There is a really pervasive trend in video these days where people will use (usually auto-generated) open captions (sometimes called “burned captions”), where the text for the narration or the like is baked into the image of the video. This is sometimes accompanied by some attention-grabbing effects, like making the currently-spoken word jump up in size, often with a very goofy animation. Please stop doing this. It started out with the best of intentions. People who do this think they’re helping with accessibility by “adding captions.” Unfortunately, the nature of these captions actually hurts accessibility, and interferes with comprehension of the video for many people. It ends up grabbing the viewer’s attention and disrupting the ability to even read the words, as they’re constantly jumping around. Some people actually have worse difficulties comprehending what’s being spoken if there’s words on the screen, or have great difficulty reading the words if they’re animated. Open captions also cannot be corrected if there are misspellings (such as “you’re” vs “your”) or incorrect word choices, as well as timing issues; a very common thing that occurs with various auto-captioning systems is that they’ll split up phrases awkwardly and end up having a portion of a sentence just flash on the screen for like a quarter of a second, which isn’t quite enough time to actually read it. Closed captions, on the other hand, can be corrected later, as the .srt file can simply be reuploaded, and some video platforms (such as YouTube) even let you edit them in-place online. Open captions cannot be turned off by users who are impacted by them. Closed captions can be set preferentially to whatever the user finds most helpful. Open captions are also impacted by the font choice, and I’ve noticed a high correlation between “fancy” open captions and really awful typography that isn’t nearly as readable as the user’s selected closed-captioning font, and certainly can’t be changed for folks with dyslexia or other reading impairments. If a video has both open and closed captions, the open captions will often impact the readability of the closed captions, by having background elements that are jumping around right behind where the closed captions appear! One reason people often state that they want to use open captions is that they want to add “visual interest” to a visually-boring video. I’d posit that if you have a video that’s of that nature, then adding more visual interest (especially in the form of flashy captions) will only make it harder for people who need captions to understand them. Instead, here’s some things you can do: Have multiple camera angles that you switch/fade between (ideally with a rhythm that matches the speech) Zoom in on the video and do a slow pan over a few seconds (which can also be super effective when combined with a fade between camera angles) Cut to (appropriate) B-roll Add an infographic that emphasizes the point of what the speaker is saying Also, existing footage can be emphasized. One of my favorite tricks for that a “focus pull” effect, where an area of interest remains focused and the rest of the frame gets blurred. You can apply this to B-roll, to still images, or even to the primary footage (to bring attention to the speaker’s face, for example). This is also easy to overdo, though, so use it sparingly! (If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, I used a focus pull effect a lot — probably too much, honestly — in the music video for Wilfa Svart Uniform, to add visual emphasis to some stock/borrowed footage and to “animate” some stock photography. Final Cut Pro calls the effect “focus” and I believe Premiere and DaVinci Resolve have similar effects as well, although I’m not as familiar with their effect libraries.) Anyway. This isn’t to say that you should never have words appearing on the screen that mirror speech; it can be used to add emphasis at key moments. But please err on the side of user control and not making everything into an attention-grabbing visual nightmare. Our brains are already oversaturated as it is. comments #rant #accessibility #a11y #captions #YouTube #video #video editing (via busybee)

