Behind the scenes

Earlier this month, I wrote a blog post called Let's pour salt water up our noses! It turns out that this is a very popular article of mine. It's about rebound nasal congestion (Rhinitis medicamentosa) caused by prolong use of Afrin nose spray. Since then, about half this site's traffic is from blogsearch.google.com. People are searching blogs for phrases like "rhinitis" and "afrin".

Yes, you read that correctly.

There are people on the Internet searching blogs for information about stuffy noses. They're not looking for medical information like WebMD or Wikipedia. They're looking for anecdotes. Which is worse: people writing stories about their stuffy noses; or people deliberately seeking stories about stuffy noses? Because I don't think anyone wins in that interaction. I know I had to pad my post about my stuffy nose with all kinds of filler to sneak it past this blog's editorial staff. We have standards here at ISICHYS. Or we used to.

Another popular search phrase that leads to my blog is "Mario porn" (and variations thereof). I really, really, really wish I was kidding. But I am a man who reads market signals and gives the people what they want, so you may notice a slight shift in the topics I blog about in the near future.

Audacity effect: Repair

A few days ago, I wrote a post called How to manually eliminate a click in Audacity. It turns out, there is another way to accomplish the same thing, but better. The Audacity effect called "Repair".

Repair eliminates clicks. Just highlight the click and select "Repair" from the effects menu. That's it. No options or anything.

You have to zoom in pretty damn far, to the point that the click takes up a quarter of the screen. Then select only about half the click. If you select too much, Repair will complain at you and quit. Repair suffers from some of the limitations of my previous method. For example, sometimes it leaves a residual clack behind. But it seems to work better.

So there you go. You can safely ignore my previous post. In fact, you can probably safely ignore this entire blog. Except for the very first post.

Firewall

I just finished watching a movie called Firewall. It's about Jack Stanfield (played by Harrison Ford), the VP of a bank in Seattle (played by Vancouver). Some bad guys come along and force him to wire money to their off-shore bank account.

Mr. Stanfield does this twice---once wiring money to the account later during the work day, and once late at night from the account back into his bank. I live in the same time zone as Seattle, and I know that I can't wire money after 1 PM because that's when the Federal Reserve closes.

Do bankers have a secret password that lets them wire money without dealing with the Fed? Why can they wire money like that but I can't? Is it because I'm a lowly tax chose? Do I have to go into the Californian forest and sacrifice a baby to a concrete owl god to gain access to this password? Because I'll do it if I have to.

Anyway, the movie was okay. You could do worse.

USS Enterprise (CVN-65)

Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article about the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), a United States Navy aircraft carrier. It was the world's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, but it was designed and built to use conventional powerplants of the time, only later retrofitted with nuclear reactors.

She is also the only aircraft carrier to house more than two nuclear reactors. Enterprise’s eight-reactor propulsion design was rather conservative, with each A2W reactor taking the place of one boiler.

A boiler is basically a steam engine. They replaced the eight boilers with eight nuclear reactors. I find it mildly discomforting that United States engineers ball-parked the power output of a nuclear reactor as being roughly equivalent to a steam engine.

"Let's replace the safe, mature technology with this new, experimental technology that is probably equivalent in performance but a whole hell of a lot more dangerous and expensive."

"Yeah, that sounds good."

I'd ask how this one managed to get through the BS meter of the United States government, but I don't think they have one.

Librivox Community Podcast #76

I hosted the Librivox Community Podcast #76.

0:00 — Daniel rambles about acoustics
10:45 — Excerpt from Twelfth Night
11:02 — Stats intro
11:24 — Stats read by Helen Elsbeth
13:19 — New users
13:45 — According to Wikipedia (music: National Anthem of the Soviet Union as performed by the United States Navy Band)
15:08 — A message from Hugh (music: Má vlast from Musopen.org)
18:51 — Talmage On Miracles recited by Len Spencer (1902) from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California)
21:03 — Daniel says good-bye

If they ever let me do this again sometime, I'll be sure to have more content. This was totally a last-minute deal.

Finally, a presidential candidate that is going nowhere who I can get behind

Dr. Mary Ruwart is running for President (of, I assume, the United States federal government). She seems to be running on a strict "stay the hell out of my life and I'll stay the hell out of your life" platform. I like it. Plus, she's much cuter than Ron Paul (though Dr. Paul does have dreamy eyes).

Not Ron Paul.

Dr. Ruwart wrote an awesome book called Healing Our World in an Age of Aggression, which I believe you can read freely online.

