As Jim Breuer demonstrated many years ago, I would like to have Joe Pesci be my GPS.

I am getting a Ray Bradbury vibe off this one

Didn’t the South Park guys basically do this to Isaac Hayes after his stroke back in like 2008?

Lately, though, there appear to be more entrepreneurs pondering how to monetize being dead. It’s like the final frontier of profit.

Sounds like a strong contender for the final word in tastelessness, too.

Microsoft seems insistent on having its software interact with others on your behalf, whether it be email or Teams chat. I find the incessant, AI-driven suggested replies beyond annoying.

A few canned SMS responses to phone calls is certainly handy for one-touch dismissal + acknowledgement of a call you can’t take (e.g., driving, in a meeting, whatever)–presumably from where this new tech can trace its lineage. But it’s gone from handy to gratuitously, obnoxiously intrusive. Now it’s reading my messages and trying to mimic what I might say in response. (And there seems to be no damn way to disable it–or disable it permanently–seems to keep popping back up like a fungus.) Can I just talk with friends and coworkers without a goddam machine constantly trying to do the talking for me?

I’d assume this is all part of some larger ML training presumably to perfect their own chatbot antichrists so they can dispense with annoying human workers altogether at some point. But even on its own, it’s a reminder that every employee in any Big Tech outfit–from CEO down to the janitor–should be drawn, quartered, and impaled on stakes at all the on-ramps to Silicon Valley, to serve as a warning to others.

btw, there’s a scene in The Holy Mountain where the business head “thief” guy has a product where the animate the corpses as part of their funeral business. Wanted to find a clip but coming up empty…

This is another step in voice after death. Sound recording has been with us since Edison recited “Mary had a little lamb,” and people’s voices have stuck around as a result since.

Voicemail is a good one for this effect, as it is very ordinary and day-to-day, the way living people are most of the time. My cousin left me a message a few days before he died three years ago. I saved it for months so I could listen to him talking to me. My wife still has voicemails from her parents who died two years ago.

The whole phenomenon of people living on via recorded sound and moving images is fascinating. It was not part of human experience until very recently. Who knows where it will go with AI.

Oh Boy! – Buddy Hollygram

To be fair while this is definitely gross and distasteful there’s been businesses that profit off the dead/being dead for quite a while. Like Chinese stores that sell all sorts of superstitious things, like fake money you buy to burn so your loved ones will have money to spend in the afterlife, or many other items like that. All sorts of odd traditional stuff like that around the world.

Will the voice have the same intonation and patterns or just be robotic like Alexa but with the dead relative’s voice? If the latter it will be like something out of a horror movie. But if they can copy exact pitch and pattern it could have radically cool spin-offs.

Imagine someone being able to speak into a stenomask microphone and out from the speaker the voice is converted to either a familiar voice or the voice of a famous person. Therapists could give patients the option of being counseled by the voice of Robin Williams’ character in ‘Goodwill Hunting’. Tour guides at the Bull Run battlefield could give tourists the option of being lectured by the voice of Shelby Foote.

Or AI gets so good that won’t need a human on the one end. You’ll be ablue to have live conversations with AI generated Albert Einstein or P.G. Wodehouse and have chats with them on your evening walks. Instead of listening to Audible books or podcasts you’ll just be asking Neil Armstrong questions about his experience on the moon or asking General Eisenhower’s thoughts on how hypersonic missiles will alter war in the future.

Creepy. Wonder who thought that’d be a good idea.

Steve,

You should watch Black Mirror. It covered this sort of ground. Its creator, Charlie Brooker, gave up when reality started catching up with it.

This sounds more like a premise for a psychological horror movie (David Cronenberg?) than an actual corporate rollout.

Neo-Feudal Globalist Capitalism IS a horror movie.

What are the chances that Amazon will end up owning your dead Mom’s voice?

As James Evan Pilato puts it: They steal the real, and sell you back the fake.

The only woman I’ve ever felt an urge to physical violence toward is Alexa. I want to take a bat to whatever device she’s possessing. Actually, our GPS may have a different narrator, but I rarely drive that vehicle, and never use it.

Want a creepy-voice story? The night before last I was watching a news video. The dog was snoring softly nearby. All of a sudden she gets up and barks like mad, first at the window, then all around the room. What the heck is going on? Even the freight train rattling our brick house doesn’t get her that riled up.

Then it dawned on me– the video I was watching covered the upcoming Lychee and Dog Meat Festival in Yulin. In the background, behind the reporter’s voice, you could hear the plaintive cries of dogs in cages.

It took some time for me to settle her down. She finally went back to sleep, adjacent to me.

Here is the story:

Yulin Dog Meat Festival 2022: When Is It, Why Is It Held and What Happens?