The latest version of Logic released today, with some much-vaunted features. It’s also finally gone to version 11, after being stuck on 10.x for over a decade, even though 10.x minor version updates were often larger than the differences between major versions (and those major version updates cost a lot of money!). I just played around with it for about an hour and put its major new features through its paces, and here’s some of my thoughts on it. Session players “Drummer” has now been replaced with “session player” with multiple instrument player models which are, currently, drum, bass, and keyboard. I love the new drummer UI. It is so much better than the old one, it’s not even funny. The old one just had a bunch of inscrutable/opaque sliders for selecting rhythm elements, while the new one shows you exactly what the basis pattern is for each thing. It makes actually setting up drum rhythms so much easier and more obvious. It also replaces the silly XY complexity/intensity control with separate sliders, which makes perfect sense. Also! You can finally define your own drum rhythm basis with a little step sequencer! You tell it where you want the kick and snare to happen, and it fills in the rest. This is super cool and gives so much more expressiveness to drummers. I didn’t play with piano or bass so much, but they seem to give you a bunch of knobs for tuning the performance as well, and on piano in particular it gives you a bunch of controls for what the two hands are doing. There’s also a few new Drummer models, including psychedelic rock, garage rock, and a few synthpop styles, which is nice to see. Drummer hadn’t gotten any major updates since it first launched and I’m glad to see that finally getting some attention. All in all I like this update and I’m glad to see it. Chord track However, for piano and bass players to make sense, you need to be able to direct it on which chords to play, and this is where the update falls apart for me. A lot of people are under the impression that Logic only just added the chord track, but it actually had been in Logic since version 7 (when it added in looping functionality), but they removed it for unknown reasons in version 10. So, 11 adds the chord track back in after it’s been missing for (again) just over a decade. Cool, right? Unfortunately, the new UI for it absolutely sucks. The old UI was pretty serviceable; you could pretty easily tell it “start a new chord here, make it this one.” The new UI is just like, really annoying. Lots of fiddly clicking and dragging, arranging stuff is asinine, and it gives a little quick selector for very common chord progressions (which is nice) but no way to specify your own chord progressions (which is not). There is a mechanism for it learning a chord from your keyboard, but it still requires a lot of clicking and dragging, and doesn’t seem to be any better than just using the shitty mouse UI. In some ways it’s worse because of having to physically move your hands to the keyboard to play the chord. There really needs to be a way for it to let you play chords on the keyboard while it records to the chord track, or to learn chords from an already-existing MIDI region. Those two workflows would be absolutely killer for me. The current workflow that exists is just not there for me. Fortunately, this is a very early initial release and it’s early days for the feature. Hopefully Apple improves the UI over time. Stem splitting Another AI feature that’s been talked about a lot is the “stem splitter” which tries to convert a recording back into its underlying parts. It doesn’t do a very good job; it tries to separate into vocals, drums, bass, and “other.” “Other” covers a lot of ground. There’s also a lot of very obvious artifacting in everything, and it especially gets confused by tails on drums and so on. It doesn’t do quite as well as other stem splitters I’ve used, but it’s nice that it is integrated into Logic and doesn’t require a shitty subscription to cloud-based software. However, it does do one thing really well: vocal removal. I can totally see using this for making karaoke versions of songs. It isn’t perfect, but it’s far, far better than the other things I’ve tried for AI vocal removal, and for this alone I think it’s a worthwhile feature. And the models will get better over time, and hopefully it’ll learn to distinguish more instruments. New instruments There are a few new instruments as well, most notably Studio Piano and Studio Bass. Studio Piano is a huge improvement over the old built-in piano patches, and finally has things like damper noise and sympathetic resonance. They aren’t as thorough, detailed, or natural-sounding as Native Instruments' Piano Collection, and Piano Collection still sounds way better than this. But Piano Collection also costs hundreds of dollars and Studio Piano comes free with Logic, so for someone who isn’t as picky about piano sounds as me, it’s a welcome addition to Logic. (I will still be using Piano Collection for most of my piano sounds.) Studio Bass, on the other hand, is amazing, and for me it’ll almost certainly be replacing Native Instruments' equivalents much of the time. The sampled instruments are pretty detailed and thorough, and there’s many, many more