I was able to do some rating for a while, and I think the results are fairly cool, but it may not produce anything very interesting for a couple reasons.
The first is that there isn't strong enough evolutionary pressure. There are too many people rating with very different opinions of what sounds good. I think it would be much more interesting to create different channels. Classical, jazz, ambient, electronica, whatever. It's still a very broad definition but not so much that our ratings aren't just noise.
You're right, and this is why we wanted to do the experiment. Nearly a month ago we had 120 Imperial College students do 250 ratings each for us over a week. We replicated the experiment 3 times (40 students per population) and assumed that these students would have a mix of musical and cultural backgrounds. We got 75 generations out of it, and the results were much more musical than the random material we started with, but now we realise that 200+ generations is where it's at!
Secondly, the algorithms used to generate the music are really important. I couldn't find any information on it, but the way the notes are put together seems fairly random. I think it's important to stick to what we do know sounds good... to an extent. For example, the gene could contain information on which way to move the current note, rather than the specific note. That way you could limit it to 2 or 3 steps and lay it over a scale or mode. The willy nillyness of it will guarantee that we pick 'safe' consonant sounding harmonies. 5ths and 4ths with beep boop melodies.
Very interesting though, I can't wait to see what happens with this.
Absolutely, the choice of 4/4 time signature, 12 note scale, tempo etc all have a big effect. As do the types of synths, effects (there's reverb but no delay), quantisation (there's no way to get triplets, for example), no glissando, the list goes on. We tried to boil it down to the simplest and least arbitrary implementation possible, but that was an infinite task!
And yes, a lot of it does seem to be picking the "non-rubbish" loops, although recently (post-slashdot) I've been hearing some quite adventurous stuff.
Your thoughts are welcome on the Facebook Group:-)
I tweaked some Apache config with help from the hosting provider, removed some unnecessary audio content from the front page, and it seems to be responding better now...
I saw this in the wild a few weeks ago. I had a google email alert running for my bank, which pointed me to a page which was blog-like but when you looked closer it was completely auto-generated gibberish. They had built the whole thing based on a list of banks and insurance companies. As it was under envsci.rutgers.edu I guessed they had been compromised.
I reported it to the webmaster and I see that it is gone (both from Google's index and the server). Not a word of thanks though. How long does that take...
I'm sure it will get more robust with time, but the crashes are rare enough not to be too much of a pain, and the convenience of switching outputs on the fly (or simultaneous output) outweighs that anyway.
For me, PulseAudio was a saviour when I got a pair of USB speakers to supplement the headphone out. It does actually just work, but there was a whole Linux Audio Jungle out there for me to hack through (couldn't find a simple explanation of the various options anywhere) before I got it working. When I finally installed the correct GUI packages (ubuntu) it was much easier to use than reconfiguring the output modules of each program (xmms, vlc etc) every time I wanted to use speakers (or headphones). No config files needed editing, it did Just Work.
It does crash now and again, and there doesn't seem to be a GUI option to restart the server.
The network capabilities look really cool too (see another post above) but I have no need at the moment.
It also works so fast that it feels like listening music from your computer. Songs start playing right away when you click on them, so I havent noticed even slight buffering issues.
That's because it is coming from your computer. Under the hood it's P2P - go into the preferences and you'll see the local disk cache settings to prove it.
To keep things nice and smooth I guess it starts getting the next track while the current one is playing. I've noticed a few delays when starting a new track "out of the blue" - I guess it has to find a peer, create a connection, start downloading, etc.
no it doesn't do any useful suggestion of new tracks or artists. the bigger name artists have a bio with a list of influential or similar artists and some have "artist radio" which seems to have random tracks from related artists.
the ads are a bit lame though ("Hi this is ---- from Spotify and we know you love blah blah"). I'd pay the 99p for 24h ad-free if I was having a party.
Re:Maybe Linux needs more trolling journalists?
on
Linux Needs Critics
·
· Score: 1
From mailing lists and public bug trackers, my sense is that there are plenty of critics, and they are frequently able to find the right place to criticize.
