Wednesday, October 6, 2010

LA Film Festival Bitter Feast is deliciously scary.

Glass Eye Pixs new abhorrence film, "Bitter Feast," starring James LeGros, is The Dish Rags the one preferred new plate of fright.& Its a dim and tasty movie that follows a luminary cook (LeGros) receiving punish on a bitchy food critic, played by Joshua Leonard.. The movie is universe premiering at LAFF on Friday (June 18) at 9:45 p.m.with theres a second assisting on on Sunday (June 20) at 10 p.m.&Both screenings will be followed by expel and filmmaker Q & As and take place at the Downtown Independent Theatre.& Expect to see most some-more of LeGros, who is now sharpened HBOs Mildred Pierce" with& Oscar-winner Kate Winslet.Trust us. You might never examination an additional grill examination after saying this!& [For the record: A prior version of this post pronounced the second screening was on Saturday but the essentially on Sunday]Followon Twitter andon Facebook for the ultimate TV, movie and luminary newsVideo, print credit: Glass Eye Pixs
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Tuesday, October 5, 2010

How Roger Ebert found his new voice (Q&A)

Roger Eberts poke to recapture his lost voice unclosed a association with a singular technology.When the famous movie censor indispensable to find a approach to promulgate after losing his voice to cancer surgery, he incited to text-to-speech (TTS) program that speaks whatever he types. But the TTS program he primarily attempted sounded as well robotic and computerized. He longed for a voice that sounded identical to him. Thats when he detected CereProc, a Scottish association that builds electronic voices. Using someones audio recordings, CereProcs jot down can tack together an complete digital voice that sounds identical to the tangible person.To emanate a full and scold covering of speech, CereProc typically brings people in to the veteran recording college of music to review specific voice scripts for multiform hours. That audio is delicately available and tranquil to have certain the as purify and unchanging as possible. But Ebert had customarily the audio from commentaries he done for multiform drive-in theatre on DVD. The plea faced by CereProc was perplexing to tack together his voice from audio that was singular in length and bad in quality.Eberts new voice done the primary TV entrance on Tuesdays Oprah Winfrey show where the movie censor and his mother Chaz spoke with Oprah and appeared in a taped shred divulgence their hold up at home. Hearing her husbands voice for the primary time in multiform years brought tears to Chaz and smiles to Roger.CereProc creates and sells a accumulation of opposite voices with assorted accents, dialects, and personalities. People have have have have have have have make have use of CereProcs voices and text-to-speech program for a accumulation of reasons. Some, identical to Roger Ebert, have lost their own capability to speak. Many people have have have have have have have make have use of it to sense English and alternative languages. Some wish to constraint a internal chapter prior to it dies out. I have have have have have have have make have use of TTS program as a proofreading and modifying apparatus to attend aloud to my own writing.To sense some-more about CereProcs software, I not prolonged ago spoke with Chris Pidcock, the companys arch voice engineer.Chris Pidcock, Chief Voice Engineer at CereProc(Credit:CereProc)Q: Chris, how do you essentially emanate someones voice utilizing your technology? Pidcock: When we set up a voice for ourselves, we have a special book that covers lots of the sounds of English. Its utterly abounding and detailed. We get people in to a college of music and outlay fifteen hours or so recording them. But afterwards, the voice origination routine can be achieved on audio and content from anywhere. Thats how the Roger Ebert plan came about. He got in hold with us since he saw the small George Bush articulate head. That was a great e.g. since patently we couldnt get [Bush] to lay in the recording college of music for fifteen hours. So we used his weekly air wave address, that had both the content and audio on the White House Web site. We downloaded it and put it together, and out came the fake George Bush.We take that audio interpretation and send it off for transcription and afterwards shred it in to unequivocally small pieces. The technique is identical to the one used by AT&Ts NaturalVoices of selecting opposite pieces, or phonemes, of the audio and stitching them behind together in crafty ways. The pretence is stitching them behind together so they dont receptive to advice identical to they came from opposite context and opposite words. And patently right away Roger can contend anything he likes--hes not limited to the difference he used in his DVD commentaries.Q: It sounds identical to that routine