Reminds me of the ABBA Voyage tour going on. ABBA’s holograms are touring right now. Looks pretty interesting. You should look into it and post about it, Steve.

Alexa could take over from Joe Biden since he can’t speak anymore.

The only woman I’ve ever felt an urge to physical violence toward is Alexa. I want to take a bat to whatever device she’s possessing.

Is there a particular reason you feel compelled to keep this device around the house?

The only dead loved one I’d want to hear is my dog. For the last few months of her life, I took short videos of her sleeping. Being a bulldog, she breathed very loudly. Listening to her breathe had always been such a comfort and I knew I’d miss it once she was gone.

The house is too quiet now. I’m glad I have those videos.

OT: It appears that Rod Dreher is declaring himself fot the dark side:

https://t.co/jq4wG5mPzu

— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) June 23, 2022

My mother is long dead. I was obviously fond of her but she was known for her wonderful voice and brogue. (It did not pass down).

I would be at a loss if I still heard her voice. One has to turn a page, doesn’t one? It would just make me lonely.

a feature that enables its Alexa voice assistant to emulate any voice

Coming soon: phones calls from your living loved ones pleading for you to wire money to their Nigerian bank account.

…or [for women] to send bab and vagene to their .in email account.

Big Tech: making the world less livable one step at a time.

Heckuva job, Techie.

“I would be at a loss if I still heard her voice. One has to turn a page, doesn’t one? It would just make me lonely. ”

Old photographs have a similar affect. It makes me wonder if we are meant not better off being able to recall the past so vividly whenever we want.

This sounds more like a premise for a psychological horror movie (David Cronenberg?) than an actual corporate rollout.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cronenberg

David Paul Cronenberg CC OOnt (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor.[1] He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation, infection and the intertwining of the psychological, the physical, and the technological. Cronenberg is best known for exploring these themes through sci-fi horror films such as Shivers (1975), Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983) and The Fly (1986), though he has also directed dramas, psychological thrillers and gangster films.[2]

Cronenberg’s latest film has taken him back to his body horror roots:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_of_the_Future_(2022_film)

Crimes of the Future is a 2022 science-fiction body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg, and starring Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux and Kristen Stewart.[4] Although it shares a title with Cronenberg’s 1970 film of the same name, it is not a remake as the story and concept are unrelated.[5] It marks Cronenberg’s return to the science fiction and horror genres for the first time since eXistenZ (1999).

I have long been of the opinion that the only reason to get one of those Garmin GPS things that speak directions is that you can buy a module that will enable it to speak like Daria, from the MTV cartoon of the same name.

Can I just talk with friends and coworkers without a goddam machine constantly trying to do the talking for me?

Keeping in mind that a primary focus of Big Tech so far is controlling what people see, hear, think, and say, well I’ll just let Google finish this thought for me.

It’s amazing how many people pay to have their conversations monitored by Alexa or whatever the Google equivalent is.

That’s the only new show I’ve watched in over a decade. Only saw a few episodes because it was so disturbing. Plus I dislike TV.

Keep in mind if this is commercial tech for profit, what can the various letter agencies already do and have done?

Maybe call loved ones with a simulated voice that is eerily perfect before a tragedy occurs to that person? The phone call becomes perfect proof the person died on the phone in the manner described (re:Sept 11th calls from people in the planes – men and women calling home announcing themselves by full names – go down that rabbit hole on your own when you have time).

The only woman I’ve ever felt an urge to physical violence toward is Alexa.

Hmm. Well. Good thing you didn’t grow up in my family.

PS. Please stop with the dog meat stuff. It’s nauseating. One of many fun things we learned about the Chinese in 2020 is that they slaughter animals in full view of their fellow creatures, waiting their turn. I’m sure someone here will defend the practice.

This sounds more like a premise for a psychological horror movie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Phone

The Black Phone is a 2021 American supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson, written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, who both produced with Jason Blum. It is an adaptation of the 2004 short story of the same name by Joe Hill. It stars Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, James Ransone, and Ethan Hawke. In the film, an abducted teenager (Thames) uses a mysterious phone to communicate with the previous victims of his captor (Hawke).

Derrickson came on board to direct due to his departure from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness because of creative differences. The Black Phone was announced in October 2020, and filming began the following year in February in Wilmington, North Carolina. Mark Korven composed the musical score during post-production.

The Black Phone had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 25, 2021, and is scheduled to be released in the United States on June 24, 2022, by Universal Pictures. The film received generally positive reviews from critics.

An Eastern king assembled wise men to create a ring that will make him happy when he is sad & sad when he is happy. After deliberation the sages handed him a simple ring with the Persian words “This shall pass, too” etched on it.

Even more off topic: I hate MS Teams specifically and I hate video calls generally.

