h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Genius! That's truly inspired.
The only two (minor) problems with that idea would be 1) Can't walk up or downhill abd 2) Where to put the lasers (or any kind of display projector thingee) where it's not seen, only the virtual image.
As I say, these are minor problems, though. I'm sure a good engineer could come up with solutions.

For future reference, these sites might be of interest to everyone in this conversation:


The future of music in the age of spiritual machines;
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=memelist.html?m=7%23601

Music from pictures;
http://www.synestesia.com/

and Virtual Humans;
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=memelist.html?m=7%23601

lazors could be outside ball refraction would take care of sighting
wind tunnell ,sensors(weight) distribution could take care of
movement.
Several natural phenonephem can trick you as to
direction your takeing.

Yet another tangent:
What are tricks to adjust timbre in music? I only know some of the basics.... the secondary connotations of the instruments, tunes and piches are what cause the timbre, right?
Slow music makes us sleepy, fast music wakes us up. Deep music implies something hidden, and therefore makes us apprehensive (like the 'Jaws' theme).
A tune that rises in pitch and then stops suddenly leaves us waiting for the climax. A tune which drops suddenly at the end of the movement has negative connotations...
These connotations would all be different if they were in different places in the music... a rise in pitch at the end of the bar would give us different implications if it were a rise in pitch at the end of the movement instead.
I know I'm moving into the metaphorical here, but has anyone got any ideas?

I enjoyed your links.

As far as your latest post is concerned, some good observations there, but I must mention this - the mood of a piece of music is largely set by the key it is in and the key of the chords - in general, minor keys = melancholy, sad, disturbing and major keys are more happy, robust, confident sounding. I'll dig up some links for you if I can find suitable ones. Meanwhile, it may be worth you posting at the musicians' guild U150368 to get a wider range of ideas. If you do, word your subject carefully so as to get their attention!

Of course! Why didn't I think of that before?! Thank you!

It would help me a lot to know exactly what the definitions are for minor and major chords.... and for 7ths, minor 7ths, etcetera...
I know they exist, but I couldn't tell you which type of chord you just played at me if you had just played a chord at me. Basically my training wasn't that formal.

I'll go home and see what my flatmate or the all-knowing internet god can tell me. I'll let you know how I go on that one, and then get back to you, okay?

Thanks again!

The attributes of instruments which allow you to distinguish between them are the harmonics of the fundamental note (all or just odd ones and with different ones emphasised or suppressed) and the degree of scruffy noise at the start. Stripping of the start of a recorded note makes it very difficult to identify the source. There are other characteristics too: vibrato (being off-key in a carefully controlled manner!) and envelope (attack and decay and again any wobble).

As well as overall tempo of music there is the level of detail to consider which can affect the apparent pace. The same goes for instrumentation - clear/simplistic or many-layered/cluttered.

There are indeed standard definitions for major and minor chords.
- In terms of examples C E G would be a major triad and A C E the relative minor
- In terms of 12 semitones to an octave wherever you start: note 1 = tonic/root, 2 = minor 2nd, 3 = major 2nd, 4 = minor 3rd, 5 = major 3rd, 6 = perfect 4th, 7 = diminished 5th (or augmented 4th), 8 = perfect 5th, 9 = minor 6th, 10 = major 6th, 11 = minor 7th and 12 = major 7th (the semitone gaps being 1 less than this, ie 0 for unison).
- In terms of mathematical ratios for frequencies: octave = 2/1, 5th = 3/2, 4th = 4/3, major 3rd = 5/4, minor 3rd = 6/5, major 6th = 5/3, minor 6th = 8/5 and so on.

Another thought occured Virtual realitie
Accupunture points these and other points can
be "stimulated" pressure/eletric/hot/cold ect
a lot of these will provoke a auto response

e:g when walking as our heel hits the ground our
response processes will expect the ball of the foot to
make contact next,and we will adjust "centre of grav" to allow for this

reguler things like walking ect involve auto response to inputs

now if you where to suspend some one in a harness in a wired latex/gortex stocking with tensioned ropes at all majour joints wrists elbows ect,just by applying SLIGHT pressure/pull one could
be tricked into movement,i:e sight input + press.

just jogging threw, Hi Izzent bye

Ah a good time for an update perhaps.

My doppelganger and I have drawn up a list of project between us which we want to complete - there's a lot of overlap and a lot of common research to be done.
One of the projects I added was the VR design described here - our first step will be to create a um... well a reversible solenoid I guess.
Analogue micro switches which can tell how hard they're being pushed, and can push back when you put a current through them.
Them things.
We're going to make one of those (haven't been invented before as far as I can tell, although I suspect I'm wrong), test it to see if we can get some reasonable values from them, and then see how small we can make them, and then cover a bodysuit with them.
Hopefully at this point we'll be able to find some funding to make a cage/ball thing to stand inside, a broadband short-distance wireless pack, a pair of video goggles or similar, and so on.

Another project on the wall is the responsive music generation software - I've worked out how the code will go for the large picture, and some of the main details, but the medium picture still eludes me. The main problem is turning the qualitative into the quantitative - turning adjectives and textures and arm-flappings into values and numbers and truth-values.
It's a biggy, but it's simmering away in my brain still.

mental picture magnetic needle's end to end floating in bowl/ball of water,
tessler, may prove usefull.
micah tessler - ResearchIndex document query
micah tessler - scientific articles matching the query: micah tessler ... Viscous Effects in the Elastodynamics of Thick Beams

found this dureing travels,just food for thought

hi again listen can i get you to G893 or G894 seems the bbc/gov have decided to cut back so a really usefull site will shrink then dissapear
which will be a shame for many who use the site

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ican/G893

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ican/G894
seem other way does not work when in goo