More on audio-video illusions and the circle of music parody

The McGurk effect I mentioned below illustrates what happens what happens when a sound does not match what we see. The visuals override the sounds.

But, when we have something a little more complex going on, we can use a new audio to fit the video. Even if the audio makes no sense, if it fits the visuals, we accept it.

You’ll never look at the Beatles the same way:

This stuff reminds me a lot of the Bonzo Dog Band of the 60s – who were influential on the Beatles and Monty Python.

First the Beatles:

and then Monty Python (Looks who is wiping the glass at the beginning)

Neil Innes of the Bonzos helped give us the Rutles, which brings us back to the first video:

While technology is different, there may be nothing new under the parody sun. But it is all still funny.

And yes, I have been a Bonzo Dog fan since I first heard Gorilla. Listening to them right now.

*Special bonus points if you knew that Neil Innes and Eric Idle also collaborated in Holy Grail:

[Listening to: The Intro and the Outro from the album "Gorilla (Remastered)" by Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band]

Seeing is not hearing

The McGurk Effect
[Via Boing Boing]

This video demonstrates how looking at someone’s mouth movements affects the way we hear what they are saying. The man in the video is saying “bah, bah, bah,” but when the same audio recording is played while he mouths out “fah, fah, fah,” it sounds like he is saying “fah, fah, fah.”

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Brilliant demonstration of something I have read about. The McGurk effect works even when you know what is going on. Close your eyes and you hear “bah, bah, bah” open them and you ‘hear’ :faa, faa, faa”

Our eyes override what we hear.

This explains something else I have read. Good presentations do not simply read off what is on the slide. Rote reading what people can already see does not result in an effective transfer of information. This is because both seeing and hearing the same thing results in conflicting modalities examining the same information Our hearing and sight fight for the correct interpretation and sight wins.

People learn much better when what they hear is differently phrased than what is read. This is because there is no conflict and each sense can use its own approach to help us retain the information. Instead of conflict there is enhancement.

Dengue fever and painkillers

Surfer Andy Irons dead at 32
[Via Boing Boing]

If you’re not a surfer, or into surfing culture, the name probably won’t be familiar. But those who do recognize him as one of the greats. Andy Irons died this week at 32. His family said he was battling Dengue fever, a disease carried by mosquitoes and endemic to countries in the tropics including Puerto Rico, where Irons was scheduled to compete. But today, reports are circulating of an investigation of Iron’s death as a possible methadone overdose. This and other medications were reportedly found in the hotel room where he died.

[More]

Dengue fever is a nasty disease and one that hits urban centers much more than rural areas. It has been looked at as a possible bioweapon because a large outbreak could easily tie up all the medical facilities in a town.

It is also very painful and can take months to completely recover from. So, I can see why strong painkillers might be used, such as methadone.

But a large percentage of the population can not metabolize methadone – and other opiates – well at all. So a normal dose for the average person can be quite deadly for them. The methadone stays around in high concentrations for longer than expected.

The doctor says take one pill every six hours or so. But the methadone builds up because it is not being metabolized out of the blood system. I have personally taken someone to the hospital to deal with an apparent methadone overdosing that came about while taking the recommended dosage.

The inability to metabolize methadone can be a killer. I would not be surprised to see something similar there.

It may be possible in a few short years to easily test for this in the doctor’s office. Wish it was sooner.

[Listening to: Dead End Road from the album "The Road to Escondido" by J.J. Cale & Eric Clapton]

That’s a hailstorm

Backyard video of epic hailstorm [Via Boing Boing]

Giant-size hailstones rip apart a backyard in Georgia. (Via Doobybrain)

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Man, my first though was what if you were caught out in that with no shelter? Over a minute of being pelted by large pieces of ice? Stonings kill people with less.

 

My second thought was about what the roof looked like or any car parked outside? I bet insurance does not cover that damage. Then, the best comment, fit ony for nerds was: Quick, send some grunts to find and kill the mage before he regains enough mana to cast Blizzard again!

[Listening to: Danger from the album "The Road to Escondido" by J.J. Cale & Eric Clapton]

iOS stealing opportunities for others

by aussiegall

Why the Mac App Store is such a priority for Apple
[Via RoughlyDrafted Magazine]

Apple not only announced plans to open a Mac version of its App Store, but slated an aggressive target to begin selling titles within three months. Here’s why it’s so important to the company.