would be sincerely time-consuming--taking detached the difference in to their sold phonemes and putting them behind together to form a total vocabulary. How severe is that? Pidcock: Its flattering wily to do the primary segmentation, to clout things up in to the right pieces. And we"ve put a lot of work in to automating that as most as possible. In the old days, we used to have to check most hundreds of thousands of bounds in in in between sounds to have certain they were correct. We right away do scarcely all of it automatically. So once we have the audio and the text, we can flattering most put a voice together overnight. The generating of the debate goes utterly quickly. There are crafty algorithms we use. We have customarily 50 to hundreds of examples of each sound. So you have to collect a trail thats optimal in in in between many, most hundreds of thousands or millions of opposite options. But thats the usual technique used in debate approval as well.With Roger Eberts voice, the been some-more wily since we lend towards not to have have have have have have have make have use of element thats some-more conversational. In normal conversation, people lend towards to stop and repeat themselves and giggle and cough. Thats essentially utterly formidable since we have to painstakingly remove all the uhs and ums so that the acoustic element we get is genuine speech. With the recording bent in the voice studio, if they contend um in the center of a sentence, we have them do it again, that we cant do with Roger.Q: What were a small of the alternative the hurdles in formulating Rogers voice? Pidcock: Getting the audio has been a bit of a challenge, some-more for him than for us. For the DVD commentaries, we indispensable a version that was utterly purify with usually his speech. Obviously, the version on the DVD is customarily churned with the credentials audio of the film. So hes been perplexing to get people to dig out the bizarre audio marks since there unequivocally isnt any approach of extracting the soundtrack. Theres no approach to do that in a approach that doesnt additionally set detached from the speech.Once we got hold of his audio, we sent it out for transcription. That was utterly wily since the formidable to mark all the ums and alternative audio disfluencies. So one of the hurdles has been to try and automatically find these disfluencies. Also, a big complaint with the audio we"re removing is they"re from opposite recording environments. One of the things we do when we jot down the own voices is keep the sourroundings very, unequivocally consistent. We regularly have have have have have have have make have use of the same college of music and microphone. We take photos of all the apparatus so we can have certain all the levels are the same. But with Rogers DVD commentaries, they could have been available years detached in opposite environments--some available in his house, a small available in a veteran studio. Its a plea to mix that audio in a unchanging way.Also, the approach he speaks is some-more conversational in these commentaries than what we"re used to. That equates to his debate is some-more varied. Its probable in the singularity that we competence try to hang in a small vowel from a all opposite college of music available 10 years later. So smoothing all that together is a lot some-more severe than it is for the voices we jot down ourselves.Q: Do you have standard content that people in your college of music review from, identical to what we competence see in a voice dictation program? Pidcock: Yes, we have a big database of text, that we fundamentally cave for combinations of sounds that are sincerely singular in English. We finish up with a lot of phrases with the word "oil" since in British English there arent most contexts with "oy" in them. We finish up with bizarre sentences identical to "The Omaha Oil association went down by 10 points today" since "ah" and "oy" dont go together unequivocally much. Over the years, we"ve been means to rise a unequivocally great book that tries to cover all the sounds we need in as most brilliance as probable in as small time as possible.Q: How most available audio would you typically need from someone to emanate a voice? Pidcock: For the voices, we have have have have have have have make have use of a smallest of fifteen hours in the studio, compared with the Roger Ebert voice, that I think is customarily about 4 hours in the version we got. But we dont have them do all fifteen hours at once. Usually, we do about 3 hours a day of recordings for a week.Q: Do you sinecure veteran voiceover people or are these usually normal people? Pidcock: It depends. We furnish law voices for people as well. Sometimes if a patron wants a utterly young-sounding voice, the utterly tough to get a professional, so we try to find gifted amateurs. And mostly people who do