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Speech Synthesizing the Linux Kernel for Arts Sake
ungulation writes "A joint project of SFMOMA, The Goethe-Institut, ZKM Karlsruhe, and the Walker Art Center, a group called CrossFade broadcast the entire linux kernel 2.4.18. From the CrossFade website: "In Free Radio Linux, the entire source code of the Linux kernel will be webcast over the Internet. A speech synthesizer will convert into talk radio the 4,141,432 lines of code, which will take about 600 days to read." According to the Free Radio Linux website the stream is only available in ogg-vorbis format."
Am I the only person that thinks this is a massively stupid waste of time?
The only problem is that they will keep interrupting the stream each time a new kernel is released.
I'm anispeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.
According to the Free Radio Linux website the stream is only available in ogg-vorbis format.
Microsoft understands and now finally the open source community does too! It's not about having a better codec (ogg vs. wma), but making the hot content that people want avaliable. Well, I think it's obvious to everyone that with ogg's virtual monopoly on voice synth spoken linux kernel broadcasts, wma's days are numbered.
Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
Geez, folks... It's performance art. If everything had to be practical, this'd be one hell of a dull world. I mean, what practical use does a performance of The Nutcracker Suite (for instance) have?
As geeky as we geeks are, artists are at a whole other level of weird. Accept it and stick to what you're good at, huh?
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
I use Linux, and have used it for years. I enjoy its flexibilty and the ease I can "open the hood" and see how things are working.
But something like this.... Does this make people think "Wow, Linux is Free Speech and Good" or "Wow, Linux users are a bunch of loonies with a religious bent and more concerned with ideals rather than developing a serious OS my business can depend on."
I don't see how this is useful or good in any way. 600 days? I just say, "Why?"
...
...does a creepy disembodied voice chant "Microsoft developers are weenies"?
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
what practical use does a performance of The Nutcracker Suite (for instance) have?
To some people it's entertaining. Last time I checked entertainment was a pratical use. Look at games, movies, music. All for entertainment. They have a hell of a lot more use than the Linux Kernel being read off line by line.
A waste of bandwidth? A waste of resources?
Maybe, but dont flame the guys for having fun :-)
Microsoft paid the 100 most popular Hollywood actors to read aloud the contents of Windows XP installation CD image. "That will clearly demonstrate the superiority of closed source software" says the new Microsoft CEO, Mickey Mouse.
- Just because you can't, doesn't mean you shouldn't
This is awesome! Now, does anyone have a speech-to-text program that accepts ogg streams as input?
"This function is void, it takes two args/The first is sec a pointer to 2048 unsigned bytes/That are the encrypted disk sector and will be decrypted"
Now, you could certainly argue that in today's "postmodern" (whatever the hell that means) world, we must expand our definitions of art and performances, and take an "artist's" word for it when they claim that the landscape around them is their work of art, or that speech-synthesizing kernels is a "performance" of some sort, but I just don't buy it in this case.
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
Check this infomative link
Sigged!
Well, I heard on radio (Ö1 broadcasted it a while ago), and it was quite fun. I even was able to find which file they were currently broadcasting. :-))
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
I wouldn't call it performance art either. I think of it more as an installation piece. The other posters miss the point; it's not that the piece is entertaining -- reading the source code might be, but listening to synthesized speech reading it sure isn't -- but what questions the piece is putting in front of you.
Source code is art?
Source code is speech?
Source code is free speech?
I'm not going to listen to this for more than a minute, and I'm sure many other will do the same. The fact that no one will consume the entire piece doesn't make it any less meaningful. The point of the piece is that someone actually went out to do it.
If it helps, think of it in terms of DeCSS.
Well, I have to disagree. If anyone thinks that they'll be able to use this as part of some legal argument, I suspect they're out of their minds. I admit that there's a bit of geeky funness to the whole thing, but what is this supposed to prove about DeCSS? Or free speech issues? So they're trying to point out that source code is free speech. And they'll broadcast it using a speech synthesizer. Big whoop. I could set up a speech synthesizer and broadcast Stephenson's _Cryptonomicon_ if I wanted, that doesn't make it public domain. I could set up a speech synthesizer to rattle off the machine code for Windows, that doesn't make it free software. And just because I set up a speech synthesizer to plod through the Linux source code doesn't somehow make it "free speech," no matter how much someone's trying to convince us it's "art."
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
have you looked at some of those comments? it's hilarious:
./Documentation/DocBook/kernel-locking.tmpl:650: If you don't see why, please stay the fuck away from my code.
./arch/mips/kernel/irixelf.c:759:#if 0 /* XXX No fucking way dude... */
./arch/mips/kernel/irixioctl.c:2: * irixioctl.c: A fucking mess...
./arch/parisc/kernel/signal.c:229: printk("fuckup in sys_rt_sigreturn, sending SIGSEGV\n");
./arch/parisc/kernel/signal.c:372: /* ARGH! Fucking brain damage. You don't want to know. */
./include/asm-mips/mmu_context.h:18:/* Fuck. The f-word is here so you can grep for it :-) */
The really interesting question is to see what kernel we're on by then. (600 days later.)
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Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton