entertaining for a nerd

Error 808 - Drum not found

2010-06-04T14:01:00.000-05:00

i don't know much about music production, but i frequently noticed references in music to something called an "808." i gathered by some of the lyrics that an 808 must be some giant drum that is widely known to be the most booming.

after doing a quick search to quell my curiosity, i discovered an "808" is not an actual drum at all, but the Roland TR-808, a synthesizer that has drum kit samples. apparently they are known to be rather unrealistic sounding samples at that, but this synthesizer is comparatively cheap and is frequently used to generate rap/hip-hop backbeats. this (plus autotune) explains the artificial sound of Kanye's 808's and Heartbreak album.

hear some 808 samples here

broken email from wells fargo

2010-05-13T18:15:00.001-05:00

advertisement hijacking

2010-05-11T23:36:00.000-05:00

what do you do to shake asian advertisers that are not actually asian and pretend to be interested in your blog but are actually using it just to post random links?

examples:

bananananananananananananana...

2010-05-06T09:24:00.000-05:00

screen sizes

2010-03-09T14:18:00.001-06:00

tv and monitor screen sizes are reported in inches from opposite corners. this is a fine standard until you want to compare screen sizes.

one would tend to assume a 40” screen is twice the size of a 20” screen, but the screen size is proportional to the square of the diagonal length (i.e. Area = k*h²). this is easy to do mentally for multiples (e.g. 40” is twice as long as 20”, so the 40” screen is 4 times bigger) but I wanted to simplify the calculation for calculating any screen size.

below I have the proportionality constants (k) and the formula used to calculate it

for 16:9 (widescreen tv's) use A = 0.427 * h²
[k=(16 / 9) * (sin(arctan(9 / 16))^2) = 0.427299703]

for 16:10 (widescreen monitors) use A = 0.449 * h²
[k=(16 / 10) * (sin(arctan(10 / 16))^2) = 0.449438202]

for 4:3 (old tv's and monitors) use A = 0.48 * h²
[k=(4 / 3) * (sin(arctan(3 / 4))^2) = 0.48]

one interesting thing is that, for the same reported screen size, older 4:3 tv’s will actually be 12% bigger. this is not very helpful, however, since most tv/movies are now presented in 16:9, and 4:3 tv’s will need to use the black bars and actually end up with 25% smaller pictures for the same reported screen size.

bed sizes

2010-01-30T12:59:00.000-06:00

this shattered alot of what i thought i knew about bed sizes:

i thought a twin bed was an even 3'x6' and every level up added one foot to the width.

the way it actually works is:

twin: 3'3" x 6'3"
full: 4'6" x 6'3"
queen: 5' x 6'8"
king: 6'6" x 6'8"
california king: 6' x 7' (<-- my choice :-D )

[wikipedia bed sizes]

house centipede!

2009-10-12T22:13:00.000-05:00

only once in my life have i come across this crazy critter that looks a little like a mutated centipede. his legs are too long! apparently confusion over this arthropod is common as 'nobody' has seen one before and 'everyone' is perplexed when they encounter one. i came across mine unmoving on the cement wall in the basement of an old church, and i shocked a friend when i knew exactly the critter being described (once again chillin on a wall)

they are harmless to humans (unlike regular centipedes) and hunt spiders and other bugs.

learn more about scutigera coleoptrata

day length as a function of latitude and time of year

2009-09-01T17:37:00.004-05:00

how cool would it be to live at one of the poles and have only one sunrise and one sunset each year? (i mean, besides the fact that it would drive you nuts)

[via wikipedia]

vibrato and tremolo

2009-08-10T18:30:00.006-05:00

what started off over at linguisteresis as a simple inquiry into the difference in definition vibrato and tremolo ended up a full scale investigation.

vibrato is the fluctuation of frequency while tremolo is the fluctuation of amplitude for audio signals. vibrato seems to be more well known because it is considered a good quality to have while singing, yet tremolo is much easier to implement mathematically to a time-varying signal.

i thought a picture would be great to illustrate this difference but wikipedia surprisingly did not have an example, so i made one (seen above) and added it to the page.

im not sure i can really hear the difference between the two so i dove further in by finding a sample audio clip of a (very soprano) operatic singer and viewed her spectrogram (not innuendo.) to me it really just sounds like the sound is getting louder and softer, but what i see is clearly vibrato:

new blog!