pledge dramatics are utterly great at voiceover work. We have a voice on the Web site called Sue whos from a sold area in Central England where they have a unequivocally clever accent. Its in Birmingham. That was essentially a competition. They were perplexing to collect an e.g. of this accent since the kind of failing out. They went out on the streets of the locale with a microphone and available people and played that on the internal air wave hire and chose the voices they liked. And afterwards we got the voice from that.Q: So you"re removing internal dialects? Pidcock: Yeah. With the Irish voice [Caitlin], we put a small work in to removing Irish place names internal to Ireland. We did the same with the Birmingham voice and the Scottish voices. We try to find a small internal color.Q: Are you especially focused on English voices or have you branched out in to any alternative languages? Pidcock: We have partners in Germany and Spain. So we have Spanish and Catalan and German voices and additionally an Austrian/German dialect. And we"re usually finishing up French and Italian. So we"ve been active in construction some-more languages. We additionally available the French voiceover celebration of the mass a lot of English. So her voice can be done sincerely multilingual. Her English is essentially so great that we"re meditative of adding an English voice with a French voiceover, kind of a voluptuous French, that I think competence be utterly popular.Q: How did the product get off the ground? How did your association start? Pidcock: Edinburgh University is one of the tip places in Europe for debate technology. And utterly a prolonged time ago, a debate singularity complement was created there, that is kind of embedded in Linux. Its called Festival. And that led to a spinoff from Edinburgh University called Rhetorical Systems, a association that kind of flowered quickly in the Internet bang and afterwards crashed down. A couple of us who work for CereProc worked at Rhetorical. And after that association folded, we proposed again with a some-more tightknit thought of construction up the jot down some-more progressively and hopefully some-more sustainably.Q: Where do you see the jot down going and what do you goal to grasp with it? Pidcock: One thing we"d identical to to do in line with the complement I"ve been articulate about is have a Web have make use of where any one could log on and have have have have have have have make have use of your computer microphone to review a small series of sentences. And afterwards it would give you a downloadable voice that you can implement on your computer that sounds usually identical to you. That kind of thing would customarily be probable when this technology, called parametric synthesis, is onstream. We"ve additionally been operative on perplexing to get a some-more romantic outlay in to the speech. We have a plan to emanate small animations or articulate heads for in-car use. We put a small work in to formulating an American voice that could receptive to advice happy or unhappy or irritated. And we were meddlesome in saying how that competence affect an communication in in in between a chairman and theircar. Although I"m not certain if you"d wish your car to be indignant with you.Q: Roger Eberts e.g. is engaging if you describe it to alternative people who have lost their voice. But as you said, the plea is anticipating sufficient available audio from them from the past. Pidcock: Yeah, at the impulse the usually as well formidable or as well expensive. But we are operative on opposite techniques to capacitate us to set up a voice from a not as big volume of audio. There are new text-to-speech techniques entrance up that would essentially have a indication of the speaker. They dont work by chopping up pieces of debate in to small pieces and stitching them together. You essentially sight the indication on the speakers sounds so it can dedicate those sounds. You can take a ubiquitous masculine indication of speech, contend an American ubiquitous masculine voice built from lots of opposite American masculine speakers. And you can conform it to receptive to advice identical to Roger Ebert with utterly a small volume of material, may be half an hour or so.The complaint with these voices is that they dont receptive to advice unequivocally healthy at the moment. They"re a bit loud and a bit buzzy, and they dont have the variation. In the intonation, they dont receptive to advice as natural. But potentially, they could be great for people who customarily have a small volume of audio. It"ll still furnish something that sounds identical to them. Thats not ready for production. Thats still something we"re experimenting with.Updated 2:15 PST to scold spelling of Edinburgh and shift companys place to Scotland.
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Monday, October 4, 2010

