Seldom do I even hear commercials these days, but I recall really enjoying Electronic Santa from this 2010 Target commercial. I think every year since, I find myself trying to find it without remembering much about it, “robot Santa,” “robot Christmas,” and eventually I find it: “Electronic Santa.” For the last couple of years, the trigger for my search has been this awesome inflatable I see at ZooTampa at Lowery Park.
This year I went a little deeper down the rabbit hole and discovered that the song is credited to Blazer Force who I can find nothing about. Still not on Spotify, but YouTube, I dug a bit deeper and learned that Blazer Force is a one-off project by Bret McKenzie who is best known by his work on Flight of the Concords. It feels so true too, as probably my second favorite song in the robot-comedy genre is also something he produced:
Then as the ultimate payoff for all my digging, I uncovered this live version where they provide more, funny context for the song:
Remember Orca, the trusty MSI table editor that was the go-to tool for any self-respecting IT Professional? Well, Microsoft is stirring the nostalgia pot by repurposing this iconic name.
Orca: The IT Pro’s Toolbox Staple
Orca.exe was more than just a utility; it was a lifeline for IT pros managing Windows Installer packages and merge modules. This tool wasn’t just about editing database tables; it was about mastering the intricate world of software installation. With its graphical interface, Orca made error validation easier by lighting up mistakes like a Christmas tree.
Remember the days of sifting through the enormous Windows SDK to find this hidden gem? That effort felt like a rite of passage for many in the IT world.
Take in the nostalgia with me and watch this silent video walk-through I posted over 10 years ago:
Orca: The New Kid on the Block
Fast forward to today, and Orca takes on a new avatar in the world of technology. This time, it’s about “Redefining small LMs performance.” Microsoft Research is using ‘Orca’ to denote their strides in developing small language models (LMs). These LMs, with around 10 billion parameters or less, are set to make waves in how we interact with and leverage AI in our daily tasks.
Small language models will become increasingly crucial because they aim to bring the power of AI to more devices and platforms, offering efficiency and flexibility without the colossal computing requirements of their larger counterparts.
Whether you’re reminiscing about the good old days of MSI editing or looking forward to the innovations in small language models, Orca’s story is a reminder of how technology continuously evolves, yet some names remain evergreen, linking us to our past while propelling us into the future.
It is scary-easy to create AI covers of songs that sound surprisingly good now. I was blown away when I stumbled across songs sung by cartoon voices, celebrity voices, and alternative artists that sounded so good, and wanted to create some of my own. I learned that the process is essentially that you use AI to separate the vocals from a song, use another AI to alter the vocal track, and then marry the two back together again for the final product. I was going down this path when I found Voicify AI, which does all of this easily online, even taking audio from YouTube if you like and leveraging any of thousands of trained voices.
It doesn’t work perfectly every time, but it works very well a lot of the time, and that’s pretty impressive. There are even options to remove background vocals when present to get better results when that is a factor.
I then used MidJorney to create an image to associate with each and then used this free online tool to create a video file using the audio file and image. I did use Audacity to trim empty space at the start or end of a track, but that won’t be necessary if the source audio doesn’t need trimming. I created eight inside a couple of hours and published five of them (the others didn’t sound good). Check them out:
If you want to try this yourself, click here. It does cost $8.99 per month for 35 credits (one per song) which is a pretty good deal given the time you’ll save trying so manually. It is surprisingly easy and fast. I doubt I’ll maintain my subscription; you can cancel at any time, and I’m not sure I will be compelled to create more than the 35 attempts will get me. I think it is a good deal to play with and enjoy deciding what songs will be sung by whom until the novelty wears off. Will it?
After repeated attempts to see Joywave with pandemic delays and cancellations, I finally got to see them on April 5, 2023. Easily my favorite band that I’d not seen.
I walked in late and managed to easily get right up close on the side of the stage. As the openers cleared, it turned out the stage was perfectly arranged to my position and my view was virtually unobstructed.
For the first couple of songs there were professional photographers walking in front of me so I wasn’t trying to get a good shot. After the first couple songs, the photographers cleared out and I got a better position where I could hold the phone in a way where it wouldn’t bother anyone. I recorded in Cinematic mode at 1080p.
I’m so happy with how it came out— best show I captured since Spoon.
