Skip to content

BLOKUS TRIGON

blokus trigon is a fucking sweet game that michael P bought after we bought him blokus travel as a thank you for teaching our class. here is some shit from wikipedia:

“Blokus is an abstract strategy board game for two to four players, invented by Bernard Tavitian and first released in 2000 by Sekkoïa, a French company. It has won several awards, including the Mensa Select award and the 2004 Teacher’s Choice Award. Tavitian, an engineer and artist, was inspired to create the game while trying to find an appropriate frame for a painting of an orchestra made up of geometric figures.”

basically the idea is to get rid of the most pieces before space runs out on the board. the strategy is simple, try to cover as much of the board as possible without fucking yourself. the key is to block other fools without screwing yourself over too much. there are a number of different blocks:
        
        the cock block: when you wrap your piece around the corner of another player’s,         rendering it unusable for extension.

        the ghost shit: when you drop a piece 1 or 2 spaces from the usable corner of another         player’s space, rendering that piece pretty much useless

        the ass to ass: when you ride up along another player’s long piece with your long piece,         blocking their access to everything on the other side of your piece.

anyway, michael P made this database to store all of the statistics for the games. presently i am not doing too well, but i will soon dominate all other players. the game is usually played with longbrake, michael p and myself, sometimes others play such as sherbon and parko. this game is awesome, if you don’t know about it then you are clearly a fuck up.

pic174139-md4.jpg

the box for blokus trigon

576px-blokustiles.svg4.png

the pieces available in traditional blokus

Tagged
2008 06 07 Justin mybuddyandme Comments (0) Permalink

GOD CHORD #3: More on the Overtone series; Numbers and music

There are potentially endless ways to make “number music,” but here, I’ll explain how to make scales and chords by making frequency relationships with rational numbers. This might be the most initially boring thing about the God Chord, but I think after it is understood and applied, it is one of the most fascinating and infinite musical ideas I’ve explored.

Also, feel free to let me know here if there is anything I am unclear on, or leave out any explanations. Most of this information is stuff I’ve scoured from books and websites, so there are certainly patchy spots in my knowledge.

More Overtones

We can begin with a familiar starting point for musicians: the major scale. As I explained in my previous blog, the major scale that most musicians use is different than a “pure” major scale derived from the overtone series. It is a scale built from a 12-tone to the octave chromatic scale based on an irrational number (two to the x/12 power). We’ll try to make a major scale that is as closely related to the overtone series as possible. This is a loose way of saying that we are trying to make a scale with “just intonation.”

Since we are using the overtone series as our basic material–we really are just working with a bunch of integers. Seeing the overtone series from a mathematical standpoint, that means that we can use any integer number, because, theoretically, the overtone series extends to infinity. The overtone series is just a fundamental tone multiplied by the ratio x/1, where X increases by one for each successive overtone.

The practical limit to the overtone series is human hearing. Since the overtone series is a linear progression, and humans perceive pitch on an exponential scale, the higher you proceed up the overtone series, the “closer” the sounds are in pitch, to the point where they are difficult to distinguish. I made a simple reaktor patch that moves up the overtone series, tone by tone:

Reaktor patch

I made an audio example with this patch:

click here to hear overtone series audio example:
It shows how the overtone series sounds. the fundamental frequency here is 100 hertz. I move up and down the series stepwise in a few different ways to give a feel for how the series sounds. All I was doing was moving the value output by the “overtone” knob up and down by a value of one for each different pitch.

You can hear how the notes move, in the beginning, by big jumps, but as they move higher, become “closer” together. If you’re just looking at the frequencies, the notes are all the exact same distance apart, as shown by this image, which is the previous sound graphed on a pitch versus frequency graph, where pitch is shown on a linear scale:

SPEAR overtones

Click here to see the full size image:

but in our hearing, they become closer and closer together. It is a basic concept. Think about a piano. Start with “C,” and play each higher “C.” Each “C” note has a frequency which is double the previous frequency. That is how we hear pitch–exponentially. The overtone series is just frequencies stacked: for instance, an overtone series based on the frequency 100 would be: 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, and so on.

Getting into the scale

Because of these properties of the overtone series, the lower overtones are normally used to create scales. By extension–that means that the ratios we are using to define scales and pitches will be based only on smaller numbers. The major scale here is a “5-limit” scale, which means I didn’t use any numbers higher than 5 in these ratios. This is a basic Just intonation major scale, spelled out with ratios. I’m going to use a C-major scale here. I use the N/D (numerator/denominator) notation here. Plenty of other people use a colon, like “N:D” to denote ratios, and it means the same thing.

C: 1/1
D: 9/8
E: 5/4
F: 4/3
G: 3/2
A: 5/3
B: 15/8

It might look like I contradicted myself here–there are plenty of numbers higher than 5 use in those ratios. But there are a few ways you can manipulate these “5-limit” numbers. If we multiply two of these numbers by each other–for instance 3*3 = 9 — we arrive at the 9 that is used in the 9/8 ratio for the note D.

A note: when adding musical ratios, you *multiply* the ratios, not add them. When subtracting ratios from each other, you divide them.

Another way to manipulate these numbers is to multiply or divide them by two. If you multiply or divide the numerator or denominator of a fraction by two, you don’t change its harmonic identity–you only change which octave the note is in. For instance, if I take the ratio 9/8 and divide the denominator by two, I get the ratio 9/4. This simply places the ratio an octave higher. Multiplying the numerator by two would produce the exact same pitch, but it would be written as 19/8.

When working with ratios, we generally place them within the same octave as the fundamental tone, so they are most useful for scale and chord construction. For instance, 6/1 is the exact same note as 3/2–but 2 octaves higher. When making a single octave scale we would bring 6/1 down two octaves and write is as 3/2 to make things consistent.

Using these basic operations, we can get all those notes in the major scale fairly simply. I’ll do them one by one. After going through a few explanations, hopefully it will be pretty apparent how these operations work.

C: 1/1

1/1 is one. If the fundamental frequency is 200, and we multiply it with this ratio, we get the same frequency, of course. We can get the C an octave higher with 2/1, and another octave higher with 4/1, or an octave lower with 1/2, and so on.

G: 3/2

This note is based on the third overtone of the overtone series, which would be written as 3/1. All we have to do is place that note an octave lower by dividing the ratio by two, arriving at 3/2. The third overtone, or the “fifth” is the lowest note that is not just an octave displacement of the fundamental frequency (like the second overtone: 2/1). Some other notes in the major scale can be arrived at by starting with this note, for instance, D, or a “major second:”

D: 9/8

Stack two “Gs,” or fifths, on top of each other and you arrive at this note. 3/2 * 3/2 = 9/4. place it an octave lower: 9/8.

E: 5/4

This is the second lowest overtone to create a “new” note that is not an octave displacement of the fundamental, and so it is the second ‘strongest’ harmony after the fifth. It is based on the fifth overtone: 5/1. Bring 5/1 down two octaves: 5/2, then 5/4–and you arrive at E, or a “major third.” This is the middle note of a major chord. In equal temperament these notes are sharp–about 19 cents sharp if I remember!

F: 4/3

This note is essentially a fifth subtracted from an octave. If you divide 1/1 with 3/2 (G, or a ‘fifth’), you get the ratio 2/3. Multiply that by two to move it up an octave, and you get the ratio 4/3.

A: 5/3

This is made by adding an “E” and an “F,” or a fourth and a major third. The ratios for the two, respectively: 4/3 and 5/4. Multiply them and you arrive at 20/12. Reduce that fraction, and you get 5/3.

B: 15/8

This “major seventh” is an “E” above “G,” or a third above the fifth. To add intervals we multiply, so: 3/2 * 5/4 = 15/8.

Numbers and Notes

We just slapped together the most common scale in the western music vocabulary with numbers. But we don’t have to stick that basic list of ratios. In fact, just about any two numbers under seven, when combined in a ratio, will make a useful musical interval. Somehow, this just works. When beginning to work with higher numbers, then things get strange, and sometimes very interesting. But, just for example, here are a bunch of number combinations, and the intervals they make. I explain them in terms of a scale whose root is C.

6/5: minor third, or E flat
3/5: minor third
4/5: minor sixth, or A flat
7/5: tritone, or G flat

3/4: fifth, or “G”
5/4: third
6/4: fifth
7/4: minor seventh, or “B flat.” This is a ‘harmonic minor seventh’ based on the overtone series, as opposed to a normal minor seventh, which is more like a minor third stacked on a fifth (an E flat stacked on a G).

2/3: fourth
4/3: fourth
5/3: sixth
7/3: an interesting one–a note between D and E flat.

3/2: fifth, or G
4/2: octave

2008 03 10 baggervance mybuddyandme Comments (1) Permalink

THE GOD CHORD #2: Why equal temperament sucks.

Ok. I’m going to assume the reader here has a little musical background (guess I already made this assumption in my previous post, for the sake of brevity), and assume that he knows that most modern music is written in a system called equal temperament. This means that al the notes in the scale are equally spaced out so that the adventurous musician can play music that sounds exactly the same in all keys.

This happened because people like Bach and Wagner (I’m going to hell for putting those two in the same sentence) wanted to be able to modulate, or change key, in their musical compositions freely, and create structures this way.

Equal temperament, if you look at it from a mathematical standpoint, has hardly anything to do with the overtone series or with the harmonics that I spoke of earlier.

Notes that are tuned to each other to pure tunings, in a releationship that is derived from the overtone series, will have simple integer relationsips. For instance, a note that is a fifth (the distance from C to G on a piano) above another note will be 1.5 times the frequency of the lower note–or 3/2 the frequency. Constructing a scale this way is a little too complicated for me to get into here–but all the notes in the scale will have simple ratio relationships.

Well, equal temperament is all about the number 1.059463094. That’s not really a beautiful number. If you take one note, and multiply it times 1.059463094, and then do that 11 times–you’ll have the frequencies of all the notes in a modern chromatic scale. Actually, that number is 2 to the 1/12 power. all the notes in a chromatic scale are just the root frequency times 2 to the x/12 power.

Here’s some basic audio examples:

In this audio example, the first sound you hear is me playing a major chord, arpeggiated, and then together, in equal temperament. Sounds like a pretty standard major chord. then I arpeggiate and play a major chord in just intonation (an overtone series based scale with simple integer ratios). Listen closely–in the second chord, I sustain it out–and switch between just intonation and equal temperament as the chord plays. You can hear it subtly shift in and out of tune.

Comparing a major chord in equal temperament and just intonation

Now, to hear why people became interested in equal temperament. This is a very basic chord progression–running through the cycle of fifths. I begin in C, in a just intonation tuning which is tuned to C as the fundamental. By the end, i’ve reached F sharp major. Sounds pretty off, eh?  Listen to the first few bars, though–you’ll notice that they’re very beautifully in tune.  Well as beautiful as that boring synth sound I chose can be ;).
Just intonation modulation

NOW. This is equal temperament. every key sounds exactly the goddamn same. Lovely….. and boring. It’s a scale that no matter which direction you go–no matter how hard you try–will always sound exactly the same, harmonically speaking, wherever you start. In just intonation, there is an entire universe of fascinating pitch relationships and harmonies waiting to be opened up.

Equal temperament Modulation

Not that I think equal temperament is always bad. Much of the music I like is written in equal temperament–even my favorite composer–Bach–is famed as one of the people who helped popularize it. Some music takes advantage of equal temperament and exploits its sound beautifully–for instance, the music of Claude Debussy.

That kind of music, I think, is where that equal temperament tuning is very beautiful and seems even perfect.

“Le vent dans la plaine” From Debussy’s preludes

You can compare that to the music of Terry Riley, a modern composer, who is interested in Just intonation. This is also piano music, so you can really hear the difference of the tunings. There are two pieces here. One, “riding the westerlies” lets you hear all those beautiful harmonies when they are in tune with each other (and sometimes strangely “off” tune).

“Riding the Westerlies” in Just intonation by Terry Riley

This next track, the “orchestra of tao” kind of showcases the unique sound that you can get by using just intonation tuning. Personally, I think that the harmonies, *and* the dissonances in Just intonation are more beautiful, and more interesting. And this is only one type of tuning that riley is using–there are infinite others. Why use just one?

“The Orchestra of Tao” in just intonation by Terry Riley

MORE SOON.

2008 02 14 baggervance mybuddyandme Comments (4) Permalink

The GOD CHORD. A series. Part 1.

PEOPLE MAKING GOD MUSIC

It’s just something I made up. It has no specific meaning, really. It’s my personal hamburgerfest of mysticism, acoustics, math, music theory, and philosophy, and it’s the guiding force behind my music. In order to be motivated to explain this, I have to assume this mashed up beefmeat is interesting to other people. Maybe it isn’t, but I’m going to go ahead and assume it is.