The Republican Choice on Immigration And Latino Outreach Immigration

Apr 11, 2010 & As weve&discussed&before, Republicans are confronting a vital flare in the highway over immigration issues.&In one citation is the large fortuitous of GOPers who, no make a difference the short-term domestic repairs (the disaster of the GOPs immigration throng plan in new elections) or the longer-term irrationality of anti-immigration pandering (Latino demographic and choosing by casting votes trends arent usually a secret), stays assured that stridently anti-immigrant tongue and intractable deportation-only policies are the correct course.& In the alternative citation is a not as big organisation of inaugurated officials and regressive activists who assimilate both the&political imperatives&and&practical process necessities&of becoming different the Partys tinge on immigration.This week offering new justification of the Republican separate over the issue and supposing new recruits for each side.Offering await for the ragged anti-immigration citation for the Party was Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ).&In front a throng of 350 people in Yuma, AZ, Senator Kyl betrothed that, on extensive immigration remodel legislation reaching the U.S. Senate floor, Republicans will make use of the event to filibuster.& Translation: even though he represents a state in unfortunate need of reforming the damaged immigration system, AND, no make a difference that the legislation is modeled mostly after his own 2007 bill, the second-ranking R in the Senate is proclaiming that the domestic benefits of interlude a bipartisan beginning upheld by the President is some-more critical than elucidate one of his states key problems.& Kyls remarks come in the surrounded by of a&high-profile first quarrel in Arizona&between Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and challenger J.D. Hayworth, in that immigration is a prohibited subject and key dividing line in between the candidates.In headlines highlighting the alternative citation for the GOP on immigration, former Governor Jim Edgar (R-IL), one of the states heading Republican heavyweights,&voiced await for extensive immigration reform.& At a headlines discussion announcing a new bloc of over 200 Chicago-area businesses who are subsidy extensive immigration reform, Gov. Edgar&said, I cant think of any improved approach to move this economy than to eventually understanding with extensive immigration reform, and remarkable the repairs that the GOPs immigration position is you do politically to the Partys future, saying, If the newcomer village views us as a celebration that is antagonistic to them ... we usually cant means that.As Americas Voice remarkable in the recent&The Power of the Latino Vote report, the Latino citizens is set to fool around a key purpose in dozens of pitch races via the nation in 2010 and has been a large and flourishing participation in an augmenting series of congressional districts via the country.& Currently, scarcely 1/5 congressional districts, 79 in total, are comprised of at slightest 25% Latino populations.& And, as seen in&recent polling conducted by Bendixen Amandi, this fastest-growing demographic organisation of electorate domestic preferences have obviously been made by the past immigration debates, with usually 24% of respondents stating certitude in congressional GOP to do the right thing on immigration issues (by comparison, 64% devoted congressional Democrats). &This is since Latinos perspective the immigration discuss by a personal lens 78% of Latino electorate in the Bendixen Amandi check pronounced that immigration was privately critical to them or their family and 62% reported privately meaningful an undocumented person.&12; &
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Sunday, October 3, 2010

Obama wins censor over to health renovate

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A extreme Democratic enemy of the White Houses ancestral health caring renovate pronounced Wednesday he would opinion for the bill, citing a fright that defeating the magnitude would fall short Barack Obamas presidency.US Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a extreme Democratic enemy of the White Houses ancestral health caring overhaul, announces a headlines discussion he would opinion for the bill, citing a fright that defeating the magnitude would fall short Barack Obamas presidency.After an fervent wooing by Obama, together with a float Monday to his home district aboard the presidential Air Force One airplane, Representative Dennis Kucinich voiced he would opinion for the unconditional legislation."We have to be really clever that the intensity of boss Obamas presidency not be broken by this debate," Kucinich, who represents a district in Ohio, told reporters."Even though I have most differences with him on policy, theres something most bigger at interest here for America," pronounced the lawmaker, who has voted "no" on alternative vital Obama initiatives, together with his plan to quarrel meridian change.Kucinichs change of heart was a poignant mystic win for the White House as it courted loath Democrats indispensable to pass the check in a make-or-break House of Representative opinion approaching this week."This is not the check I longed for to support," he pronounced repeatedly, but "I have to have a preference not on the check as I would similar to to see it, but as it is."Asked either his change competence lean others on the left side of the Democratic party, the lawmaker replied: "Well, if I can opinion for this bill, theres not most people who shouldnt be means to await it."Kucinich quipped that he climbed aboard Air Force One as such a reliable censor of tip presidential initiatives that "I thought that correct clothes would embody a parachute."And asked when he told the boss of his opinion switch, he pronounced the White House had schooled "just now" in the press conference."I"ve motionless to expel a opinion in preference of the legislation. If my opinion is to be counted, let it equate right away for thoroughfare of the bill, hopefully in the citation of extensive health caring reform," he said.The check aims to magnify health coverage to at slightest 31 million Americans who now miss it, finish violent word association practices, and quell mountainous health caring costs that already run stand in those of alternative abounding countries.
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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Seismologist Roger Bilham: “In Recent Earthquakes Buildings Have Acted as Weapons of Mass Destruction

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Even as the people of southern Chile go on to fastener with the rising genocide fee and the extinction wrought by Saturdays large earthquake, most seismologists hold the disadvantage could have been far worse. The 8.8-magnitude trembler that struck Chile early Saturday sunrise was 500 times some-more absolute than the 7.0-magnitude trembler that struck Haiti on Jan 12th of this year. But it caused usually a fragment of the casualties in more aged to the 300,000 people estimated to have died in Haiti. Seismologists indicate that one reason for the disproportion in scale is that Chile enforced construction codes for trembler resistant structures after the experience of a 9.0-magnitude trembler fifty years ago in 1960.

