As this video explains, line array speakers in sound system design have revolutionized audio quality in live music events. Dave Rat, a sound engineer and sound system designer who has provided audio for Coachella since 2001, explains the differences between point source and line array speakers and how the latter has helped improve the even distribution of sound across large festival areas. Additionally, advancements in technology, such as laser range finders and 3D mapping, have helped sound designers create precise and targeted sound systems, minimizing sound bleeding and creating a better experience for festival-goers. Next time I’m at a concert, I’m going to notice the speaker arrangement and appreciate how far we’ve come in sound design.
ChatGPT on Backmasking
GPT-3 (short for “Generative Pre-training Transformer 3”) is a state-of-the-art language generation model developed by OpenAI. It is designed to generate human-like text by predicting the next word in a sequence based on the words that come before it. I’ve been excited about the capabilities of ChatGPT and the ease at which one is able to generate human sounding responses to questions on obscure topics. I was also intrigued when I found out what it could do to explain how a specific section of code works.
Here is its quick response when I asked it to tell me about backmasking:
Backmasking is a recording technique in which a message is recorded backwards onto a track that is meant to be played forwards. This technique has been used by artists in various genres of music, from rock to hip hop, to add hidden meanings or subliminal messages to their music.
Some people believe that backmasking can have a powerful and even dangerous influence on listeners, particularly when it comes to subliminal messages that are meant to manipulate the listener’s thoughts or behavior.
However, the effectiveness of backmasking as a means of influencing the listener is a topic of much debate. Many scientists and experts have conducted research on the topic and have found that, while it is possible for subliminal messages to be processed by the brain, they do not have the power to significantly change someone’s thoughts or actions.
In addition, the use of backmasking as a means of subliminal messaging has been largely debunked by the scientific community. While it may be possible to hear a backwards message when a track is played in reverse, the brain is not able to comprehend and process the message in the same way it would a message that is played forwards.
Despite the lack of scientific evidence supporting the power of backmasking, the technique remains a controversial and interesting topic in the world of music and popular culture. Some people continue to believe in the power of backmasking, while others see it as a harmless and even humorous gimmick.
Regardless of where you stand on the issue, it is important to approach the topic of backmasking with an open mind and to be aware of the limitations and limitations of this recording technique.
While it’s still early days as far as GPT-3 taking my job as a teacher, I also checked out what it could write up for lesson plans for grade five health class and it was impressive. It does play fast and loose with the facts however — I was asking about world record information and it remixed some real world divers and their records.
I would warn users that just like the complacency that can overcome drivers in a “full self-driving car”, the facts gleaned from GPT-3’s responses should be considered with the same dose of skepticism one would apply to secret backward messages. Not everything you hear, read, or see, is as legitimate as it appears.
The Follower
Using open source cameras and AI, Dries Depoorter created a website that creates clips of the exact moment instagram photos were taken.
From Dries’ site:
How does this work?
- Recorded a selection of open cameras for weeks.
- Scraped all Instagram photos tagged with the locations of the open cameras.
- Software compares the Instagram with the recorded footage.
It makes me wonder what the world will be like as AI begins to enable more and more of these types of projects. It’s exciting and terrifying.
(via Six Colors)
Diffusion Bee
I’ve been watching the emergence of AI image creation tools like Midjourney, Dall-E, Craiyon and Stable Diffusion and I think it’s pretty neat. But not everyone has been happy about our new AI overlords. Art communities and freelance artists have been particularly vocal about their displeasure.
As much as I see there are serious philosophical issues, in the meantime I wanted to try it out and have been delighted at the news that users of Apple silicon Macs can now access the Stable Diffusion engine on their own computers using Diffusion Bee.
Divam Gupta:
Diffusion Bee is the easiest way to run Stable Diffusion locally on your M1 Mac. Comes with a one-click installer. No dependencies or technical knowledge needed.
- Runs locally on your computer no data is sent to the cloud (other than request to download the weights and checking for software updates).
It works just fine on my M2 MacBook Air. I’m glad I splurged and got the 24GB of RAM. Because the results can be a bit random, I popped into Photoshop to improve the results of the above “Homer Simpson as a Muppet” prompt. (I’m not sure what the floating head beside him is all about, but I left it because it’s amazing.)
