Eric Forbes

I was looking for a way to turn a QuickTime video I just recorded into a text transcript, similar to the video log seen in the movie, Avatar. I had heard about Dragon speech recognition software but discovered it is only available for the PC. There is something for the Mac – MacSpeech Dictate – but I’m not sure if it can generate text from a video source.

I got distracted and discovered a book that describes how to Present like Steve Jobs. Then I came back to my search for the perfect video to text application.

A few weeks ago, I learned about Google’s iPhone Search app that uses their computing cloud to turn audio samples into text in seconds. So I figured, maybe Google would know how to do this.

Now that Google owns YouTube, they’ve started to apply automatic speech recognition (ASR) to many of the videos found on YouTube. YouTube users can upload a text file of the transcript to an existing video they’ve already uploaded and have Google sync the transcript to the video. It can translate into other languages if you want. But how can I turn my own personal video on my MacBook into text? I need to see if they have a solution for that.

Google Accessibility might have the answer. [Not exactly.]

Google labs has a project called Google Audio Indexing (or Gaudi) that uses their speech recognition application to recognize speech contained on YouTube videos. Their first experiment is limited to election videos, but I can see how this might be extended to other videos at some point.

Now how do I access Google’s cloud (or some other application that lives on my Mac) to render my own video to text without uploading my personal video logs YouTube and waiting for them to extend their Gaudi service to the rest of the YouTubiverse? I’ll save that for another day. It’s time to walk the dog…

I was looking for a way to turn my own personal videos into text files so that I can read what I said and search for things later but that search had a detour or two. While going from the one speech-recognition software site to another, I found myself on lifehacker.com and saw ways to transform an office into a studio you’d want to spend all day working in. Nice. But what about my problem?

I clicked some more links and found myself looking at a video describing the concepts in a new book written by Carmine Gallo called The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs and I thought: Wow. Cool!

I bought the book. And after buying the book, I watched a video I found on lifehacker.com: Deliver Polished Presentations Steve Jobs Style.

Further clicking took me to the Carmine Gallo website and a cool slide presentation service called SlideRocket.com where I watched a very polished presentation about the concepts covered in the book. So I’m all ready to read it when it arrives! And I want to see how SlideRocket works. It beautifully scaled to fill my 30″ Cinema display with no jaggies (so it must use Flash or something vector-based). Very impressive.

So I bought the book, watched a video about the book and then a watched a SlideRocket presentation gave me even more ideas. I’m really excited to figure out what I’m here to do with my life and my business.

What can I create or do that would make others happier? [Good question. I'm thinking.]

But then I went back to my search for turning video into text. [And now, I'm going to take a walk with my dog.]

I’ve been swimming pretty regularly at the local YMCA and started swimming underwater again. When I first started swimming again, I could not make it the entire length of the pool underwater – 25 meters – without coming up for air. I took some deeper breaths, relaxing between attempts, and tried again and again. In a few weeks, I made it the whole way without coming up for air! But it was a lucky lap. I only recently got enough lung capacity to do one length after another with a 1 minute rest in between. Not bad for a dude my age.

I didn’t swim much last week (I was recovering from a cold) but started swimming today and after doing a few dozen laps of the breast stroke and some kicking-only lengths, I did some underwater lengths. I wondered if I could ever swim underwater down and back – a complete 50 meter lap – without coming up for air. I asked the guy sharing the lane with me if he ever swam underwater. He said the most he could do is a length and a half. From that I suspected that I could do better than a single length, but how would I train for such a thing?

My friend Jeremy introduced me to freediving a few years ago and I liked it so much, I bought a bunch of specialized gear and tried holding my breath without moving in the local swimming pool one evening. He called it static apnea, and it was an amazing thing. I held my breath for a few minutes while I was completely still. He told me the importance of not moving a single muscle and not thinking either. He believed that thinking consumed as much oxygen as muscle movement. I was intrigued, and tried not to move or think and without knowing it, I had remained, face-down in the water for a few minutes without breathing. But that was a few years ago. I haven’t really tried it since then.

Swimming underwater is a little different. In this case, you are definitely moving your muscles. But could you go farther if you stilled your mind well enough to stop thinking extraneous thoughts? My training will involve getting to the pool to do laps and trying to go farther each time without thinking. I’m already practicing being more present so applying it to swimming underwater seems natural and even obvious. But how can I hold my breath for longer periods of time?