But I won't be voting for her for the same reason I won't vote for Ron Paul: I don't beg for my freedom like a dog whimpering at the table for scraps. I might ask diffidently. But I refuse to beg!

Also, the Titanic has already hit the iceberg, metaphorically speaking. Nothing left to do but rearrange some furniture and polish some brass knobs. And I think it comes as no surprise, but I'm an expert brass knob polisher.

On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion

Philosopher and podcast host Stefan Molyneux has released his first non-fiction book as a free ebook download for a limited time: On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion (free version). I must warn you: do not read this book. It will fuck up your life. It will destroy your comfortable illusions. I, for one, quite enjoyed my comfortable illusions, but now they're all destroyed and I have to live in reality and truth now. As Molyneux puts it:

This book is radioactive and painful - it is only incidentally the kind of radiation and pain that will cure you...

"Only incidentally"? That seems kind of sadistic. And in many ways, it is. Like a dentist standing on your chest as he pulls out that infected tooth to save your life. It's painful, terrifying, and mildly arousing, but in the end you'll be much healthier and alive-ier.

So, once again, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK! You can find it here: linkers.

How to manually eliminate a click in Audacity

Have you ever been listening to a recording you made when suddenly and obnoxious click or pop intrudes on the recording? Often times, these clicks or pops can be edited out, but sometimes they are embedded in a word.

There's a click somewhere in here.

But that may be fixable without having to re-record that section.

Select the click and about a second before and after. Click on "View>Zoom To Selection".


On the very left-hand side of the track display, there should be an "X" that deletes the track. Next to that is the track name, which defaults to something like "Audio Track". There is a down arrow next to that.



The default track view is "Waveform". Change this to "Spectrum". The waveform appearance changes to something quite psychedelic.


The click should stand out in this view as a spike in the Spectrum. You should be able to highlight the click now and delete it without deleting too much of the word to be easily noticeable when listening. Ta-da! No more click.

See the spike in the middle? That be an evil click.

Re-set everything, zoom back out, and listen to that section again to make sure you didn't delete too much of the word and that you actually removed the click. If you made a mistake, use your Undo function. If you just can't eliminate the click without making it sound funny, you might try using the Amplify or Equalizer functions in the "Effect" menu to reduce the volume of the click without actually deleting it. And if that doesn't work, you'll just have to re-record or leave it in and hope no one notices.

But only evil puppy-kickers leave clicks in their recordings. You're not an evil puppy-kicker, are you?

Tip: Fast searching in Firefox

Any website that has a search box can be turned into a keyword search in Firefox at the click of a button.

• First, go to a page with a search field. For example, you might test this out on the LibriVox catalog search page.
• Right-click on the search box. For example, right click on the search box of "Title" on the catalog page.
• Click on "Add a Keyword for this Search..."
• An "Add Bookmark" box pops up.
• In the "name" field, type something descriptive like "LibriVox Catalog search by Title".
• In the "keyword" field, type something short but easy to remember, like "lvt" (for "LibriVox Title").
• Click "OK". This will create a new bookmark (but you can hide it in a sub-folder if you want).

To use your new keyword search, press CTRL+L (or click on File>Open Location from the menu bar). Type the keyword, then a space, then the search term. For example, "lvt count of monte cristo" (without the quotes, obviously). Press enter, and it should take you right to the results page!

You can do this with any search box on any website. I have shortcuts for the LibriVox catalog by Title (keyword: lvt), Author (lva), and Reader (lvr), I have Answers.com (a), and I have Wikipedia (wp). I don't have Google because Firefox has a built-in search bar.

For more information, read the Mozilla.org article What are Smart Keywords?

LibriVox Community Podcast #75

I read the stats for this weeks LibriVox Community Podcast (#75).

But more interestingly, Starlite interviewed johng who has been systematically reading all of Mark Twain's writings. I haven't listened to any of his readings yet, but his voice and sound quality on the interview were of a professional quality, so I'll definitely be putting those on my list. Not a huge fan of Twain, but he did support my boy Nikola Tesla during the War of Currents. Didn't help, though.

Chapter 1 of The Castle of Otranto is up!!!

On Saturday, I posted chapter one of my recording of The Castle of Otranto. It's almost 49 minutes long, but several minutes of that is intro and outro. I added music (Toccata et Fugue; you'll recognize it when you hear it) to the beginning and ending, and I added a sound effect of a thunder storm for the section breaks. (Unfortunately, the BC contacted me via PM and said that that violated LV policy and I should probably remove it :( )

Personally, I think the whole recording sounds pretty good. The story is fun, and if you like Gothic literature, ghost stories, etc, you'll enjoy Otranto.

