In BoingBoing tonight: “Cubase plugin makes music sound like it’s played by cellphone

60 years after everybody else, Nokia (and Xeni Jardin) discover the breakthrough concept of… Vocoder

Congratulations!

What’s next? some crazy device to make your music sound like it’s being played in a concert hall?

And do not come telling me this is news because it is being brought to the public at large: for chrissake, it is a Cubase plugin.

Update: Please note that this was originally written for Spam Karma v.1 and therefore some elements (licensing especially) no longer apply to SK2. Same spirit overall though.

OK, so before I go any further, let me make things as clear as I can:

Spam Karma is and will always be absolutely free. Free as in beer, free as in love.

So free, actually, that you could practically take it, change twenty lines and start selling it as yours. Except your own karma would probably shrivel as a result.

Anyway, the gist of it is that you are under no obligation, legal or moral, to pay anything for its use. In fact, you are entirely welcome and encouraged to use it for free. Though a supportive e-mail or comment is always nice too.

Now that we got that part out of the way:

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First thing: there is now a static page entirely dedicated to Spam Karma. Among other things, it will always contain the current version number as well as links to other relevant piece of information.

Now that we pretty much got Spam Karma 1.x nice and stable, it’s time to get ready for 2.0!

Below is what I have more or less already planned for it, please feel free to add your own wishes, desires and suggestions in the comments.

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Picture 01roof.jpg Picture 02building_leaves.jpg Picture 03cemetery.jpg

I think the only reason I can stand the freezing winter in Tokyo (ok, freezing is a relative matter, but let’s just say it’s much colder than Tanzania right now) is the fact that it is sunny all along: that does make a big difference.

Great light for pictures.

The one on the right was taken right behind my house… I’ll let you guess what it is.

Few people know that the natural color of the Japanese tatami is, in fact, green.

It is only with wear and sunlight that it becomes its trademark straw-yellow color.

All right, everybody knows that. Especially around here, where Eriko gave me her usual demeaning laugh when, upon my discovery that every patch of tatami that had remained covered by furniture so far, was much greener than the rest, I suggested mould.

Crazy stuff, I know…

Oh, and the free-falling posting rate? What can I say, critical sense is a bitch.

Seriously: once you start actually wondering twice whether what you are about to type is worth the time, or if you shouldn’t instead run to the local combini to see if they got any new seasonal flavored beer… that’s the end of it all.

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