I asked myself this question today around 4:30 PM while swimming laps at the pool. Synchronicity seems to be my friend these days.

A few hours later at 9:30 PM, I was debating how to spend the last few hours of my day before going to bed. I was talking to my friend Vivian on the phone and just before we ended the call, I opened a browser window and went to TED.com. There I found a video showing David Blaine (the magician) talking about how he held his breath for 17 minutes underwater.

I just watched the video and realized I’d never really seen him before. He’s sexy! And his conversational style is informative and humorous. He tells a great story. He started by listing the things he attempted to do to avoid having to hold his breath for that long, including surgically inserting rebreathing tubes down his throat, breathing a rare liquid form of oxygen, and bypassing his heart and lungs with an embedded heart and lung bypass device that could breathe for him. None of these ideas were feasible (according to him), so he decided to learn how to hold his breath naturally. What a concept! Not just a man of deception, David Blaine decided to figure how to do it au naturel. And he managed to train himself to do without oxygen for 17 minutes and 4 seconds on 19 September 2008 (Oprah Winfrey Show). He had to lose some weight to get a larger lung capacity. And he slept in a hypobaric chamber every night to increase his red blood cell count and basically simulate sleeping in a lower oxygen (13% O2) environment while training in a normal oxygen level (21% O2) during the day.

Some MMA wrestlers use hypobaric sleeping tents to help them become acclimated to higher elevations (for a contest in Denver, Colorado as one example) and get all of the benefits of sleeping in a reduced oxygen environment. But these tents have to cost some money. I know this because the website that sells them doesn’t list the prices for the tents or airflow generators. They force you to fill out a form or call someone in “Sales” to get more information. How 1980′s right? Anyway.

There is a simpler (but more determined) method of hypoxia training called IHT or Intermittent Hypoxia Training used by Russian cyclists. This method requires some dedication to a 2-hour daily ritual of breathing exercises as follows:

15 minutes:

1. Hold your breath for 1 minute
2. Breathe normally for 15 seconds

75 minutes:

1. Hold your breath for 1 minute
2. Breathe normally for 10 seconds (5 seconds less than before)

30 minutes:

1. Hold your breath for 1 minute + 5 seconds
2. Breathe normally for 10 seconds

I could try that right now. But it’s already 11:30 PM and I’m tired. I could see this being turned into an iPhone app. Or does it already exist? I just searched for “IHT” and “hypoxia” on the iTunes App Store. No one has thought of it yet. Curious.

[I geeked out for an hour trying to make my own audio-based IHT training tool using iTunes... with limited results.]

Now it’s 12:30 AM and I’ve spent the last hour making audio files of voice over cues for the breathing exercise above. I tried creating playlists in iTunes to loop the sequence of the cues (“Hold your breath” … 60 seconds of silence … “Start breathing” … 15 seconds of silence) – Repeated 24 times for the first part alone. But iTunes has a limit of 65 tunes per playlist. At least that’s a limit I’m running into right now. I tried using Automator (the scripting application that comes with OS X) but my attempts to loop an iTunes playlist from within a workflow failed. The loop condition continued before the playlist finished, causing a stuttering performance of the first track of my voice cues. Very Max Headroom. But it’s late. I’m putting this on my OmniFocus inbox as a new project to consider tomorrow. Stanford University has a free online iTunes University video course available on iTunes for developing iPhone Apps. That might be a kick-start. Or I could just breathe. But that takes all the fun out of not breathing.

the vampires I speak of
do not savor blood
these minions collect
life
from every person they meet

leeches
slugs
parasites
bugs

roaming the earth in
search of people to
turn into mummies
such bemusement

lying
crying
trying
denying

there’s no way to know for sure
where the next will turn up
but I’ve learned something about vampires
I can show you who they are
by what they do

first, the knowing smile
coupled with a slight distain
or even outright pain,
something’s always wrong
they want you to feel it too

listen to their opening monologue,
in most cases it begins:
“I’ve had the worst day ever!”
will you take the bait?

and so it begins

negativity floods the room:
lampblack
the night sky
some light may enter and still be lost
so vast this expanse
a thoughtful:
“I’m sorry to hear that”
signals a pulsing vein
irresistible sweet succor

attention
adulation
addictive
attention

how do I adore thee?
let me comfort your pettiness.

and by doing, allow you to
SUCK
the very life from my veins!

unless I cut you off before you start
avoid your glances altogether
accept that this is who you are
and hope that one day you’ll be better

© 2010 Eric C Forbes

My adventure at TED.com continues with inspiring videos of amazing authors, philosophers, scientists, inventors and other “real-smart” people. Today I discovered that my old inspiration, Thomas Dolby, is still very much alive and well as the founder of Beatnik and the TED Music Director. And that makes sense. TED showcases talented people, and when I think of digital innovations across the last 20 years, Thomas Dolby of course emerges as a smart choice.