First, i’ll explain the overtone series. The overtone series is a harmonic series based on any arbitrary fundamental tone, where the fundamental (lowest) frequency is multiplied with the ratio x/1, where x increases by 1 for each successive overtone. This creates a beautifully simple, linear progression of ‘harmonics,’ or overtones. If you plot a time/frequency graph, for instance, with frequency on the X axis, of an organ tone, it will look like this.

harmonic analysis of an organ tone

Each of the lines in the graph represents a band of sound energy focused on a certain frequency. In this image, the fundamental tone of the organ sound is marked red. You can see that all the other tones have a perfect integer relationship to the fundamental frequency. They are all perfectly in tune with the overtone series, or perfectly ‘harmonic.’ Almost any musical tone is constructed of mostly harmonic tones from the overtone series. If a tone does not have much relationship to the overtone series, it will sound noisy, or chaotic.

I think it is profoundly beautiful that the source of all music is so simple.

But the importance of the overtone series is the human predisposition to harmonic sound. Using numerical relationships in music is no guarantee of injecting any interest or arriving at any success. For instance, the most famous number mystic, Pythagoras, built a scale based on mathematical and geometric principles, the Pythagorean scale.
mister pythagorasHe became enamored with the interval of the perfect fifth, which has a frequency ratio of 3/2 with the fundamental tone and built an entire scale out of it. The conceptual simplicity of this scale was attractive, and is perhaps the reason that it was so influential. But the scale was very out of tune, because consecutively stacked fifths create notes that are very out of tune with the overtone series that I explained earlier.

I’ve yet to find someone who explains why sounds with frequencies having integer relationships to a fundamental tone are hardwired into the human brain. But they are. The human mind will actually “fake” harmonics into a sound that has no overtones–like a sine wave–when it is comparing two tones to each other. A sine wave is a pure tone with no harmonics. If it was represented like the organ tone in the previous image, it would only have one line. But when another sine-wave frequency is played along with the first, the mind will perceive it as if the first, louder sine wave actually has harmonics!

More to Come—!

P.S.  It’s hard for me to explain things like this without including all sorts of musical jargon and making assumptions about knowledge readers already have.  Feel free to ask for any clarifications.

Tagged , , , ,
2008 02 09 baggervance Provocateur Comments (0) Permalink

i5/OS and RPG

The company I work for runs on IBM’s System i platform. It is a series of minicomputers that has been around since 1988, the debut of the AS/400. In the last 20 years it has become much more robust, capable of supporting multiple instances of AIX, Linux, and Windows. It’s native OS is the library-based i5/OS. This is what I get to use all day while I learn to write with RPG. The operating system is based on the interaction between different kinds of objects. Instead of folders and files, there are libraries, files and members, all of which are simply objects with different parameters. For example, in my library JLAZARU there is a file called QRPGLESRC. The Q stands for system created, RPGLE stands for RPG language environment, and SRC stands for source. Inside this file are a number of source members, all of which can be compiled and bound to create an actual program.

map of i5/OS objectsInstead of searching for a file or folder by browsing through trees or visual hierarchies, I run command WRKOBJ (work with objects) and type the object name and the library it is in. If I don’t know what library it is in, I can type *LIBL, which searches every library in my library list. The library list isn’t really an object, it is a user-maintained list of library objects. Tuning the order in which these libraries are searched when using the *LIBL wild card is a job that takes some time. This kind of navigation reminds me a lot of Quicksilver, the “unified, extensible interface for working with applications, music, contacts and other data.” The library list on i5/OS is similar to Quicksilver’s catalog. The interfaces are both a pleasure to work with, as they depend more on the fitness of your mind than the fitness of your pointer finger clicking repeatedly on the mouse to navigate through endless subfolders.

The app-dev group has been writing it’s business critical applications using RPG from the beginning. Since RPG was conceived as a language that depended on punch cards for user input, it was originally columnar in nature. Certain specifications had to be in certain columns on a punch card for them to be recognized. This translated directly onto the screen, where columns of the screen were effectively columns of a punch card. Rather than writing an entirely new compiler once punch cards were no longer in use (as so many programs were already written in this columnar fashion), as the language developed it just kept on relying on columns as carriers of information. For example, there are 80 columns in the RPG specification laid out like this: (column locations are not accurate in this example, just for illustration. For anybody who is upset because the specifications are in the wrong column, please just keep your mouth shut.)

