Designing with Sound

Designing with Sound

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I went to a recent UX Book Club Meetup (Calagator) given by Amber Case. She spent two years as a fellow at MIT’s Center for Civic Media and Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society studying the interaction between humans and computers.

First off, the talk was given in a really cool spot I’d not been before. A converted 1900’s fireboat house turned into the Boathouse Microcinema. It’s located under a waterfront overpass heavily cross-crossed with active rail lines and inside a non-descript red door in a sketchy industrial neighborhood surrounded by homeless camps.

Inside were the artist spaces for a number of film, music, and art productions.

This talk, however, was focused on her recent co-published book on the use of sound in modern appliances and technology.

She covered a lot of interesting topics.

  • Most of design in public is visual. How do we do public design for sound?
  • How do you feel sound? Low frequency can be felt, but requires high volume. Previously this has been limited by tech that distorts too much. But now we’re finally able to push high volume, low frequency sound without the high distortion.
  • You cannot have an uber-solution or norm for using sound in all devices. People try again and again, but there is no one size fits all.
  • Hospital devices are regulated to frequencies in the most optimal frequency hearing ranges. This is both a blessing and a curse – alarm fatigue
  • Can we have an alphabet of frequency?
  • Spectra iPhone app for the iPhone does live spectral analysis/visualization of sounds around you. Experiment and record places you go and see what you find.
  • Altitude on a plane makes salty+sweet tastes actually distort/deaden. So they played certain sounds with certain dishes to augment the food taste and ‘restore’ the proper flavor.
  • Sound isn’t like your eyes. With eyes you can close your eyes or look away – you can’t just close your ears when you hear something. This makes the sounds our devices/world makes much more important to pay attention too when designing things. NYC is a loud cacophony.
  • megaphonics of the late 18-1900’s – art to make loudest sounds possible.
    • One experiment of having 5 marching bands playing towards each other at the same time.
    • Corvallis group is re-doing that experiment
  • Open office spaces are bad! Open concrete restaurants are stylish – but bad!
    • Service workers are exposed to 90+ decibels for hours
  • Loudness fatigue is a thing. Tiredness and irritability rise. Documented as ‘alarm fatigue’ or ‘alert fatigue’
    • See earplug links below she recommends
    • base traps and sound absorbing panels
    • Audimute
  • Cisco hold music
    • Fellow did a podcast that said when he was diagnosed with cancer, he’d go listen to this hold music to feel better.
    • Most phone audio compression algorithms are tuned for the best voice response. This means almost all ‘normal’ music sounds horrible when run through those compression algorithms. That’s why orchestral music sounded terrible.
    • Cisco hold music, however, used lots of electronic tones that turn out to map very well to those algorithms. Done by accident, but actually sounds better than orchestral or live bands due to the phone compression.
  • Non-places
    • With advent of modern cities, these places came into being.
    • Places where you enter and have no identity. Stores went from personal encounters for goods with people to places where you are an anonymous shopper.
    • industrialization created dehumanizing non-spaces everywhere
    • mooji music
  • Steven Wolfram “New Kind of Science“
  • Sound Design for Designers – book
  • “Two Trains” inequality in NYC subway. A project that tries to ‘sonify’ data.
  • Tips for better design:
    • Use better equipment when reproducing sounds on your devices. Better speakers, better recordings, etc. Sawtooths/etc are bad.
    • Particle physicists – they sonify their data to know when something interesting happened in a particle collision. Added little chimes and upsweep sounds to indicate desired types of particles were found.
    • Incomplete chord progressions get people’s attention. We look up to see why the upwards/downwards sequence stopped before completing.
    • Notification chime that listens to db rating around it and chimes just above the ambient noise it finds itself in. That way it’s not too loud/quiet for wrong environment.
    • We have all-or-nothing privacy settings. This is bad. We need a middle-ground. Example: for gps you might want exact location. For many purposes, however, just a city or country is sufficient. We need to make ways for us to share only what is needed and no more.
    • Remove sounds – motors, HVAC, hair driers, etc – quality is communicated sometimes as the lack of sounds
      • Dyson devices (fans/hair driers) show people will pay BIG premiums for less sound.
      • We put foam in car doors to deaden sound
      • Pay close attention to component fit – poor fitting = rattling
      • Use containerization to absorb sound. All the blenders in Jamba Juice (Blendtek) have shell containers to seal in the sound. And they charge an absolute fortune for them and get it to protect workers hearing.
      • High quality things are category breakers – not killers due to high price. People will pay for these devices.
      • Apartment floors? Can we soundproof them better?
      • You’ll make a mint if you can fix super-loud leaf blowers
    • Allow sounds to be turned off or changed into a different sense
      • For phones, we turn off beep and use buzz/vibrates instead. Much better
    • Tiny homes sound great – until she tried it. They were WAY too noisy. Everything is in one space and makes noise. This is why Japanese appliances stress silence so much.
    • Tech can communicate, but it doesn’t need to actually speak. Voice speaking is tricky
      • Don’t do ‘universal design’. One size does not fit all. Nor does it fit all cultures/contexts. Thinking you can come up with one motif of sound for all your entire product line is a terrible idea and fails.
      • Roomba vacuums went from a few simple tones to indicate stuck/complete/etc to actually using voice. This was STUPID. extra costs of localization + unnecessary and not as intuitive/easy to hear.
    • Designing with Sound book
    • Experiment: she used a contact mic on umbrella to hear rain. Didn’t sound like rain at all!
    • To make big sound from small phone, old technique is to calculate cavity resonance of the phone and play sounds to resonate the case as well.
    • Barbican Waltz
    • Watch out for serious privacy issues. People could turn on Live Listen on their Airpods. Then, they’d leave the room with their phone in the room while leaving their airpod buds in. They could hear everything said in the room through the phone transmitting it to the airbuds. Effectively creating unknown surveillance through the phone.
    • Abelton 10 – simply record a few basic piano chord progressions and time stretch them. Amazing sounding
    • Being Mortal – by Atul Gawande
    • Paro Robotic Seal – This therapy doll for alzheimers patients worked stupid well after attempts with more human-like models or animals. Turns out, the unfamiliarity with a seal means the uncanny valley for seal not the same as for people.
    • Open thinking time:
    • She talked about fact people walk around now without talking/interacting. Terrible isolation. My idea: how about headphones that bleed into neighbors as you walk past them?
    • Robert Moses vs James/Jane Jacobs
    • Does simply sticking to ambient music isolate you?
    • Oregon Dill Pickle comics on Oregon history