So what has Mr. Dolby been up to all these years?

He started a Silicon Valley company called Beatnik that develops software code to play ringtones on billions of cell phones today. That’s cool. And since that company is doing well, he doesn’t have to work for the money anymore, or make money with his music. Very cool. That’s exactly what I’ve been excited about doing too.

I have a business that’s doing well and also have a strong desire to pursue writing and playing music. The business side of music has seemed impenetrably complicated even more as it evolves from physical records and CDs to downloadable content. I’ve been learning about Performing Rights Organizations (PROs) including ASCAP and BMI and figuring out the process needed for me to register my songs and music with one of them and how to put my music out there for others to sample, purchase and enjoy. And in the process of learning these discrete facts, I’ve been uncovering and discovering inspirational songwriters and performers that have touched me early in my life, or somehow manage to touch me now, with their words and music.

I wasn’t sure how I’d “get into” music. I never really intended to make it commercially in music. I’d been warned by others early in my life to keep music as a hobby but never expect to make a career out of it. Now that I’ve managed to find another line of work (that makes money) I’m back to music as always with less expectations but greater excitement. The expectations include finding enough people to listen to and enjoy my music enough to pay me a bit for that pleasure. While I still expect that to some degree, my life doesn’t depend on doing it right away, or on a massive scale at any point. My initial motivation to make film music has been derailed just a little after reading a few good books that describe the score composer’s life during the completion of a major motion picture. Insane deadline pressures. Lots of other talent working on various parts of the same project, needing it to shine in a very definite (and way short) period of time. I might still want to do that. But what stops me from recording music (one important step) is fear. I’m getting through fear by recognizing it as it rises, allowing it to flourish for a bit, and then watching it dissipate on its own.

Last night was an interesting example.

I got back home after seeing “Avatar” in Dolby 3D in San Francisco. An amazing movie, with an immersing environment I’d very much like to visit and experience sometime. The movie spoke to me in several ways, and after dinner, my friend and I listened to some music using my iPhone and Rhapsody iPhone app connected to my car stereo. We started with Marianne Faithfull and progressed to Linda Perry, then Fever Ray (my choice) and finally Rainer Scheurenbrand. The lyrics to Marianne’s “Why D’ya Do It” were clear and explicit. I liked that she sang her heart out to a man who shared his cock with another woman. I’d never heard it before. And I took it home with me after dropping my friend back to his place.

I stopped to get a USB microphone (Blue Snowball) from the Apple Store in Corte Madera and was excited to plug it in and hear how it sounded. There was something playful about the shape and size of the mic. It’s a white ball about 4″ in diameter with a large “Blue” badge on the front and a steel mesh screen protruding through the openings of the case. Very solid looking, especially considering it’s entry level price ($99). The sound was good. I made some voice memos with it. Then I started up GarageBand (it’s been awhile) and connected the Blue mic as an input to an empty track. I started recording my voice. No big deal.

Then, something lovely happened.

I playfully created a new project with a podcast template. Doing this caused a few tracks to be inserted along with an open browser window to podcast-specific Apple Loops. These sound files (loops) are arranged into different categories under the Podcast top level menu. I looked in the “Jingles” section and surveyed the loops there. I’d been here a year ago, but I forgot how much fun it was to pretend to rap to a beatbox loop. I settled on one that made me immediately think of a lyric to sing along with it, and before I knew it, I was recording my voice on one track while listening to a repeating beats loop that I just dropped into the project window.

The first pass was OK but I wondered how to get multiple takes with each repeated pass. GarageBand is pretty basic looking (based on it’s menu bar) but a lot is purpose built into the software. I knew this, but I still couldn’t figure out how to get multiple takes turned on. It was a process in Logic Studio — that much I knew.