They can be handy for sharing one’s screen and giving a presentation or going through a model, but I don’t need to see someone else’s face and they don’t need to see mine.

Once this nonsense started up a couple of years ago, I permanently turned off my camera. Plain old conference calls for me.

OT – News from Londonistan – Polio virus detected in London sewage samples

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61896411

Import the Turd World – get the Turd World

Keep importing the Turd World – become the Turd World

Having phones in our pockets that may or may not be recording about everything and “phoning it in” (get it?) to the NSA is one thing. Most poeple use them for so many other functions and have so much info. on them that they can’t part with them for an hour.

Alexis, though? Why in the hell would you put a device that you know can record it all right in your living room, just so you can ask it stuff that you are too lazy to type in or talk through yourselves? Nobody has mentioned Siri yet. You can also change its voice (perhaps to that of a dead relative soon).

Last time I asked Siri a question, she just shut down. The question was “can you show us your tits?” Pretty soon, she will be programmed to help me out on that, and then our relationship may be different.

Or a Jordan Peterson GPS.
https://youtube.com/shorts/74Nadqz41Es?feature=share

I might have to go over there and comment now.

Used to spend a lot of time at his site – it was somewhat similar to iSteve in that he had a good smallish pool of regular commenters and trolls that he personally moderated.

Then they switched to Disqus and around the same time there was a big influx of sanctimonious lib types and the whole thing blew up too big and went into the shitter at the same time. Which was too bad, because I liked most of his posts.

This was also concurrent with his Howard Stern-like transformation into a masked Covid ninny, so it was pretty easy for me to drop him from my regular rounds.

But his posting a link back to Steve’s tranny article does show the old Rod is still in there somewhere.

Meg Ryan Harry Met Sally Big O announcement voice.

Will the voice have the same intonation and patterns or just be robotic like Alexa but with the dead relative’s voice?

If it were possible to build a non-robotic robot voice Alexa and Siri and Deshawn Watson would have one.

Somewhere a lunatic is wondering whether he can get Alexa to hector him in the voice of Adolf Hitler.

Just. No.

I suspect the ultimate goal of this is to start using your deceased mother’s voice in ads targeted directly to you.

The weather… it’s kind of wet, you know, it’s raining… if you go outside, you might, get wet. And cold.

https://www.vidoevo.com/video/MGVZR2dqcWuRpRzFmb0k/twilight-zone-lite-uncle-simon

Downloading personalities to create digital copies is the main thrust of William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy, his first novels.

He had left because he was upset with them for making fun of Scientology.

I asked my American son why he had his Iphone Maps voice set to be an Englishman telling him where to go rather than Siri.

I was quite pleased .

Same thing with supermarket checkout voices ordering me around…I want to smash the screen…The Uncanny Valley indeed!

Another Max Headroom episode come true.

The original CotF by the way is one long in-your-face metaphorized homosexuality joke.

I loved my deceased pet cat but I would not want Alexa mimicking him meowing at me to get out of bed and get him breakfast on the days I’m off work and am sleeping in late. There are some pleasures in living a cat-free life. One cat per life is enough.

Steve, it turns out that you were spot-on with your Cronenberg suggestion:

Vincent Cassel Starring in David Cronenberg’s ‘The Shrouds,’ FilmNation Launching Sales in Cannes (EXCLUSIVE) https://t.co/bk5Hn99tMf

— Variety (@Variety) May 11, 2022

https://variety.com/2022/film/markets-festivals/vincent-cassel-david-cronenberg-the-shrouds-filmnation-cannes-1235263784/

Vincent Cassel will reunite with David Cronenberg for “The Shrouds,” a new thriller from the director of “A History of Violence” and “Dead Ringers.” The film, which Cronenberg will write as well as direct, centers on Karsh (Cassel), an innovative businessman and grieving widower, who builds a device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud.

Alexa is a more user-friendly version of this:

Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live–did live, from habit that became instinct–in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

“Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better”

https://web.archive.org/web/20200919102818/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/shopping-i-can-t-really-remember-what-that-is

Creepy idea, you can still see and hear the beloved in your own head, no need for technology.

BTW, In one Mannix episode Rich Little plays a nightclub voice impressionist who portrays a wealthy murder victim over the phone — convincingly telling the dead man’s wife that he can’t explain why he’s in hiding but needs her to immediately send him a huge sum of money

Why in the hell would you put a device that you know can record it all right in your living room, just so you can ask it stuff that you are too lazy to type in or talk through yourselves?

Because people do think it’s a great idea to have a device that surveils them 24/7 in order to save a few minutes of typing each day.