I think that the extent of criticism within the system reduces the need for lobbying in the press to get your pet peeve addressed.
very good point, well made
I've had many moans about OS-X (flaky X11 support, for example) and never felt there was a place where I was being heard.
You know some handicapped people would actually find this pretty useful...
Not just for the handicapped...
A fairly easy facial expression to recognise would be the "leaning forward and screwing up the eyes"... the browser could automatically zoom in and/or enlarge the font size.
Hey, I even know the guy who worked with the Shamen on this. He would probably agree with me that "DNA music" is never going to be more than a gimmick (although there's probably a huge market for it in the magnet/crystal/copper pendant brigade).
Now, what is much much more interesting is proper evolutionary music, like my recently released (on Darwin Day, of course) site which has four channels of real time streaming evolving electronica. The link's in the sig...
And if you want to get down to the molecular nitty gritty: then this is the graph to check out. Interaction with the cytoskeleton seems to be key for Ebola... (I never knew that.)
This graph may or may not help in your search for the answer. It points to tropical climate. Presumably they are not called "tropical diseases" for no reason at all...
Slashdot Mirror
I was able to do some rating for a while, and I think the results are fairly cool, but it may not produce anything very interesting for a couple reasons.
The first is that there isn't strong enough evolutionary pressure. There are too many people rating with very different opinions of what sounds good. I think it would be much more interesting to create different channels. Classical, jazz, ambient, electronica, whatever. It's still a very broad definition but not so much that our ratings aren't just noise.
You're right, and this is why we wanted to do the experiment. Nearly a month ago we had 120 Imperial College students do 250 ratings each for us over a week. We replicated the experiment 3 times (40 students per population) and assumed that these students would have a mix of musical and cultural backgrounds. We got 75 generations out of it, and the results were much more musical than the random material we started with, but now we realise that 200+ generations is where it's at!
Secondly, the algorithms used to generate the music are really important. I couldn't find any information on it, but the way the notes are put together seems fairly random. I think it's important to stick to what we do know sounds good... to an extent. For example, the gene could contain information on which way to move the current note, rather than the specific note. That way you could limit it to 2 or 3 steps and lay it over a scale or mode. The willy nillyness of it will guarantee that we pick 'safe' consonant sounding harmonies. 5ths and 4ths with beep boop melodies.
Very interesting though, I can't wait to see what happens with this.
Absolutely, the choice of 4/4 time signature, 12 note scale, tempo etc all have a big effect. As do the types of synths, effects (there's reverb but no delay), quantisation (there's no way to get triplets, for example), no glissando, the list goes on.
We tried to boil it down to the simplest and least arbitrary implementation possible, but that was an infinite task!
And yes, a lot of it does seem to be picking the "non-rubbish" loops, although recently (post-slashdot) I've been hearing some quite adventurous stuff.
Your thoughts are welcome on the Facebook Group :-)
Head to Evolectronica when the slashdot dust has settled. I'm planning to give it a make-over and some banging new evo-tunes.
This is an academic site and there are no paid ads. It hasn't been compromised either, as far as I can tell.
I tweaked some Apache config with help from the hosting provider, removed some unnecessary audio content from the front page, and it seems to be responding better now...
And it's sounding sweet!
I'm the site admin. Sorry for the inability to withstand slashdotting. This was supposed to only go in "Idle"...
You can get to the actual evolving music bit
via this ugly EC2 URL
That link will not work in a few days from now (when I let go of the machine). Too stingy to pay for an elastic IP ;-)
cheers,
Bob.
We had one of these and it needed rebooting for almost every print (after about 2 years reliable service).
then I bricked it trying to upgrade the firmware (I knew that was a risk).
The relevant HP forum thread is long and full of irate customers.
Thanks Anonymous Cowardon! (as rendered in FF 3.0.x)
I saw this in the wild a few weeks ago. I had a google email alert running for my bank, which pointed me to a page which was blog-like but when you looked closer it was completely auto-generated gibberish. They had built the whole thing based on a list of banks and insurance companies. As it was under envsci.rutgers.edu I guessed they had been compromised.
