jaycdunn 2010

10 More Reasons You Were Unfollowed On Twitter

2009-10-13T15:01:55-07:00

"Now why did that person unfollow me?" you might ask. "I thought we were cool". Yes, this topic has been covered, but maybe I can think of one or two new reasons that you
(or I) may have been unfollowed.

You keep tweeting music their parents listen to... 70's British rock bands, endless noodling hippie jams, disco, etc... Unacceptable generation gap!

You actually are funny, but people in other countries have never heard the aphorism "Bust My Balls" before. They haven't a clue what you're talking about, but they're pretty sure they should be offended.

They have no idea who @TheRealSwardson is, or why you just called them "bitches". Once again, you've offended someone with your wry sense of humor.

Your avatar sucks. (Yeah I'm working on it)

Your blog sucks. (Ditto)

You're following @auto_porn_bot. And why wouldn't you? ;)

You follow both @iAMolbermann and @glennbeck. WTF?

They don't mind food tweets in general, but you eat the same thing every day and continue to tweet about it. Every morning, it's "Ahh, bacon smells so awesome!" Eat a vegetable bro.

You simply tweet too damn much for their mobile texting plan to accommodate. This is getting expensive.

They're insulted that you don't think their teeth are white enough.

Ted's Head Is Dead

2009-10-09T21:21:43-07:00

This story is a real-life X-File if ever I've seen one. Ex-employee squeals on cryonics lab for being a bunch of hacks... cryonics lab threatens ex-employee's life... Wow. Even the company name, ALCOR, sounds like a place that Mulder would be investigating. I can see him snooping around their warehouse now. He's talking to Scully on his cell phone, wait, he has to be quiet, goons are coming.

NASA - Taking Pot Shots at the Moon

2009-10-08T20:56:35-07:00

I guess this is what it's come to huh? In the face of a shrinking budget, and according to some (probably on the right), with little support from the Obama administration, NASA has gone rogue. No more grandiose Moon or Mars missions, they're just gonna take pot shots at the moon and see what they can scare up. It's kinda like the 2008 Mc Cain/Palin presidential campaign. And how did that work out for ya?

Is Twitter really just a self-serving piece of shit for egomaniacs?

2009-10-07T09:35:28-07:00

You like that title? Seriously though. The other day I tweeted something to the effect of "Whoa, there is a huge forest fire near my house". Not one of almost 700 followers batted an eye. I find this downright insulting to be perfectly honest. At least one of my Facebook friends noticed and commented, "Hey, I hope it's okay", etc...

So is Twitter just one big ego fest? Yes, it is. People are so absorbed in their own little Twitter world that they can't be bothered to notice when my town is threatened by fire. This is an eye opener for me. Another eye opener, I get more RT's from people who don't follow me. That's right, I'm saying that followers are overrated.

At least maybe I'll get one extra blog view for having a controversial title. Have a lovely day! Oh, and if you have a fire or other natural disaster nearby, please remember that I'm one of the people who actually cares and would give you the shirt off my back. What's that, you can't see your house burning down through the massiveness of my fat belly? Sorry.

* disclaimer - No, I'm not trying to get rid of my followers. I love you all, even #hellspammer ;)

YouTube - good for video. For audio, not so much

2009-10-05T12:54:11-07:00

I have a very eclectic taste in music, which I like to share with my Twitter friends. One way I do this is to find a music video on YouTube, shorten the link, and tweet it. Using a link shortener is cool, because a few of them tell you what state or country the clicks are coming from. This gives me some idea of who is listening.

It can be a little tedious trolling the internet for audio files, shortening links and tweeting them though. So lately I've been trying out the music sharing service blip.fm. Blip has some great features, the main one being that you can post a song (link) to Twitter directly from your blip.fm page. This is called "blipping" and it's really cool. You enter an artist and song title, preview the different results, then blip the one you like. The audio/video files are pulled from various music sharing services, with many of them coming from YouTube.

The problem with using YouTube to share music is that it was designed for video, audio is secondary. Video editing software typically compresses the audio as it renders the file. This means that audio quality suffers. I'm a musician and recording engineer, so I'm picky about sound, but a lot of the audio files on YouTube are so bad they make the casual listener cringe as well. What you're hearing are artifacts from too much DSP (digital signal processing). These artifacts are known by such names as aliasing, quantization noise, motorboating, and ringing. But you don't need to concern yourself with that. All you need to know is that they sound bad.

Some people who use YouTube to share music will make a very simple video, so the majority of bits can be allotted to the audio file. I appreciate this, but all in all, YouTube is just not that great for sharing music. This is evident by the large number of bad sounding files on blip.fm. When I'm searching for a song to blip, I have to wade through a lot of trashy audio. That's one nice thing about iTunes, you won't find completely ruined audio files.

If I ran a music sharing service, I would not use YouTube as a source for audio files. And from an artist perspective, I wouldn't like people turning my music into garbage and posting it on the internet. The music industry has dropped the ball I believe. They need a new file format that allows for artists to collect royalties while preventing multiple encoding. Bad sound is just not good for the brand, period.

Here's a few tips you can follow to keep audio clean. Don't re-encode mp3 files. Start with a .wav or .aiff file. I suspect multiple encoding to be the main culprit in all this bad sound. You can compress the shit out of the original file once and it will sound okay, but re-compressing mp3 is a big no-no. Also, use the mid to high quality VBR profiles in your mp3 encoder. VBR, or Variable Bit Rate encoding lowers file size without degrading the quality.

There is a glaring irony in online music. As technology improves, sound quality continues to suffer. I'd like to share a song right now, but so far I haven't found a decent sounding version of it on the internet. Given the time, I like to rip high quality mp3's from a CD and upload them. I'd like to see a service that allows me to do this while crediting the artist through the use of ID3 tags, ISRC code, whatever. The legal stuff should be handled automatically so we can all share good sounding music without fear of copyright infringement. It would save the music industry tons of money too. Or I don't know..... maybe they just like to sue people!

The future really is here now

2009-09-28T00:19:05-07:00

This story on CNN caught my attention today. It shows a guy wearing a funny looking cap that enables him to post on Twitter...directly from his brain. "Look Ma, no hands!". The Brain Computer Interface, or "BCI" is not your typical computer input device. The user wears a stylish red and blue cap, complete with a fashionable wiring harness hanging off the back. It looks like Michael Phelps meets Do-Rags... in the Matrix. This cap contains a series of electrodes which pick up electronic signals from the brain and transmit them to the computer. Now that's some impressive coding.

As this technology progresses, the implications are pretty staggering. The military has long coveted such a capability. It will take the concept of "Unmanned Drone" to a whole new level. Other potential uses for the BCI could range from surgical procedures to space exploration, manufacturing, live broadcasting, and even traffic control. Or reverse the signal and get a "Brain Massage".

One day in the not-so-distant future, some form of BCI will be included with your personal computer. Mac users BCI's will be better, of course. Just make sure you're not thinking about that lunchtime rendezvous with your secretary while the wife is looking. And if you have Turrets syndrome, you'll need to purchase the "Brain Spam Filter" from the BCI App Store.

Tanis

2009-09-27T21:07:35-07:00

Tanis.mp3

Composed by tuba player John Noreyko
Performed by Tubop
Recorded by Me
Live no overdubs

You'll have to turn the volume up a bit on your computer speakers or receiver for this song. Acoustic music does not benefit from the typical mastering technique of making everything as loud as possible. You may not be used to music with this much dynamic range. It's a quiet, meditative piece, so I left a few seconds of silence at the beginning to set the mood.