In GarageBand, multiple takes show up automatically as soon as you define a repeating loop. As soon as I dragged the slider (yellow) across the topmost margin of the project window and turned on the loop playback button (bottom transport bar), I recorded take after take of my lyrics until I had something I liked.

Then I listened to each take and transcribed the best phrases into an OpenOffice.org text document. I had my lyrics on the page in less than 15 minutes from the start of a blank page after selecting the Apple Loop I wanted for the main beat.

The entire time, I was having a great time! It wasn’t scary at all. I had some insecurity hearing my voice after it had been recorded. Recording involves a series of steps: knowing what you’re going to play or sing, practicing it, recording it (repeatedly perhaps), deciding which takes work best, and exporting a final mix that you can share with others. At least that’s my understanding of recording process. There are countless other things that you could (and maybe should) do before preparing a final mix. My voice, while basically in-tune, does not have the benefit of being trained. I’m using what I’ve got, and right now, my voice is my voice. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to sound like.

What is my voice supposed to sound like?

I can pretend to be other people. I can breathe and sing more from my chest than my head. But other than that, my voice quality changes with the time of day. It has yet to be a solid timbre that is recognizable — at least, not to my own ears. I know that I need voice training of some sort. I already have Seth Rigg’s “Singing for the Stars” course on CD but stopped doing it over a year ago. Perhaps it’s time to get back on that train and learn more about singing in the process.

The fear seems to be inversely proportional to my level of play. If I’m having fun doing something, I have no fear. And music is something that has been with me for as long as I can remember. I understand that we each have certain gifts and talents to offer ourselves and each other. I know that expressing myself through music is one of my gifts. And so far, fear has been my constant companion with regards to any public ideas concerning music. But as I have more fun recording my songs instead of letting them fly off into the ether, I feel less fear. And I gain more confidence. Couple that with reading books about songwriting and doing singing lessons makes me more comfortable pursuing this ever-expanding manner of expression.

Taking the money out of the equation from the start makes it easy to have lots of fun with music. As long as I don’t need the money, my intention remains clear and separate from the urge to make millions of fans happy. I’ll meet people that love my music no matter what. I’m already sure of that. And as long as my other business continues to be successful, I can offload the need to make lots of money from music and dismiss the “starving musician” image that struck fear into my mother and other adults who warned me to stay away from music as a career early on.

So it won’t call it a career right way. It will be my little hobby. Of course, I will continue learning all about business side of it while I learn the craft and spend time actually doing it. I like doing business. Giving myself a breather from needing music to make money right away effectively diffuses any fears I have. What do I have to lose? Will people think my voice is too amateur? Well, there’s a reason for that… it is! But not for long. I’m practicing by doing.

The Golden Years of Thomas Dolby

How did I get off on such a long tangent? Thomas Dolby has been a major early influence on me growing up along with Philip Glass and The Art of Noise. I remember setting up my Ensoniq Mirage sampler in the basement of my parents’ house alongside gear belonging to my friend Joe where the two of us recorded electronic music until dawn the next day. I remember thinking how cool Thomas Dolby’s music was and how confident he seemed with his uber-geek persona. I wanted to be just like him. I still do.

daylight ends so soon
rain retaliates
soaking soil
dousing dirt
a cold, damp, dark time

lights from China
decorate dying trees
balls of mirrored glass
strands of mylar
skirts of synthetic red felt
hide the thumbscrews

gifts in wrapping paper
one for Tommy
one for Jane
one for Mommy
several from Santa Claus

boxes, bags, envelopes, emails

“Thinking of You”
a frantic: ”I wonder who I forgot?”
That’s the Spirit of the Holidays!

making lists in a database
sorting for the best price
drive to the malls and warehouse stores
making sure, making sure
there’s a gift for everyone

nothing’s worse than being present
to breathe in
and breathe out

look back for a moment
sense what happened
4 seasons
12 months
360-some days
reflection. introspection.

distraction of mass consumerism

dark time closes in
time to reflect
silent communion
I can feel the deep pull of the Earth on my brain
slowing and shutting it down
forcing it to notice nature
desperate days and blackout nights
remaining calm in the midst of it

commercialization of the Solstice
over-reaction to fear too far
top trees with tinsel
wrap wreathes with joy
pretend to enjoy the process

sit in silent wonder
remember at last: Breathe.

