It's not that easy bein' meme.

Busy week in the compound, which means it's time for more memes! 

Ah, just kidding -- steal 'em all you want. 

Chatty appliances.

The other day my wife was downstairs and was sure she heard me grumbling in the next room, but I was not even in the house. I was outside with the dog. This was the complainer she heard:

It's funny in part because there would have been no question had this been our old dishwasher, the one that came with the house. That thing was so loud you had to raise your voice to be heard over it. The one we got later, the Bosch, is quiet, but you can just hear it from the next room. And what you hear, I guess, can sound like someone grumbling in the kitchen.

Certainly I can be heard grumbling, mumbling, bitching, and moaning at almost any hour of the day. It's what I do. I observe life, observe my condition, observe my own reactions to it, and utter low sentences for my own complaint or amusement or clarification. I'm the star of my own low-talking show. I'm often asked what I was saying, when what I was saying was not intended for anyone else's ears. 

Mumbling for comic effect probably only came to prominence after the invention of the microphone. Mumbling on stage would be difficult for an audience to follow. In older plays, a character might make asides to the audience to show what he or she is thinking, but those were usually comic or at least pithy observations, not the endless grumble of a muttering character. One of the first comedic mumblers I know of was a Peter Sellers Goon Show character, Willium "Mate" Cobblers, who could even be heard complaining in a low tone while other characters were supposed to be the ones speaking. 

Having determined that it was the dishwasher that was talking, I had to supply its dialogue. 

"Washin' the same damn bowl every day... You got just one cereal bowl, cheapskates?... Every day I gotta do the dog bowls and he never says nuthin'.... Thankless job.... Hate the way them forks poke me in the side when the water goes around.... Y'all usin' that cheap-ass basic Finish instead of the deluxe stuff.... I know what the mannufacterer said but he don' know nuthin'.... Take theses doggone plates and stuff 'em, that's what you can do...."

Of course, I hope the dishwasher is not that much of a malcontent. Goodness knows we rely on it heavily, and that only the air conditioner comes close to its place as a beloved fixture of the home. We lived without one for years, and we're not doing that again. 

Repeat the Beatles?

I know private jets are expensive, but at their age I hope Sir Paul and Sir Ringo are not so in need of money that they had to extrude a new Beatles song, using a Lennon demo tape and a failed Harrison guitar track. 

McCartney recently had to defend the project against allegations that artificial intelligence was being used to re-create the talents of the deceased Beatles, saying that "nothing has been artificially or synthetically created". The story goes that the reason this song was not released in 1995, along with "Real Love" and "Free as a Bird," is that John's vocal track was messed up, but AI has now solved that problem.  

I have issues.

I know -- Mr. Killjoy.

 

First, as Ed Driscoll wrote on Insty's page, 

A demo recording is a way for an artist to explore his ideas for a song, and/or to give to his backing musicians to learn a song’s riff or chord progression. On a demo, often he’s not singing with as much effort as he would give a polished recording designed for wide commercial release.

Ed also quotes Ian MacDonald on the 1995 project: 

Unimpressed with the quality of these two ‘reunion’ tracks, Harrison declined to have anything to do with Lennon’s third demo, which consequently remains in its original state and was not included on Anthology 3, as originally planned.

But Harrison did try to noodle around with the cut and was unhappy with the results. Nevertheless, whatever he did is going to be on the new record.

According to Charles Cooke writing in National Review,  

As an application of artificial intelligence, making a badly recorded vocal performance “pure” is fairly benign — equivalent in some sense to cleaning dirty tapes, remixing a recording for stereo, or remastering it for new media. But AI does not — and it will not — end there. For both audio and video, AI can be used as a simulation tool, which an operator can use to sample a given voice or physical appearance and then create something entirely novel from the results. If we are not there already, we are getting close to the point at which a director could make a movie with a deceased actor in the lead role and at which a record producer could generate a full album’s worth of material “by” an artist who is now unable to record a note.

You may recall how in 1997 Fred Astaire's moving image was used in a series of Dirt Devil commercials, showing him dancing with the brand's vacuum cleaner. There was outcry against that at the time, and that's nothing compared to what's on the horizon. 

For the Beatles project, Sir Paul says there's nothing fake about the AI used on Lennon's voice -- but he could say that honestly even if the AI used a pile of Lennon recordings, stealing a morpheme here and there and combining them to make Lennon sing the Malaysian National Anthem or whatever else you want. It's John's voice, just "remixed." Deepfakes are showing us how it's done, using existing images of famous people and merging them to make videos. A voice may be that much easier to fake with the actual sound of a person's voice, given a large enough dataset. 

So, in effect, the upcoming song required unheard-of amounts of electronic fooling, was rejected the first time around by the now-deceased George, was something Lennon made three years before he was killed and apparently didn't think it met his own standards for publication, and will be mixed not as a Beatles song would have been done but as a McCartney (and I guess Starr) song. 

