Posts by Munchausen By Taxi

Re: I have 2

I'll give you S.R. I only watch it for the plane rescue scene. The rest of it was dull as hell.

ah!

Just dusted off a copy of that episode ('Earthbound' with Christopher Lee!), and you're right! I was so busy watching Roy Dotrice having a meltdown, I hadn't noticed the Kaldorian sitting up and looking round.

In fairness to Roy's character, if you'd just found out you were going to be stuck in a perspex box for 75 years, you might be somewhat agitated too.

...wait a minute...

The C64 could function as a three channel synthesizer. Not 'beep' or 'make sound', but oscillators (triangle, saw, pulse and noise), filters and amps. It wasn't a Jupiter 8, but you could get more variety of sound out of it than a BBC or Spectrum. That meant that programming sounds could be a bit more of a slog, but it was worth it for the results.

And why would we trust them with our data?...

Sorry, 'who' paid a lot of money? I believe it was the taxpayer (a lot of whom are also patients) who financed this system (which was supposed to be cheaper and more efficient than the mountains of files and paperwork that preceded it). A great idea and may well have saved a lot of lives.

What it was NOT supposed to be, was the basis of another free-for-all for this Governments 'whatever it is - monetise it!' attitude to...well...everything.

As for selling it to private companies on the basis that we get better access to newer treatments? (a justification that was doing the rounds on the BBC News on Monday). Hey guess what, they'll still be extortionately priced (they have to recoup research costs somehow), and if the National Institute for Clinical Excellence decide it doesn't provide value for money?... You simply won't be seeing these new treatments, but thanks for your data anyway. :o)

Never buy dodgy hulls from a Puppeteer.

If I remember rightly, they're not much use near neutron stars or anti-matter planets.

If I can't hold it in my hand, I ain't interested...I'm talking CDs here.

This is quite an interesting question. Hanging out with computer muso friends, we've had interesting discussions on releasing their music as downloads, or as a homemade CD. If you just get someone's music as a download, do you place the same value on it as you would with a lovingly designed tangible 'thing' that you can look at and leave on a table or in your huge stack of music CDs on your shelf. There's some kind of psychological connection between the music you hear and the wacky booklet that came with the package, that you don't get by squinting at some piss-poor pdf on your laptop screen.

Perhaps it's just an age thing. Like flicking through (and reading) a physical book is a much more satisfying experience than using an e-reader.

Yes, it's cheaper. Yes, it's convenient. But overall, is it as satisfying?

But No...

That's definitely auto-tune (or pitch correction). Apart from the superhuman levels of hitting the right note exactly, the timbre quality still sounds like a human voice (although there's probably some post-pitch correction filtering in there).

Even the best vocoders out there couldn't get that right.

Still... AUUUUUU TOOOOOO BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.....

(Ooh. Think I'll listen to that now. Classic.)