December 14, 2003

We Are All "Geeks" Now

Posted by Larry Karnowski at December 14, 2003 5:41 PM

Okay, so this article from the Guardian, We Are All Nerds Now, is a great segue into something I've been meaning to announce for a good while now on my trusty old Hickory Wind site. Frankly, this music theme is getting boring. I'm realizing that at this point in my life, the music news is slim enough that I'm not posting anything.

So what am I going to do about it? I'm branching out. I'll still be the same twangy-music guy you know and love, but I'm also going to spout out random crap about, umm, geekier interests. (Note the British author of the Guardian article above uses the term "nerd" where he means "geek" -- a common newbie mistake.)

So what does that mean? Well, get ready for me talking about how I'm addicted to the newest version of the Neverwinter Nights computer game, or how I've already got tickets to this week's Return of the King theatrical release, as well as many computer-related topics. (Like how I'm starting to get on a real kick about speech-recognition and synthesis, etc, etc.)

I'll promise to be me, but I can't promise not to be boring. (My only saving grace is "You can't bore all of the people all of the time," right?) I'll still definitely be talking about music -- hey, I gotta be me! But after all, since "we are all 'geeks' now", can't we all just get along?

Comments

Bring on the geekier Hickory Wind :)

I'm personally looking forward to it as I can't seem to get into your twangier interests :) (well, except I like the man in black and some of the bluegrass you have pointed me to). Now if only NWN would release the update so I can play on my Mac...

BTW, I like the new skin better but you might want to make the HW logo on the comments page link back to the main...

Posted by: Bill Vinson at December 14, 2003 9:38 PM

Uh, "speaking" of speech synthesis, check out Cepstral (www.cepstral.com). Thirty bucks a channel, works with Linux (and Windoze), and sounds way better than Festival. In fact, the creator of Festival now works for Cepstral.

I'm thinking of adding Cepstral to my Linux server at home.

Posted by: Mark Turner at December 15, 2003 11:55 AM

Bill: Thanks for the words of support!

Mark: Thanks for the link! I'll definitely check it out. (Well, as soon as this Holiday-induced time suck is over!) ;-)

Posted by: larry at December 15, 2003 1:12 PM

I just checked out the link for Cepstral and I must admit, their tts surpassed my expectations. The voices sound much more natural than what I have heard previously...

Thanks for the link

Posted by: Bill Vinson at December 15, 2003 8:23 PM

Give into the geekiness, Larry. It makes life so much easier. It took me awhile to admit it, but, yep, Im a supa geek. And man, NWN (one thing that makes for a true geek is the abbreviating of not only movie titles, but especially videogames and theres nothing wrong with that) looks freaking awesome! And I did the new layout too.

Posted by: Geoffrey at December 17, 2003 12:08 PM

When I said I "did" the new layout, I meant to type "dig". yes Im a geek, but I still can't type.

Posted by: Geoffrey at December 17, 2003 2:33 PM

Heh, I figured that's what you meant, Geoffrey. Thanks for the feedback. I wish I could take some credit for it, but it's all Mena Trott's stuff -- http://mena.typepad.com/ -- from the Movable Type default style page.

And yes, NWN is the r0x0r. (How geeky 133t is that?) ;-)

Posted by: larry at December 17, 2003 3:01 PM

Larry,

The term is "goat-ropin" , not "twangy" in regard to your music tastes... ;-)

Posted by: Matt at December 21, 2003 12:41 PM