Wet wet wet

[picture: bamboo open for business sign]
Above, that’s the front entrance to Bamboo, the place I mentioned in the last entry. Jeff asked me what the food was like.
[picture: bamboo grilled cheese]
Doesn’t look like much, until you consider this is what they brought me when I asked for “grilled cheese”.
Got hit HARD by rain and thunder during Ultimate practice tonight. It was threatening to rain for the last half hour of play, and when we finally decided to call the game off, I swear all twelve of us were in our cars in under two minutes. And not a moment too soon. This stuff just dumped! It was only raining for about 15 seconds before I was in my car, but I drove home completely soaked. Even with the wipers on high, I could barely see. Note to self: apply Rain-X Windshield Wax. Watched lightning hit the Comcast tower three times in one second during the drive home. Think that’s the first time I’ve actually seen lightning hit something other than the ground. I’ve seen lots of lightning, but this was pretty shocking, actually.
Got some more thunder for you! Just audio this time. There are two main booms in the mp3. The first runs into the second, and the second has a long, low frequency rumble.
Have a listen.
Did you notice that during the second boom, nearly all the sound of the rain disappeared? Weird! The rain certainly didn’t stop. Anyone know what’s going on there?


Comments

6 responses to “Wet wet wet”

  1. Jeff Avatar

    That does look pretty good. I wonder if that could make the lunch rotation.

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The prinicple is called masking, where a louder noise completly hides a softer noise and is one of the principles used in audio compression.
    http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/~bosse/proj/node9.html

  3. Hi, thanks for stopping by!
    Would the microphone on my digital camera behave the same way the human ear does? Looking at the spectrum analzyer when the file is playing, the high-end portion of the sound is visibly quieter during the second boom. So I don’t think it’s just my ear masking things.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    My best guess would be that your camera decided to not store the sound of the rain, making the assumption that your ear would not be able to hear it over the thunder. This way the file size is kept to a minimum, while still maintaining the elements of the recorded sounds that your ear is most likely to distinguish.
    But I’m not an expert, so your guess is as good as mine.

  5. 🙂 Thanks for the explanation — makes sense to me.

  6. Eric Jahn Avatar
    Eric Jahn

    okay, I saw the Terra chips at Publix. They are in the organic (“Greenwise”) section and contain Taro root, Sweet Potatoes, and Cassava (Yuca). That’s why they taste so good!