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  • Digression: "New Sounds On Demand" smartspeaker alpha

    From Joe Kesselman@21:1/5 to All on Sat Oct 9 11:35:46 2021
    Not filk, but filkers (or coders) might be interested...


    New Sounds (newsounds.org) is a genre-defying series that started as
    late-night programming on New York Public Radio, exploring less-common
    music -- anything from the oldest musics to the latest avant-garde, solo
    to orchestral to synth to vocal... Basically, it it's something good
    that will be new to most people, John and company will consider it. They haven't done filk or other fannish musics yet, though some if the cross-cultural collisions and invented instruments verge on the steampunk-inspired bands I've heard. There's a themed episode every day, sometimes repeats but lots of new material; John and company are still discovering new performers and new recordings, and they're tied into the
    New York new-music scene, recording performances at Bang On A Can as
    well as hosting their own series of public performances and in-studio
    sessions.

    They have a podcast feed, but it wasn't always up to date, and it didn't
    give access to the 40 years (4000 episodes!) of archived shows on their website... So I've written a smart-speaker skill to explore their
    offerings. It's still very much in development, and so far is Alexa-only
    though I'm hoping to enable Google support soon. It can also access
    their live stream, which has much the same mix of musics but mostly
    without John's descriptions of what we're listening to and why it's
    worth paying attention to (though it does include episodes of the show too).

    If this sounds interesting, you're invited to alpha-test the Alexa
    skill. Just tell me you're interested and give me the E-mail address
    associated with your Alexa account. Note that this doesn't absolutely
    require you have Alexa hardware; it can be run from a tablet or phone
    that has the Alexa app installed.

    And if you're interested in how it works, the JavaScript code has been
    checked into Github as kubycsolutions/new-sounds-on-demand. Note that I
    started this not knowing Alexa programming, not knowing the libraries
    I'm using, and in fact barely knowing JavaScript, so I'm sure the code
    isn't idiomatic for any of them, and it's "whittled" code so the
    organization is less than optimal.

    Feedback on either functionality or implementation is welcome, of
    course. There's a fairly long wishlist of things I still want to do with
    it, including. But it's a more complete example than I'd found
    elsewhere, and I at least think it's a fun toy and good listening.

    The producers are aware of it, so I'm hoping it may someday graduate to
    being official. For now it's strictly skunkworks.

    Anyway, thought some of you might be interested in either the code or
    the music.


    "We now return you to your regularly scheduled conversation."

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  • From Joe Kesselman@21:1/5 to All on Sat Oct 9 11:38:41 2021
    (Apologies for the editing glitches in that, but you get the idea.)

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  • From Gary McGath@21:1/5 to Joe Kesselman on Sat Oct 9 13:01:30 2021
    On 10/9/21 11:35 AM, Joe Kesselman wrote:
    If this sounds interesting, you're invited to alpha-test the Alexa
    skill. Just tell me you're interested and give me the E-mail address associated with your Alexa account. Note that this doesn't absolutely
    require you have Alexa hardware; it can be run from a tablet or phone
    that has the Alexa app installed.

    The series sounds interesting, but the only Alexa I'd let into my house
    is Alexa Klettner. :)

    --
    Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

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  • From Arthur T.@21:1/5 to Gary McGath on Sat Oct 9 16:07:48 2021
    In Message-ID:<sjshta$3a9$1@dont-email.me>,
    Gary McGath <garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com> wrote:

    The series sounds interesting, but the only Alexa I'd let into my house
    is Alexa Klettner. :)

    [Original and reply retyped from a picture of text found on the WWW:]

    I work in IT, which is the reason our house has:
    mechanical locks
    mechanical windows
    routers using OpenWRT
    no smart home crap
    no Alexa/Google Assistant/...
    no internet connected thermostats

    [to which someone replied:]

    Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of
    Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is
    bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via Alexa! I love
    the future!

    Programmers/Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a
    printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it
    ever makes an unexpected noise.

    --
    Arthur T. - ar23hur "at" pobox "dot" com

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  • From Joe Kesselman@21:1/5 to All on Sat Oct 9 21:44:36 2021
    The series sounds interesting, but the only Alexa I'd let into my house
    is Alexa Klettner. :)

    You can explore the show and stream (and a few related shows) via the
    website at https://newsounds.org, or by listening to the WNYC stream at appropriate times (11PM most nights, midnight on Saturday-into-Sunday).
    I just wanted the hands-free control for convenient time-shifting... and
    wanted to contribute back with more than membership dollars.

