Mar. 29, 2021

Emergent Themes in Aperiodic Non-deterministic Musical Compositions

The directed graph in the video has information flowing through it as time passes. A vertex represents a change to the incoming signal - it either increases or decreases the pitch of the signal as it continues to the next vertex.

A vertex with more than one edge leading to other vertices can have one of three modes to pass the signal forward:

  1. Parallel - the signal will continue to all connected vertices at the same time.

  2. Sequential - the signal will only continue to one vertex. This mode allows a configuration of how many time would the signal pass through one edge before it will pass to a different edge.

  3. Random - the signal will move through a random edge (weighted random choice)

A signal in this system might terminate in two ways:

  1. The placement of “dead-end” vertices in the system that do not have outgoing edges.
  2. As any vertex can modulate the signal, and signals might enter the vertex with any random pitch value from previous vertices, the outgoing value might be beyond what the instrument (in this case, a piano) can play.

This composition “terminates” under the second option - while there are still signals moving in the system they are in non-renderable ranges.

In this composition, the author put a strong emphasis on random vertices to turn the otherwise deterministic periodic composition into an aperiodic non-deterministic one. The result is an emergence of novel themes not originally composed by the author. Very much as in aperiodic deterministic systems, The composition might continue the original theme for a while, before descending into chaos, only to emerge with a new theme for a short while before returning to the original theme.

Jan. 30, 2021

Look at the Snow Falling

Instruments laid out using Ableton and sequenced using Orca

Jan. 29, 2021

Hoot

Instruments laid out using Ableton and sequenced using Orca

Feb. 22, 2022

A Distributed Computation Marketplace over Blockchain

We describe a Blockchain based1, peer-to-peer network of distributed computers solving arbitrary, strictly-defined problems for a financial incentive in the form of a cryptographic currency2. The computational problems are signed and posted to the blockchain in a contract describing the minimal computational unit (MCU) of the problem, the price per MCU, a method for joining the results of different Solvers, and a test for the validity of a solution. The Solver will transmit the solutions to the Bidder off the blockchain to avoid any space-complexity issues and eliminate the potential for network flooding with bogus or trivial solutions.

Apr. 12, 2018

On eBay's Imperial Roman Coin market and History

eBay’s Ancient Roman Coin market is likely the largest market place for ancient coins in today’s world. Hundreds of thousands of ancient items exchanged hands through eBay’s marketplace in the last year. In the last 7 months, more than a quarter of a million coins been listed on eBay alone. Given the inherit historical value in ancient coins and my personal interest in them, I have been collecting data on every Roman Imperial Coin listing on eBay for the past seven months.

Oct. 29, 2016

The Most Documented War in History: Who talks about it?

The discussion about the ongoing war in the context of geo-politics, modern warfare, and even morality is one that is as important as it is active. The more we discuss the war, the more we learn from it, and the less likely we are to repeat it. But the discussion of war itself is reflecting those same issues it attempts to make sense of. The human tendency for discussing the atrocities of war, and the ease of which one can, with malice or without, lead discussions and persuade the impressionable is not left unnoticed by the leading actors and the partisans the war gave birth to.

photography

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