It’s fitting that I’m writing this blog post on the first day of 2010.

I’ve been up since 6 AM this morning having fallen to sleep just hours earlier from my successful (but far from excessive) New Year’s Eve celebration with some friends in San Francisco. I awoke with many ideas in my head, a succession of inspiring grand schemes, and a solidification of a long sought after dilemma in my personal life. I’d say that 2010 is off to a crazy start for me. And from the looks of things on my Facebook page, my friends are generally optimistic and hardly nostalgic for the year that used-to-be. Everyone except Jay Brannan. Two years ago, he was another rising star on YouTube, where he created videos of his bathroom-chic acoustic guitar torch songs. Nowadays he does world tours of his music. And he’s forever suicidal from the looks of his tweets and Facebook updates. I love him all the same. His music inspires me to record and publish my own music. If he only knew.

Big Ideas for 2010

Here’s how I got off to a good (and slightly overwhelming) start for 2010:

1. Drink more Green Tea (L-Theanine)
   1. I’m running out of an amazing premium Oolong Tea I picked up in Taipei a few years ago.
   2. I did some searching, found a source, and bought a test order.
   3. Da Yu Ling Oolong Tea from Taiwan
2. Watch TED Talks regularly. Fascinating. Inspiring.
   1. Videos viewed early this morning:
      1. Tony Robbins asks why we do what we do
      2. Chris Abani muses on humanity
      3. Matthieu Ricard on the habits of happiness
      4. TED Blog: TED2008: What Stirs Us?
      5. Helen Fisher tells us why we love + cheat
      6. Rick Warren on a life of purpose
      7. Dan Dennett’s response to Rick Warren
      8. Karen Armstrong: Let’s revive the Golden Rule
   2. And then I looked for a TEDx event nearby. Found one coming to UC Berkeley.
      1. But they require an application to be considered. Am I special enough?
      2. Register | TEDxBerkeley
3. Learn something at Lynda.com:
   1. Learn about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
      1. Learn from SEMPO.org
      2. Learn from Google Webmaster Central
      3. Learn from Google Webmaster Central Blog
   2. Creative Inspirations
   3. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
   4. Audio (especially ProTools)
4. Subscribe to GoogleBlog
   1. Read Relevance meets the real-time web post and watched video. (Real-time search? I missed the memo.)
   2. Installed Google Mobile App for iPhone. (Speech->Search!)
5. Check in with Engadget
6. Visited the rumor mill around the new Apple Tablet. Bated breath.
7. Personal-Musical Development
   1. Researched Digidesign Eleven Rack.
   2. Researched electro-acoustic guitars. So many options.
   3. Question: Do I want to learn to play the guitar? Will my fingers ever wrap the fretboard?
   4. Talked to my friend Robert about recording my first real song with vocals. What comes first: vocals or piano part?
   5. I’m used to playing piano solos. Now that I have a song with vocals, how do I re-arrange the piano to support the voice part?
   6. I got a little further recording my annual Facebook video song last night but ran out of time. Excellent excuse.

Wow! Some list, eh? It answers a question I asked myself while taking Bo for a walk earlier today: How in the world am I going to organize my life this year? With many important and compelling projects popping up on my radar today, I want to capture all of them and take time to sort through and decide what to do with them.

I usually get overwhelmed, do a few things and then get distracted. But I want to change. I really do.

Will this be the year that I finally adopt David Allen’s GTD methodology? I’ve attended one of his seminars. I’ve read his books. I have my file cabinet organized and my Brother P-Touch label printer standing by to print new file folder labels. What keeps me from capturing things and deciding what to do with them?

I think I might have discovered a system here in the meantime: a blog. I’ve used this blog to capture most of what had my attention today, and can now decide what to do with it. Most of the links above will help me recall where I got an idea or where I still want to go when I have some free time and want to put it to good use.

January will be a busy and exciting time. I just signed a 3-year lease on a new office space nearby to move the business to. The office move is happening in the next few weeks and I expect to be completely moved out of Santa Cruz by the end of January. The office is now 100 miles away. Soon it will only 3 miles away. I’ll be closer to the office and plan to spend more of my work week there in the coming months. I wanted more involvement and immersion in my business so here we go!

Do your best. Forget the rest.

Happy New Year!