2009-08-06T22:10:00.002-05:00

my primary passion is electroacoustics, but i realize i frequently post about language oddities, and this is something i have alot of interest in. to accommodate this i created a new blog dedicate to just my random thoughts and observations about language. hopefully others find it interesting also!

http://linguisteresis.blogspot.com/

microsoft's lorem() function

2009-04-09T10:15:00.004-05:00

lorem ipsum, a set of nonsensical latin phrases used as a placeholder for text in a template, continues to show up in random places for me. recently i found out something interesting having to do with microsoft word 2007. there is a function, lorem(a,b), which will produce some lorem text placeholders. parameter 'a' is the number of paragraphs and 'b' is the number of sentences. to get this to work, type

=lorem(1,1)

anywhere in a word document and it automatically turns into this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.

it appears the second parameter defaults to 3 if left blank, but the first parameter cannot be left blank.

RSTLN E not the best letter frequency mnemonic

2009-03-20T14:15:00.003-05:00

ok so i know its not a mnemonic device at all, but i have always used RSTLNE as the general guideline for which letters were most common in english, because thats what wheel of fortune suggested. turns out its misleading, and there is a better one.

I happened upon the wikipedia page for the ampersand where i learned that it got its name from the way english schools used to recite the english alphabet, seen below:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ&

the ampersand on the end looks out of place, but its there because they would include that character as a letter. they also used to use the latin phrase 'per se' (meaning 'by itself') in front of the letters that could be words. so they recited the alphabet as "per se 'A'BCDEFGH per se 'I'JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ and per se 'and'" and the last part very easily slurs to 'ampersand'. thats great. interesting story.

but the true purpose of this post is to make people aware of etaoin shrdlu. this ampersand business led me to the page of letter frequency in the english language, and i noticed it spelled an interesting name (ETAOIN) and when i did a search of this combination of letters the page for ETAOIN SHRDLU came up. this is about the order of the most frequent letters in the english language. this is great knowledge to have for word games, and apparently it is used as a character name in many literary works

cutaneous rabbit illusion

2009-03-19T09:47:00.002-05:00

IEEE did an article on a new technology from phillips: a jacket with 64 little actuators in it that let you feel a movie or tv show. for instance, in a frightening scene it can make you feel like a shiver is running up your spine. the question came up about how only having 4 actuators for the entire length of your arm is enough, and the article references the 'cutaneous rabbit illusion' as the answer. my interest was piqued so i went to good ole wikipedia. it turns out that if your wrist is tapped several times rapidly and then your inner elbow is tapped several times, your brain tricks you into thinking you are being tapped at every point along your forearm - like a rabbit running up your arm. using this, four actuators can create the illsuion of being touched along the entire arm. neat.

'life is beautiful' always reminds me of 'come undone'

2009-03-19T09:46:00.003-05:00

no, not the weezer song... but everytime i hear 'life is beautiful' by sixx:am (the new band for nikki sixx, the lead singer of motley crue) i am reminded of 'come undone' by duran duran.

here is a clip of the chorus of each. they are in different keys, but they are about the same speed.

evanescent vs effervescent

2009-03-13T13:23:00.002-05:00

today's adjective lesson:

evanescent - tending to vanish like vapor
effervescent - bubbly (like a beverage, not a blonde)

with regards to soda, time causes the evanescence of effervescence :-D

house questioning God's existence

2009-03-08T12:24:00.004-05:00

a recent episode of house on fox featured a priest who has lost his faith in God after he is wrongfully accused of molesting a young boy and is kicked from church to church, continually fired after they find out about his past. he has a vision of jesus after a night of drinking and so he checks himself into the hospital thinking there is something wrong with his brain.

house pulls his file from the clinic simply because he wants to mess with another doctors head for her religious hypocrisy. things start to happen to this priest (e.g. his toe falls off) and it becomes a legitimate case for house. the symptoms lead his team to believe he has AIDS and therefore assume the allegations against him must be true.
house eventually figures out that if he eliminates hallucinations from this list, then it fits that the priest has a genetic disease that can look just like AIDS, but is much less serious. when he tells the patient, (sarcastically deeming this genetic disorder another "gift from God") they have a very thought provoking conversation. house had become especially interested in this priest because the priest had become an atheist.

