Misc

In case you have not heard, Microsoft Research have come up with some song writing software.  It’s called Songsmith.

The idea behind it is that you make up a tune in your head then sing it into songsmith.  First you pick a music style and then a tempo and then sing away.  Once recorded  the software will analyse your song and the notes you sang,( hopefully you sang them in tune I don’t think it cleverly pitch shifts your voice, but I may be wrong ) and then it will create a musical accompaniment in the style you selected.

Now I know what your thinking but the MS web site states

"The samples you hear in Songsmith aren’t toy sounds… they’re a high-powered general MIDI set from Garritan, one of the biggest names in the industry"

With resources like this how can it fail ?

Now it’s not aimed at pros but to give anyone a chance to write a song, well my son is seven and is not a musician, yet, he hasn’t displayed any interest in that area, until recently, but even he hears that the stuff this thing produces is absolute pap.  It can’t even compose a good jingle, take a listen More >

Cat went under the knife again, more teeth out.  She’s fine and apparently has kidney and liver function far in excess of a cat of her advanced years (16) and will most likely live a lot longer.

The cats are part of the family so despite no pet insurance I keep paying for the treatments.  I can’t “youth” my cats.

Now she’s home and getting better, I’m glad and fuss her endlessly.  However it makes me think why the hell did I get cats  in the first place.

(more…)

From The Register.

When the music costs nothing, why do freetards prefer to leech?

Nine Inch Nails has followed the Radiohead example and is giving the music away for free. Not all of it, but nine of the thirty six tracks from Trent Reznor’s instrumental LP Ghosts I-IV are available for free, with a PDF thrown in. The other 27, in higher quality bitrate or lossless format, cost just $5.

…..

Despite this throat-cutting gesture, Reznor’s sprawling instrumental release is going gangbusters on the world’s torrent trackers. Pirate Bay has eight thousand concurrent downloads at time of writing, divided fairly evenly between the “free” release and a 320kbit/s bitrate version of the package

FFS!!!!  £2.50 for what is essentially four albums !  And its still being pirated.  I can have a tiny bit of sympathy when purchasing overpriced garbage you might find in a high street music shop, but considering that most albums cost around a tenner and that in the 1980′s they cost about a tenner music prices have dropped massively.

But when someone like Trent releases work like this in a lossless format for next to nowt it blows any arguments people have about stuff being too expensive out of the water.  You are More >

This morning on radio 4 I heard more about the Conway case.  I don’t have a problem with him employing relatives, its the only sensible thing to do in situations like this.

I’m not really writing about him what has annoyed me more is the remarks made by Roger Gale MP.  Complaining about justice and being guilty until proven innocent.

Well for a start, Conway stood up in the House of Commons and apologised, sure sign of innocence there.

But mainly Gale seems to have no idea about so-called British Justice. 

Conway has not been arrested.  He has not been questioned by the Police (yet anyway), he has not been led away in handcuffs.  An investigating body discovered some possible impropriety and gave him a slap on the wrist.  Gale is ranting on about a witch-hunt and this poor sod being labeled guilty.

I’ve seen British Justice in action.  I saw my brother led off in handcuffs due to an untrue accusation which later came out and he was eventually released.  He was innocent yet led off in handcuffs by the police and treated pretty poorly, well like an absolute git is a better statement.  Where was justice for him? no wasting police time More >

Well I finally got through to xbox support and the process is no better than before, with one exception the person I spoke to was a joy to speak to, very apologetic and sympathetic, still could do nothing more than run through the checks and send me a returns label.

It’s all about attitude. The support person gave me no more than the last time but did not have the “take it or shove your xbox where the sun don’t shine” demeanor from my other calls.

So whilst I’m still absolutely fuming at being on my fourth xbox 360, I don’t feel as angry as I did last time I phoned them.  Then there is the fact I’m resigned to poor service and I’m convinced due to the high numbers of failures I’ll just get what I’m given and should think myself lucky.

Although we shall see when the replacement comes DOA like last time !