Alan writes BillaBoop is a real-time audio driven drum controller. It was created by Amaury Hazan who is a PhD Student at the Music Technology Group and is specialized in Machine Learning and its applications in the Music Technology field -
BillaBoop is a real-time audio driven drum controller which allows the user to control up to 3 drum instruments. The user can control any drum synth with the voice (beat box), or any object or musical instrument.
Unlike other audio-driven systems wich require a lot of parameter tuning to be able to discriminate the sounds you are playing, BillaBoop incorporates an efficient Machine Learning component which enables the system to learn by demonstration. In a few seconds you show the system what are the sounds you aim to use and you can start using them.
There isn’t a how-to (yet) - but this seems like an interesting new particle board material…
Home-buyers of tomorrow could find themselves walking across floors made from manure.
That’s no cow pie-in-the-sky dream, according to researchers at Michigan State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
They say fiber from processed and sterilized cow manure could take the place of sawdust in fiberboard, which is used to make everything from furniture to flooring to store shelves.
And the resulting product smells just fine.
- Researchers Find New Uses For Cow Manure - [via] Link.
Interesting tidbit from the article - it can cost up to$200 per cow per year to handle its manure. Not in the article, the bizarro future where the furniture at a burger joint is made from jointed burger waste.
This is pretty interesting, set your Mac (and phone) to automatically log you in/out and do a variety of tasks when you get close to your computer, or away - [via] Link.
Tom sent in this letter to Physics Today, he used an atomic clocks to show his kids they’d get an extra 22 nanosecond from relativistic time dilation… I’m a little skeptical since the difference would be super tiny, but have a gander - it’s pretty neat -
I enjoyed Daniel Kleppner’s Reference Frame about the relativistic effects of elevation on precise clocks (PHYSICS TODAY, March 2006, page 10). He would be amused with an experiment I did with my kids last year.
The year 2005 was the widely publicized 100th anniversary of Einstein’s first paper on relativity and the lesser-known 50th anniversary of Louis Essen’s first cesium clock. To celebrate, I created Project GREAT (General Relativity Einstein/Essen Anniversary Test), perhaps the first “kitchen science” relativity experiment.
As a collector of vintage and modern atomic clocks, I discovered it was possible, using gear found at home, to convert our family minivan into a mobile high-precision time laboratory, complete with batteries, power converters, time interval counters, three children, and three cesium clocks (see photograph). We drove as high as we could up Mount Rainier, the volcano near Seattle, Washington, and parked there for two days. The trip was continuously logged with the global positioning system; the net altitude gain was +1340 meters.
in relative time-keeping - Physics Today March 2007 - [via] Link.
Related:
Project GREAT - General Relativity Einstein / Essen Anniversary Test - 3 kids, 3 cesium clocks, a family road trip to measure relativistic time dilation - Link.
Mark Frauenfelder:
After downing two tall beers at the Boise airport, SkyWest passenger James Whipple was told he couldn’t use the restroom on the plane he was on, because a light wasn’t working. Unable to hold it, the resourceful gentleman urinated into an air sickness bag instead of his trousers.
No other passengers noticed Whipple using the bag, but a flight attendant asked him about it and told the captain, who called airport police.
Whipple was questioned and took a taxi home to Sandy, a Salt Lake City suburb.
The airline sent him a letter of apology and a flight voucher, SkyWest spokeswoman Sabrena Suite-Mangum said Friday.
The GRL are reaching out for support for a fellow friend held at Rikers on vandalism charges, and facing 9 months in jail if convicted. It goes without saying the city’s misguided campaign to eradicate graffiti is deplorable, and not least, economically unsustainable - the annual operating cost per inmate in NY, in 2005: $42,205. Based on this calculation, the cost of posting bail is less than that of 3 weeks in jail (not counting psychological damage) - which is what he’ll otherwise face until the trial. Check out the GRL’s site for more on how to help out:
http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=85#video
For more on the country’s **cked-up prison system: http://realcostofprisons.org/
Statistic cited from: Public Safety, Public Spending: Forecasting America’s Prison Population 2007-2011. Prepared for the Pew Charitable Trusts by the JFA Institute. February 2007.
http://www.pewtrusts.com/pdf/PSPP_prison_projections_0207.pdf
Google has recently bought the rights to the Swedish statistics tool Trendalyzer for an undisclosed sum. Trendalyzer was part of the Gapminder Foundation, which became famous by professor Hans Rosling’s lively speeches. Trendalyzer presents data in an easily-accessible, graphic format, which seems to have a use potential, as “public organisations around the world invest 20 billion dollars a year producing different kinds of statistics. ”
as an alternative tool for “public statistics”, will this mean more competition for swivel & Many Eyes?
a set of online visualizations that support the exploration of personal mythology over time, allowing users to find unique constellations, based on personal interests & curiosities. this application, called Universe was inspired by the question: if we were to make new star constellations today, what would they be?
the world is analyzed as ’stars’ (events, artifacts, or personas), ’shapes’ (words, people, quotes, images), ’secrets’ (alphabetical keywords), ’stories’ (news stories), ’statements’ (quotes from the most important stories), ’snapshots’ (important photographs), ’superstars’ (public personas like people, places, companies), ’settings’ (geographical places), & ‘time’.