Considering the uptake on smartphones (which tell the authorities where you are all the time) all of the AI devices with microphones designed for the home make perfect sense. Stupid people have repeatedly shown that they will buy anything offered them that will save them a few minutes time so that they can then spend it thinking about their favourite sportsball team or what new surveillance product they need to buy to keep up with everyone else.

The fact that Google is still a going concern after releasing the Nest Guard and “forgetting” to tell customers there is a built-in microphone in the device tells you everything you need to know about how unconcerned and gullible consumers are when it comes to what they will have in their homes.
There isn’t much abuse they won’t tolerate provided it comes branded with a brightly-coloured corporate logo.

I find the virtual assistants to be pretty underwhelming. I need to shout to make myself understood by Siri, and even then, the algorithm botches every few words. They also have limited functionality.

What I have found useful is the capability for Microsoft Word to read when I’ve written in a document exactly as I’ve written it. It is a great way to find typos. However, the available voices are terrible. It would be nice to have, say, Patrick Stewart reading my document back to me in clear, crisp tones.

Coincidentally, a novel published late last year explores this same premise. “This Thing Between Us” by Gus Moreno, October 2021. Also, an episode from ‘Black Mirror’. The idea that memory can idealize a person/place/thing is very attractive, as well as…something else.

Now that is just creepy.

Alexa to Mimic Voice of Your Dead Loved Ones

I wonder if it’s only a matter of time before someone thinks of doing fake Elvis songs.

Alexa is giving an option. The user has to fish out his/her dead person’s voice samples and upload it for it to work. It is not like Alexa goes and grabs a dead person’s voice wherever it can find.

NYT on Jewish demographic and political decline in NYC:

“By 1992, when Mr. Nadler arrived in the House, there were eight Jewish members representing parts of New York City alone.

Today, nine of the 13 members representing parts of the five boroughs are Black or Latino. Another is Asian American.”

8 NYC Congressjews in 1992 to either 1 or 0 in 2023 is quite a decline. Nadler is in a close primary with one of the other 2 remaining whites, who were redistricted into the same seat.

But these recordings were taken when they were alive. Hearing a voice saying something that wasn’t recorded while the person wasn’t alive is different.

Imagine the voice of your deceased relative/ friend speaking the current daily news summary.

That sounds creepy to me.

This just feels like another one of those things that is objectively horrible but which people will just get used to because it won’t go away and the nerd overlords will sneak it into every new app and product. You’ll need to opt out but you can’t opt out because it’s been made near impossible to figure out how to do so.

It’ll just add to the pile of things that make modern life unbearable – another thing among many when you won’t be able to identify that one thing that you could remove to make any of it appreciably better.

Supreme Court strikes New York gun law, expanding gun rights

YESSSSS!

Thank you, Donald Trump.

Achmed E. Newman, Joe Stalin, Twinkie, etc., etc., pop the champagne!

Or maybe this stuff:

There was also a Star Trek TNG episode about this.

Many layers of the People’s Republic of New York gun laws that need to be unraveled; for example, John Derbyshire was forced to give up his pistol because the government KNEW he had it.

That’s the problem with Gun Licensing, Registration; it makes you PAY the government for exercising your Federal constitutional rights.

NYT on Jewish demographic and political decline in NYC:
“By 1992, when Mr. Nadler arrived in the House, there were eight Jewish members representing parts of New York City alone.
Today, nine of the 13 members representing parts of the five boroughs are Black or Latino. Another is Asian American.”

The Hasidim are growing rapidly in numbers, but they don’t have much political influence. In part it’s because of their population distribution. Rather than being concentrated in one area they’re geographically divided into three enclaves in Brooklyn and several communities in Rockland and Orange counties.

I know how much people on this site love the Rothschilds, so this story should be of interest:

‘Era of Chinese manufacturing over,’ says Nat Rothschild
British industrialist says more companies are now looking to factories in Europe and Central America

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/06/23/era-chinese-manufacturing-says-nat-rothschild/

“a Ray Bradbury vibe”

I’m getting a Twilight Zone vibe; specifically Episode 58 “Long Distance Call” wherein Grandma dies then Grandson begins receiving calls from her on his toy telephone. Granny wants Grandson to take a swim in the pool even though he can’t swim. Granny wants some company because it’s so lonely being dead.

Also, this is a trend among churches to cope with priest/pastor shortage. But technology may be difficult to stop. If holograms become successful, why not cut out the preacher and directly pipe in the sermon from Abraham/Moses/Jesus/Martin Luther etc., Tele-evangelism and megachurches have done a number on main-line churches. Technology will finish them off like what happened to big screen cinema after streaming plus 70-inch TVs.

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/cwn/2021/july/california-pastor-using-holy-hologram-delivers-sunday-sermon-to-church-in-new-zealand

“They said, ‘It wasn’t what we fell in love with in the room.’”