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  • From Joe Kesselman@21:1/5 to Arthur T. on Sat Oct 9 21:55:15 2021
    On 10/9/2021 4:07 PM, Arthur T. wrote:
    I work in IT, which is the reason our house has:
    mechanical <etc/>

    I worked in software development for 40 years and have a hardware
    background, which is the reason that my house has an industrial-quality firewall and a carefully isolated subnet for home automation -- and the
    home automation is not used anywhere mission-critical.

    Granted, when it comes to computer security, paranoia is not enough. But
    I understand exactly what trade-offs I'm accepting. I mean, being a part
    time locksmith I know how to secure my physical property ridiculously
    tightly, but realistically I don't need that overkill; all I need to be
    is secure enough that attackers won't waste their time on me when I'm surrounded by easier and more rewarding targets.

    Pick the trade-offs that suit your willingness to pay for/maintain them
    vs. their convenience, entertainment value, or other benefits. Your
    thresholds will differ from mine, and that's OK.

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  • From Paul Rubin@21:1/5 to Joe Kesselman on Sat Oct 9 21:10:06 2021
    Joe Kesselman <keshlam.cat.nospam@verizon.net> writes:
    They have a podcast feed, but it wasn't always up to date, and it
    didn't give access to the 40 years (4000 episodes!) of archived shows
    on their website... So I've written a smart-speaker skill

    Are the archived shows easily accessible some other way? Otherwise, how
    about uploading them (if it is ok with the show) to archive.org? They
    have a huge audio collection of things like this.

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  • From Tim Merrigan@21:1/5 to keshlam.cat.nospam@verizon.net on Sun Oct 10 05:28:23 2021
    On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 21:55:15 -0400, Joe Kesselman <keshlam.cat.nospam@verizon.net> wrote:

    On 10/9/2021 4:07 PM, Arthur T. wrote:
    I work in IT, which is the reason our house has:
    mechanical <etc/>

    I worked in software development for 40 years and have a hardware
    background, which is the reason that my house has an industrial-quality >firewall and a carefully isolated subnet for home automation -- and the
    home automation is not used anywhere mission-critical.

    Granted, when it comes to computer security, paranoia is not enough. But
    I understand exactly what trade-offs I'm accepting. I mean, being a part
    time locksmith I know how to secure my physical property ridiculously >tightly, but realistically I don't need that overkill; all I need to be
    is secure enough that attackers won't waste their time on me when I'm >surrounded by easier and more rewarding targets.

    Pick the trade-offs that suit your willingness to pay for/maintain them
    vs. their convenience, entertainment value, or other benefits. Your >thresholds will differ from mine, and that's OK.

    :) "I don't have to out run the lion…
    --

    Qualified immuninity = vertual impunity.

    Tim Merrigan

    --
    This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
    https://www.avg.com

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  • From Joe Kesselman@21:1/5 to Tim Merrigan on Sun Oct 10 14:12:31 2021
    On 10/10/2021 8:28 AM, Tim Merrigan wrote:
    :) "I don't have to out run the lion…

    Considered referencing that, yes. Or the various scientist vs.
    mathematician vs. engineer jokes (never mind other points of view).

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  • From Joe Kesselman@21:1/5 to Paul Rubin on Sun Oct 10 14:04:44 2021
    On 10/10/2021 12:10 AM, Paul Rubin wrote:
    Are the archived shows easily accessible some other way?

    See the pages at newsounds.org. My toy is really just convenience
    front-end on the existing resources.

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  • From Joe Kesselman@21:1/5 to Joe Kesselman on Sun Oct 10 14:22:10 2021
    On 10/10/2021 2:04 PM, Joe Kesselman wrote:
    On 10/10/2021 12:10 AM, Paul Rubin wrote:
    Are the archived shows easily accessible some other way?

    See the pages at newsounds.org. My toy is really just convenience
    front-end on the existing resources.

    (And in any case, _publishing_ elsewhere would be something the station
    would need to do, not a skunkworks effort like mine. My code is just a dedicated and specialized browser.)

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  • From Paul Rubin@21:1/5 to Joe Kesselman on Sun Oct 10 12:04:05 2021
    Joe Kesselman <keshlam.cat.nospam@verizon.net> writes:
    (And in any case, _publishing_ elsewhere would be something the
    station would need to do

    It might be enough to just get their permission and then do an upload.

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  • From Joe Kesselman@21:1/5 to Paul Rubin on Tue Oct 12 10:20:59 2021
    On 10/10/2021 3:04 PM, Paul Rubin wrote:
    It might be enough to just get their permission and then do an upload.

    1) Very unclear that their broadcast permissions would include upload elsewhere.

    2) Unnecessary while their own server carries their archives.

    3) Out of scope for my project, in any case.

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