Click here to review the complete article...

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Shooting plant went to wrong address

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A Raleigh man who was fatally shot outward a Knightdale home last month was assumingly seeking for the home of an familiarity who lived on the same street, according to justice papers expelled today.

James Anthony Williams, 21, of 2727 Conifer Drive, Raleigh, might have thought he famous the car of his familiarity and approached the opening to 4613 Hidden Hollow Lane in Knightdale, military said. Williams was after found outward the home by military with a gunshot wound to his chest.

According to police, Williams" familiarity formerly owned a gold-colored vehicle, that Williams might have approaching to see in the driveway. A bullion car was parked at 4613 Hidden Hollow Lane.

Curtis Ray Lee, 24, of 4613 Hidden Hollow Lane, is in the Wake County Jail confronting one equate of attempted murder in the Apr twenty shooting.

He done the 911 call to military revelation them he had only shot someone. In that call, Lee told the runner that he did not know the man.

"He just, he gathering up, man. And I dont know anybody from this area," Lee said. "Whoever he is, he shouldnt have came over there. He only gathering over here. He didnt contend nothing. He was about to get out of the car, and I pronounced who is that? And he only proposed on foot towards me. I didnt know who he is."

Later in the call, Lee offering to put his gun underneath a bed and was asked to lift his hands as he came out to verbalise to a sheriffs deputy.

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Thursday, September 23, 2010

Study: College students are Internetaddicted

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CrackBerry is no joke.

American college students are hookedcell phones, amicable media and the Internet and display symptoms identical to drug and ethanol addictions, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of Maryland who asked 200 students to give up all media for one full day found that after twenty-four hours majority showed signs of withdrawal, longing and stress along with an incapacity to duty well but their media and amicable links.

Susan Moeller, the studys plan executive and aing highbrow at the university, pronounced majority students wrote about how they hated losing their media connections, that a little alike to going but friends and family.

"I obviously am dependant and the dependency is sickening," pronounced one student. "Between carrying a BlackBerry, a laptop, a television, and an iPod, people have turn incompetent to strew their media skin."

Moeller pronounced students complained majority about their need to make make use of content messages, present messages, e-mail and Facebook.

"Texting and IM-ing my friends gives me a consistent feeling of comfort," wrote one of the students, who blogged about their reactions. "When I did not have those dual luxuries, I felt utterly alone and isolated from my life."

Few students reported examination TV headlines or celebration of the mass a newspaper.

The American Psychiatric Association does not commend supposed Internet mania as a disorder.

But it seems to be an distress of complicated life. In one impassioned e.g. in South Korea reported by the media, a integrate allegedly not asked their three-month-old daughter, who died of malnutrition, since they werethe computer for up to twelve hours a day raising a practical child.

In the United States a small in isolation U.S. core called ReSTART, located nearby Redmond, Wa., non-stop last year in the shade of computer hulk Microsoft to provide extreme make make use of of the Internet, video gaming and texting. (Msnbc.com is a corner try of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

The centers website cites assorted examples of students who ran up large debts or forsaken out of college due to their obsession.

Click for associated contentJust as you thought: More teenagers are texting‘Millennials’ an regularly on, texting generationInternet creation the smarts different, not dumb

Students in the Maryland investigate additionally showed no faithfulness to headlines programs, a headlines celebrity or headlines platform. They confirmed a infrequent attribute to headlines brands, and frequency renowned in between headlines and ubiquitous information.

"They caring about what is goingamong their friends and family groups and even in the universe at large," pronounced Ph.D. tyro Raymond McCaffrey who workedthe study. Loyalty "does not seemed scored equally to any singular device or focus or headlines outlet."

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