I have a number of other projects I'm part of that I need to work on before I get back to Otranto. But I can't wait. It's been quite enjoyable so far.

People are afraid

I've been browsing a lot of blogs lately, seeing what there is to see. I've noticed a disturbing trend: people are scared. About everything. The top reasons seem to be global warming, the militarization of the American police, Microsoft, nuclear power, vanishing bees, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, and Canada. Except for that last one, I'm not sure what people are so worried about.

I can see general reasons why some of the things on that list might be a bit frightening. The only reason to worry about something is if you have the ability to change it. There's nothing you or I can do about Canada. They're there to stay, it seems. And it doesn't matter if Clinton or McCain gets into office; they've both been bought and paid for by the same people. And the militarization of the police always happens during the climax of an empire, and it rolls back when the empire falls. And I know where all the bees have gone: Fiji. I would go to Fiji too if there weren't so many bees there.

I guess my point is that you should take some comfort in the ride. I'm not talking about some kind of zen-like pathological disconnect from reality. Rather, focus on what you actually can change: your living situation, your work situation, the people in your life, your finances, and most aspects of your health.

When you worry about something you have no control over, you are hiding some real anxiety about something you can change but are too scared to change. If you want to be happy, the best thing you can do is stop hiding your anxiety and make the change. It'll be hard, and it'll be painful in the short-term. But in the long-term, you'll be so much happier and worry-free. It's like going to the dentist; no one likes to do it, but the alternative is a tooth rotting until you die.

And that's something to worry about.

That and Canada.

LibriVox article on Wikipedia has been narrated

I find this deliciously appropriate. Someone narrated the Wikipedia article about Librivox. It was recorded by a fellow named Reason turns rancid, which is apparently this gentleman's real name!

Proselytizing Fiction?

I was listening to a podcast called The Signal the other day. It's a podcast about the Firefly TV series and Serenity movie. It's a fascinating and well-produced podcast, and I only recently discovered it.

But something shocked me about it. On the podcast, they talk frequently of their "conversion" experience. That's the word they use. "Conversion". Like it's a religion. They invite listeners to email or call in to share their testimony. They also talk about how the various "Browncoats" can go out and spread the word about Firefly and Serenity. They actually give their listeners tips on how to proselytize a TV show.

Half of me is stunned. The other half of me is wondering how I can cash in on this.

Yes, Joss Whedon actually created an interesting "verse" full of interesting "characters". I enjoyed the series, and I enjoyed the movie.

But proselytize? Conversion experience?

Garder Goldsmith wrote an article for a book exploring the libertarian themes in the series. (He talks about it in a series of YouTube videos you can find here.) This is quite a trick because there are no libertarian themes in the series. I checked. Found none. But he found a niche market for his essay, enough so to make some money.

There is another podcast called 7th Son. It's a "Podiobook" (an audio book released episodically as a podcast), written and read by J. C. Hutchins. It's not a bad little epic. This Hutchins character knows how to write a book. But the part I like the most is the commentary that Hutchins provides before and after each episode. He asks his listeners to go out and spread the word about 7th Son. He frequently uses the term "7th Son love", which strikes me as awfully Jim Jones-like (in a good way). And then that cheeky bastard created the "Ministry of Propaganda", in which he and "Natasha" gives out missions to spread the word (like burning the first few chapters to CDs and passing them out) in exchange for a chance to be entered into a raffle to win some prize.

And people do it! Last I checked, 7th Son has something like 500 billion subscribers. I don't think any other podiobook in existence has any subscribers. Hutchins has sucked them all up with his 7th Son love.

Once again, half of me is stunned. The other half is wondering how to cash in.

I guess I could go to all the trouble of writing a book or TV show, producing it, advertising it, and finally monetizing it. But that sounds like a lot of work. I'm looking for something more along the lines of a "get rich quick" scheme. So if you have any ideas, let me know and we'll go halfsies.

Have you ever proselytized a work of fiction? That is, have you ever attempted to spread the word about a work beyond casually talking about it with a friend one day in the car while driving to the gym? Have you ever put up posters or flyers? If so, why? What drove you to it?

Holy Clarissa!

A duo of poor fools have decided to take on Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady (wikipedia). This novel has nine volumes and something like a hundred million words or so. It is frequently cited as one of the longest novels in the English language.