articulations, with an impressive degree of control, and with direct integration into Logic’s notation editor, which is a lot nicer to work with than NI’s keyswitch approach. There’s also a bunch more Alchemy patches available but it’s hard to tell what’s new in Alchemy, but it’ll be nice to have a richer set of things to draw from when I’m diddling around with a song. Other new stuff There’s a new distortion plugin which is so much nicer than the old ones. I’ll probably be using it on guitars and bass in particular. They’ve added the MIDI thru-routing back in, only now it doesn’t actually fuck everything up. I didn’t have a use for it before and I resented how much trouble it caused in everything, but now that it’s a properly supported feature maybe plugins will make it worthwhile. I can see it being super useful for Reaktor and Pigments, at least, and being able to record specific Arpeggiator performances in loopback will be nice (since previously Arpeggiator could be a bit nondeterministic). Apparently Bounce In Place FINALLY FUCKING SUPPORTS EXTERNAL INSTRUMENTS AND REALTIME CAPTURE oh god thank you for finally fixing that you have no idea how happy that makes me There’s a bunch of other little changes which all sound like they’re making things work the way they should have to begin with, and so I’m glad to see that. tl;dr Logic 11 is a huge improvement over 10.8, and while I don’t feel that the AI features are deserving of the top billing for this update, I’m looking forward to seeing how things continue to improve. I also really hope they improve the chord track editor, because most of the AI features really rest on that and it’s just not quite there yet. comments #Music #Logic Pro (via busybee)

Okay so. Originally they were going to lend me a Kia Forte, which is a tiny economy car, but that was returned in unsafe condition. Then they were going to lend me a Sorento, which would have been great (overkill, really), but that one still hasn’t been returned by the previous user. This morning I got a notification from Kia that “the Niro is ready to be picked up. Will you need a ride here?” I thought, huh, so they’re done repairing my car? Great! I asked about getting my courtesy return ride. No answer. So I called the service department. “We don’t offer that service.” “…That’s not what I was told when I dropped the car off, or what my service advisor told me this morning.” “Let me put you in touch with him.” Completely unsurprisingly, the call went straight to voicemail. Sigh. Anyway, an hour later, just as I was about to book a Lyft trip myself, he got back to me and scheduled a courtesy pickup. Then I got to the dealership, and asked about picking up my Niro. They were very confused and couldn’t find the paperwork or “ready for pickup” stuff. And my service advisor had stepped away and nobody knew where he was! Anyway, he was getting lunch, and it turns out that what he meant was they’d found another Niro (probably a hybrid or PHEV) to use as a loaner. Okay, fine! I’m totally fine with having a loaner of (more or less) the exact same car I have already. Only: in the time between he promised me the Niro and the time I got there, the Niro was no longer available! But fortunately they scrambled and found another loaner, a K5. Which is a step up from the Forte but doesn’t cover my cargo needs, but oh well at least it’s a car that works and that I can drive. Anyway, I got it home, and, jeeze, I do not like driving gas cars at all anymore. Plus, I’d forgotten just how touchy Kia’s automatic transmissions are. Also it doesn’t have wireless CarPlay, and I should have thought to ask if I could get my wireless CarPlay adapter out of my Niro, but oh well, it’s not a huge deal (I’ll just go back to plugging in when I need navigation) I think the biggest shock was when I got out of the car when I got home, namely with how freaking low to the ground I was. I think SUVs have ruined me forever, or at least my joint issues have made me actually appreciate SUVs now. Anyway they still have no idea when my car will be repaired. Apparently they have the parts now but their one EV tech has been out sick this whole time. And when another person in the service department asked my advisor what was going on, he was all, “Oh, an EV? hahaha yeah good luck with that” sigh At least now I can get to where I need to go (choir and groceries, mostly). And I guess I could buy my construction supplies in multiple trips, or just pay for delivery, like I should have done two weeks ago. comments #Kia #Car Pros (via busybee)

Breaking the solar wind Show full gallery comments #aurora #astronomy #northern lights (via busybee)

