starless @starless@pixie.town

Jam session listening session is going down right now! Tune in if you'd like! :) https://stream.cyberia.club/

Reminder! Cyberia is hosting an orca jam session today! Demos are at 6 pm cst on stream.cyberia.club (0000 UTC). See cyberia.club/music-jam for more info.

Be welcome, friends! 💙

A few days ago, we had some beautiful weather for March. Have a little improvised song I recorded outside on my bowed psaltery.

I know it's a big news day, but I tried starfruit for the first time this morning and it sent me into a hiccuping fit through the duration of my morning meeting. Tiny hiccups every two or so breaths! Eeeee! >.<

Starfruit is tasty, but isn't safe to eat on an empty stomach. Please learn from my hubris.

#music #orca
Heya! On Saturday, March 13th at 0000 UTC/1800 CST, the Cyberia Computer Club will be hosting our first Orca jam session!

Come chat with us about it in #musicollab:cyberia.club on matrix (and for submissions) and find the rest of the details here: https://cyberia.club/music-jam

We've all been using orca for less than a week, so it'll be real casual and stuff. We're still figuring a lot out. Consider yourself invited! 💙

I was woken up this morning by a robocall an hour before my alarm went off. It was a fundraiser call from someone operating a soundboard asking for donations to help some "friends of police" kind of org. They asked for donations for supplemental police training programs (notoriously violent) and widow support. They immediately hung up on me when I asked about their stance on de-escalation and non-violence training.

It was definitely a scam call. I'm not seeing any record of the phone number they called with, etc, but ugh... That whole experience just makes me feel gross. The soundboard voice was, like, 1950s Hollywood baritone male, which just felt, like, extra bad??

Ugh, get me off this ride.

I went for a midnight walk yesterday and took this picture. Light pollution sucks, not doesn't make bad landscapes.

I composed a mellow little song on my harp. I think it's a really just an accompaniment to a song, but I'm not sure. Maybe you'll like it?

May this year being you peace, justice, and growth.

Around this time of year, I find myself wanting to play more music. I'm not terribly Christian, but I often wind up playing Christmas carols on my harp out of convenience, etc.

This year, I think I'll do sea shanties instead.

(this is The Wellerman, pardon the unturned instrument)

Aaaaaaaa I am so excited about the possibility of CAT EARS HEARING DEVICES!

Just ordered dinner while soaking in the tub. Not a bad evening in.

At this point, I don't think I could come out of the broom closet at work if I tried. Literally just asked for Samhain off at the end of the month, since we might need to be available overnight and my boss just went "yep, okay".

Good news? He's cool with it. Bad news? He asks how my Christmas was every year.

Aaand version 0.4, I guess? 0.3.5? Anyways, I made a vest to hold the sound processor and battery pack and wow, did it make a difference. Shoulder-mounted hearing aid-- who knew? Directionality isn't perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better, and wow, did it make a difference.

Anyways, I put in an order for a small 3.5 mm mic-- hopefully it shows up and basically 'just works' once I switch the audio input in the code. I suspect I might need to do some faaancy stuff to compensate for the mic's sensitivity range, but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

So far, this whole thing (aside from the Tympan board) has been really inexpensive-- maybe $30 in electronics-- for a functioning hearing device. Programming the prescription is still kind of a beast, involving some spreadsheets and a little guesswork. If we can get the board cost down, though, and improve the documentation/build process this thing might actually be accessible! I imagine I'll see some cost increases once I add nicer microphones, but it's hard to say. Feeling pretty excited. :)

Today I made version 0.3 of my hearing device using one of the examples in the Tympan library (https://github.com/Tympan/Tympan_Library/tree/master/examples/05-FullSystems/WDRC_3BandIIR_wAFC). I'm still getting a lot of artifacts, but I think I'm learning how to use and understand audio charts.

Aesthetically, I'm beginning to suspect I'll want to build my prototype into epaulets.