moon traveller herald

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/arts/music/otis-rush-dead-chicago-blues-singer-guitarist.html

A recent note on the Google AI blog discusses the company’s use of a deep neural network for music recognition on mobile devices. As it brings extreme-scale noodling (convolution) to bandwidth limited devices (smart phones) it could be a breakthrough on par with MPEG and JPEG, which dramatically transformed music distribution beginning in the 1990s. It’s known as Now Playing, and it can use a sequence of embeddings that run your music against its network and recognize the song, while conserving energy on the device. Each embedding has 96 to 128 dimensions. An embedding threshold is raised for obscure songs – which is the town where I live. I guess when you look at what Google has done with Search, it shouldn’t be that surprising – but the idea that so much of the work occurs on the Thing (device), is pretty astounding. I   asked it ‘what’s that song’ and it got it right. Slam dunk. “Ride Your Pony” by Lee Dorsey. Now, Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!  Jack Vaughan RELATED...

Sad to see Big Jay McNeely passed , but he had a good long run .. pulling here an excerpt from earlier post. [Remembered in 2011] Was excited to motor over the river to Cambridge.  Had missed Longhair's last Boston gig cause I wasn’t on the ball, so was up for this -  who knows we may not pass this way again. And the story at the time was that Jay McNeely had plug shut his career down, cause things were so slow in L.A. in the 1960s and 1970s, and had gone to work for the Post Office. This was familiar territory! The story I heard was he retired from the U.S. Post**, and, as interest in R&B history resumed, had gone back into performing. How good would his chops be? He came on and all doubt fled. Honking in the style of the honkers which he was very foremost among. He blew away the audience which was mostly unprepared for incredible intensity.  Was it his Deacon's Jump? Honk, blare, bleet, flomm. He started into screeching. Bonk, geesh, frang, blong...

Origins of the motivation for the monograph It was a night of discovery. Wisconsin teenagers driving around full of the anticipation for the Friday night dance. On the way maybe to the CYO hop, we stopped in to see an intellectual recluse in any ranch house, U.S.A. An older guy, flattop, not going anywhere that night, living with his parents, and the owner of a Fugs record. The twin beacons of Henry Luce, Time and Life, had told us of the Fugs – the most downright Bohemian member in the burgeoning ranks of folk rockers. They graced here a brick-weary East Side alley in the star-turn LP cover, many long steps away from the likes of the Kingston Trio. To get one of their records you had to go to a store that handled jazz or one, like Soulville, that handled Red Foxx’s gamey comedy records, ones kept behind the counter. The Fugs first out on ESP was not something to find in the LP racks at Penny’s. Even where it was available, it was not readily available to 16 year-olds like us. ...

The fog was misting - the crypto was descending. it was the late innings - someone agreed. in the big city - of holland and his submarine, smart guy with a dumb phone bummed a light off me. SAID man those boots are played out that umbrella's had it and some then your feet smell like tuna in august and your hair is taking on the mange and your house is on fire in hell, sir so go take the long way home no one can tell me Jupiter's not blue or neon aint atop new york's arch of triumph but thank you for the light sir tobacco will cure my bones and choir boy like, he lit his butt where the fog was misting - the crypto was descending. it was the late innings - someone agreed.                                                    - Jack Vaughan, 2018

Ed Sanders lab notes on the Brain Lyre. Source: Edward Sanders The MRI- A bridge too far - working project By Jack Vaughan It is fair conjecture to say not too many among the East Side Poets subscribed in later years to The New Scientist, the highly readable British pub that flies into the headwinds of science and technology, but Sanders did. For my money, this is strong indication he was firmly in a realm known by the ancient Athenian citizen, or the Renaissance Man versed in science and art. He stood ready to inspect the world at first principle. And, if electronics were in reign, he would learn it first hand. He'd been doing such a much, mucking with diodes, soldering circuits,  in the Woodstock winter lab. However,  as time went by, it was became clear the total EBS might be a bridge too far. Would he back up MRI equipment borne in a semi to his Woodstock cottage, to extend the laboratory portfolio for exploring the next phase? Maybe not. ...