Even David Cronenberg, the maestro of Body Horror, gets scheisse from Netflix numbnuts. It’s good to know he’s writing/directing again.

‘…But even on its own, it’s a reminder that every employee in any Big Tech outfit–from CEO down to the janitor–should be drawn, quartered, and impaled on stakes at all the on-ramps to Silicon Valley, to serve as a warning to others.’

I bet you’re a Windows hater.

And have AC/DC be your kindergartners’ music teachers (Hokey Pokey):

(Go to 3:00+ for Row, Row, Row Your Boat):

And a holographic audience. All that’ll be needed after the vaxxocaust.

Now, that’s alternative to alternative.

Off topic, but down the street from me. THIS made local news, but not much else:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/18-year-old-indicted-for-fairfax-county-pedestrian-crash-that-killed-2-oakton-hs-teens/ar-AAYMDkS?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=2dcd8becd2ab4af08b20d3feebea2eea

Driver Usman Shahid

That sounds like a great way to have your dead relatives arrested in the afterlife.

Just. No.

https://www.tiktok.com/@depressednstressed222/video/7105184389834919214

For those not on TikTok:

Speaking of mimicking:

Pretty good impression of Kamala! 😂 pic.twitter.com/NCGge724OE

— We Will Win🍊 (@DefSue3) June 21, 2022

I wonder if it’s only a matter of time before someone thinks of doing fake Elvis songs.

“Virtual duets” with the dead began with Natalie Cole and “Unforgettable” in 1991. That was not unforgivable, and was even touching, because it was with her father who died shortly after her fifteenth birthday.

However, it became a tasteless fad. Jerry Hadley, on an otherwise decent album, tried it out with Mario Lanza. I won’t link to that, but to a better duet with the (living) Tony Randall on the same LP:

The Commonwealth’s indictment statement says it happened at the corner of Blake Lane. At first I thought that was one of the victims; it sounds so lacrosse-team NoVa! (Minnesota’s Senator Paul Wellstone was a champion jock from the same area.)

Does Jared Taylor still live in Oakton? I hope his family wasn’t involved.

. . . how to monetize being dead . . .

Every so often there is a story about a spouse or child who manages to conceal the death of their family member so that they can go on cashing their social security and pension checks. Sometimes they only get busted because they keep cashing checks until the person would supposedly be 120 years old, or whatever. (One variation of the scam involves the child assuming the parent’s identity).

An AI that mimics your dear departed’s voice and can pass the Turing Test could be pretty useful in this kind of endeavor.

Well, if we took out the bones, it wouldn’t be crunchy, would it.

If I were Garmin, I would sell a mother-in-law backseat driver voice module.

“Slow down!” “You missed your turn!”

> I bet you’re a Windows hater.

No, and I’ve never understood the haters. Obviously there are parts I hate–such as the ever-creeping personal invasiveness of the thing, but whatever–I can mitigate (for now).

I am a Big Tech hater, so therefore I do hate MS (along with all the others).

One of many fun things we learned about the Chinese in 2020 is that they slaughter animals in full view of their fellow creatures, waiting their turn. I’m sure someone here will defend the practice.

Robert Louis Stevenson:

I was once, at Tautira, a pig-master on a considerable scale; at first, in my pen, the utmost good feeling prevailed; a little sow with a belly-ache came and appealed to us for help in the manner of a child; and there was one shapely black boar, whom we called Catholicus, for he was a particular present from the Catholics of the village, and who early displayed the marks of courage and friendliness; no other animal, whether dog or pig, was suffered to approach him at his food, and for human beings he showed a full measure of that toadying fondness so common in the lower animals, and possibly their chief title to the name.

One day, on visiting my piggery, I was amazed to see Catholicus draw back from my approach with cries of terror; and if I was amazed at the change, I was truly embarrassed when I learnt its reason. One of the pigs had been that morning killed; Catholicus had seen the murder, he had discovered he was dwelling in the shambles, and from that time his confidence and his delight in life were ended.

We still reserved him a long while, but he could not endure the sight of any two-legged creature, nor could we, under the circumstances, encounter his eye without confusion. I have assisted besides, by the ear, at the act of butchery itself; the victim’s cries of pain I think I could have borne, but the execution was mismanaged, and his expression of terror was contagious: that small heart moved to the same tune with ours. Upon such ‘dread foundations’ the life of the European reposes, and yet the European is among the less cruel of races.

https://www.literature.org/authors/stevenson-robert-louis/in-the-south-seas/part-01-chapter-11.html

(paragraph breaks added)

If I’m forced to use the self-checkout I start loudly saying things like, “Cease your pathetic banter, robot slave!”
It really does make me irritated every time, and I’ll spend more time in line to have a real cashier, who I try to have a nice interaction with.

