neorants

Holy crap — forget plain old speech synthesis, check this out. A photorealistic model of a human head speaks your text. This is amazing.

Now this is good, geeky fun. Annoy your friends and coworkers by making your computer insult them! This is easily the most realistic-sounding voice synthesis I’ve seen. Feel free to post your favorite combination of text and voice in the comments (remember, sometimes you have to spell a little more phonetically to get it to sound right). So far, I’m enjoying “Charles” and “Audrey” saying “Pip pip! Cheery oh!”

Grrr… I’ve been dealing with my fiancée’s (former) web host recently, because they auto-renewed the hosting of her site even though she intended to let the hosting plan expire. Not only did they auto-renew it, they raised the hosting costs from what she had paid the first year.
Continue reading ‘Annoying web hosts’ »

Who knew saddam could rap?

According to this story, a woman sued New York City alleging her rights were violated when she was arrested for appearing topless in the 2001 Coney Island Mermaid Parade. According to her lawyer: “A woman has a constitutional right to appear in public topless, the same right that men have.” I’m sure men across America will have no problem banding together for the common good and defending that contitutional right. Seriously, though…
Continue reading ‘Constitutional freedoms’ »

While at the drive thru (I blame public acceptance of this blatant misspelling of “through” on Popeye, by the way) getting breakfast this morning, the woman at the window told me she liked my eyes. I get that a lot, especially at fast food drive thru windows. I’m not sure why that is, but if there is one aspect of my appearance that I’m now confident about, it’s my eyes. Anyway, it’s always nice to start the day off with a compliment.
Continue reading ‘Morning ramble’ »

While we’re on the subject of people making bad choices, this morning I noticed something else that really irritates me. There’s this guy who always parks his his not-new-but-not-anywhere-near-classic-status-yet Corvette diagonally across two spaces in the Applebee’s parking lot by where I work. This is one of those things that I will never understand.
Continue reading ‘More bad choices’ »

One of the many things I touched on in this post was my irritation with the way people rationalize decisions. My frustration with rationalization is that it’s a way for people to deny responsibility for the choices they make to varying degrees, whether by claiming that they had been convinced that their choice was the right one (Adam vs. Eve, anyone?) or by claiming they had no choice altogether. I just caught the special report on ABC last night, Help Me! I Can’t Help Myself! with John Stossel. If you didn’t catch it, you should really check out the link and at least read what amounts to a summary of the show.
Continue reading ‘Rationalization, and other cop-outs’ »

In my newly-inspired research fervor, I discovered this: the official Peeps fan club. “Declare your citizenship in Peepsville and meet others who share your unbridled love for these delicious treats, by joining the Official Peeps Fan Club. Share stories with your fellow Peeps lovers, enjoy special Peeps activities and get lots of great Peeps stuff!” What more can be said? And for only 14 bucks, you get an official t-shirt and an equally official embroidered baseball cap!

I saw this page a few years ago, but given the overabundance of experimentation material you likely have available to you now, it might be prudent to post a link to a site devoted to Peep research. It’s good that there are inquisitive minds out there to find answers to our most pressing Peep questions.