Slashdot Mirror
Beer-Coated CDs are Optical Biocomputers
commodoresloat writes "A DJ and scientist in Melbourne whose research is in the area of communication through biological cells, serendipitously created an 'optical biocomputer' when he spilled beer on his CDs and left them over night. The resulting fungus that formed distorted the sound of the CDs in interesting and meaningful ways. Here's some of his research, and some media samples which include mp3s of the distorted music." Yes, the term biocomputer is used in the loosest sense.
This is an obvious attempt by RIAA blackhats to get everyone to buy new CDs while simultaneously destroying computer CD-RW. Time to grep for a good lawyer.
COPYRIGHT BEER! Yes, 12 year old girls are not enough! Now they want to sue us for drinking beer!
Those SOBs! If only Rainbow Brite were alive. She would know what to do.
Well, back to my beer...er, research. *hic*
...I've had Beer on my AOL coasters for 10 years now.
"If it's lost, it'll turn up. Things always do" "I love it when a plan comes together"
Caution: Be aware that beer contains a lot of female hormons. If you drink too much you start takling nonsense and you're unable to drive a car.
Anyway, that line was said by an Australian in "Live at the Hollwood Bowl" about American beer, not about Australian beer itself. If you don't believe me look here.
You really need to get your Monty Python sorted out before you use it to pick on the calibre of Aussie Bruces you will find on Slashdot.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
- [...] the way fungus and bacteria [grow] can shape the sound in weird ways.
Tosh. It's flipping some of the bits in a bitstream which represents audio encoded with an arbitrary codec. Dude - there are more interesting ways of flipping bits, and ones that might just tell you a bit more about bacteria, fungi, music, life, the universe, and everything.What's this guy on? I want some.
/beer, you say? Good. I can do that.
yes, we have no bananas
Ok, so this sounds a lot like a troll, but...
I don't see that this is terribly impressive. I mean, he's done a fair bit of research, wrote several papers, and uses big words like "nanoscale chemical filter" and "Boolean string re-arrangements," but in the end, all he seems to have done is pour chemicals on CDs and make them skip. I could do the same with a brillo pad. Why is that impressive? He makes a lot of noise about computing, but is any usefull computing actually going on? What are the practical applications of this "technology"?
Taking a look at the media samples, it doesn't strike me that he's stumbled on a cool new artistic technique at all (it should be mentioned that the artist Oval has been scratching up CDs in the name of art with much better results for years). This is the same thing anyone has gotten when they accidently scratched up a CD or DVD. There's no art to it, and frankly it sounds terrible.
I can understand why this would be important if his techniques yielded predictable, useful results, such as achieve a specific, desired audio or visual effect. But basically all that he gets in a broken file. The same could be done by randomly flipping an arbitrary number of bits inside a mp3. Nothing usefull is being computed or done at all. So why is this important, or even relevant?
Stupid like a fox!
"A student and teenager in Australia whose research is in the area of communication
through pick-up-lines, serendipitously created an 'optical biocomputer' when he spilled
beer on down his throat and left it there for a couple of hours. The resulting drunkeness
that formed distorted the sound of his voice in interesting and meaningful ways. Here's
some of his research, media samples which include mp3s of the distorted "music" coming soon."
Yes, the term biocomputer is used in the loosest sense.