I reported it to the webmaster and I see that it is gone (both from Google's index and the server). Not a word of thanks though. How long does that take...
Maybe someone here will give me a medal instead?
C'est la vie Anonymous coward.
I'm sure it will get more robust with time, but the crashes are rare enough not to be too much of a pain, and the convenience of switching outputs on the fly (or simultaneous output) outweighs that anyway.
For me, PulseAudio was a saviour when I got a pair of USB speakers to supplement the headphone out. It does actually just work, but there was a whole Linux Audio Jungle out there for me to hack through (couldn't find a simple explanation of the various options anywhere) before I got it working. When I finally installed the correct GUI packages (ubuntu) it was much easier to use than reconfiguring the output modules of each program (xmms, vlc etc) every time I wanted to use speakers (or headphones). No config files needed editing, it did Just Work.
It does crash now and again, and there doesn't seem to be a GUI option to restart the server.
The network capabilities look really cool too (see another post above) but I have no need at the moment.
Haven't noticed latency problems so far.
Yes, go on, which one? Depending on your distribution, you might need to install the pulseaudio module for VLC, but that's only a few clicks.
It also works so fast that it feels like listening music from your computer. Songs start playing right away when you click on them, so I havent noticed even slight buffering issues.
That's because it is coming from your computer. Under the hood it's P2P - go into the preferences and you'll see the local disk cache settings to prove it.
To keep things nice and smooth I guess it starts getting the next track while the current one is playing. I've noticed a few delays when starting a new track "out of the blue" - I guess it has to find a peer, create a connection, start downloading, etc.
no it doesn't do any useful suggestion of new tracks or artists. the bigger name artists have a bio with a list of influential or similar artists and some have "artist radio" which seems to have random tracks from related artists.
the ads are a bit lame though ("Hi this is ---- from Spotify and we know you love blah blah"). I'd pay the 99p for 24h ad-free if I was having a party.
Spotify works well for me in the UK. I was sceptical until I tried it.
I have used Pandora a while back, and it was kind-of impressive, but didn't rock my world, and had many limitations.
With Spotify, you have to know what you want to listen to, but that's not so difficult really.
I'm assuming Spotify has direct licensing deals with the labels and shows a middle finger to the PRS!
Add to that the widespread distrust of Western medicine in many parts of the world and you'll have big problems getting the take-up you need.
In Australia, however, it might work (there have been some dengue outbreaks there).
You have the money for a year (so $100k is quite a lot) and then, IIRC, if you can prove that your big idea has worked, there is more money to follow.
Seems uncannily like this story from a month ago: Richard Stallman Warns About Non-Free Web Apps
From mailing lists and public bug trackers, my sense is that there are plenty of critics, and they are frequently able to find the right place to criticize.
I think that the extent of criticism within the system reduces the need for lobbying in the press to get your pet peeve addressed.
very good point, well made
I've had many moans about OS-X (flaky X11 support, for example) and never felt there was a place where I was being heard.
You know some handicapped people would actually find this pretty useful...
Not just for the handicapped...
A fairly easy facial expression to recognise would be the "leaning forward and screwing up the eyes"... the browser could automatically zoom in and/or enlarge the font size.
No I don't get it. What's the external object?
Hey, I even know the guy who worked with the Shamen on this. He would probably agree with me that "DNA music" is never going to be more than a gimmick (although there's probably a huge market for it in the magnet/crystal/copper pendant brigade).
Now, what is much much more interesting is proper evolutionary music, like my recently released (on Darwin Day, of course) site which has four channels of real time streaming evolving electronica. The link's in the sig...
And if you want to get down to the molecular nitty gritty: then this is the graph to check out. Interaction with the cytoskeleton seems to be key for Ebola... (I never knew that.)
This graph may or may not help in your search for the answer. It points to tropical climate. Presumably they are not called "tropical diseases" for no reason at all...
Also see this graph (by continent) or this graph (just for fun) or whatever takes your fancy really.
Now That's What I Call Thinking Outside The Box! (Volume 1 in shops now.)