The potential of AI technology on our world is a topic I am fascinated with, and I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about it it lately. I was considering writing an article over Christmas break which quickly evolved into this: a video to convey some of my thoughts using as much AI as I could quickly throw at it: the images, the phrasing, and even reproduction of my own voice.
I created several images using Mid Journey, prompting for images I thought would be fitting and then used an iPhone app called Werble to add subtle animations to them. I then took my notes and pasted them into scenes using a solution called Descript and had it convert that text to speech leveraging a voice powered by AI which was trained with an hour of recordings of me talking using it’s overdub feature.
To throw a bit more AI at the idea, I took each scene and had ChatGPT rephrase the text of my script. Sometimes I needed to tweak them a bit, but the output is consistently impressive. Below is an example of what I’d get when telling ChatGPT, “rephrase ‘<pasted text>'”.
My Original Text
Text Rephrased by ChatGPT
When it comes to a service aimed at generating new music featuring specific attributes, the streaming service Pandora has a valuable leg-up on other music streaming services. Pandora understands the makeup of a song with its concept of a music genome project.
When it comes to generating new music with specific attributes, the streaming service Pandora has a significant advantage over other music streaming services due to its understanding of the makeup of a song through its Music Genome Project. This allows Pandora to generate new music that is tailored to specific characteristics and preferences.
I took my notes and had them rephrased by ChatGPT to add an additional role for AI in this effort
The primary idea I propose is that we are likely to see personalized, AI generated content coming to us in the form of streaming services. First music from the likes of Spotify and Pandora, then video from YouTube, Netflix, etc. In a generation or two, this content generated to your specific tastes is likely to become preferred by consumers as much (or more than) that available from human artists. It is both an interesting concept to think about as well as provocative making it a good candidate for this kind of content.
Creating content like this isn’t a passion of mine, so unless by some strange chance it gets considerable positive attention, I don’t anticipate creating more– at least not like this. But it was a fun way to explore the idea of AI generated content, getting hands on with some such tools.
It occurred to me just how easy it would be to plagiarize myself and recreate a new version of this video leveraging AI-based tools. So the next day, I spent half an hour asking ChatGPT to rephrase each paragraph in an authoritative and optimistic tone. I then chose a professional speaker voice (which seems way over the top to me) and published a second version. All new words and a new voice– it’s better in almost every way and took so little effort it is scary…
I actually went and made a third version of this that has a landscape layout and leverages an audiogram template. That’s it this time 😉
Along the same lines of how it’s fun to open a blind box and see if you got a good/rare/valuable item or an ugly/common/cheap item (or even a duplicate of a good or bad item), packs work much the same way. In fact, when explaining the focus of my online store, BlindBoxes.com, I often use the analogy of a pack of baseball cards, which is more familiar to some. I’ve enjoyed opening NFT packs for a while but only recently decided to give creating some of my own a shot.
I’ve been having a good time collecting NFTs on the Worldwide Asset eXchange (WAX). I guess it was only a matter of time before I ended up minting my own NFTs. I pondered which of my content was most appropriate and landed on my Craft Beer Spots effort. I’ve documented hundreds of breweries, bottle shops and bars over the last few years and have taken many photographs of each. The initial concept was that of a “trading card” so I looked through this site and created some collections of related venues to serve as themes for a series. I’ve now executed two series, the first being that of the chosen theme– craft beer spots that specialize in sour beers (among my favorite styles).
Like many, I’d been hearing about NFTs for a while and at first it didn’t make sense— and then I was able to wrap my head around it. I’ve always been a collector, so it got my interest. I also play with crypto some so I drank up some rather complicated explanations which I’m sure are a turn off to many.
I love craft beer and am regularly impressed by the graphics I see on cans and bottles. Some are much better than others of course, but it got me thinking that it would be a nice thing to somehow capture. I had conceived an idea where I might build a contraption that would allow me to move my phone around the cylindrical object smoothly in order to leverage the panoramic photo feature to get a nice flat image.
I’ve been using Book Book for my iPhone case for my last few iPhones now and was cautiously optimistic about Twelve South’s latest design. After using it for a couple of weeks, I reported the following complaints to the company and got not response. I’m going with no case at the moment and carrying a separate wallet; something I’ve not done for several years.
