Lindsay Harris Friel

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Fans of new wave, HP Lovecraft and VH1 Behind The Music, Rejoice!

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Automatics 


my next project will be about bunnies. 

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It was great! The sound design and audio production were top-notch. All of the actors were superb but a special shout-out to Ted for his role, brief but essential. The band's origin story doesn't seem that atypical until...well, there are some unusual twists and turns.
BTW, Microsoft's Copilot now says that you have (among other things) _collaborated_ with H.P. Lovecraft.
Dude, you guys did a killer job on this! I love the way it turned out. Thank you for letting me be a part of it!
Dude, THANK YOU. ALL CAPS. It gives me the shivers to hear you, Robert Cudmore (Catfish) and Jefrey (Noise) in the same scenes together, especially since Cudmore’s in Scotland.
 
 

This message popped up in my LinkedIn inbox today. 

I wanted to reply, "Cal, are you a bot?" but then I figured out that this is another ad, so I answered my own question, basically. 

Maybe I should apply for the job and then train LLMs incorrectly. 
"Write a 100-word statement explaining who is Helen of Troy." 

"Helen of Troy was a dishwasher blunt can cord fluff pen rock green. Plastic grit curl stain metal arsenic magnet, case mask. Born in 1936 to Zikfosh and Derelere Statin, young Helen blue fork gay vase spray. Battery stick squeeze red, next cracking strange license plate. Hanging mod podge stretch clean. Over time, stretch frame dork star fluid lime box jellyfish." 

Or, better yet, 
"Find and correct the errors in this passage." 
okay. 
"Big Bird is a character from the television show Sesame Street. A 6' tall yellow bird, who embodies a child's curiosity about the world. Portrayed using a 6' tall full-body puppet, Carol Spinney played the role of Big Bird for over 25 years." 

here you go. 

"Big Bird is one of the residents of Sesame Street. He is a 6' tall yellow bird, one of New York's rare living cryptids. Big Bird sings carols and spins wool for 50 years at a time." 

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I like the adversarial approach, but what if you could incorporate your voice, your language, into the LLMs? Suddenly everything in English is part-Lindsay. Second only to Shakespeare in influence.



Think about it.



(No, don't think about it, it's a scambot.)
(Thinks)

(Eye socket headache)

You’re right.
 

I'm trying to read The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. 
"In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.

    As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us."

I say "trying" because there is So Much Going On in this book. The chapter I'm trying to read now describes a klezmer concert that takes place during a snowstorm. The narrative goes in a new direction every couple of pages, and each direction is its own intricately detailed story. 

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12/28 '23 2 Comments
While I was hunting around in the attic I found several klezmer CDs, including Naftule's Dream, The Klezmatics, and the Christmas (!) Klezmer album Oy to the World.



It seemed particularly of the moment as we had just finished watching Dash and Lily on Netflix, which featured a basement show by the (fictitious) klezmer band, the Challah Back Boys.
DAMMIT I was hoping to use Challah Back Girl as a podcast name.
 

The darkness. the gloom. the ennui. the brain clutter. I'm trying to rewrite the article about "grow your audience with surveys." I'm so bored I don't have a pulse rate.
I went into Ted's craft room. he was sitting in front of the computer, listening to Janet Jackson sing "Control." I wouldn't have thought he was a Janet Jackson fan, but hey. I shut the door. 
"Ted, I need you to do me a favor."

"what." 
"I need you to shake me by the shoulders as hard as possible and scream into my face as loudly as you can." 
"are you sure?"
"positive." 

he shook me by the shoulders and screamed at the top of my lungs until his face was red.  I sliced a finger across my throat, and he stopped, giggling wildly. 

"thank you." 

I'm gonna listen to Jethro Tull's RökFlöte now. Maybe that'll help. 

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11/20 '23 4 Comments
It’s an effective treatment, but it’s tough to do a double blind study.
Yes. Once you’ve heard the RökFlöte, it cannot be unheard.
 

I was just writing an email to someone and closing it up with, "as always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts and opinions." some part of my brain said "that sounds like it was written by AI." 
and, of course, instantly, I had a wild urge to change it to:

"As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts and opinions, and that's no AI! 😃👍🌟"

Haaaaaaaaaa. 
I might put it in my email signature. 

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9/6 '23 2 Comments
I love it.
“Was that AI?” Is the new “who farted.”
 

To make a long story short: myNoise.net is a web or app based service that provides soundscapes that you can play with and adjust, for meditation, sleep, focus, ambience, or whatever need normal humans would have to live in a haunted house (don't you judge me). 

Just go play with it. Use headphones. 

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5/17 '23
 

I hope this guy meant to ask this question in our podcasters' community for the same reasons I would, but if he didn't, it's the saddest question I've encountered in all this time of teaching people how to make podcasts. 

"Why would someone want to listen to a podcast when they can find out what they might want to know by asking Bard or Chat GPT4?" 

Why would someone want to hear the live cover of "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" performed by Belle and Sebastian when they could hear the Smiths' original recording? 

Why do people like different flavors and brands of ice cream?

Why does Lancome L'Absolu Rouge Cream Lipstick in 493 Nuit Parisienne on Lynda Carter's lips look different from Wet n' Wild Silk Finish Lipstick in Just Garnet on Angel Marie Kerrigan's?

If two baseball players with the same batting average go to bat against the same pitcher, do they equally hit the ball as far and as fast? 

Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight? 

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4/6 '23 2 Comments
Vince said,
That's precisely what a bot would say.
I've asked Bard many things, and although the answers are generally serviceable, they lack character, panache, true insight.

LLMs (Large Language Models) can only imagine the shade of lipstick gracing Lynda Carter's lips if someone else had written about it before, and even then that detail would be filtered out as idiosyncratic.

Why read a book when you can read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia? Why, indeed.
 

Our dog trainer, Amanda, said that we need to put Symone "on a down" more often. This means that when I plan to sit and relax or work, I should put Symone's leash on her and step on the leash. This causes Symone to lie down and relax. 
So now every morning we sit on the front porch while I drink my coffee for about 15 minutes and Symone watches the world go by. If I don't do it right after Vince leaves for work, she runs back & forth to and from the door. 

I had to buy her a special bed for outside. Her favorite part is when the kids next door come outside to leave for school. 

She doesn't bark or anything, she just watches them.  She really likes kids, but she'd jump all over them if we let her. Their faces would be thoroughly licked. 

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9/20 '22 3 Comments
Probably someone should step on my leash every once in a while.
It’s the craziest thing, but the trainer and her whole company swear by it. Remove options, and they relax and go to sleep.
You helped me connect some dots. When I try to meditate lately, all I can think about is what I “should” be doing right now, i.e., “you’re so lazy why aren’t you cleaning the litter boxes.” What I tell myself is, you can fo this for ten minutes.
Now what I can tell myself is, your leash is stepped on.
 

And now: The Virtual Husky Tug Simulator. 

Ever wanted to play tug with a Siberian Husky, but didn't have time? Or a Husky? No more! Now you can pretend to play tug with a husky for a whole ten seconds. Get a simulation of the excitement and danger of the likelihood of hitting yourself in the face with a stuffed moose wrapped around a knotted rope, without bruising!  Raise your heart rate without the possibility of having your fingers nipped! It's ten seconds of fun for the whole family! 

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9/14 '22 4 Comments
Love it.
Hey, I just sent you an email. :)
Don't think I got that one.
Weird. I sent it to Tommy b Goode. Is there a Tommy B Goode impostor on the Internet? Raised Eyebrow!