Prosody is “the rhythmic and intonational aspect of language” and it can be a useful feature in language recognition and absolutely critical when the language is tonal like Chinese. Researchers are developing prosody detection methods with the intent of deciphering emotions. Determining the models of various speech characteristics is a first step, and sometimes a daunting task as the various characteristics of volume, pitch, and pauses must be identified across words and sentences. Once the patterns are established, the recognizer can make the matches and guess that a speaker is angry because they are speaking louder and with exaggerated emphasis. Of course if yelling at a voicemail system gets you quickly transferred to a live person, won’t everyone do it? Perhaps the next step will be judging the sincerity of the angry tone.

The second article in the NY Times’ series “Notes from Music Camp” concentrates on Toby Perlman. The idea of the camp, though she may not have known it at the time, formed early on in her musical training as she experienced the competitiveness of Interlochen where students audition each week in front of the entire camp for placement. I know people who have thrived there, and perhaps those are the ones who can successfully navigate a difficult career in music, but many do lose the joy and purpose, as Mrs. Perlman envisioned it, of music camp. She also had a father who prioritized her music over everything else. She found she could actually enjoy studying violin under Dorothy DeLay’s tutelage and met Itzhak Perlman at Meadowmount in 1963. Four of their five children are musicians. Perlman Music Program is a dream Mrs. Perlman didn’t know she had, as the idea of it sprang almost fully grown from her head, nurtured by years of personal experiences.

Even more fruity, colored sodas are on the way. Joining Pepsi Blue, Dr Pepper is introducing another primary color, Red Fusion. It has the Dr Pepper flavors as a base with berries thrown into the mix. Meanwhile, Sobe nabbed the other primary color and introduced its first carbonated drink, Mr. Green. Named after their lizard mascot, it is “a cola with a cherry overtone, a peppery kick, a pinch of ginseng.” Not to be left in the dust with their merely brown Vanilla Coke, Coca-Cola is reviving the Fanta brand with strawberry, pineapple, grape and orange flavors. All this color may make you yearn for the spectacular flop Crystal Pepsi. I just want some tart homemade lemonade. Or water.

Busy busy. Back tomorrow.

I enjoy reading old cookbooks. Actually, I enjoy reading all cookbooks, new, old and somewhere in between. But I enjoy the old ones the same way I enjoy old girls’ series books. They bring you back to a time when a woman’s place was in the home, and yet there were opportunities for her to make her mark if she was creative. I enjoy reading through the Cookery section of an early edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, written by Fannie Farmer, because it explains how a cooking range works and how to build a fire in it using wood and coals. In 1918, an “electric range is desirable where electricity is inexpensive or cost need not be considered.” We’ve made a lot of progress since the times of recipes that never begin “preheat oven to 350 degrees.”

Did you know that Britain’s ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher trained to lower the pitch of her voice and improve her elocution so that she would sound more authoritative? The results were successful. A researcher in Tokyo is developing a voice processing system with genetic algorithms that “evolve” a person’s recorded voice into one that is clearer and
authoritative. It doesn’t work in real-time yet, so there won’t be any Milli-Vanilli public speakers immediately, but who knows what will happen in the future. So much is faked or made-over in the media already that altering a speaking voice could be as accepted as the plasticine processing of pop music vocals.

The mystery may never be solved, but private and government researchers are still looking into who exposed Anne Frank’s hideout. The called-in tip was acted on immediately, which leads them to believe that the informant was known by the Germans and trusted. The reward for turning in a Jew was 40 Dutch gilders, which is the equivalent of about $250 today. Keep in mind there were eight residents in hiding, a sizeable reward indeed, sadly.

If you’re an admirer of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work, you may appreciate the Building Locator which allows you to plug in a zip code and discover what he designed nearby. It is part of the website for a documentary on his life. The site also includes transcripts and RealVideo of interviews of Wright by Mike Wallace, and excerpts from his letters, viewpoints from his family and biographers.

I wanted to make note of this commentary about TV shows being released on DVD merely to respond to the statement “Heck, I bet there’d be a market for a Square Pegs DVD. That thing would sell like hotcakes.” Yes, I’d buy one. That’s a caricature of my high school life you’re talking about.

Another study for moms to try not to panic over: “Researchers measured the cognitive and verbal development of children at various ages and found lower scores for 3-year-olds whose mothers took jobs working 30 hours per week or more before the child was 9 months old.” An author of the study says: “There are effects, but they are not huge effects. Your child’s life will not be ruined.” She is also “very surprised that children of married couples were more affected than those of single mothers”, to which I offer the theory that single moms may try harder to make time to interact with their kids, compensating for the fact that they only have one parent. The article never mentions the world “father”, though the research paper might, nor does it mention the effect of older siblings. (via brig)