Miss Cellania's post on the Beer Bottle Orchestra is pretty hard to top - but this one comes close (well, it's geekier, anyhow): the Bubblegum Sequencer.
Links: Bubblegum Sequencer website | YouTube Video - Thanks Christophe!What is the Bubblegum Sequencer?
The Bubblegum Sequencer is a physical step sequencer that lets you create drumloops by arranging colored balls on a tangible surface. It generates MIDI events and can be used as an input device to control audio hardware and software. Finally, people can't claim anymore that electronic music isn't handmade.
Here's how it works: A grid of holes, consisting of several rows with 16 holes each is the canvas. On it, you arrange colored gumballs. The 16 columns represent the 16th-notes in a measure. Each color is mapped to a specific sample.
Because the output is generated in the form of MIDI events, the Bubblegum Sequencer can be used to control any kind of audio hardware or software.
Comments (3)
i have studied music for the last 29 years, and trust me: i am totally open to new,avant-garde, unthought-of, heretofore unknown styles of music.
but this just sucked. get yourself a circle of fifths for crissakes. and the narrator clearly knows not from common time or cut time or syncopation. what happens if you want 9/5 "gumball" time? are you screwed? poor dave brubeck...he's fah-cahc-ta'd. Phonetically speaking, of course.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv1va9Jdt7g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHdEy_3PaKk
The airport is sitting out there unguarded. TSA seems to only hire people from the Barney Fife school of nonsense. Anyone with a IQ higher then a cow pie can outsmart the TSA. Luckily there hasn't been any terrorist actions to stop - otherwise the security theater would need to get a new venue.
With dignity you also have indignity. I'd rather do without either. I'll do what is required and no more. If people cannot have respect for necessity and guard against excess, I can vacate. If mistreatment of the human is a requirement for air travel. I'll stay home.
Guards generally, are only to keep so-called "honest" people honest. The average person, and that means you and I, have a tendency to go off the rails when there is nothing keeping us on track. Make us the guards and we fly right off. I know of, and have practiced techniques (in my earlier years) of deception which render pretty much all security measures useless. They play right into basic human cognition and completely deceive their victims. I'll give you an example I got from a cop: An officer is patrolling late at night when he observes 3 or 4 men moving electronics into a van from a nearby retail store. He drives his cruiser into the parking lot and gets out. The men moving the electronics don't scatter and they don't stop moving product. They wait for the officer to ask them questions and they casually answer. It went something like this:
Officer: What are you doing?
Thief: Moving Electronics.
Officer: It's kind of late to be doing this.
Thief: I know, orders came in at the last minute, I wish it were otherwise, but that's business. We are struggling to get them out the door as it is.
Officer: Well, maybe I can give you a hand with them and get you home a bit earlier.
Apparently the officer was pretty humiliated when he told his precinct what happened and they turned him onto the truth of the matter. But he shouldn't have been, these techniques are pretty safe. Mind you, it takes some skill to not lose it, and once you have the skill its easy to get obsessed with the power.