World of Warcraft turns 20Blizzard Entertainment first released World of Warcraft in November 2004, so The New York Times celebrated the anniversary by outlining the many ways we can still see the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game’s influence’s 20 years later. For one thing, while multiplayer games and early social networks such as MySpace already existed, WoW provided a […]
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US’s UFO-Hunting Aerial Surveillance System Detailed In ReportFormerly known as Unidentified Flying Objects, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) is a category of observations that are exactly what the UAP label suggests. This topic concerns the US military very much, as a big part of national security involves knowing everything that appears in the skies. This is the reason for the development of a new sensor suite by the Pentagon called GREMLIN. Recently, a new report has provided more details about what this system actually does.
Managed by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) within the DoD, GREMLIN blends many different sensors, ranging from radar to ADS-B and RF monitors, together to establish a baseline and capture any anomalies within the 90-day monitoring period to characterize them.
UAPs were a popular topic even before the 1950s when people began to see them everywhere. Usually taking the form of lights or fast-moving objects in the sky, most UAP reports can be readily classified as weather balloons, satellites like Starlink, airplanes, the Northern Lights, the ISS, or planets like Mars and Venus. There are also curious phenomena such as the Hessdalen lights, which appear to be a geological, piezoelectric phenomenon, though our understanding of such natural lighting phenomena remains limited.
But it is never aliens, that’s one thing we know for sure. Not that UFO’s don’t exist. Really.

Schooling ChatGPT on Antenna Theory MisconceptionsWe’re not very far into the AI revolution at this point, but we’re far enough to know not to trust AI implicitly. If you accept what ChatGPT or any of the other AI chatbots have to say at face value, you might just embarrass yourself. Or worse, you might make a mistake designing your next antenna.
We’ll explain. [Gregg Messenger (VE6WO)] asked a seemingly simple question about antenna theory: Does an impedance mismatch between the antenna and a coaxial feedline result in common-mode current on the coax shield? It’s an important practical matter, as any ham who has had the painful experience of “RF in the shack” can tell you. They also will likely tell you that common-mode current on the shield is caused by an unbalanced antenna system, not an impedance mismatch. But when [Gregg] asked Google Gemini and ChatGPT that question, the answer came back that impedance mismatch can cause current flow on the shield. So who’s right?
In the first video below, [Gregg] built a simulated ham shack using a 100-MHz signal generator and a length of coaxial feedline. Using a toroidal ferrite core with a couple of turns of magnet wire and a capacitor as a current probe for his oscilloscope, he was unable to find a trace of the signal on the shield even if the feedline was unterminated, which produces the impedance mismatch that the chatbots thought would spell doom. To bring the point home, [Gregg] created another test setup in the second video, this time using a pair of telescoping whip antennas to stand in for a dipole antenna. With the coax connected directly to the dipole, which creates an unbalanced system, he measured a current on the feedline, which got worse when he further unbalanced the system by removing one of the legs. Adding a balun between the feedline and the antenna, which shifts the phase on each leg of the antenna 180° apart, cured the problem.
We found these demonstrations quite useful. It’s always good to see someone taking a chatbot to task over myths and common misperceptions. We look into baluns now and again. Or even ununs.

Neural DSP launches Archetype: Cory Wong X  Wong’s collaboration with Neural DSP results in a versatile suite that caters to players seeking pristine funk tones and dynamic effects.

Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson fight shows Netflix still struggles with live eventsViewers have been talking about Friday evening’s boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul — but probably not for the reasons Netflix was hoping. Yes, the 27-year-old Paul (a YouTuber turned professional boxer) defeated the 58-year-old Tyson (a former heavyweight champion who came out of retirement for this match) in eight rounds, but the […]
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Ripple Labs and CEO come under fire amid rumors of a Trump meetingRipple's native currency, XRP, surged by more than 17% on November 15, based on expectations of a friendlier regulatory climate in the US.

World’s First Virtual Meeting: 5,100 Engineers Phoned InWould you believe that the first large-scale virtual meeting happened as early as 1916? More than a century before Zoom meetings became just another weekday burden, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) pulled off an unprecedented feat: connecting 5,100 engineers across eight cities through an elaborate telephone network. Intrigued? The IEEE, the successor of the AIEE, just published an article about it.
This epic event stretched telephone lines over 6,500 km, using 150,000 poles and 5,000 switches, linking major hubs like Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. John J. Carty banged the gavel at 8:30 p.m., kicking off a meeting in which engineers listened in through seat-mounted receivers—no buffering or “Can you hear me?” moments. Even President Woodrow Wilson joined, sending a congratulatory telegram. The meeting featured “breakout sessions” with local guest speakers, and attendees in muted cities like Denver sent telegrams, old-school Zoom chat style.
The event included musical interludes with phonograph recordings of patriotic tunes—imagine today’s hold music, but gloriously vintage. Despite its success, this wonder of early engineering vanished from regular practice until our modern virtual meetings.
We wonder if Isaac Asimov knew about this when he wrote about 3D teleconferencing in 1953. If you find yourself in many virtual meetings, consider a one-way mirror.