OT – the face of war from Ukraine. I don’t think it matters which side he’s on. I hate to see brave men kill each other for the Davos crowd.

I think TAC/Dreher is what old Mother Jones’ subscribers start reading once they become grandparents.

I remember reading JH Kunstler several years back with all his hippy/crunchy-con/principled-principletarian commenters. Then Jim took the red pill around 2017 or 18 and they left.

So far Rod’s still on the respectable side of alt-right, but things may eventually get too much even for him. The old HandlesHaus blog did good work on Rod’s books.

https://handleshaus.wordpress.com/2020/10/06/review-of-rod-drehers-live-not-by-lies/

Welcome to the Metaverse.

FaceBook is now Meta.

Meta is the term for the supposed “metaverse” of virtual reality. AI computer generated images and sounds using avatars of people and otherwise created by designers and programmers.

In a few years they want this metaverse to be immersive so that instead of being addicted to your cell phone or tablet, you’ll wear eye pieces or helmets and “live” virtually.

What they will probably do next is scan images and voices from existing film and videos of people who are now dead (to avoid liability and payments).

So your image and voice after you are dead will be monetized by the “meta” industry to create realistic images and voices.

When this happens living people will start charging for that (in advance of death, or even while living) but the dead will be harvested since they can’t sue.

Welcome to the metaverse, peopled by zombies…

ABBA actually has their own youtube userid for this tour:

https://www.youtube.com/c/ABBAVoyageOfficial

It’s basically an electronic voice impersonator/ventriloquist.

Interesting idea, but I can’t really imagine a situation in which I’d like to hear an impersonation of a dead relative’s voice.

It’s one thing to hear the actual words that your relative/friend spoke. It’s another thing for SOMEONE ELSE to use their voice. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done, but ultimately you’re not talking to your deceased love one. You’re talking to a machine.

The whole phenomenon of people living on via recorded sound and moving images is fascinating. It was not part of human experience until very recently. Who knows where it will go with AI.

Yes, it is fascinating.

One of my main hobbies is watching old newscasts, soap operas, and commercials – not the kind of stuff that typically gets rebroadcast.

I’m a millennial, so my golden era of yore is the ’80s.

Thank you for this. I have a similar sense of broadcasts and things from my corresponding “golden era of yore,” anything on TV or radio from the late ’60s through the ’70s and into the early ’80s. Sometimes I do go back and watch them. I am fond of Apollo launches, for example, with Walter Cronkite reporting.

Then, in the early ’90s, I hosted and produced some public access TV shows. Then, in the 21st century, one of my directors from that era put some of them on YouTube. I hadn’t seen him or my shows since we made them, but suddenly I found myself on YouTube. It is eerie to watch myself as a young man making the most of it and being as cool as I can in a ’90s sort of way. I wonder how long I will be there. Will my YouTube, youthful self outlive the real, old me?

Not that anyone cares, but the 1988-09-17 game was Miami vs. *Michigan*.

I confused the date because my mother also taped the 1986-09-27 Hurricanes/Sooners game. (Technically, she taped the rebroadcast.) That was during the Brian Bosworth era. Two ‘Canes players treated Bosworth to a profanity-laden “wake-up call” in the middle of the night.

The 1988 Orange Bowl (1988-01-01 – capping off the 1987 season), which we also had on VHS tape, also featured Miami vs. Oklahoma. The Hurricanes won and scored their their second national championship.

Nowadays you can watch many of these old games on YouTube, but back in the late ’90s they were very hard to find.

I grew up in a sports-crazed family, but the interest never rubbed off on me. I was the worst seven-year-old soccer player in the history of the game. After that nobody even bothered to make me try.

Cronkite did more than any other media figure to promote public interest in the moon landings, but he never made it to Earth orbit himself.

He was a finalist for the Journalist in Space program, which was discontinued after the Challenger disaster.

They got this, Jim Don. It’s a long post, but near the end of Peak Stupidity‘s “From TomTom to the NWA” (NWA standing for Nagging Wife App this time), we’ve got this covered. This ain’t your Daddy’s Tom-Tom.

Maybe the audio prompts (invariably a women’s voice) could throw in some additional admonishments like “You never listen to me, do you?”, “You’re as stubborn as your father is.”, or “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Heh! (Thanks, Mr. Anon.)

I loved my deceased pet cat

I think that next up is pedopholia, then bestiality, then necrophilia so you might want to keep quiet about it for now.
Just wait a couple of years.

If I were Garmin, I would sell a mother-in-law backseat driver voice module.

It could sound like Ethel Merman.

Alexa is giving an option.

For now. Should the people behind Alexa discover a way to turn this to their advantage (e.g. out-of-the-blue sales pitches delivered in a dead relative’s voice), it will not remain optional for long.

