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Show HN: Parrot – a fun, skeuomorphic audio recorder to hear yourself

zkhrv.com
21 points·by zkhrv·vor 2 Monaten·6 comments

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zkhrv
·vor 2 Monaten·discuss
(Not from NYC, but)

I found it hard to navigate due to not being able to see far enough ahead and not knowing which transfer to take to head in the direction I want (is it Ⓡ Forest Hills-71 Av or Ⓡ Bay Ridge-95 St to head left/East at Lexington Av/59 St?). So, uh, I planned ahead using the subway diagram [1] (is that cheating?). I got:

127 stations, 69.92 miles, 5:02, 4 boroughs, $3.00

  Station               Transfer
  -------               --------
  ⑥ Pelham Bay Park
  Lexington Av/59 St -> Ⓡ Forest Hills-71 Av
  Forest Hills-71 Av -> Ⓔ Jamaica Center-Parsons
  Sutphin Blvd       -> Ⓩ Broad St
  Broadway Junction  -> Ⓐ Inwood 207 St
  Jay St             -> Ⓕ Coney Island Stillwell Av
  W 8 St-NY Aquarium -> Ⓠ 96 St
  Times Sq           -> ② Wakefield-241 St
Fun challenge!

[1] https://www.mta.info/map/5256
zkhrv
·vor 2 Monaten·discuss
We can hear ourselves when we talk, but what we hear is distorted by our own internal resonance and, I think, by an image of our voice that we want to project. The discomfort comes from the surprise (and horror) that we don't sound how we think we sound. (Yup, I found "voice confrontation" [1] as I was writing this.) We become shy of our voice and lose confidence. But it works like exposure therapy: the more we listen to our own recorded voice, the more familiar it becomes. We learn to accept it. With acceptance we regain confidence. At the same time, we can't improve what we don't measure; "measuring" our voice lets us find ways to improve our speech.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_confrontation

Anyway, thanks for stopping by! >^.^<
zkhrv
·vor 2 Monaten·discuss
Thank you! I'm glad to hear that it actually seems to be working for its intended purpose. If you keep playing with it, I'd love to hear how useful you find it longer term.

I take the Rogue Amoeba comparison as a compliment, since I like what they do.

Wishing you well in your Portuguese studies!
zkhrv
·vor 2 Monaten·discuss
Thanks! Since microphone access requires user interaction and permission, I thought it'd be fun if that interaction was literally plugging in a microphone cable like in real life. Complete with the sounds I recorded for it, I think it turned out rather convincing. I'm glad you liked it :)
zkhrv
·vor 4 Monaten·discuss
I like your style :)
zkhrv
·vor 5 Monaten·discuss
Hey, that's pretty much the project I've been thinking of doing for a while!

I really dislike the monopoly YouTube has on online video, but other options or self-hosting can become really expensive due to bandwidth (especially if your video suddenly goes viral). I think P2P (over WebRTC, for browser compatibility) has potential for creating a solution.

Roughly:

* You have a Website with some <video>s you want to share hosted somewhere—doesn't matter if it's dynamic, static, hosted on a CDN or a VPS, as long as it imports a few scripts and embellishes the <video> tag with a few details.

* Base case: you want to publish a video, you host the video. That means you host a server at home that is running the hosting software (maybe WebTorrent based, maybe something custom). As high-speed fiber Internet becomes more common, hosting video from a home network becomes more feasible (unless ISPs decide to cock-block it).

* A signaling server establishes a P2P connection (WebRTC datachannels) between a visitor of your Website and your video-hosting home server.

* If you have a fast enough Internet connection (100+ Mbps) and low traffic, I don't see why the base case shouldn't work (other than network connectivity problems due to complicated NATs and such). If you have a surge of simultaneous traffic, those that came earlier can offload pressure on the home server by seeding the video chunks they have already downloaded. Theoretically, infinite scalability without bandwidth or hardware bottlenecks (but likely coordination woes in practice).

But there's more!

Say there's another person on the Web hosting their videos in the same way. If I like their video, I can re-host it on my own home server and let their signaling server know about it. Now there are two "persistent" video servers hosting the video that a visitor can download from. If I trust this person, I can choose to automatically re-host all their past and future videos.

Moderation isn't a problem, because you explicitly choose which videos to re-host, or because you re-host (future) videos of people you trust.

The more people re-host videos, the better their availability, download speed, and latency if hosts are geographically distributed.

Further ideas of pooling signaling servers and home servers into networks to enable other possible niceties (though likely with a more substantial moderation burden) ...

I've tried a really basic proof of concept of the base case (across a few countries on a mobile network!), and it worked!

Currently, I'm looking to talk with anyone who is interested in any of this :)