Clarissa has not been LibriVoxed yet. Can't say I'm surprised. I've been wanting to read this book for a while, but I can only find abridged editions at the libraries and book stores, and I don't want to read something like this on a computer screen.

So, thank you, Ben and Bob. Good luck with this, and I look forward to hearing your performances (in a decade or so).

How to speak Sicilian without getting dead

I've been reading The Castle of Otranto recently. The other day, I was in the process of recording chapter 2 when I came to a scene where Father Jerome makes his appearance, right after the long scene where Matilda and Bianca sit around in their bras and panties and talk about boys (seriously). Father Jerome is described as an older man. So in an effort to make my voice sound old, I accidentally slipped into a Russian accent.

So now we have a Russian Catholic priest named Jerome. Alright, let's go with that.

But about half way through Jerome's copious dialog, he let it slip that he is a native Sicilian and his family have been living in Sicily since they crawled out of the ocean with gills and fins. I had forgotten this part when I first read the text many ages ago. That means I'm going to have to go back and re-record all of Father Jerome's dialog as an old man with a Sicilian accent.

Problem is, I can't do a Sicilian accent. I can do a Russianoid accent, a pan-Britishoid accent, and I've been living in America long enough that I have an Americanoid accent down pretty good. The closest I can do to a Sicilian accent is mimicking Mario from Super Mario 64. "Itza me! Mahrr-ee-oh!" I can do that one pretty good.



Perhaps I'll use my Mario voice, take it out of the falsetto register, and tone it down a bit. It'll probably still offend any actual Sicilians who listen because I think Mario is from Rome or Brooklyn or something. And that's probably not good because everyone knows that you never want to go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line. Well, almost everybody knows that.

Review: Elusive Isabel

I just finished listening to Elusive Isabel by Jacques Futrelle.

Free LibriVox audiobook
Wikipedia article
Project Gutenberg text

Set in the first decade of the 20th Century, this short novel is about a United States Secret Service agent called Mr. Grimm. He investigates a mysterious woman known by the alias of Isabel as she tries to get a compact signed that unites all of the "Latin" countries of the world (France, Italy, Spain, and others, including Germany at one point and potentially Russia) in a NATO-like alliance against the English-speaking peoples of the world. And to solidify their military dominance, she has access to a new secret weapon.

I won't give away too much here. It is always interesting to glimpse into other times like this. Though guns were present, the characters more often made appeals to honor and dignity to get their way. And subterfuge seemed to be quite limited. Whenever asked, the characters would often confess everything truthfully.

This novel was not action packed, and Mr. Grimm is no James Bond. But it is fast-paced, intriguing, and never fails to maintain the interest. Also, the Librivox readers all did a marvelous job with their performances, and with a running time of just under five hours, it's not a huge investment of time.

However, I can see why this is one of Futrelle's more forgettable novels. It wasn't challenging of any ideas. It didn't set any new standards or break any existing ones of the time. It really doesn't provide much to talk about. It has all of the staying power of a summer action movie. It doesn't take any chances.

Some of the plot points seemed a bit weak to me. The representatives of the various Latin countries met in Washington, DC to sign this compact because the United States was geographically near to Central America. But you know what's even closer to Central America? Central America. Also, they picked the United States allegedly due to the weak police forces. But it seems like if they signed the compact in a friendly country, they wouldn't have to worry about the police forces at all.

And the nature of the secret weapon was quite disappointing. I won't go into details, but it hinged on the United States and the United Kingdom purchasing all of their weapons from Italy.

I recommend this book, if nothing else than for the excellent performances of the various LibriVox readers. If you have a spare five hours, you could do much worse.

PI = 10

I recorded another version of PI. This time, I recorded it as if landing an airplane.

We're recording the version of PI made available on Project Gutenberg. It's the only public domain version. I don't think it's the director's cut or anything. I'm not sure what the differences are. But this version was calculated by Scott Hemphill.

So Cori --- you all know Cori, right? --- she emailed Scott and asked him to record a version for us. Mr. Hemphill politely declined, but offered other suggestions, like his teenage daughter with her friends.

He also pointed us to this link: http://pi.ytmnd.com/

Be aware, that song is a catchy bastard.

I recorded a version of PI in base-16. I was thinking about doing a version in base-PI, it turns out that PI in base-PI would be simply "10". I figure that if I calculated PI in base-49th root of PI, that would be 1e49, which has fifty digits. But 49 of those digits are just "zero". So once again---boring!