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Playing Chess Against LLMs and the Mystery of Instruct ModelsAt first glance, trying to play chess against a large language model (LLM) seems like a daft idea, as its weighted nodes have, at most, been trained on some chess-adjacent texts. It has no concept of board state, stratagems, or even whatever a ‘rook’ or ‘knight’ piece is. This daftness is indeed demonstrated by [Dynomight] in a recent blog post (Substack version), where the Stockfish chess AI is pitted against a range of LLMs, from a small Llama model to GPT-3.5. Although the outcomes (see featured image) are largely as you’d expect, there is one surprise: the gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct model, which seems quite capable of giving Stockfish a run for its money, albeit on Stockfish’s lower settings.
Each model was given the same query, telling it to be a chess grandmaster, to use standard notation, and to choose its next move. The stark difference between the instruct model and the others calls investigation. OpenAI describes the instruct model as an ‘InstructGPT 3.5 class model’, which leads us to this page on OpenAI’s site and an associated 2022 paper that describes how InstructGPT is effectively the standard GPT LLM model heavily fine-tuned using human feedback.

Ultimately, it seems that instruct models do better with instruction-based queries because they have been programmed that way using extensive tuning. A [Hacker News] thread from last year discusses the Turbo vs Instruct version of GPT 3.5. That thread also uses chess as a comparison point. Meanwhile, ChatGPT is a sibling of InstructGPT, per OpenAI, using Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF), with presumably ChatGPT users now mostly providing said feedback.
OpenAI notes repeatedly that InstructGPT nor ChatGPT provide correct responses all the time. However, within the limited problem space of chess, it would seem that it’s good enough not to bore a dedicated chess AI into digital oblivion.
If you want a digital chess partner, try your Postscript printer. Chess software doesn’t have to be as large as an AI model.

Last week in DIY & Independent Musician NewsLast week in DIY & independent musician news we covered how to prepare for Spotify Wrapped (they extended the deadline!), Bandsintown’s new free tool that let’s every artist do a ticket. Continue reading
The post Last week in DIY & Independent Musician News appeared first on Hypebot.

REWIND: Music industry news last weekA busy week by any definition and music industry news last week was no exception, with Spotify and Live Nation reporting strong growth, Bandsintown adding presales, and more…
The post REWIND: Music industry news last week appeared first on Hypebot.

Bastl introduce Kastle 2 FX Wizard  Bastl Instruments have announced the release of the Kastle 2 FX Wizard, the latest addition to its celebrated family of affordable mini-modular synthesizers.

