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Finally, a robot to replace the Whitney Houston-sized hole in our hearts
07.22.2015
02:47 pm
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Multi-talented musician, designer, and hacker Martin Backes from Germany has designed a robot to croon a pop ballad like a superstar from the ‘90s. As Backes writes,
 

“What do machines sing of?” is a fully automated machine, which endlessly sings number-one ballads from the 1990s. As the computer program performs these emotionally loaded songs, it attempts to apply the appropriate human sentiments. This behavior of the device seems to reflect a desire, on the part of the machine, to become sophisticated enough to have its very own personality.

 
In comments, Backes explained that the sounds were generated by digital signal processing, or DSP: “the sound is generated by the real time synthesis language called SuperCollider, same for the Visuals, so you have to write code. There`s almost no Audio FX or something like this, its basically a sine wave, the most artificial sound.” You can find out more about the device on Backes’ website.

The results are strangely impressive; even if the enunciation of the words isn’t always ideal, at least in the case of Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You,” the computer does a good job of matching her vocal range and expression.

Unfortunately, the robot’s repertoire consists of only five songs:
 

Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You”
R. Kelly, “I Believe I Can Fly”
Toni Braxton, “Un-Break My Heart”
Bryan Adams, “Everything I Do, I Do It For You”
Celine Dion, “My Heart Will Go On”

 
Below, you can watch a demonstration video for “What do machines sing of?”:
 


 
via Das Kraftfuttermischwerk
 

Posted by Martin Schneider
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07.22.2015
02:47 pm
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Three hours of Serge Gainsbourg singing, drinking and telling Whitney Houston he wants to fuck her
03.02.2015
02:30 pm
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Serge Gainsbourg died on this date 24 years ago. Which is a good enough reason, not that one is required, to share this close to three-hour video compilation of Gainsbourg performing his songs between the years of 1973 and 1991.

The compilation includes songs sung with Jane Birkin, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Catherine Deneuve. Plus footage from the infamous night a thoroughly drunk Gainsbourg appeared with Whitney Houston on French TV talk show Champs-Elysées and said, in his best slurred English, that he wanted to “fook her.” This was the occasion on which the French public at large was first introduced to Whitney Houston. Gainsbourg made it particularly memorable.

There are segments in French. If you don’t speak the language be patient, they’re brief.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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03.02.2015
02:30 pm
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Iggy Pop has a wider vocal range than Whitney Houston?
05.21.2014
09:59 am
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At least, that’s the word from concerthotels.com’s list, “The Vocal Range of the World’s Greatest Singers.” Obviously, “world’s greatest singers” is a pretty subjective category, and I’m not quite sure how extensive their research is on each singer, but the data is nonetheless compelling. The ranges measured are obviously from each artist’s catalog (not like they could trap them in a room and make them do scales, especially since quite a few of them are dead), and you can see everything in an easy-to-read graphic, as stretches of notes across a keyboard.

It actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Anyone who’s ever heard “Candy” know’s Iggy’s quite a crooner, and Houston was most famous for her belting—a vocal technique that one can only achieve in a narrow range. I was surprised at Axl Rose’s top ranking, but even more so by Sam Cooke’s spot almost at the bottom—I suppose sometimes brilliance is just doing more with less, eh?

Below is a slice of how the graphic is arranged, but you really need to see the whole thing to get the full effect.
 

Posted by Amber Frost
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05.21.2014
09:59 am
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UK’s Channel 5 screws up over Whitney’s death

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Of all the national TV broadcasters in the UK, Channel 5 has the worst reputation. Its content is sensationalist and downmarket (it’s where the declining Big Brother show has gone to die) but this advert-scheduling screw-up really takes the biscuit. The fact they had a documentary on Whitney’s life and death barely a week after her passing says a lot, but what’s even worse is that nobody at the station seemed to think the two adverts featured here might clash just a tiny wee bit
 

 
Thanks to Rod Connolly!

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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02.28.2012
10:35 am
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Whitney Houston’s death really brings out the trolls at Fox News website

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The deaths of celebrities have become predictably ghoulish spectacles, not only in the media (which is to be expected) but also in the misplaced “grief” and “deep love” that the public feels anew for the freshly deceased, as can be tallied up in the number of frantic Facebook wall and Twitter over-posting “tributes” that happen whenever someone famous dies. There’s a whole “firstism” tackiness to it all that makes me feel uncomfortable. And it’s so ritualized and dumbly Pavolian. I just don’t get it.

But something else I don’t get is how the occasion of Whitney Houston’s passing became such an excuse/empowerment for the worst racist trolling that I’ve seen in some time on the Fox News website, much that mentions President Obama, of course.

The Fox News website is always a hotbed of feverish racism and low IQ buffoonery, but usually they can’t be bothered to scrub their forums of it (there would be little else left) and so stuff like this tends to linger for a while. In this instance though, several hundred of the most egregious comments have already removed due to a public shaming by lefty websites. Comments that often had numerous “likes,” I should add.

Little Green Footballs cataloged some of them before they were deleted. Note how good the Fox New-watching trolls are at misspelling certain words so the filters won’t catch them (Actually they seem pretty good at misspelling almost anything, what am I saying?).