This code sets up two variables, both of type packed decimal (P) with lengths of 7 and 3 respectively. Packed decimal is just a way of storing information where the number is stored in the first nibble (4 bits) and the sign is stored in the second nibble. So storing negative one in packed decimal would look like this: 0001 | 1101. 7P gives you 7 containers of storage space, so you could store a number like 9,999,999 in there. That would look like this: 1001100110011001100110011001100110011111, that is 4 bytes long, the final 4 bits is equivalent to the hexadecimal F, which means unsigned. That is a big cock! The small one looks like this: 1001100110011111

In the old days, when you wanted to do calculations, you would face the same restrictions. For example, if you wanted to set bigCock to 1000 and do a little test, it used to look like this (this is the newest of the older implementations):

but now you can just do this,

And that is all there is to it. That way all the old programs still compile, but if you actually want to get some work done and you want other people to be able to decipher what you have done, you can use the ‘free’ specification. However, standalone variables, data structures, prototypes, constants and some other things that i am forgetting all have to be defined in fixed-format, though, which is tedious at times.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Tagged , , ,
2008 01 24 Justin mybuddyandme Comments (1) Permalink

3:22 Limit

Last night I discovered that the .wav and .aiff formats are limited in length to about 3 hours and 22 minutes:

3:22:54

2008 01 21 baggervance Complaining Comments (2) Permalink

TACOMA IS BOSS

It’s a city of gray skies and off-white siding rotting to show tattered brown wood underneath;  a place that has no pretense of being anything other than an ugly old city looking over a smokestack sunset.  Here, living in the top story of that brand new condo building gives you a view of the majestic cascades behind fluffy white clouds lazily slurping into the sky from factories in the tide flats.  It’s beautiful, but it’s not picturesque.

When I returned from my honeymoon in Taiwan to the Emerald City, it was like getting slapped in the face by an angry mother for wearing muddy shoes into the house.  Nobody slapped me, but I wasn’t sweating anymore. Everything looked crisp and sharp,  and I felt out of place.  Sure, I saw someone get stabbed at a bus stop.  One day on my way to work, I saw mysterious trail of blood which stretched an entire block down pike street.  But I was surprised.  In Tacoma, trails of blood and stabbings are just matters of course.

I’m no master photographer.  But in Seattle, I took pictures like this:

SeattleZone

In Tacoma I took pictures like:

And in Taiwan, I took pictures like:

from an artistic standpoint these photos may all blow royal donkey ass.  But I think my comfort point is probably between the first and last pictures.  I think all cities are ugly pustules of pollution inhabited by glowing-red, angry masses of discontent.  But something about the result of that–overpasses, traffic lights shining on glistening rain-wet streets, rushing traffic–is all beautiful to me.  I just like tacoma because it doesn’t try and hide the first part.

Tagged , , ,
2008 01 09 baggervance Provocateur Comments (0) Permalink

Jebel Chamber Orchestra

In an unusual deviation from my search from the God Chord, I’ve made an album of manic acoustic meanderings with my friends from Romania “Makunouchi Bento”, my brother-in-law Patrick Sheng, and our very own Justin from the Crappus Rexicon.

Orchestra Bitches

You can find the album online for download at the digital biotope netlabel, Here:

Jebel Chamber Orchestra: Like a Monkey Without a Cuckoo Clock

You can hear Justin’s fine Baggerhorn Playing on track 6, “Our Monkey Says Goodbye to Cuckoo Clock in Russian Train Station.”

 

Tagged , , , , , ,
2008 01 06 baggervance Provocateur Comments (0) Permalink

Ho…ho…ho.

Merry Christmas!

Tagged , , ,
2007 12 25 Ashton mybuddyandme Comments (0) Permalink

The IBM 1401 Arrives in Iceland

There was a time when the men and women that created computers and their instructions were not dorks. They were pioneers. They used screwdrivers and wore crisp suits. They worried about things like dirt and metal fatigue. The machines they served were treated with respect, even with awe. It was the late 1950s, and the IBM 1401 had just arrived. The 1401 was the first affordable, mass-produced, digital, all transistorized business computer. It shipped with 4K of available memory, but an expansion unit was available (about the size of a refrigerator) that expanded this to 16K. A number of programming languages were included with the 1401, including FARGO, FORTRAN and RPG, the only high level language in common use at the time. RPG is still in use today by a number of large corporations. The language has changed a great deal, but its heart is still yearning for communion with the 1401 and the 1402 card reader/puncher.

