Ánægju og sársauka, einfaldar hugmyndir fyrir krikkets

You should be confused.

Today was a ds106 daily create monstrosity I can take responsibility for, and is one that busts my usual mantra of “things that you can create in 20 minutes”. Today’s assignment:

Lipdub a video of yourself in another language talking seriously about crickets.

Write the script and record the video. Then use Google Translate (example) to generate an audio track, and edit that into your video.

This is likely one that came in originally as “do a lipdub video” and I felt needed a bit more of a …. twist. And to help people see that Google Translate as a small feature at the bottom right that does text to voice of what ever gets translated.

I started out by scrummaging YouTube for cricket videos. I found an interesting mini documentary by National Geographic, but it was too much humans talking. So I liked the simplicity and shortness of this video of a closeup of a cricket chirping

I downloaded with pwnyoutube as an mp4.

Then, what can the discussion be about crickets? Why not some philosophy? A bit more Google bopping and I found a segment on “Modes of Pleasure and Pain” from John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

I modified a few words, replacing “man” with “cricket” and maybe “carapace” for “body”:

Pleasure and pain, simple ideas for crickets. Amongst the simple ideas which we receive both from sensation and reflection, pain and pleasure are two very considerable ones. For as in the carapace there is sensation barely in itself, or accompanied with pain or pleasure, so the thought or perception of the mind is simply so, or else accompanied also with pleasure or pain, delight or trouble, call it how you please. These, like other simple ideas, cannot be described, nor their names defined; the way of knowing them is, as of the simple ideas of the senses, only by experience. For, to define them by the presence of good or evil, is no otherwise to make them known to us than by making us reflect on what we feel in ourselves, upon the several and various operations of good and evil upon our minds, as they are differently applied to or considered by us.

The uneasiness a cricket finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it, is that we call desire; which is greater or less, as that uneasiness is more or less vehement. Where, by the by, it may perhaps be of some use to remark, that the chief, if not only spur to insect industry and action is uneasiness. For whatsoever good is proposed, if its absence carries no displeasure or pain with it, if a cricket be easy and content without it, there is no desire of it, nor endeavour after it; there is no more but a bare velleity, the term used to signify the lowest degree of desire, and that which is next to none at all, when there is so little uneasiness in the absence of anything, that it carries a cricket no further than some faint wishes for it, without any more effectual or vigorous use of the means to attain it. Desire also is stopped or abated by the opinion of the impossibility or unattainableness of the good proposed, as far as the uneasiness is cured or allayed by that consideration. This might carry our thoughts further, were it seasonable in this place.

Joy is a delight of the mind, from the consideration of the present or assured approaching possession of a good; and we are then possessed of any good, when we have it so in our power that we can use it when we please. Thus a cricket almost starved has joy at the arrival of relief, even before he has the pleasure of using it: and a father, in whom the very well-being of his offspring causes delight, is always, as long as his progeny are in such a state, in the possession of that good; for he needs but to reflect on it, to have that pleasure.

In Google Translate, I looked at a few options, and landed on Icelandic, which ends up (no idea how accurate this is, of course)

Ánægju og sársauka, einfaldar hugmyndir fyrir krikkets. Meðal einföldum hugmyndum sem við fáum bæði tilfinningu og vangaveltur eru sársauki og ánægja tveir mjög töluvert sjálfur. Því eins og í carapace er tilfinning varla í sjálfu sér, eða fylgja með sársauka eða ánægju, þannig að hugsun eða skynjun á huga er einfaldlega svo, annars fylgja líka með ánægju eða sársauka, gleði og vandræði, kalla það hvernig sem þú vilt. Þetta, eins og aðrar einfaldar hugmyndir, er ekki hægt að lýsa, né nöfn þeirra skilgreind, en leið að vita þá er, eins og af þeirri einföldu hugmyndir skynfærin, bara með reynslu. Til að skilgreina þá með nærveru gott eða illt, er ekki annars að gera þá vitað er að okkur en með því að gera okkur endurspegla á því sem við teljum á okkur sjálf, á nokkrum og ýmis starfsemi góðs og ills á huga okkar, eins og þeir eru öðruvísi beitt eða talið við okkur.

The uneasiness a Krikket finnur í sjálfum sér á fjarveru nokkuð sem núverandi ánægju ber hugmynd um gleði með það, er að við köllum löngun, sem er meira eða minna, eins og þessi uneasiness er meira eða minna vehement. Þegar af því, getur það kannski verið af sumir nota til athugasemd, að höfðingi, ef ekki aðeins stuðla að skordýr iðnaði og aðgerð er uneasiness. Fyrir alls gott er lagt, ef fjarveru hans ber enga displeasure eða verk með því, ef Krikket vera auðvelt og efni án þess að það, það er engin löngun það, né leitast eftir því, það er ekkert meira en ber velleity, hugtakið notað til að tákna lægsta stigi af löngun, og það sem er við hliðina á alls ekkert, þegar það er svo lítið uneasiness í fjarveru neitt, að það ber Krikket ekki lengra en sumir dauft óskir um það, án þess að meira effectual eða öflugum notkun leiðir til að ná því. Löngun er líka hætt eða dregið af mati ómögulega eða unattainableness hins góða fyrirhugaða, að svo miklu leyti sem uneasiness er læknaður eða allayed af þeirri umfjöllun. Þetta gæti bera hugsanir okkar enn frekar, voru það seasonable á þessum stað.

Joy er unun á huga, frá umfjöllun um núverandi eða fullvissaði nálgast eignar góð og við erum svo andsetinn af allir góður, þegar við höfum það svo í okkar valdi stendur að við getum notað það þegar við vinsamlegast. Þannig hefur Krikket næstum starved gleði við komu léttir, jafnvel áður en hann hefur ánægju af því að nota það, og faðir, í honum mjög vel að vera með afkvæmi hans veldur gleði, er alltaf svo lengi sem afkvæmi hans eru í svo ríki, í eigu þess góður, því að hann þarf en að fjalla um það, að hafa þessi ánægju.

In the bottom right corner is the “Listen” button so you can hear the computer voice read it to you:

To get it to an audio file, I used my copy of Audio Hijack Pro; you could also do something like use SoundFlower 2ch as your audio output and then open up Audacity, and use that same virtual sound channel as an input. Anyhow, I got an mp3 audio.

So I opened iMovie, put in the crickets movie, laid the audio track on top (setting the ducking so the cricket noise was reduced, added a title sequence… I was just starting to upload when I re-read the instructions- it was a lip-dub! So I went outside with the iPhone and did a bit of fake talking as a video. In iMpvie (with the advanced features enabled in Preferences), I dropped the me blabbing clip on top of the cricket, and selected the side by side option (I had to fiddle with the cropping of my video to nudge my head over).

A screenshot for my ds106 students (who ahem need to be doing this on their video assignments!)

And there you have it. Lipdub of icelandic lecture on the philosophy of crickets. Only in ds106.

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