The American tech industry is based on the premise, “it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission.” Once you understand this, it becomes quite clear how long this sort of thing will remain “optional.”

Alexa is giving an option.

For now. Should the people behind Alexa discover there is money in this (e.g. startling, attention-getting sales pitches delivered by long-dead relations), the end users will no longer have the option.

The American tech industry is run on the premise “it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission.” Once you understand that, the direction in which things are headed quickly becomes clear.

Not exactly Patrick Stewart, but I think it would be neat to have my blog posts read aloud by the voice of Butthead, of Beavis and Butthead. Beavis could be that paperclip guy. “Hey, you wrote butt for but, heh-heh, heh-heh, heh-heh-heh-heh!”

(I might get sick of it after a while, I dunno…)

…but I don’t need to see someone else’s face and they don’t need to see mine.

Jeffrey Toobin came up with an alternative, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Necrophilia is an offense against human dignity but it doesn’t directly harm another being the way the other two do. It’s probably legal in Canada.

Shahid = martyr. Somebody has to stand up for overlong signal lights.

The American tech industry is run on the premise “it is easier ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶s̶k̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶g̶i̶v̶e̶n̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶ to lie about what you’re doing than ask permission.” Once you understand that, the direction in which things are headed quickly becomes clear.

FIFY

They dubbed in Rich Little’s voice for David Niven’s in Curse of the Pink Panther. Niven was so sick his voice was inaudible. Rich Little is an amazing impersonator. I just looked it up and they also used Little to dub in James Cagney and Gene Kelly in their last roles. I always thought Rich Little was Jewish but apparently not. He doesn’t even rate a mention on Jew or Not Jew. He’s merely Canadian.

I had two VCRs constantly whirring in the 1990s. I would check the TV schedules at the beginning of the week for interesting shows, set the timers, and replace the tapes every couple of days. Then I would watch everything at the weekend. I had about 100 VHS tapes by the turn of the millennium, full of TV recordings. I stupidly threw them all away.

(I also did this for radio. I had a tuner connected to a cassette recorder with auto-reverse, both with timers, and would record onto 120 minute tapes, swapping them out when they ran full. I even did this once with a VCR before going away on holiday for several weeks, allowing up to 8 hours of continuous audio recording, however you did lose stereo then, which was a bummer for music broadcasts.)

There was a black woman in I believe Philadelphia who did this for years and, at her death, turned the tapes over to the Library of Congress. This might sound silly but it’s actually very valuable. There’s lots of information in ephemera so this becomes a way around censorship and the overwriting of history. There are channels on YouTube showing recordings of news programs from the 70s and 80s which are totally applicable to the current discussion of black crime, the activism and worthlessness of current newsmedia (journalists in the recent past were almost all progs but they somehow managed to do their job anyway), and the Overtonning of discussion.

I found by experimenting with that one program that comes with multiple voices you could actually simulate some range of tone and emotion.
Imagine, your dead loved one’s voice, But In That Stil Ted Patch Work Mann Er.

When I have to talk to a phone menu I imitate the Seinfeld soup nazi. I get transferred to human operators pretty often doing this. If I ever start making youtube videos this will definitely be one of the first three.

Steve there are indeed anonymous but talented voice artists who are called in to dub dialogue when the on-screen star is unavalable (or sick, or deceased). Let’s say Marlon Brando has finished a film and he’s off in Europe doing his next one when they need to rewrite some doalogue, or decide the original recording was not clear. Brando’s not coming back to do two lines, so the y call in someone who can do Brando.

I learned this looking up the bio on a bit-player who was occasionally on Mission Impossible,

Steve there are indeed anonymous but talented voice artists who are called in to dub dialogue when the on-screen star is unavalable (or sick, or deceased). Let’s say Marlon Brando has finished a film and he’s off somewhere in Europe when they need to rewrite some dialogue, or find a flaw in the sound quality. Brando’s not coming back to do two lines in one scene, so they call in someone who can do Brando.

I learned all this looking up the bio on a bit-player who was occasionally on Mission Impossible, playing an actor who could impersonate bad guys over the phone. Turns out this actor, Walker Edmiston, mainly made his career out of impersonating on-screen stars when a redub was needed

Rich Little also was surprisingly good on Hawaii 5-0 as a sympathetic vigilante killing pushers to avenge a girl’s drug death. He’s Cagney obsessed and stages each murder to mimic famous old movie scenes (Top of the world!) Jack Lord himself directs the episode, with some brilliant touches.

I mentioned the Mannix episode — where Little’s character is pressured into portraying a dead man over the phone — because it suggests how deep-fake voices could cause untold fraud, confusion and chaos.