I'm not terribly excited. 

And look, if we're going to start screwing about with Beatles stuff using artificial intelligence, how about correcting some past problems? For example: 

🎵 "Within You Without You" -- Did anyone not stoned ever enjoy this five-minute brick in the middle of Sgt. Pepper? I much preferred Big Daddy's take, doing it as a beatnik bongo number. It was still boring, but it was less than two minutes long. 

🎵 "She's Leaving Home" -- Always wanted a more realistic take on the last verse, like: 

Sheeeeee... is lying... in a diiiiiiiiiitch...

🎵 "Revolution 9" -- Could be replaced by something more interesting. Like, a blank soundtrack, or an apology. 

🎵 "Sun King" -- Maybe we could speed it up a bunch? Might be a passable song played at 45.

🎵 "Boys" -- It has never been clear to me why Ringo sang this song by the Shirelles on the Please Please Me album. Maybe we could dub in the Shirelles singing. Or just dub in their whole song. 

You laugh -- ha! ha! -- but it seems that AI is destined to be used to exploit the past -- and to "correct" errors of the past, the way censorship is being used to "correct" undesirable things in old movies and books nowadays. If our barbarous overloads are determined to destroy the past, maybe we could at least make it sound more pleasant first.  

Fail safe?

 

Business writing, song, dog.

Continuing the theme of clarity in writing we began yesterday, I thought I would pass along some advice on business writing in the modern era. There are two key things you should bear in mind at all times whenever you are engaged in business communications. People are taught these in school, but we could always use a refresher.  

The first is: Clarity is king. The e-mail, cover letter, formal request, summary report -- none of these is an appropriate place to go into a Song of Myself. You may use some style, a little razzle-dazzle if it highlights the message, but stick to the point and leave personalities out of it. If clarity is king, brevity is his viceroy. Don't give your audience time to get bored. 

As an example, I would like to use the clear and brief instructions in the chorus of that seminal hit by Jim Stafford, "Don't Pet the Dog." 

Don't pet the dog, don't pet him whatever you do

'Cause he ain't been fixed, he knows some tricks

That'll sure make a fool out of you

Don't pet the dog, he gets it confused with romance

Don't tickle his sides or look deep in his eyes

Or he'll be taking your leg to the dance

Six simple lines that convey clear, crucial information. The first line is a simple declarative statement, repeated and emphasized to impress its importance: 

Don't pet the dog, don't pet him whatever you do

The next sentences outline the source of the issue, and hints at the consequences of ignoring same:

'Cause he ain't been fixed, he knows some tricks

That'll sure make a fool out of you

The fourth line explains the problem in a little more detail, explaining the current state of the problem:

Don't pet the dog, he gets it confused with romance

And finally, the last two lines add more detail of the range of the warning and the depth of trouble for those failing to heed it: 

Don't tickle his sides or look deep in his eyes

Or he'll be taking your leg to the dance

You can see how effective this short message is. The verses go into greater detail, but you can think of that as the full report; the chorus is like the executive summary. 

The second piece of advice is: Be careful. 

Another reason to be brief, if not terse, in writing for work is that you probably would like to leave your job on your own terms rather than be defenestrated. Do not give in to the temptation to spice things up with a little levity or gossip. Companies are so terrified about being sued by their oversensitive and high-strung workers that they want us all to spy on one another like the Stasi and report the slightest infraction to human resources. Written communications can and will be presented at your drumming-out.

That e-mail you sent your best work buddy Bob, the one with the blonde joke? Someone looking over Bob's shoulder is going to report you for it, and maybe him as well for laughing at it. There is no freedom of speech. There will be no right to confront your accuser. The only question will be how big a box you will need for your desk tchotchkes, and whether you'll be escorted out by security. It really is like penny-ante East Berlin out there. 

It's funny that companies are so terrified of the reputation risk that comes with these kinds of lawsuits, and yet are so often run by idiots who will send the company down in flames to follow DEI and other PC nonsense at the expense of their customers and shareholders. That kind of foolishness seems like a much bigger reputational risk to me. But this is the world in which we live now. 

So, in brief: Be brief. Don't make eye contact with the crazy people. For job security, have no personality at work. And if the dog ain't been fixed, don't pet him. Whatever you do.

Comma tips.

Today I would like to once again address the pressing issue of commas in the English language. 

And no, I'm not going to take up once more the battle of the serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma) -- that is, the comma before the last item in a series. (As in the sentence I bought bananas, apples, and oranges.) There are those who believe the serial comma should be used in such sentences, and there are those who are wrong. I'm not debating the wrong people at this time. 

No, in this case I have a couple of tips for comma use that will make your writing sing! Or, if not sing, at least look neater, which will still put you ahead of the game. 

1) Use commas with independent clauses.

Bob got out his motorcycle, and Jan got out her AK-47.