Here is an advertisement for the 1401 from October 5, 1959:

The all-transistorized IBM 1401 Data Processing System places the features found in electronic data processing systems at the disposal of smaller businesses, previously limited to the use of conventional punched card equipment. These features include: high speed card punching and reading, magnetic tape input and output, high speed printing, stored program, and arithmetic and logical ability. The 1401 may be operated as an independent system, in conjunction with IBM punched card equipment, or as auxiliary equipment to IBM 700 or 7000 series systems.

And here is an introductory video from IBM.

It was a big hit. By the end of 1961, almost 2,000 had been installed in the US alone. In 1964, the 1401 made its way to Iceland. It was here that it would one day be canonized forever, by Jóhann Gunnarsson. Jóhann was the chief maintenance engineer for the 1401 installation in Reykjavik. When he wasn’t busy inspecting filter capacitors for leaks, he was doing something unimaginable with the computer. He was making music with it. Jóhann spent hours programming the meager 4096 bytes of memory with his “scores.” He would then listen to his music by amplifying the strong electromagnetic waves emitted from the computer’s memory by placing a radio receiver nearby. I would give a portion of each of my testes to hear these ephemeral tones. He wasn’t the only one making electronic music, not even the only one making music with an IBM computer. At around the same time, a number of computer scientists were making records with the IBM 7096. But they were all academics. Jóhann was a musician. His method of composition is far more ingenious and spontaneous than the monkeys messing around at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Above all, Jóhann was in Iceland, and as Ashton has pointed out, Iceland is where it all goes down. In the same year, Robert Moog was showing off his voltage-controlled oscillators in Trumansburg. As Moog went on to create a business selling synthesizers, Jóhann continue to compose with his 1401.

In 1971, IBM withdrew the 1401 from the market. In this same year, Jóhann decided to stop using the machine in favor of some more advanced computer. However, before burying the old friend in the dump, Jóhann did something usually reserved for other people. He gave the 1401 funeral. All the engineers were present, and Jóhann allowed the computer to sing some of it’s haunting compositions one last time, before it would be silent forever. The ceremony commemorated the life and work of this machine. Funerals can only be given for something that was once alive. These engineers must have felt a deep communion with the 1401 - they must have considered it alive to some extent.

Jóhann used to play “Music from Mathematics,” the recording created at Bell labs using the older IBM 7090, for his son Jóhann. It was one of the first recordings of computer music, and the little boy remembers it as some of the first music he ever heard. 6 years later, his father took him to see “2001, A Space Odyssey” at the cinema. Young Jóhann found it odd that the music played by Hal in the movie sounded much like the music that his father played for him when he was younger, and he asked to hear the recordings again. Instead of the music from Bell Labs, Jóhann played his son the recording made at the 1401’s funeral. Some 25 years later, upon hearing the tapes again, his son wrote the following:

Listening for the first time to my fathers old tape, I was pleased to notice that after the “funeral” recording finished, an antediluvian voice emerged through the tape hiss and flutter, like something out of a BBC documentary from the 50´s, reading what sounded like obsolete technical jargon, punctuated intermittently by a bell. My father had evidently recorded the computer´s music and sounds over an audio instruction guide to the IBM 1403 Printer, which was the output module of the System. This material, which was clearly considered entirely dispensable at the time, sounded strange and exotic to my ears. After listening for a while to this litany of long forgotten technical terms and maintenance tips, they began to make sense to me in a strange way. The unknown instructor´s emotionless monotone began to resemble the voice of an oracle, a source of some ancient wisdom. The hypnotic droning of this voice and the ritualistic sounding of the bell (in actuality, probably used to signal a change of slide) began taking on the quality of some age-old prophet giving wise counsel. The utterances started to sound like no less than a guide for good living, for communication not only with machines but also with other people. In old Iceland, wise poetic sayings attributed to Odin were collected under the name of Hávamál. They were to be used as a practical guide to life and survival in the Viking Age. It occurred to me that the user´s manuals that accompany all our machines and tools are in a way the Hávamál of the Information Age, guides to good relations between man and the machines with which we will share our future on this planet.

He went on to create IBM 1401 - A User’s Manual, exploring the themes that his father’s music suggested to him. It is a musical analogue to the gauntlet thrown down by Alan Turing in 1950. If you would like to read about this creation, or if you would like to hear the music that his father recorded in the late 60s, visit the site for his son’s project. If you would like to see a working 1401, visit the restoration project at the Computer Museum in Mountain Grove, CA.

Tagged , , ,
2007 12 14 Justin Programming Comments (3) Permalink