House: it explains all your symptoms- toe, chest, eyes, skin
priest: what about my hallucination?
House: scotch explains that...
priest: that was just a coincidence?
House: coincidences do happen...
priest: but that coincidence is what brought me to you in the first place
House: you promised you wouldn't go there
preist: einstein said that coincidences are God's way of remaining anonymous
house: a woman in florida said "look, jesus is on my cheese sandwich"
priest: you didn't even want to take my case, you didnt even think i was sick
house: the fact that i was wrong is not a proof of God... everything that happened to you can be rationally explained
priest: i know, its just... thats an awful lot of coincidences

it can be difficult for people who want to think logically and rationally about everything to deal with the issue of faith. the concept of God, who has always been around, without regard of time, spcae, or the confines of any facet of the reality we live in, can seem unfathomable. yet at the same time, ockham's razor can lead the same person to accept the existence of God as the most likely reality. I have so much to be thankful for, things just seem to work out for me. i cannot see all these coincidences happening around me and accept them as simply coincidence. the only rational explanation is that God has a plan for me and whatever happens is a contribution of what He wants me to be. i could see the universe, life, and the experiences i have had are pure chance, as many naysayer's would. but... that is an awful lot of coincidences.

was blind, but now i see (<-- a pun)

2009-02-18T13:18:00.008-06:00

what we see:

what we learn we see:

i am flabbergasted at how mislead i was in elementary school. intrigued by ars technica's article on the recent question into whether magenta is a real color, i began to investigate this chromaticity diagram further (oddly enough aspell doesn't even know that chromaticity is a real word)

when we were young we were told that the three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue, and that with these three powerful colors we can make any color in the world! this was enough for a young person. when i was a little older (5th or 6th grade?) i was let in on the secret of additive vs. subtractive colors, and that additive colors (red/green/blue) applied to light, and subtractive colors (good ol' red/yellow/blue) applied to things like paint and crayons. i didnt care about the physics or where these came from. apparently these are more psychological primary colors (read: we dont care about how this works). arent sensation and perception amazing?

in later years i would go on to learn about rods and cones in the eyes and how they pick up wavelengths of the elctromagnetic spectrum that we perceive as colors. i know about what wavelength applies to which color and what comes before and after on the EM spectrum. but i still assumed that every color of light could be made with RGB and every color of reflective objects could be made with RYB.

this graph above got me very interested in this shroud that seemed to be over our eyes. it is a plot of all the colors the average person can see. the triangle chunk taken out of it is the subset of visible colors that can be represented using the RGB model. maybe we dont care. apparently the colors outside the triangle are inefficient to reproduce electrically, and they are very similar to colors that are inside the triangle, but still. we dont see a triangle of colors, we see a tongue! i couldnt believe that humans simplify visible colors into linear combinations of these three without there being an awareness that other visible colors exist outside this subset. our tvs and computer screens cannot reproduce these ignored colors. also worth noting is that the red-yellow-blue model is old and deprecated, and now we "know better" that the best choices as the three primary subtractive colors are yellow, cyan, and magenta (all this time i have been confused into thinking that cyan and magenta were primary additive colors, not subtractive...)

the answer to ars's article is that magenta is a combination of other colors, and not a true monochromatic color. but most of what we see in the real world is not a perfect monochromatic color either, and our accepted scheme for representing color cannot realize any monochromatic colors anyway.

shutoff begins tonight

2009-02-17T12:59:00.003-06:00

television stations can now begin shutting off their analog broadcasts today. in the twin cities, only one plans to do this: channel 23 (the CW) will end analog at 11:59pm, with other stations to follow later this week

DTV transition update

2009-02-15T13:36:00.003-06:00

as mentioned before, no television station would like to continue broadcasting longer than they have to, but of the 491 full power stations that have expressed wishes to shut down analog broadcasting on feb 17th (instead of waiting til june 12th), the FCC has only okayed 368. for the other 123 stations, the FCC wants them to jump through several hoops if they want to turn off early, stating that it is the best interest of public safety. [via]

jimmy john's, erbert's & gerbert's, and milio's founders are all cousins!