Links:


Tour of Untimely Departures at the Lone Fir Cemetery

Tour of Untimely Departures at the Lone Fir Cemetery

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Every Halloween the Friends of the Lone Fir cemetery put on a ‘Tour of Untimely Departures’ where volunteers would dress in period garb and guide you through the cemetery to hear stories about some of the deceased buried there.


It appears that this tradition may be at an end, but hopefully it comes back. Until then, maybe check out some videos of older trips.

Japan resources

Japan resources

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It’s no secret that I have enjoyed both sabbatical trips I made to Japan. Here’s some good links.

Here’s a good link on how to use Suica cards to get to/from the airport and some general guides. Great if you have 12-48 hours in Tokyo and want to see as much as you can in a short time.
https://gojourny.com/stories/journy-concierge-106/journy-s-must-read-guide-to-tokyo-japan?utm_source=01101898

Tokyo’s Piss Alley

Every time I go to Tokyo, I end up eating at Piss Alley as often as I can get over there.

While there, I always try to drop into this place that serves amazing eel skewers. The old man appears to have more or less retired, but his daughter is there now running the show and was great to talk with.

Owl Cafe – I went to Owl Village and had a great time. They seemed to genuinely want to take care of their Owls and treat them well. Still, I can’t say as I would ever do it again.

Kyoto

While in Kyoto, don’t get scammed by overpriced tourist kimono places. Also, it’s very hard for men to find yukata and kimono. Turns out, however, there are some amazing resources. Here’s some links that discuss places to pick up quality and used kimono for men and women.

Here’s some of the suggested places:

  • Nishijin Textile Center – great place to pick up quality men/women’s kimono at very reasonable prices. Men selection was a little limited.
  • Takashimaya  – upper-end department stores like Takashimaya have dedicated kimono floors (It’s the fifth floor in the Kyoto Takashimaya)
  • Shinkyogoku Street and Teramachi Street.
    • Chicago – 1st floor is vintage clothes, 2nd floor is used Kimono
    • Ofuku- Kimono World
    • Yukata Shop Sakura

Sources:

http://www.travel-kyoto-maiko.com/traveltips/where-to-buy-kimono-and-yukata-in-kyoto-including-mens/

Hakone

Hakone is known for its hotsprings and as a favorite getaway for Tokyo city residents. It’s a bit of a resort trap in my opinion, but worth the trip as it’s good quality and affordable prices. Bonus points for riding the crazy boats across Lake Ashi, seeing an Edo period taxation and border control station, and taking the Hakone Ropeway cablecar over an actively smoking volcanic Mt Hakone.