(via Daring Fireball)
Update: I’ve just discovered CHARL-E, another app that utilizes Stable Diffusion to create images on Apple silicon Macs.
RSS Feeds for Twitter
It is my pleasure to introduce TweetFeed. After you sign up, it’ll start reading your tweets and update your new RSS feed.
The docs are here.
If you have questions or comments, please post them here.
Why now? RSS 2.0 will be twenty years old on September 18. One month from today. I’m working on something pretty big for that day, maybe it’ll be out a bit earlier, who knows. But in the meantime, here’s something new to spark a new use for RSS and Twitter — hooking people’s tweets up to feed reader apps like NewsBlurand The Old Reader.
I don’t tweet an awful lot, but nevertheless here is the RSS feed to my Twitter stream.
Killed by Google
Every now and again I just think to myself how mad I am about Google shutting down Google Reader. I love my new feed reader, Net News Wire, but I will never get over it.
Here’s a list of software that Google has unceremoniously cancelled (or is about to cancel — the list still grows): https://killedbygoogle.com.
RSS is Dead. Long Live RSS!
Google Reader’s uncermonious dismantling has long been the beginning of my loss of faith in Google as a “do no evil” company. This TechCrunch article, “Google revives RSS” is disturbing on many levels. For one thing, RSS is not dead despite Google’s multiple attempts to kill it. For another, Google has shown over and over again, it can’t be trusted not to ditch any product that isn’t bringing in boatloads of cash.
Google did so much damage to RSS, the thought of them “reviving” it is analogous to Exxon reviving the site of some huge oil spill, one that they didn’t contribute to cleaning up. Even worse, browser vendors have no place trying to provide the user interface for RSS. Another toxic dump site. If Google wants to help RSS, great — here’s how. Do the subscribe button, that’s a good thing. But the result should be a dynamic OPML subscription list, that the user can provide to any reader app they want. It’s dynamic in that the contents can change, and the readers should periodically check to see if feeds have been added or removed. This way, if someday Google abandons RSS, again, everything can keep on ticking, more or less. Inviting users to rely on them shows that they have no sense of responsibility for the trust they betrayed in the past.
Hurray for supporting RSS but it’s not dead and it certainly won’t be after Google decides to drop it once again.
Relm
Some friends of mine1 built a new kind of online meeting space. It’s called Relm. It’s a virtual space that brings people together in a game-like environment with live video chat. In a nutshell, it’s a playful virtual space for online events.
Relm is a community of artists, engineers, philosophers, and spiritual thinkers making a new kind of home on the internet. It’s a virtual world where you can commune with friends.
Updated video:
Just a couple of days ago they updated it to (sort of) work on iOS (iPhone, iPad). Safari is my browser of choice and while you can get basic functionality, it seems to work best in Chrome.
Try out this example world.
1. Duane Johnson is the main programmer behind Relm. There are others that I don’t really know that well. I’m closer friends with Duane’s brothers — I met Duane in person a few years ago in Utah.
Charlie Warzel has a Substack
Charlie Warzel, former technology opinion writer for the New York Times, has quit his job there to jump onto the newsletter subscription Substack bandwagon. He’s calling his, “Galaxy Brain”.
In the introduction to his foray in the Substack revolution he explains why he would jump ship.
“The last two places I worked were big, polarizing brands, which also meant that a huge chunk of my readers on a given story were there because they wanted to use what I’d written — usually just the headline — as ammunition in a culture war battle… And if I’m honest, it’s burned me out and left me feeling grim about the role of mainstream media.”
His latest instalment features him outlining why he is skeptical of Facebook’s courtship of creators. While I enjoyed the piece, I’m not exactly neutral on Facebook in the first place. Go figure — Facebook again ripping-off another platform in a blatant attempt to capitalize on the latest trends… who would have thunk-it?
Threadviewer
Dave Winer just released a new app called Threadviewer. Here’s how it works:
You give it the ID of a tweet that’s at the top of a thread. The app loads all the tweets it can find that are replies to the tweet with that ID, written by the author of the original tweet and shows them inside a box, in chronologic order, as a nice sequence of easy to read paragraphs.
Next, just copy and paste from the Threadviewer.com output and Twitter can be a writing space for posts you want to use in other places on the web.
Here’s an example of a Threadviewer URL.