Today, right around when I was about to leave for the Matrix test drive, I got a call from the dealership: the loaner was available, but it wasn’t in a totally safe state due to a huge crack on the windshield. They asked if I still wanted it and I said I’d rather not. Then the service advisor mentiond that another loaner, a Kia Sorento, should be available tomorrow, and would I like to reserve that one? I said, yeah, probably, but I might have other arrangements now and I’d keep him posted. So, I rendezvoused with the Matrix’s owner, and took it for a spin. You know how I was so nostalgic about the Matrix I used to own? Well, I guess my nostalgia should stay in the past. It was in pretty awful shape; cosmetically it was fine, but the transmission was super janky, and it felt like it needed a new clutch. There was also a lot of engine knocking (which was probably due to the variable timing solenoid which is a known issue and a cheap/easy fix) but like. Yeah. I did not enjoy driving it at all, and it would not be worth the money it’d cost to get it to an enjoyable condition. I let the dealership know that I would be taking them up on the loaner tomorrow, and my main stipulation is I need to be able to pick it up by 4 PM. They said they’d see what they could do. Anyway, I’m fine with this sequence of events. They’re moving forward on repairing my Niro, and I should soon have access to a decently-sized (gas) SUV in the meantime (one that’s actually quite a bit bigger than the Niro but hopefully not so large that I’ll feel like a menace on the streets), and I have no regrets about what could have been regarding the Matrix. I don’t like how aggressive I had to be with the dealership to get to this point but at least things are happening (and I 100% believe that me opening up the complaint with corporate is why things are actually moving forward). Given recent history I doubt I’ll actually be able to get the loaner in time for my show tomorrow but I already have a backup plan for that as well, and hopefully if I can’t get it tomorrow I can get it Saturday instead. Or I can just rent something and then get reimbursed now that Kia’s rental reimbursement policy is definitely in effect. I do want to emphasize that Kia’s vehicles are fine, it’s just that some of their dealerships aren’t great about servicing them in a timely manner. My frustration is with this particular dealership and with how long it took to get any status updates whatsoever and to get a loaner vehicle in the interim, and I absolutely believe that Kia/Hyundai vehicles are some of the best being made right now, especially in the EV and PHEV space. I’d say to check out dealership service center reviews for your local dealership before deciding whether to go with them. And, lesson learned, if I do need to take my car in for EV-specific servicing again, I’m going to be a lot more up-front about needing a loaner, and possibly try to find a different dealership to go with. It looks like Sunset Kia of Auburn isn’t that much further away, although their reviews aren’t great either. On Reddit folks had absolutely glowing reviews about the North-side dealerships but that’s getting into hour-plus drive territory. But, as far as I understand, the specific issue I’m having serviced is the only thing I’m likely to need done from Kia specifically, so this will hopefully not be a repeating problem. comments #car #Kia #Matrix (via busybee)

blep Car shit I finally have forward momentum with Kia. On Tuesday they said they might have a loaner for me today. Today they said they might have a loaner for me tomorrow. So, okay, I’m not holding my breath, but at least they’re responding to things now. After a bunch of thinking and asking around, I have decided it’s not worth the stress to list my Niro on Turo; apparently all of the issues I had with Turo in the past are still present, and there’s a bunch of other new issues to deal with. But I’m still interested in the Matrix as a secondary fucking-around car, so I’m still going to do the test drive tomorrow. The loaner Kia has promised me is a Forte, which will get me around (assuming it materializes) but won’t be sufficient for a bunch of the stuff that I have on hold for the Niro. But it at least lets me get on with my life… but so will the Matrix, assuming I end up buying it. Other stuff Today was a really good rehearsal for choir. And I’m really looking forward to Friday’s fundraiser show. Yesterday Tyler caught a mouse, and very carefully and gently brought it over to Fiona as a gift. Fiona proved herself completely incapable of actually hunting a mouse, bless her. So the mouse escaped, traumatized but physically unharmed, to the neighbor’s yard. (We were all hanging out outside at the time. Tyler snuck off when I wasn’t looking and that’s when he brought the little friend back.) I’ve finally made a decision about how I’m going to build the stairs for my garden. It will have to wait until I have a vehicle with more cargo space for hauling retaining wall blocks, though. Tomorrow I should be getting 8 more bisque-fired espresso cups back, and I’m looking forward to glazing them. I have a referral to see a neurologist about my vertigo. I should get around to scheduling an appointment. I’m also still in my usual levels of pain but I’m making do. comments #kia #matrix #cars #garden #pottery #stream of consciousness (via busybee)