Hold your nose and take an “anthropological” look at what conservatives say to each other when they think no one else is paying attention [TO BE CLEAR: I removed spaces between the comments so this post wasn’t a mile long, but each paragraph here was from a different poster, this is not one long rant, as it might appear to be]:

A tragedy is when someones passes away from a terminal disease or something else that no one saw coming.Whitney is just an inferior lo w life ni gg er that needed to go,no tragedy,no loss.

Any death is a tragedy you heartless bástard.

not nignogs their death is a plus

SHe couldn’t even sell issues of “the national enquirer” anymore. Everyone was tired of the TNB. Niqqer flaps her lips and screeches, niqqer becomes rich. Niqqer ends up nearly broke after spending all of her money. Niqqer in constant fights and drug binges. Niqqer ODs when she learns she’s nearly broke and she is so wasted physically she can’t make another album. Niqqer hit the end of the road, niqqer thinking and niqqer behavior led her to where she had nothing. She couldn’t face life without the “bling bling”, she knew she would never have any more “kaching kaching”

[...]

I am now patiently waiting for the grand messiah Obama to have a blk fundraiser in honor of Whitley with Kevin Costner as guest of honor with all the Hollywood elites invited along with Alan Colmes, Al Sharpton, Jeremia Wright, Charles Rangel, etc. with a menu featuring blk eyed peas, grits, Imported Kobe steak, Dom Perignon, sweet potato pie and a mus lll im scarf as a momento of this great occasion.

Of course the door prize will be an all expense paid trip to Kenya to visit the Obama tribe and birthplace of his ancestors while the American people still look for this imposter’s birth certificate in Hawaii !!!

[...]

This is typical of the blk gene pool; it happens all the time. They cannot handle fame and fortune whether it’s derived from music, acting, sports or just plain entertainment. Too much fame and too much money at one time will ki ll ll you.

How many blk people have died from drugs including alcohol that have been in the sports and the entertainment industry or screwed up their married lives like Tiger Woods or worse, OJ Simpson !!!

This is the same disease that got Obama voted into the White House.

[...]

i don’t even consider them to be included in the human race let alone on a pedistal. the people that do are a bunch of loosers.

Story goes Obama sh0ved to much cr@ck up the wh0res @zz when he was going to sniiff it…

Obvious the use of to much hair strengthener did her in.That s__t will peel paint!

unfortunately like most nignog crack hoes she was able to apply her trade on “da streets”

Another nignog off the public social rolls

BIack females are the fattest segment of the population. BIack males are the most murderousss segment of the population. Africans have the lowest IQ of all people.

Like most of her species, she suffered from chronic stupidity.

tough break niqqer.

Nothing wrong with Coors, what is good about it most_n i g g e r s_ don’t like it

oh niqqa please,nigga please.

one of the only b l a c k chics i would have ever banged…..once you go c r ack er…..you dont do cr a c k

Woo Hoo One less obama voter

Whitney who?!? some /\/iggress music artist that had a couple of hits in the early 90’s. She’s since been forgotten and now she’s dead.. Who cares..

Africans love their drugs.

Jungle Buggie ??

This is a good lesson for all of you God loving Christian girls out there, stay away from “Jungle Love.”

One less bIack crack addict in the world today. Not such a big loss.

We Whiteys dont care about some monkey crackhead, change the headline!

How funny would it be if they fuckedup the tombstone. WHITEY HOUSTON

Their are B L A C K S and their are N i G G A S, which class do you put her mentor Bobby Brown into??? Whitney chose ???

Who cares? Black_trash gone is enough.

She is just like any other gh e tto queen.I hope the rest of these worthless piles in the inner cities follow her act .

What a waste of a good slit.

HER REAL NAME SHOULD BE KUNTA KINTI OR MOGUBA MAGABA, WHY AFRO-AMERICANS ARE USING ENGLISH NAMES AND LAST NAMES?….SHAME ON THEM!!

You know what you call Whitney Houston in a bathtub? A dead n i g g a h

Another buckwheat supporter bites the dust, oh well.

hatesandniqqers 3 hours ago

phuk you w hore,,,,,,,,,

Buckwheat is ne gro trash!

Bammy should not have given her crack from his personal stash!

B l a c k s have little to brag about about so they strut and crow about anything. The politically correct whites whine and cringe and try to be b l a c k themselves and identify with their “brothers”. Great singer but as stupid as her pal, the malignancy in the white house

she still be voting for the head niggg this nov

To bad it wasnt the monkey in the White House

If you’ve been thinking for some time that we’re living in an Idiocracy, these comments from the Fox News website will do nothing but strongly confirm that notion…

UPDATE: Fox News yanked ALL of the comments in that thread.

Conservatism Thrives on Low Intelligence and Poor Information (AlterNet)

When the Daily Mail calls rightwingers stupid, the result is dumbogeddon (The Guardian)
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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02.13.2012
01:50 pm
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Whitney Houston stunningly beautiful on American TV 1985
02.11.2012
10:19 pm
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As the airwaves become flooded with the deafening clamor of mindless chatter revolving around the death of Whitney Houston, I hope the voice of the woman herself isn’t drowned out.

This clip from the TV series Silver Spoons features 22-year-old Houston singing her first top ten hit “Saving All My Love For You” and it’s gorgeous.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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02.11.2012
10:19 pm
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