This a documentary done by Rageh Omaar, BBC’s former correspondent in
Iraq. He has visited Iran and has made this fair and beautiful
documentary on many aspects of life in Iran.
The full-length documentary, shown by BBC 4 recently, is now at Google
Video.
David Pescovitz:
It’s true that cockroaches can survive without their heads, even for weeks. Scientific American’s “Fact or Fiction?” columns delvers the science on this strange insect phenomena. From the article:
…Cockroaches do not have blood pressure the way people do. “They don’t have a huge network of blood vessels like that of humans, or tiny capillaries that you need a lot of pressure to flow blood through,” (University of Massachusetts physiologist and biochemist Joseph) Kunkel says. “They have an open circulatory system, which there’s much less pressure in.”
“After you cut their heads off, very often their necks would seal off just by clotting,” he adds. “There’s no uncontrolled bleeding.”
The hardy vermin breathe through spiracles, or little holes in each body segment. Plus, the roach brain does not control this breathing and blood does not carry oxygen throughout the body.
Mark Frauenfelder:
The gypsum crystals in the Naica Mine of Chihuahua, Mexico are up to 50 feet long. At 150 degrees F, the cave is hot enough to kill would-be crystal swipers.
In April 2000, brothers Juan and Pedro Sanchez were drilling a new tunnel when they made a truly spectacular discovery. While Naica miners are accustomed to finding crystals, Juan and Pedro were absolutely amazed by the cavern that they found. The brothers immediately informed the engineer in charge, Roberto Gonzalez. Ing. Gonzalez realized that they had discovered a natural treasure and quickly rerouted the tunnel. During this phase some damage was done as several miners tried to remove pieces of the mega-crystals, so the mining company soon installed an iron door to protect the find. Later, one of the workers, with the intention of stealing crystals, managed to get in through a narrow hole. He tried to take some plastic bags filled with fresh air inside, but the strategy didn’t work. He lost consciousness and later was found thoroughly baked.
David Pescovitz:
My friend David Gill, an emerging Philip K. Dick scholar, wrote this review of “Voices From The Street,” the author’s last unpublished novel:
Philip K Dick is in the midst of a cultural ascendancy. The science fiction writer long-championed by devoted genre fans, freaks, and druggies is finally being recognized as a serious literary talent. This May, four of Dick’s best science fiction novels from the 1960s will be released in a single volume by the Library of America. While Dick’s SF is finally getting the critical attention it so deeply deserves, only serious Dick-heads know that the Bay Area author spent his lifetime hoping for literary success outside of science fiction. In the 1950s, Dick wrote one mainstream novel every year or so (all except the truly remarkable “Confessions of a Crap Artist” were thoroughly rejected by publishers during his lifetime). In January Dick’s last unpublished novel, Voices From the Street, written in 1956, was released by Tor.
This mainstream novel, which chronicles the unfulfilling life of Oakland resident and radio electronics salesman Stuart Hadley as he searches for significance in the spiritually bankrupt wasteland of post-war, middle-class suburbia, once again reveals that Dick’s literary success owes more to his considerable ability to depict realistic characters than to his use of space-age gadgetry.
Philip K. Dick said of his writing in 1978, “I don’t write beautifully – I just write reports about our condition.” Indeed, it is Dick’s profound ability to chronicle the humanness of his characters (especially his androids) that pulls me into his books over and over again and this novel is no different. Stuart Hadley is immediately identifiable as a Dick character, wounded by the isolation and narcissism of society. In much of Dick’s science fiction, reality breaks down because his characters want it to, because they feel so defeated in many cases that waking up in a world where nobody knows them at least gives them a reason to get out of bed. Hadley is no different; he has made a good life for himself: he’s got a successful business, a beautiful wife, but he feels empty inside. Dick writes, “A dull, numbing tiredness crept through Hadley’s bones. Lazily, the miasma drifted up like grey cigarette smoke, into all parts of his body.”
In this novel, Dick masterfully portrays the paradox of the American dream: that the selfish drive for personal gain ultimately leaves people feeling isolated and unfulfilled. What Hadley learns over the course of the novel is that the peculiarly American tradition of desperately searching for meaning or significance (otherwise known as a mid-life crisis) is often undertaken out of a selfish desire for fulfillment and is therefore doomed to fail.
If this book is so good – which it is – why couldn’t Dick get it published? Dick’s simple, no-nonsense prose style is a bit understated for many serious readers’ literary tastes but his simple narrative voice efficiently conveys his character’s crushing existential angst. With common words and uncomplicated grammar Dick creates complicated worlds and deep characters who struggle in his fiction for meaning and significance. It may very well have been Dick’s simple style that failed to grab mainstream editors’ attention, but it is precisely this simple voice that Dick harnesses so brilliantly to capture a simple life in search of complication.