All dimensions are in Imperial units. Specification 2005 Matrix XR 2004 Matrix XRS 2019 Niro EV Fuel efficiency (combined) 29 MPG 24 MPG 112 MPGe1 Range (combined)2 380 316 230 Horsepower 130 173 201 Length 171.3 171.3 172.2 Width 69.9 69.9 71.1 Height 60.6 60.6 61.8 Wheelbase 102.4 102.4 106.3 Cargo, seats up 21.8 21.8 18.5 Cargo, seats down 53.2 53.2 53.0 Spare tire Temporary Temporary A can of fix-a-flat 120V power outlet 400W 400W No, and there isn’t even a 12V adapter to plug an inverter into Purse holder No No Yes Acceleration time, 0-60 9.0 7.8 6.2 Stick shift Yes Heck yes No :( This rating is equivalent to 3.3 mi/kWh, but in actual driving I get more like 3.8, but I also primarily do city driving. It's all splitting hairs anyway. ↩ And of course refilling a gas car takes only a few minutes, while an EV takes longer, but I passively charge the EV in my garage most of the time. This also only really matters for road trips, which I don't really do. ↩ comments #Niro #Matrix #cars (via busybee)

The Kia service person finally got back to me several hours later, and I have learned: The parts for the repair have been ordered and are on their way Which implies that they actually did diagnose it, phew Also they might have a loaner available for me tomorrow, but they’re “uncertain” Also they still haven’t told me how much these repairs are gonna cost or if the warranties are going to cover them, bla bla bla, not looking forward to a surprise bill Meanwhile, I’m scheduled to test drive the Matrix XRS Thursday afternoon, and my in is currently in a state which has me overcommitting to just buying it, without having seen it in person yet. Maybe let’s think this through, and make sure I’m not just doing my usual self-convincing/rationalizing of something stupid. So. Back in 2005, when I moved to Seattle for the first time, I bought a Matrix XR, 5-speed manual transmission. I loved that car. It had a great combination of cargo space, versatility, driveability, and reliability, and was just generally a great fit for me. I have only two regrets with the Matrix: That I sold it shortly after moving to San Francisco (because parking was expensive and I wasn’t driving enough to justify it) That I didn’t get the XRS model The difference between the XR and XRS wasn’t huge, but the XRS, being the “sport” model, had significantly more horsepower, and the XR sometimes felt like it chugged a bit, especially when driving on steep Seattle hills. Although with a 20-year-old car (with over 200K miles on it!) who knows how it’ll actually feel. But anyway. Regrets and nostalgia for the first car I bought as a working professional aside, I have the idea stuck in my head that if I buy the Matrix, it’d be my for-fun messing-around car, and would mostly not get used… … unless I start renting my Niro out on Turo. A year after I had sold my Matrix, I ended up moving into a place in San Francisco which came with a parking spot. It went pretty much unused, until 2009 when I got a boyfriend in Cupertino and needed a car so that I could actually visit him on the weekends. I actually tried to get another Matrix but they were super expensive and that’s why I ended up with a Honda Fit as a compromise, which is neither here nor there except that during the week I didn’t need the car at all, so I rented it out on Turo (then called “RelayRides”) and it was a nice little source of supplemental income, and the car basically paid for itself. When I moved back to Seattle I kept renting the Fit out on Turo, but due to a combination of factors it became a pretty horrific experience pretty quickly (mostly due to my home’s location and its awkward underground parking space). However, those factors aren’t the case anymore. So what I’m thinking I’ll do is I’ll buy the Matrix, rent the Niro out on Turo, and have the Matrix as the car that I’ll drive when the Niro is unavailable. And then that means also having better range if I opt to take a road trip, and being able to drive stick again, because historically, driving stick has done a lot to reduce my anxiety because it gives me more control over the drive. (Also, historically, the