You might be tempted to think that any recordings of PI would be boring, but you'd be wrong. Well, mostly wrong. We have a Cylon recording, the Borg, the Daleks, me in a computer-like monotone, HAL, and someone singing in Welsh.

Life is good and getting better.

Let's pour salt water up our noses!

I tried the Afrin thing yesterday. It worked amazingly. However, everyone that saw me carrying around Afrin warned me off it like I was shooting up meth or something due to the rebound nasal congestion (Rhinitis medicamentosa) caused by prolong use (3+ days).

So I came across this idea of nasal irrigation. Now this is a hell of an idea, pouring salt water up the nose. I guess it derives from a Sanskrit practice called "Jala Neti". Variations on this idea include pouring milk up the nose and pouring urine up the nose. I assume they mean your own urine, but I have to imagine it was tried many ways before the ancient Sanskrit masters finally decided.

Anyway, I used 2 cups (475 ml) of 100 °F (38 °C) water with 1/2 a teaspoon (2.5 ml) of non-iodized cooking salt. Get one of those squirt bubble syringes, a water bottle with a spill valve top (what are these called), or something similar (special "neti pots" and "rhino horns" exist for this purpose). Mix the water and the salt. Bend over the sink, chin tucked to the chest, stick the bottle to one nostril, and go for it.

Theoretically, it should not hurt. If it does, check the temperature of the water and the amount of salt. You may need to adjust for your body type. Experiment a little to find something comfortable.

The idea behind nasal irrigation is that it cleans out the sinus cavity and relaxes the membranes to reduce congestion. As I have only done it a few times, I can't claim any kind of expertise, but I'll let you know if it works well in the long run.

I hope this is not some kind of long-term practical joke. You know how those ancient Indians can be.

My hobby

What did you do today?

I recorded the first fifty digits of PI. Twice.

Actually, I've recorded it now three times, but only twice today. Once in a monotone, once backwards, and once ... in hexadecimal. I just made a recording of the first fifty digits of PI in hexadecimal.

When people ask me what I do for fun, I usually just lie.

I can feel the rage

I just finished recording "King Grisly-beard" for Librivox. I had forgotten how misogynistic that story sounds. Here is a link to the full text.

The story is about a princess, of course. She's a spoiled princess (also known as a princess) and she has zero marketable skills other than her beauty and her uterus. But those aren't skills, really, they're options.

I also recently read chapters for Planet of the Damned by Harry Harrison. That book has a Conan the Barbarian feel about it, though set in a science fiction setting. It's quite entertaining, but the only prominent female character is this weak and feckless person. If not for the strong, tireless male main character who had to literally carry her around on his shoulder, she would have died in the desert long ago. Actually, another man had to trick her to going to the desert in the first place. But he didn't have to work hard to trick her; a little reverse psychology faked her simple mind out.

And before that, I read the Bible. Well ... I won't go into details. I don't have room or time.

It seems that public domain works are just filled to the breaking point with misogyny. I guess that's not terribly surprising. Misogyny was a huge part of society, historically, until about 2005 (late October, if you wish to know), so it stands to reason that a majority of the literature of the time would reflect such views.

Next up, I record Snow White, the story of a seven year old girl's misfortunes for being a sexually attractive seven year old girl (yes, that's how the original Brother's Grimm story goes), and the harlot runs off to the forest to live with seven short gay men to helplessly await her rescue by Prince Charming. Or some other man.

How to quiet your computer

I was recording my chapter for Twenty Years After by Dumas today. That is a long damn book. I was trying to read the entire book before recording my chapter, but I just gave up. Dumas is a prolific writer. His chapters consist mostly, as far as I can tell, of dialog. Just blah blah blah. I think Dumas was the 19th Century version of Aaron Sorkin.

I have chapter 41. This project has been going on since April 2006. Almost two years old, and it doesn't even have all of the sections assigned, yet. As of today, the stats are:

51 of 90 (57%) sections assigned
34 of 90 (38%) sections completed

I may have to take this project under my wing. But I think I shall wait until I get my new microphone. My Logitech headset crackles and pops too much.

But to my point:

I was recording, and my laptop's fan was whirring and whining and generally acting like a noisy bastard. I tried putting ice underneath my laptop, but that just under-cooled the computer :-)

So what I did was sprayed compressed air into the fan exhaust port. A small cloud of dust emitted from the intake port. So it looks like I need to clean my computer more often. But regardless, the fan ran quieter and more seldom afterward. So that's a tip for all you LibriVoxers and Podcasters. When you have a computer in the room, clean it out once in a while so the fans can actually work.