Bagel King

Snacks in the afternoon are meant to keep you going until supper's on the table, so a Snickers bar just isn't cutting it for me right now.
Dipped into the cupboard/fridge and thought i'd take note of this extraordinary moment of clarity.
Bacon - Bagel - Hot Sauce - Egg.

Serve with fresh, cold juice. :)

The Truth Hurts

"I am sorry if I am about to offend some of you. I did not accept my invitation to celebrate with you the birth of Christ. Instead I ask you why you are not in mourning for him in this place? I want to ask you, what have you got to say about the lives you have broken? What about the families who were expecting God and instead were cheated by the Devil? Who feels sorry for them, the men, women and children damaged psychologically, emotionally and mentally by the sexual perversions and abuse carried out by the people they believed in? Holy God is a witness to the corruption of your leadership, of the exploitation and abuses which are the minimum that can be said for the clergy. There is no acceptable excuse to defend the church."

Lauryn Hill, Dec 13th '03, Vatican City.

She Sells...

And you learn something new everyday..
Apparently the sound i hear when i crack my knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.
Well, i never.

Product Loyalty?

It’s all about sound quality.. getting stuff sounding good in the mix, getting the bass in your face, drums in the belly and ears..

Reason is a powerful composition tool.. you can rack up many instruments and create a good mix. Of course, it is not a complete program - it’s a synth, a drum machine, and a sampler - and some other options to complement this.

That’s why you have Logic, Cubase, ProTools - these are meant to be Workstations on which you record audio, load tracks and do final production. They can be composition tools, but then why do so many people ReWire Reason into them? ALL of the people who use Reason (Beastie Boys, Prodigy, etc.) create their tracks in Reason and load them into ProTools/Cubase for final production.

If you're complaining that Reason is a bad program because it is not a “complete enough” (Greg), or if you complain because the factory sounds that come with it sound like an '89 casio keyboard, then all I can say is that you are too LAZY to find out what the tool’s potential is. You probably want to unpack the thing and have it make the music for you.

Truth is, no software will make you sound like a pro, and if you rely on the sounds that came with the software, you will sound like the software.

My "Dissertation" Space

A "query by humming" system that would let you find a song by humming part of the tune.

The idea is simple: hum to the mic, record your hum, extract certain ting'alings corresponding to the melody and rhythm characteristics, then compare these features to those of the songs in your previously unmentioned database, then return to a ranked list of the songs or song segments most similar to the humming.
There are various technques to look at when trying to approach the damned idea, but basically, apply time series methods to match the pitch contour of the humming to the MIDI files in your database.
The Goal
To create a reliable, efficent and competantly large-scale system that collects thousands of songs and responds in seconds.
The system's accuracy, efficiency, and scalability are all issues that have created stumbling blocks..
On the most basic level.. even using the voice recognition on my phone has been a complete flop, but with different time series methods, signal processing, pattern recognition, database indexing, linguistics, we're looking to make it happen.
DOT

Explaining Reactables

"Designed to create music in a collaborative way by means of a smart interface that can detect multiple touches of several users at a time."
Basically, it's your classic modular synth w/ a multi-touch interface, each object representing another component. And isn't it pretty?
The lovely looking round table's illuminated from beneath by an infrared light..
The reflection on the inner surface is captured by a camera..
Projected information (where you put your fingers and what you do w/ the little Twinkies) goes into separate spectral channels.. avoiding any inteference..
So.. when you place a "square wave" object on the table.. guess what? a squared wave is depicted between the object and the centre of the table w/ the exact properties of the wave the synth is generating in real time.. All very nice.
Change placement and orientation = modify the "behavioural" patterns..
Shiny dots that you can actually "catch" w/ your finger let you increase / decrease amplitude..
"Dynamically drawn" in real time, waves vibrate, pulses are transmitted from one place to another.. It's juice on the eyes.. If you like that sort of thing.
Find out more HERE.

Dark Degrees

A chance for better prospects..?
A brighter future..?
A student loan..?
A party?
A friend?
What were your reasons for going in the first place..?
Networking?
Not having to work yet..?
Parents forced you into it..?
Maybe you're mates had good times to tell you of?
Maybe you thought it just had to be done.

But where are you going..?
Walking into a £30,000/yr job, w/ loan repayments, rent, tv licence, road tax, skyrocketting petrol prices, council tax, gas, electric, water, internet, SkyPlus and that yearly 'Arena' subscription to pay for...?

Endomorphic MC, 21, a Boreham Wood / Oxford resident says,

"..to have a good time, and to get a decent qualification which will serve me well in life..
i suppose i want 3 years of getting to piss about.."

You only get as much as you put in.. whatever that may before..
And for many students, this (and indeed every) year will be the last..
The significance of the degree that you come away w/ surely means more and more with almost every Tom, Dick and Chav turning up for Enrolment Day..
What will the CV look like if you've got the same 2:1 in Sociology as Kevin from Peckham High?