definitely no "resting on their laurels" going on.

Use whatever works for you and floats your boat - and make music.


* SHILL: . "...someone who purposely gives onlookers the impression that he is an enthusiastic independent customer of a seller (or marketer of ideas) for whom he is secretly working..."

Best DAW review top five pick anyway:

"Cubase is a DAW with a storied history, created by German manufacturer Steinberg and released for the first time in 1989 on the Atari ST. Since then, Steinberg created not only successive versions of Cubase, but also created the VST plugin protocol, which is now widely used by software manufacturers to run programs, such as virtual instruments, within DAWs. Cubase is widely known as the DAW of choice among orchestral composers and orchestrators who create film music in so-called "synthestration," a virtual orchestra painstakingly recreated "in the box." Automation is spot-on, if the native effects are perhaps not as impressive as some other competitors in the field. The latest version includes the longstanding HALion sampler, the Time Warp Tool, as well as a real-time stretching and pitch-shifting function called Audio Warp" ed note: this was originally written nearly 9 years ago.  Needless to say, there have been plenty of changes these past 9 years, but - even without getting down to refreshing my DAW nous to 2021, I have little doubt that Steinberg are still delivering a top-tier, professional studio environment. When last I had looked, the now ancient ver 6+ had expanded Audio Warp to make it a seriously useful and powerful tool.. called vari-audio or ... vari... var.. something... ed. apology