L2 self-driving features on both the LEAF and the Niro have actually made me feel more anxious because I’ve felt less in control!) Also I’d probably be way less anxious about damaging a 20-year-old economy hatchback/wagon than a 5-year-old midrange SUV. Spec-wise, the Matrix is a little smaller than the Niro in every dimension, but yet has somewhat more cargo volume (due to the seats folding fully flat and also not needing to accommodate a gigantic battery in the floor). Also being from the pre-infotainment era it’s trivial to upgrade the car stereo to something with wireless CarPlay, which actually makes it a little nicer UX than the infotainment system in the Niro (which is wired, although I have a somewhat janky wireless adapter for it). Of course, getting a gas car (and a 20-year-old one at that) is a pretty big step backwards, especially for an avowed EV nerd/absolutist. EV conversion kits do exist but they’re expensive and probably not worth it, at least not until the engine dies completely (and being a mid-00s Toyota, that probably won’t be for a long time). I’m also, like, anti-car, so why would I own two of them? Sometimes I don’t understand how my own brain works and I just have to roll with it. But anyway. If I do end up buying the Matrix, and things don’t really pan out with it, I can always just, y'know, resell it. Which is definitely less of a concern than paying for a rental and just hoping that Kia gets my car back to me in a reasonable amount of time and reimburses me for the rental (assuming they can’t actually follow through on a loaner, and I mean, given their track record I’m not expecting there to actually be one, no). I do know that the Matrix is going to need some work. The current owner says that it needs a new variable timing solenoid (which is pretty cheap to replace) and I’m sure it’ll need its brakes and tires inspected and serviced. The price is considerably lower than KBB value and it hasn’t sold after being on the market for a week, but I suspect that’s just because it’s a stickshift and also, y'know, old. I’ll know more on Thursday. comments #car #Kia #Matrix #Turo (via busybee)

Today I finally got in touch with Kia’s corporate customer service after filing a complaint yesterday, and they said that they also haven’t been able to get in touch with the dealership. I asked them how I can go about getting a loaner, and they said that it’s up to the dealership to do so. If the dealership doesn’t have a loaner available, then they have a rental reimbursement program. I asked about that, and the answer was that from the time the car is diagnosed, if there’s a long-term repair that needs to take place, then they will reimburse the rental fees. However, they will only do so after the car has been diagnosed, and as far as I can tell, it has not. I asked them why the policy was based on diagnosis time rather than dropoff time, and their response was that it is Kia’s policy to be that way. I said that for me the issue is that I’m without a car, and that it shouldn’t matter when the car is actually diagnosed, what should matter is when I am without a car. It seems to me that the service center has absolutely no incentive to actually move forward on things based on this policy, because it means they can just hold on to my car for months without any forward progress and any compensation to me. The CSR said that she would file a complaint on my behalf about this policy, but that for now, Kia’s policy is that the reimbursement period only begins when there’s a diagnosis. And she will try to find out if there’s been a diagnosis, but the dealership hasn’t been responsive to Kia Corporate either. So, yeah. Kia has great cars but their customer service is FUCKING AWFUL and based on this series of interactions (and lack thereof) I can no longer recommend Kia vehicles. Which is sad, as of all the current EV manufacturers available in North America, they have the best value proposition (and some of the best EVs available in general). In the meantime I have a lead on a 2004 Matrix XRS for a good price and in good condition and it seems like I might end up owning a second car anyway. At the very least, it’ll be a temporary car that I can then turn around and sell for nearly the same price when all is said and done. Of all the cars I’ve ever owned, the 2005 Matrix XR I had was my absolute favorite, so this is particularly tempting. Plus, I still love driving stick shift and that’s the one thing I miss from having an EV. I don’t want to buy a second car (especially one that’d require me to go back on my goal of never going to a gas station ever again) but this feels like the least-bad option for me. comments #kia #car #customer service (via busybee)