The Jeremiah Show | Kimi Kato Show | Arwen Lewis Show | Mike Gormley ShowLISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jeremiah-show/id1186940086?i=1000674230859THE JEREMIAH SHOW - Featuring Cameron Wright - NBC's The Voice Season 26 - Team Michael BubléWhen he was 12, Cameron recorded a tribute to Rosa Parks with songwriter Larry Long, selling over 300,000 copies!Cameron has been a guest artist at Smokey Robinson and Spike Lee events and he performed a duet with six-time Grammy award-winning music legend Al Jarreau. By the age of thirteen, he became one of the most recognized teenage singers in the country.Stevie Wonder heard him sing “The Greatest Love of All” and sought him out. He received a personal invitation from Stevie Wonder to perform at his annual House of Toys event in Los Angeles, CA.  He shared the stage with legends such as Chaka Khan, Natalie Cole, and Michael McDonald.  Cameron Wright is on season 26 of The Voice, where Michael Bublé, Gwen Stefani, Reba McEntire, and Snoop Dogg search for the country's best singers. And they may have found him!  Cameron Wright had an incredible four-chair turn during his Blind Auditions singing Barbara Streisand’s The Way We Were.”https://www.instagram.com/cameronwrightladivaSN 26 - NBC’s The VoiceMONDAYS AND TUESDAYS 8/7cMichael Bublé, Gwen Stefani, Reba McEntire, and Snoop Dogg search for the country's best singers. https://www.instagram.com/nbcthevoice/THE ARWEN LEWIS SHOW - The Arwen Lewis Show Featuring SaplingLISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW -  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-arwen-lewis-show/id1744820042?i=1000660247976Once declared “the best band in America” by a heavily intoxicated gentleman at a pub gig, Sapling is New England’s premier bitchpop and art rock band.Their live show has drawn comparisons to Sleater-Kinney, Roxy Music, and Swans, undoubtedly due to their signature blending of pop hooks and confetti with spooky chaos and precariously complex signal chains. Sapling’s current lineup was formed in 2018 and features Rainy Maple Sugar Candy on bass, vocals, and extraneous woodwinds; Amber ToiletFire Tortorelli on guitar, vocals, Theremin, and whatever’s in the clown box; and Jonny Spaghetti Cordaro on drums and merriment. The band is based between central Rhode Island and Worcester, Massachusetts.  www.saplingband.comThe Arwen Lewis Showhttps://arwenlewismusic.comhttps://www.instagram.com/arwenlewishttps://www.instagram.com/thearwenlewisshowThe Arwen Lewis Show is Brought to you byevolve entertainment network - www.thejeremiahshow.comPantheon Media - http://pantheonpodcasts.com/Radio Candy Media - https://www.facebook.com/RadioCandyMedia/PROMO #3 - THE KIMI KATO SHOWTHE KIMI KATO SHOW - NicoTheOwlLISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW - https://apple.co/47IcjZsTHE KIMI KATO SHOW with Jeremiah - Featuring NICO THE OWL - MULTI-PLATINUM, GRAMMY NOMINATED PRODUCER / SONGWRITER / TASTEMAKERNicoTheOwl is an award-winning music producer and songwriter who graduated from Berklee College of Music with a jazz composition and production degree. Over his illustrious career, NicoTheOwl has collaborated with prominent artists and contributed to several acclaimed projects.His work includes producing Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day (Stripped Down),” working with Twice/Misamo on the platinum record “It’s Not Easy for You,” and producing Cher Lloyd’s hit “M.I.A,” which reached the top 5 in the UK charts. NicoTheOwl also produced Lena’s “Boundaries,” featured in the movie X-Men and a top 5 song in Germany.Beyond his work with individual artists, NicoTheOwl has contributed to the soundtracks of major films, including Zoolander 2, Coming to America 2, and Baywatch. He has also collaborated with Ayaka Hirahara, producing over ten albums and serving as her tour music director from 2010 to 2017.Drawing from an extensive background in jazz and modern production, NicoTheOwl creates evocative compositions that resonate with listeners, capturing emotion and complexity. His work continues to push the boundaries of music production, earning widespread recognition and a loyal following.
NicoTheOwl aka Nicolas Farmakalidis
https://www.instagram.com/nicotheowlTHE KIMI KATO SHOWHost - Kimi KatoCo-Host - Jeremiah D. HigginsExecutive Producers - Kimi Kato & Jeremiah D. HigginsSound Engineer - Graham Parker | Surprise StudioKimi Kato on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kimitaka.katohttps://www.instagram.com/project_asteriProject Asteri Website: https://projectasteri.comTHE MIKE GORMLEY SHOW Featuring Cary Baker,  author of “Down On The Corner - Adventures in Busking and Street Music”Mike Gormley catches up with his long-time friend, author Cary Baker.Cary Baker is a writer from Chicago, Illinois, who worked as a freelance journalist before becoming a publicist in the music industry. Cary began writing in high school, publishing the blues fanzine Blue Flame.After studying journalism at Northern Illinois University, Cary Baker was an editor at Triad Magazine and later directed publicity and wrote liner notes for Ovation Records. Also at this time, Cary ran the short-lived record label Fiction Records. Cary wrote freelance articles for several publications throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.In 1984, he became the vice president of publicity at I.R.S. Records, where he worked with artists such as R.E.M. and the Go-Go's until 1988, when he became the national director of media & artist relations for Capitol Records, a position he held for two years.Following his time at Capitol Records, Cary worked for a variety of independent record labels, as well as for PLA Media in Nashville, Tennessee. Cary Baker founded two publicity firms, Baker/Northrop Media Group and Conqueroo. In 2022, he announced his retirement from the music industry and a return to writing.https://www.carybaker.comhttps://www.instagram.com/_caryroo_THE MIKE GORMLEY SHOWHost | Mike GormleyExecutive Producer | Jeremiah D. HigginsSenior Sound Engineer | Producer - Graham Palmer | Surprise StudioMike Gormley's Socialshttp://www.lapersdev.com/https://www.instagram.com/lapersonaldevelopmenthttps://www.facebook.com/mike.gormley.10The Mike Gormley Show is Proudly Brought to You By evolve entertainment networkwww.thejeremiahshow.com, http://pantheonpodcasts.com/, https://radiocandy.media/Find Graham Palmer Surprise Studio on Instagram at:https://www.instagram.com/surprise__studioThe post The Jeremiah Show | Kimi Kato Show | Arwen Lewis Show | Mike Gormley Show first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Daniel Ek just cashed out $35.8 million in Spotify shares. But that’s nothing compared to his co-founder… who just cashed out $383.8 million.Spotify’s share price is flying. Following the firm’s announcement of its Q3 2024 results on Tuesday (November 12), SPOT’s stock price jumped on the NYSE, closing at an all-time high of USD $477.50 yesterday (November 14). It settled back down to $458.32 at the close of trading today (November 15), but that was still enough … Continued
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Ethena adopts fee-sharing proposal for ENA tokenNow the protocol is working on a value accrual mechanism for ENA stakers.