Ep. 21 - Quixotic Amber Camel

Buy a round! Become a Patron! Links Bohemian Rhapsody – press conference scene (YouTube) Freddie Mercury — acoustic analysis of speaking fundamental frequency, vibrato, and subharmonics (Tayler & Francis Online) Quantitative analysis utilizing a newly introduced parameter to assess the regularity of vocal vibrato corroborated its perceptually irregular nature, suggesting that vibrato (ir)regularity is a distinctive feature of the singing voice. Imitation of subharmonic phonation samples by a professional rock singer, documented by endoscopic high-speed video at 4,132 frames per second, revealed a 3:1 frequency locked vibratory pattern of vocal folds and ventricular folds. Good Vibrations Episode: Ep. 11 - Work the Body, Grow the Mind SpeechJammer: A System Utilizing Artificial Speech Disturbance with Delayed Auditory Feedback (Cornell University) In general, human speech is jammed by giving back to the speakers their own utterances at a delay of a few hundred milliseconds. This effect can disturb people without any physical discomfort, and disappears immediately by stop speaking. Furthermore, this effect does not involve anyone but the speaker. We utilize this phenomenon and implemented two prototype versions by combining a direction-sensitive microphone and a direction-sensitive speaker, enabling the speech of a specific person to be disturbed. We discuss practical application scenarios of the system, such as facilitating and controlling discussions. Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) (Wikipedia) SpeechJammer won 2012 Ig Nobel Prize (YouTube) Botticelli's Inferno (Wikipedia) Salvador Dalí (Wikipedia) Vincent van Gogh (Wikipedia) Geico Hump Day Commercial (YouTube) Don Quixote (Wikipedia) Quixotic in Spanish is quijotesco Before Swimming, Be Sure To Shower (Water Quality & Health Council) A thorough shower with soap helps remove perspiration, body oils, cosmetics and traces of urine and fecal matter on the body. Sending those substances down the shower drain goes a long way toward reducing the “yuck factor” for everyone who shares the pool, but there is much more to consider. The pre-swim shower helps minimize the irritating, smelly substances formed in pool water when impurities introduced on the bodies of swimmers combine with chlorine. Many people identify that smell as the smell of chlorine. The survey found 38 percent of people believe the characteristic chemical odor of some swimming pools in an indicator of a clean pool. In fact, that stringent odor is not from chlorine, but from irritants produced when chlorine reacts with impurities. Recreational Water Illnesses (CDC) Lexicon Valley Podcast (Slate) Deadwood: The Movie (Wikipedia) Ian McShane (Wikipedia) Deadwood: The Movie (HBO) Deadwood and the English Language (PDF) (Digital Commons) If, as seems demonstrable, words like prick, cunt, shit, fuck, and cocksucker would have been in common usage in the time andplace in which Deadwood is set, then, like any words, in form and frequency their expression will be governed by the personality of a given character, imagined by the author with whatever imperfection, as the character is shaped and tested in the crucible of experience. Talk Pretty – The linguistic brilliance of HBO’s Deadwood (Slate) Deadwood’s characters utter long, serpentine sentences, in diction that—depending on the speaker—can ascend to courtly abstraction or sink to the ripest vulgarity. Newspaperman Merrick (Jeffrey Jones), distraught over Hickok’s death and disgusted with McCall’s acquittal, offers a sarcastic toast: “Should it ever be your misfortune, gentlemen, or mine, to need to kill a man, then let us toast, together, the possibility that our trials be held in this camp.” Dawson's Creek (Wikipedia) Buy a round! Become a Patron!