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I thought he'd transmit a PNG over a modem, get a bird to memorise that and play it back. I think with the right format it should be possible to do that. With e

by aflag 1y ago

I thought he'd transmit a PNG over a modem, get a bird to memorise that and play it back. I think with the right format it should be possible to do that. With enough birds I imagine you can store quite a bit of data. Takes saving to the cloud to another level.

busymom0 1y ago
Next Video: I Can Run Doom On A Bird
- nurettin 1y ago
  European Starlings can imitate most doom sound effects.
- raphman 1y ago
  "A Flock of Pigeons is Turing-Complete"
- Balgair 1y ago
  Thank you. Literally made me laugh out loud.
alterom 1y ago
>I thought he'd transmit a PNG over a modem, get a bird to memorise that and play it back. That's essentially what he has done. Except he did the modulation/demodulation with audio software (and, technically, stored a monochrome bitmap, not a PNG). Dial-up modems encode data in audio-frequency. Later modems used phase-shift keying¹, but the very early ones used frequency-shift keying², which is essentially encoding data in a frequency graph - i.e., drawing a line in a spectrum analyzer. Drawing a bird in a spectrum analyzer is packing much more data than that; it's like playing several of those streams at once. The bird has shown itself to be capable of remembering and reproducing multiplexed frequency-keyed streams. >With enough birds I imagine you can store quite a bit of data. Takes saving to the cloud to another level. Literally a point made in the video³ at 18:34. ____________ ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-shift_keying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-shift_keying ² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-shift_keying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-shift_keying ³ https://youtu.be/hCQCP-5g5bo?t=1114 https://youtu.be/hCQCP-5g5bo?t=1114
- frollogaston 1y ago
  It's analog though. Presumably the shape of the image matters, like horizontal lines are easier than vertical, it's not just a bitmap. He made the point of how many KB you can store in the song, but is it right? There are different conceivable ways to store binary data in that. I have no idea how efficient it'd be to get something 99% reliable.
  - alterom 1y ago
    > He made the point of how many KB you can store in the song, but is it right? It's a decent Fermi estimate¹ :) We also don't know how many songs we can get the bird to memorize for us. _________ ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem
    - frollogaston 1y ago
      He said 176KB of entropy in that 1-second birdsong, which doesn't seem close. That's more than the bitrate of a typical M4A, for a much simpler sound. Thinking about it in reverse, how much data would it take to encode 1 second of birdsong in the most efficient audio codec I can imagine. If M4A or MP3 with the bitrate slammed way down isn't a fair comparison, then some birdsong-specific ML autoencoder... Probably 500 bytes? Would still be enough for a Twitter tweet.
      - alterom 1y ago
        > Would still be enough for a Twitter tweet. A tweet within a tweet!
- SequoiaHope 1y ago
  Inspired by the video I vibe coded up an application that lets you encode data in FSK and read the data bits back from a noisy recording. I think it would be fascinating for someone to try this! https://github.com/sequoia-hope/starling https://github.com/sequoia-hope/starling

by aflag 1y ago

busymom0 1y ago

Next Video: I Can Run Doom On A Bird

nurettin 1y ago
European Starlings can imitate most doom sound effects.
raphman 1y ago
"A Flock of Pigeons is Turing-Complete"
Balgair 1y ago
Thank you. Literally made me laugh out loud.

alterom 1y ago

>I thought he'd transmit a PNG over a modem, get a bird to memorise that and play it back. That's essentially what he has done. Except he did the modulation/demodulation with audio software (and, technically, stored a monochrome bitmap, not a PNG). Dial-up modems encode data in audio-frequency. Later modems used phase-shift keying¹, but the very early ones used frequency-shift keying², which is essentially encoding data in a frequency graph - i.e., drawing a line in a spectrum analyzer. Drawing a bird in a spectrum analyzer is packing much more data than that; it's like playing several of those streams at once. The bird has shown itself to be capable of remembering and reproducing multiplexed frequency-keyed streams. >With enough birds I imagine you can store quite a bit of data. Takes saving to the cloud to another level. Literally a point made in the video³ at 18:34. ____________ ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-shift_keying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-shift_keying ² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-shift_keying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-shift_keying ³ https://youtu.be/hCQCP-5g5bo?t=1114 https://youtu.be/hCQCP-5g5bo?t=1114

frollogaston 1y ago
It's analog though. Presumably the shape of the image matters, like horizontal lines are easier than vertical, it's not just a bitmap. He made the point of how many KB you can store in the song, but is it right? There are different conceivable ways to store binary data in that. I have no idea how efficient it'd be to get something 99% reliable.
- alterom 1y ago
  > He made the point of how many KB you can store in the song, but is it right? It's a decent Fermi estimate¹ :) We also don't know how many songs we can get the bird to memorize for us. _________ ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem
  - frollogaston 1y ago
    He said 176KB of entropy in that 1-second birdsong, which doesn't seem close. That's more than the bitrate of a typical M4A, for a much simpler sound. Thinking about it in reverse, how much data would it take to encode 1 second of birdsong in the most efficient audio codec I can imagine. If M4A or MP3 with the bitrate slammed way down isn't a fair comparison, then some birdsong-specific ML autoencoder... Probably 500 bytes? Would still be enough for a Twitter tweet.
    - alterom 1y ago
      > Would still be enough for a Twitter tweet. A tweet within a tweet!
SequoiaHope 1y ago
Inspired by the video I vibe coded up an application that lets you encode data in FSK and read the data bits back from a noisy recording. I think it would be fascinating for someone to try this! https://github.com/sequoia-hope/starling https://github.com/sequoia-hope/starling