What is is with these Russians and their insistence on decorating children’s playgrounds with statuary that would give Bosch bad dreams? The maniacal expression on this pantless swine’s face betrays its intention to mercilessly violate any child whose parents avert their custodial attention for an instant. Link
On this episode of Bob Barker’s That’s My Line (from the 1970s), psychic-power-debunker James Randi goes after self-professed psychic James Hydrick, who says he learned everything from an old Chinese master (but he must have learned haircuts from Moe Howard).
The look on Hydrick’s face when Randi sprinkles styrofoam around a phone book to show that Hydrick is blowing air through his mouth to psychically turn the page is priceless. And Hydrick’s excuse as to why he can’t do the stunt is even funnier.
Hydrick’s psychic powers were definitively exposed as being fraudulent by investigative journalist Dan Korem who discovered that Hydrick had developed an extraordinary talent for blowing almost undetectable but highly powerful and focussed jets of air from his mouth. Hydrick eventually confessed his fraud and admitted that he had developed his unique talent while he was in prison, and did not learn it from a Chinese master as he had originally claimed.
DIY site Instructables shows you how to construct an infrared camera filter using cardboard rolls, electrical tape and some old film negatives.
Unlike most Instructables, this one’s a video, which is both good and bad: Still photos don’t hold a candle to a video demonstration, but the lack of step-by-step text instructions means you’ll probably have to pause, rewind and replay the video several times. What’s more, the creator says nothing about how to affix the filter to your camera (I’m guessing you just have to hold it in place).
Even so, the resulting sample photos look pretty cool, and the project itself looks quite simple. If you’re interested in exploring infrared photography, this is a dirt-cheap way to get started. [Note: The video includes an annoying techno soundtrack, so mute the volume if you're at work (or don't like annoying techno soundtracks).] — Rick Broida
Speaking of file encryption, the Hackszine blog walks you through the steps of encrypting a Mac disk image using OS X’s built-in Disk Utility application.
Being a Windows to Mac switcher, the whole concept of a disk image was confusing to me at first - but it’s basically a file that acts like a separate disk that you can mount to access and unmount to disconnect. In OS X you can encrypt this “virtual disk” and assign a password so that only you can get to it. (Similar to how TrueCrypt works on Windows.) Using this method you can even burn a password-protected CD or DVD with the disk image. Handy for those s3cr3t files! — Gina Trapani
I have always had a thing for silent films.
Rob Sosin and Kevin Maher star in these twisted vignettes,
the restored (1999) films of long dead silent picture stars Silas and Mange.
from Thrillomedy.com
Personal finance blogger Tricia used previously-mentioned community loan service Prosper to pay off her credit card at a lower rate.
The card she had charged a 13% interest rate, so she created a loan listing for 12% that potential lenders could bid on. She writes:
It was fascinating to watch bidders with my loan. I actually received two bids for the full amount of my loan request. The first one was outbid. The second one ended up funding a large portion of my loan. When it all over, I had an interest rate of 9.9%, and 13 lenders in total funding my loan. I now have 13 people that want me to succeed because they have a stake in my debt reduction progress.
In fact, one of my lenders is familiar with the area where I live and he suggested a restaurant that I should visit once our debt is paid off (to celebrate). That interaction is something that you cannot get with dealing with a credit card company.
It may be surprising that total strangers are willing to make uninsured loans over the intertubes; then again, this sounds like a great deal for lenders and borrowers alike. Would you lend or borrow money via Prosper? Let us know in the comments. — Gina Trapani
Linux isn’t exactly the go-to operating system for video editing, but free-software enthusiast Alex Roitman shows that it can definitely get the job done.
His detailed tutorial explains how to use various open-source tools (such as Kino and Cinelerra) to capture, edit, render and author (either to DVD or the web) your video. You’ll definitely need a bit of Linux experience to understand everything, but thankfully the author includes links to documentation for virtually all the referenced software.
Have you used Linux for a video-editing project? If so, hit the comments and tell us how it went: good, bad or otherwise. — Rick Broida
At a mini film festival devoted to the works of Georges Méliès, artificialeyes.tv joined their former students, Ceren Yancatarol aka Jackie the Raindrops, T. Hüseyin Kuru aka little-genie of cin düğünü and festival organizer Sinan Güldal. The video artists remixed Méliès' works and projected them with 3 VMS Video Mirror Unit systems in the main room at Peyote.
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In April 2000, brothers Juan and Pedro Sanchez were drilling a new tunnel when they made a truly spectacular discovery. While Naica miners are accustomed to finding crystals, Juan and Pedro were absolutely amazed by the cavern that they found. The brothers immediately informed the engineer in charge, Roberto Gonzalez. Ing. Gonzalez realized that they had discovered a natural treasure and quickly rerouted the tunnel. During this phase some damage was done as several miners tried to remove pieces of the mega-crystals, so the mining company soon installed an iron door to protect the find. Later, one of the workers, with the intention of stealing crystals, managed to get in through a narrow hole. He tried to take some plastic bags filled with fresh air inside, but the strategy didn’t work. He lost consciousness and later was found thoroughly baked.
What is is with these Russians and their insistence on decorating children’s playgrounds with statuary that would give Bosch bad dreams? The maniacal expression on this pantless swine’s face betrays its intention to mercilessly violate any child whose parents avert their custodial attention for an instant. 
