Lawrence Lessig

I know nothing of Lawrence Lessig, but he seems incredibly interesting and 'motivated'. Here is an interview with Charlie Rose that will probably keep me coming back to Lessig's website for more ideas.



jg

CTA Beeps . . .

Normally I try to get in the last car of the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) 'L' train when I get on at the Addison Station, the one next to my house as I come into work. Today, for some reason, I opted to get in the first car, which means I walk down to the 'other' end of the platform. Since I usually go to the end of the platform where the last car would land, I normally don't here what I heard today.

As the train was just about to pull up to the platform, way at the far end, I (standing at the top end) hear this beeping . . . kinda like a 1980's beeper with a low amplitude, slow whine (beeeep, beeeep, beeeep, beeeep . . .) I thought, what the hell is that, a time bomb? So I walked up and down the track as the train pulled in, the beep was everywhere . . . weird, I thought. When I backed away from the tracks, the beep went away. I finally realized, the train tracks were beeping . . . at just a level that, if you happened to be attuned to using your ears a lot, you would here it. Ohhhhh . . .

It is a warning for the visually impaired . . . it says, with it's little beeps, the train is approaching. Sure enough, after the train pulled up, the beeping stopped.

Or, I could be just hearing things.

jason

Pure Data

I have been working through the "pure data is not max/msp" meme these past few weeks. As part of my Sound for Interaction course we are connecting with the Beat Generation theme of the semester and doing a Burroughs cut-up method on recordings of Burroughs talking about Burroughs. The sound installation will be comprised of about 450 files (created by the class) that will freely remix themselves, creating new Burroughs themes. The process continues though the author is dead. Neat, huh?

I lectured a class in game audio the other day. I mentioned that in preparing for my class I had come across an article stating that sound in gaming (as well as in most pop music) is louder and louder. The result being that there is no nuance. In the 'aracade' days, machines had to compete with each other as they were all crammed together in one room. The machine with the loudest sounds usually received the most attention, and thus the most coinage.

Last week I walked into the game lab and saw a student watching a movie, surfing the net, and playing a game . . . all at the same time. I asked him how he could do all those things at once. He told me he was multi-tasking . . . hmmmm. So, now games and commercials and radio stations and web sites must be louder . . . simply to blow all that other concurrently running media out of the attention zone.

In class, one of the visiting students offered an explanation. He says that the world is already too loud and that the only way for young people to escape these days is to find something even louder. That's right, it must all get louder . . . and it will.

Jason

A new day . . .

You could feel the win yesterday morning. We were just waiting for America to vote. The country needed a new direction, and it looks like we have it. The world is changing, too. Thanks to all the well wishers who sent emails from abroad. I gotta teach tonight . . . I'd rather sleep and take in the television and radio news all day. Soak it all in.

Chicago had a good night. We watched the returns from Brad's place . . . the party downstairs would periodically erupt and we would run to the television to see what had happened. After Pennsylvania, you pretty much could have called the race. It was electorally a landslide. Now we need to put the partisan stuff behind us and move forward as a single country. It is a new direction and a new energy.

Let's get to work.

Jason

It's on . . .