Then Jim took the red pill around 2017 or 18 and they left.

I’m just fine with JHK’s awakening and reinvention.

He also does some excellent interviews on his podcast.

“Dying is expensive, but, traditionally, being dead has been free. Lately, though, there appear to be more entrepreneurs pondering how to monetize being dead. It’s like the final frontier of profit.”

I think the Catholic Church beat you by at least 800 years, Steve-O.

I had two VCRs constantly whirring in the 1990s. I would check the TV schedules at the beginning of the week for interesting shows, set the timers, and replace the tapes every couple of days. Then I would watch everything at the weekend. I had about 100 VHS tapes by the turn of the millennium, full of TV recordings. I stupidly threw them all away.

This will be a long one, so let me insert the MORE tag.

I will not talk to computers. It does require more memorizing of the number button sequences (but often just “0 0 0 0 …” until the software shuts up and a person comes on). If I were to, your way sounds excellent, Emil! I would like to see all 3 of your first videos. (I do wish I could do voices better. I suck at it.)

During the peak of the “official” war period – roughly March 17 to April 11 – I attended perhaps two or three days of school. (Spring break came in the middle of that period, but still.) I devoted all of my energy to recording as much of the war coverage as I could. I had three VCRs going virtually 24/7. I even recorded streaming media on my computer.

I’m older than you. I did the same for Gulf War I in 1991. Alas all this stuff got lost when the tapes went to the dumpster.

When the 2002-3 Iraq crisis came around, I REALLY wanted to rewatch the coverage of the previous war, especially the discussion/debate programs where very smart people argued over the conduct of that war (“Should we advance to Baghdad?” “What will happen if we overthrow Saddam?” “Will Saddam behave now he’s been taught a lesson?” etc.) But by then it was too late.

Like you I also digitized the most interesting shows, however

(1) I used a crappy first generation video capture card (Marvel G200) that produced video files that look far worse than the original recordings. If I still had the original tapes I could do the transfers again in far better quality.

(2) A lot of stuff (like the GW1 coverage) didn’t get digitized because I didn’t think it was important at the time – but I now badly want to watch it again.

YouTube copyright strikes are a PITA. My channel (mostly documentaries) is still up, but about half the videos are unwatchable because of copyright issues.

I’ve downloaded tons of Gulf War stuff over the years. Many of the clips have annoying watermarks and/or timestamps but they’re better than nothing.

At the moment I only have a throwaway channel but I’ll upload some clips for you. (I’ve never monetized any of my channels – I don’t own the material.) I have many complete broadcasts but these are only three- and four-minute snippets covering the top story of the evening. Almost all of these are from CBS.

For example, here’s the opening of the CBS Evening News from August 2, 1990, covering the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait:

I’ll post more clips here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn6Dg8imByAYiCTO10WybzQ/videos

As for discussion programs, American Archive has all of the old MacNeil/Lehrer broadcasts. These shows cover the period of Desert Shield and Desert Storm:
https://americanarchive.org/catalog?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=iraq&f%5Baccess_types%5D%5B%5D=online&exact_or_range=range&after_date=1990-08-01&before_date=1991-03-01&commit=Update

In the early 2000s, I used a Dazzle DVC 100 USB capture device that my mother got me for my fifteenth birthday:

At the time the video quality seemed adequate. Unfortunately, I could never get the audio to record properly, so many of my digitized recordings from 2003 are low-volume mono and are marred by a prominent feedback sound.

I still have most of the original files I recorded back then.

This is the best quality I could achieve at the time. This is a brief snippet of a longer clip:

Buddy should be singing “That’ll be the day that I die”.

It seems that I *can* upload videos longer than 15 minutes in length. I didn’t think I could, but this one seems to have gone through.

This is the CBS Evening News from October 25, 1973, covering the DEFCON III alert during the Yom Kippur War. This was a few days after Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre”:

This is probably the most epic commercial jingle of all time, even in black-and-white:

If anyone is looking for anything in particular, let me know. If I have it, I’ll post it. If not, I’ll let you know.

I’ve sperged out enough for one thread, but I’ll add one more irrelevant post before ceasing my digressions:

You’re older than me, but I’m old enough to have vivid memories of Hurricane Andrew in August 1992.

My cousin left me a message a few days before he died three years ago. I saved it for months so I could listen to him talking to me. My wife still has voicemails from her parents who died two years ago.

Not sure about Android, but on an iPhone you can save the voicemail as an mp3 file and keep it elsewhere for good. I keep several from deceased loved ones (and a few still living) in an album in iTunes.

A closer parallel is the alzabo in Gene Wolfe’s _The Shadow of the Torturer_. This semi-sentient beast digests the memories of the humans it devours, and uses their voices and words to coax their families to the same doom.