A comma usually proceeds the conjunction (sing it with me: and, but, and or, get you pretty far! And also yet, while, so, etc.) when there are independent clauses. What does this mean without the grammar blah blah blah? When you see a sentence with multiple subjects and their verbs, and you have a boxcar from Conjunction Junction, break out your comma. 

Failure to do so is the number-one cause of run-on sentences, according to a statistic I just made up. It makes you sound unschooled, or someone like Big Bill Faulkner or Winston Groom or T. R. Pearson pretending to be unschooled.

Then Jolie and me went to the bait shop and I bought bait and she said what's that for and I said lunch and she didn't think it was funny.

Of course that should be: Then Jolie and me went to the bait shop, and I bought bait, and she said what's that for, and I said lunch, and she didn't think it was funny. Although if you were writing a business letter like this, you would need to make plenty more changes. 

One thing that can alert you is the change of point-of-view. In the top example we have Bob and Jan doing different things, with individual verbs and objects. When it's just one subject with that conjunction, you won't need the comma. 

Bob got out his motorcycle and gunned the engine.

2) How to tell when to use a comma for a coordinate adjectives. 

Here are some simple nouns with multiple adjectives. Can you tell why some have commas and some don't?

lovely cold water

green, hazy morning

sharp, shiny blade

hard, cold truth

blue wooden basket

The simple answer is that in the first and last examples, the first adjective modifies the noun and the adjective before the noun. It is because the water is cold that it is lovely; it is the wood of the basket that is painted blue. A hazy morning is not necessarily green, a blade not always shiny, and the truth not always cold. Think of "cold water" and "wooden basket" as being the name of the object.  

But Fred, you say, this is very subtle. If only there were an easy way to tell when to use the comma and when not to use the comma!  

And there is! When looking at multiple adjectives before a noun, ask yourself, Self! Would the phrase work as well if I used and between the adjectives? If so, use the and or use the comma. Sharp and shiny blade is the same as sharp, shiny blade. Lovely and cold water is not the same as Lovely cold water because in the first instance, the loveliness is not connected to the refreshingly chill of the water. Maybe the water just looks nice. But hard and cold truth is fine, because that truth is both hard and cold. 

The Chicago Manual of Style gives less subtle examples as: 

He has rejected traditional religious affiliations.

You can see that traditional and religious affiliations would change the meaning, saying that he has rejected all traditional as well as all religious affiliations. So he eschews the Masons and Oddfellows and Knights of the Templar as well as Judaism and Catholicism and New Age woo woo stuff. 

, , , , , , , , ,

Ninety-nine people out of a hundred will not pick up on these things and will not care. Some will sense something is off if a comma is not used properly. Many can scarcely read or write, yet somehow got a high-school degree. I saw someone online complaining about the noise from the "canyons" being shot off at West Point. Maybe another victim of autocorrect... or maybe not.

I admit my comma issues are real inside-baseball stuff. 

Some will argue that these are not hard-and-fast rules, set in stone, and other clichés, and that's all right. Certainly great writers have broken these kinds of guidelines all the time, often showing powerful style. But as a great editor once said, you need to know the rules before you can break them. You have to pass the basic driving test before you can go on to race cars, drive big rigs, or jump school buses in Beetles, and what I offer is the equivalent of a parallel parking tip. 

Now, go out there and use those commas! Or not, depending! 

The tripods have landed.

Lately I've been talking about my wife's crazy product purchases in this space, and I'll give her credit for two things -- the stuff she's been getting is not expensive, and if it works as advertised it would be helpful. 

Well, my latest present from her is this set of tripods. 

If you use liquid hand soap, or a shampoo or the like that comes in a pump bottle, you may find the Flip-It! bottle emptying caps useful. I like to get everything I can out of the soap bottle, which in the past has meant trying to balance it on its cap or just water down the contents and try to get an adequate handwashing out of what's inside. 

Well, no more! The amazing tripod cap allows you to stand that bottle right up on its top, and gravity does the rest. 

I didn't think much of the Flip-It! at first, but I was surprised how little residue is left in the bottle after Isaac Newton has had a chance at it. When the soap is gone, one quick rinse and into the recycling bin, to likely go in the landfill with the rest of the garbage. Well, at least I tried. 

The kit comes with two tripods and six adapters, so any standard bottle should be accommodated. I've used a medium adapter (the dark gray ring above) and a small one for two different soap bottles. I imagine shampoo/conditioner bottles need the larger adapter. 

Though I've taken a flyer on all sorts of gadgets and gizmos, I probably wouldn't have bought these. Still, it's always fun to see if an idea works as described, and the Flip-It! does. Two caveats: Because it is designed to adapt to shampoo bottles, you will likely get more liquid hand soap dispensed than you want if you're not careful. Also, both times I used it, the adapter was difficult to get off the empty bottle -- probably dried soap gluing up the works. 

Still, as cheap but clever ideas with no working parts go, I give this two clean thumbs up. My review: Flip-It? Good!