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IOS on Macintosh, Day 2
[Via Scripting News]

There’s been a trickle of other blogs picking up on the idea.

Why??

Why would Apple want to do this? To create as large a market as possible for IOS apps.

Why do they care about that? Well, they make a lot of money selling those apps. That’s a pretty good reason all on its own.

But even more important, for Apple, any developer energy that’s applied to an Apple platform is energy that isn’t applied to a Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Blackberry, Nokia platform.

I probably left someone out. Oh yea. The web.

[More]

Daniel – the first post – and Dave – the second post – both hit on the importance of the App store on the Mac. Daniel provides a nice history of why Apple wants to have software that does not break its heart. He demonstrates how the App store for the Mac will highlight Apple’s strategy of controlling its own future by having a big say in the software for its hardware.

Dave then expands on this strategy, discussing how the App store is especially important for the new mobile laptops like the Macbook Air.

First, as Dave pointed out in an earlier post, the goal of Apple is not so much to put iOS on the desktop – although that will happen – but to have it on notebooks like the Air. The Air then becomes an iPad with a keyboard that can create much of its own content.

It highlights the laptop as just another type of mobile device. And where are the competitors for this new device? Netbooks might but they are hampered by a desktop OS and are in no shape to have the sort of App ecosystem Mac laptops will be able to access.

Now we have a fully integrated set of mobile devices, from the ultraportable iPod Touch and iPhone, to the moderately portable but wonderfully interactive iPad to the stupendously creative Macbook Air. The Stores all act to sell the hardware Apple makes its profits on. And each device has access to a software ecosystem tuned just for it.

And, as Dave again points out, if developers are putting their efforts into creating software that they can easily sell across multiple mobile devices with hardly any reconfiguring, why would they put efforts into other OS that require a separate effort for each device?

There are only so many development projects a company can focus on. The big guys will focus on the markets with the biggest bang for the buck. That will be the iOS set of mobile devices. Others will be an afterthought.

The OS App stores create opportunity costs for any effort not geared to those stores.

It used to be that Windows is where much of the great new software – ie games – was developed and then we might see some of it over on the Mac. Not anymore.

There might be some smaller developers that start in the free and open waters of other platforms but they will always have an eye on the much bigger and easier market of iOS, where your new app could easily be found on any type of mobile devices people use.

[Listening to: Saffronia's Mark from the album "Red Velvet Car" by Heart]

For Android iPad competitors – a chicken-egg conundrum

by wiredcanvas

“Google hasn’t yet provided any direction on Android as a tablet platform, which means that the…”
[Via Marco.org]

“Google hasn’t yet provided any direction on Android as a tablet platform, which means that the Tab is held back by lagging application support and software that doesn’t fully take advantage of the extra screen real estate.”

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Part of the conclusion of Engadget’s Samsung Galaxy Tab review. This is going to plague every Android tablet until Google takes a clear, bold stance by making their own tablet versions of Android’s built-in apps — which may never happen.

There’s likely to be a big chicken-and-egg problem: Google probably won’t care to devote any resources to good tablet interfaces for Android software unless one of the hardware tablets takes off, but none of the tablets are likely to take off with half-assed tablet interfaces on its software.

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The problem with a fragmented market where software is written by one company working under one set of commercial pressures and hardware is constructed by other companies with other sets of commercial pressures is that it becomes very hard to create new devices. The software company has no pressure to create the needed software for the new hardware but the hardware company has no pressure to create the hardware without the software.

Apple, by integrating both and having both responsive to the same commercial pressures, can innovate and create in ways the others cannot. It moved from iPod to iPhone to iPad to AppleTV to desktop. There are just now some competitors to the iPod Touch, some copycats for the iPhone, nothing to really match the iPad, no one is even looking at the Apple TV and the desktop is a pipe dream. For anyone else but Apple.

They have developed a software that scales across all devices and the hardware know-how to make it all work. Google has no such incentive to make their software work across all those devices. The hardware guys have no incentive to create new devices if the software is not there.

It will take these guys years to catch up in a meaning fashion.

[Listening to: Anything She Does from the album "Invisible Touch" by Genesis]