Two personal data points: a meandering FB thread about the future of the Computers and Writing conference; another conference conversation over the implications of asserting that "these days" everything is digital rhetoric. It's a related observation, taken one step further, that leads Casey Boyle, Steph Ceraso, and James J. Brown Jr. to conclude in a... Continue Reading →
Ep 101: Siri’s Voice
This is my first attempt at this, so I'd love your feedback. And here's a link I mention in the podcast: Dennis Klatt's History of Speech Synthesis.
distributed deliberation #rsa50
In the wake of 2016 US presidential election, many questions were raised about the role of Facebook in disseminating fake news. Mark Zuckerberg’s response, posted to Facebook, points to the challenge fake news presents. Identifying the “truth” is complicated. While some hoaxes can be completely debunked, a greater amount of content, including from mainstream sources,... Continue Reading →
A different direction for asking why you heard what you did
So the basic story of the recent "Laurel or Yanny" story, as near as I can figure, is this. You're listening to a degraded digital recording of a voice that has distorted some of the low frequency sounds a human voice makes. So depending on a number of factors--some physiological, some psychological, some technological (e.g.... Continue Reading →
when AIs start vlogging
Right now I have two scholarly/professional interests, and I'm wondering how they intersect. On a general thematic level they appear to share a lot as they are both about digital technologies and communication/rhetoric. However, they also represent two very different segments of digital culture. I've been writing/speaking about both recently on this blog. The first... Continue Reading →
30 years on…
30 years ago, I was an undergrad and just starting a job working for a start-up, family business in the nascent IBM PC clone market. We assembled computers and sold them on to retails. We distributed hard drives and other components. We consulted with small businesses to provide them with IT solutions for point-of-sale, inventory... Continue Reading →
what is digital professional communication? (the video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz2aw927CHc Having asked students in my classes to experiment with video, I took on the task myself to make a video where I think about this question and the course I'm teaching in the fall. At this point I could offer various caveats regarding first attempts and such but to be honest I had quite... Continue Reading →
what makes professional digital communication interesting?
First, a tangent. Over the last week I've been part of a listserv conversation that reprises the now familiar question about how English Studies majors should change (or not). As I noted there, this has become a familiar genre of academic clickbait, like this recent buffoonery from the Chronicle of Higher Ed. Among other things I pointed... Continue Reading →
On the importance of deep mixture density networks and speech synthesis for composition studies
Eh? What's that? I'm talking about AI approaches to the synthesis of speech on your smartphone and related devices. I.e., how does Siri figure out how to pronounce the words its saying? OK. But what does that have to do with us? Another necessary detour around the aporias of disciplinary thought... This is really about... Continue Reading →