At the border control station, there are lots of wooden puzzle boxes. I bought a Karakuri Creation Group NS-2-2 (New Secret Box Ⅱ) box and have enjoyed its wonderful high quality construction.

Finally, there’s the hot springs themselves. Mingled among the hundreds of hotels, ryokans, and resort spots, there are some amazing experiences.

Yunessun bathing at Hakone

How about bathing green tea, sake, in a wine bath? Yeah – I did those, and they’re 100% real:

Or coffee?

Or the Doctor Fish which are tiny fish nibble at your toes:

Osaka and Yakiniku/Wagyu and Kobe Beef

Here’s a really good guide on how to cook/eat and enjoy Wagyu and Kobe beef. Trust me, there is a difference between good Wagyu/Kobe beef and the low grade stuff most Americans get. Do not hit any of the tourist-trap looking places. Do some research and get a recommendation for high quality places that locals go to. If you’re not paying around $100 for a meal of about a 6-12 pieces, you’re probably not getting the real stuff. Once you do, you’ll never have realized how beef can taste. Meat that literally melts on your mouth is a real thing and worth having once in your life.

Miscellaneous

Hard-off, Home-off, and their affiliates are great places to get Playstations and other Japanese electronics at rock-bottom prices. Way better than the astronomical tourist prices in Akihabara.

If you ever watch GameCenter CX, then you are familiar with Arino’s attempts to beat old video games. One of the things he uses are cooling pads. Last time I was in Japan, I bought some. Here’s what they are.

If you are further south, check out the Memorial Cathedral for World Peace at Hiroshima. I went to mass here and prayed that we never see nuclear weapons used in war again.

In the spring, the Wisteria bloom along with the Sakura. Check out the most famous Wisteria tunnels at Kawachi Fuji gardens

Fologram and building what was previously difficult

Fologram and building what was previously difficult

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Nothing is going to be the same – not even the most menial jobs. The pace of change of what is coming, and what is happening today, is beyond even our wildest dreams. Not even construction jobs will be the same. Such as this example of building a complex wave-like wall structure in less than a day with perfect placement of each brick. Fologram Talks: Holographic Brickwork from Fologram on Vimeo. Fologram combines computer-aided design with the holographic capabilities of Microsoft’s HoloLens headset to help in assembling even complex objects. The hologram can overlay exactly where each piece of the build should go, as well as an outline of the finished product.
Autonomous tractors, harvestors, and even weeding robots – the end of farming as we know it?

Autonomous tractors, harvestors, and even weeding robots – the end of farming as we know it?

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While autonomous cars are getting all the press, there is an even more disruptive side to this technology that is likely far easier and will likely come sooner. Fully autonomous farming.

What about a robot that can patrol fields and kill weeds with pinpoint precision. This would use massively less herbicides. Alternative forms could be developed that fertilize or analyze individual plants or patches of a field for particular problems.

But the really big guns come out below. What if you could replace field work completely and do it all from the comfort of your air conditioned office chair at home?

These are almost certainly going to become realities – probably in our lifetime.

Update 6/14:

The above video was broken, but 1:39 shows the AI vision guided laser/spray weeding.

Backdoor Roth IRA

Backdoor Roth IRA

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Getting your backdoor Roth IRA right is very tricky. If done incorrectly, you can find yourself owing a ton of money and more than negating the value of contributions.

Here’s the best/most correct covering of the topic:

How to Do a Backdoor Roth IRA

Here is a higher-level discussion:
https://www.dadsdollarsdebts.com/2016/11/22/roth-401k/

Also look here for much more in-depth information:

https://www.kitces.com/blog/how-to-do-a-backdoor-roth-ira-contribution-while-avoiding-the-ira-aggregation-rule-and-the-step-transaction-doctrine/

Kubrick’s inspiration for 2001

Kubrick’s inspiration for 2001

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Kubrick is hailed as a genius, but as Isaac Newton said in 1675, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

In 1960, the National Film Board of Canada produced a film that followed the work of Ontario astronomer Donald MacRae. Universe introduced us to the planets and neighboring heavenly bodies as understood even before John Glenn’s first orbital flight.

Kubrick saw the film and was inspired to do a space movie, which became 2001: A Space Odyssey. He even used the narrator of the documentary, Douglas Rain, as the voice of HAL 9000. 

Give it a watch and see almost shot-for-shot where Kubrick got his camera ideas, pacing, and tone.

Augmented driving – Wayray

Augmented driving – Wayray

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At CES, Wayray demonstrated a car mockup loaded with an augmented reality display.
It’s funny, I have a memo to myself from 2014 for almost exactly this idea. Guess I should have jumped on the idea. 🙂