2009-02-11T14:33:00.005-06:00

i had heard stories - urban legends, almost - about the founders of erbert's and gerbert's being brothers (named erbert and gerbert, coincidentally) that eventually had disagreements about how sandwiches should be made so gerbert branched off, changed his name to jimmy john, and made his own sandwich franchise.

seems there is a hint of truth in this: jimmy john's came first, in 1983, founded in a garage by jimmy john liautaud. he helped his cousin, kevin schippers, set up erbert's & gerbert's in 1988 (jim was in illinois and kevin in wisconsin, so they were competing yet). little did i know, milio's founder was another cousin, mike liautaud, who also got help from jimmy john setting up a sandwich shop in 1989!

excerpt of an interview with the milio's guy:

"We all get along. We’re not going out to eat every Friday, but we’re fine... I try to keep that competition out of the family, and at family events." [franchisetimes]

all three are sandwich options on the university of minnesota campus! [mndaily]

in my opinion, jimmy john's is by far the best. now i just wish i could recreate his #5 at home...

autohotkey script for MappedUp behind a proxy

2009-02-09T13:54:00.004-06:00

very cool new screensaver/active desktop/rss reader MappedUp is definately my new screensaver. you choose your rss feeds and it sticks them on a world map. a sample is seen below:

however, if you are behind a proxy server that requires a username and password, the feeds do not work until you enter your credentials (it uses the same interface as IE). to solve this problem, i wrote a simple autohotkey script that will simple click "okay" when the screensaver comes on:

#Persistent
settimer,check,5000 ;checks every 5 seconds to see if screensaver is active

check:
result:=DllCall("user32.dll\SystemParametersInfo","uint",0x0072, "uint", 0, "uint*",screen_saver_active, "uint", 0 )
if(screen_saver_active) ;if screensaver is active...
{
SetTitleMatchMode, 2
ifwinexist, Connect to ;and proxy window is active
MouseClick, left, 184, 320 ;click the okay button (enter does not work)
}
return

feel free to use/modify this however you want :)

i always wonder the same thing!

2009-02-09T09:04:00.004-06:00

this is usually only a problem when the smileys are not converted

review: prince caspian

2009-02-06T12:25:00.003-06:00

imdb rating 7.1/10
release date: 16 May 2008 (USA)
plot: he Pevensie siblings return to Narnia, where they are enlisted to once again help ward off an evil king and restore the rightful heir to the land's throne, Prince Caspian.

supposedly this strays from the source material quite a bit (i am ashame to say i have never read the book) but i found this movie to be less cutesy than the first (surprisingly frightening for a PG) but more enjoyable. plus peter dinklage was great

review: campbell's tomato soup offerings

2009-02-06T12:15:00.006-06:00

now that i have tried all three of these, i have to warn against the first and sing praises for the last. the classic tomato is just alright when its hot. its a little thin, maybe a little too plain and tomato-y, and there are definately better soups out there. the creamy tomato solves the thinness issue, but it is still just plain tomato and so it still tastes more healthy than delicious. enter the creamy tomato parmesan bisque. i believe this to be the best soup i have ever had. it doesnt come in can form, or in the bigger microwaveable bowls, just the small soup at hand, but it is so worth it. if you get a chance, try this soup

google deleting streetview incidents

2009-02-05T18:16:00.004-06:00

newsblog valleywag posted a story about a girl flashing the a google streetview camera. now this particular point of the street is listed as "under high demand"/'unavailable", showing instead a black screen.

this same thing has happened with other incidents caught on film, with highlights posted here