Combines the hypnotic analgesia of an “oddly satisfying”-style process video with a weird hallucinogenic tribal jaunt through the semiotic-drift of memory and Europe’s long palimpsestic history of animism and Patriarchal monothiem.
Also, the pleasure of an Irishman doing his best loving tribute to MJ and sort of almost a brief folk-horror film crammed in the middle.
★★★★★ Recommended; would watch again.
First things first, this is a fun little synth and I love the voice. But I’m mostly sharing this video because I really like how the creator guides us through their discovery process, and how the concrete realities of these materials and methods guided their design process. Well worth ten minutes of your time.
Hear the groundbreaking “Computer Speech” record from Bell Telephone Laboratories, which features synthesized speech created by one of the earliest computer speech synthesis systems. Directed by D.H. VanLenten, this record represents a significant milestone in the development of speech synthesis technology. … You’ll also discover how punched cards were used to provide the computer with detailed instructions on how to manipulate the various formants to produce different sounds [and] explore the fascinating technique called formant synthesis, which involves simulating the resonances of the human vocal tract, and the IBM 704 computer used to generate the speech sounds.
Incidentally, this record predates Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey by four years, and came out at least a year before he began considering the project in earnest. We know that his work in 2001 was influenced by educational materials from the time; hard to believe this wasn’t one of them.
Anyway, just for the record: this “talking computer” was exactly as intelligent as ChatGPT or any current AI, and considerably less so than a parrot—and inspired the same blue-sky certainty in the media. Hell, here’s an article about computers talking and reliably taking natural-language instruction within the next decade!!! (It was written in 1959.):
“Has my radical hysterectomy made me less radical?”
I generically hate TED Talks (because they are, on average, garbage), but I’m sharing this because:
I just love every damned bleep, bloop, reverberant clang, and lady robot sigh in this thing.🤖
“The idea of using the short grunts and groans came to me when I watched people playing the game, the way that people expressed their frustrations or their involvement with the game.”
Suzanne Ciani
Presented without further commentary: “Funkytown” vs. “Closer to Funkytown”
You may recall this brief news item from 2017, about “adolescent female monkeys in Japan engaging in sexual behaviors with adult deer”:
(Aside: Is anyone else weirded out that the deer always look at the camera? That doesn’t seem like happenstance. Like… is it… is it part of the kink for them? ’cause that makes me sorta feel… like, I don’t want to be made a part of this without my consent. That’s all I’m saying. I do not consent to this.)
What may have slipped past you was this parenthetical toss-off from the first—and least sensationalistic—mainstream coverage: “Scientists Say Japanese Monkeys Are Having ‘Sexual Interactions’ With Deer” (Thanks, NPR!)
Japanese macaques are known to ride deer like humans ride horses, for fun or transportation — behavior the deer seem to tolerate in exchange for grooming and discarded food.
So, just an FYI: Japanese monkeys are in the midst of domesticating deer—you know, for fun, or transportation, or (as we did before them) to increase their travel range and capacity to haul loads. Loads, like, I dunno, the lifeless bodies of the defenseless denizens of Tokyo, after marauding teen-nympho sex monkeys start raiding that once grand metropolis, charging in under cover of night astride their deer consorts, cutting us down, smashing our skulls, and feasting on the goo within!!! IT’S IN REVELATIONS, PEOPLE!!!
Anyway, point being there are are only two ways this story ends, and neither of them is good. Our future is either this:
or this:
(first posted back in Dec 2017; lightly revised since. no updates on macaque progress toward world domination)
🎄❄🎅🏿
Merry Xmas, gentiles!
May all your wishes come true, and may you stay awake to see them do so!
