My Writings. My Thoughts.
The Wonders of the MIT Media Lab
// August 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
The MIT Media Lab is like Willy Wonka’s factory for engineers. Crazy awesome stuff has been developed there, like Guitar Hero and E Ink. It’s a graduate program where people from all disciplines come and work on a more awesome future. I would LOVE to get to work there some day. Check out this link for the full article about it:
via mental_floss Blog ยป Boston Tech Party: The Wonders of the MIT Media Lab.
Hidden Music
// August 4th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized
When people think of music, they generally think of a particular genre or artist that they like. The artist, of course, is a person or group who comes up with a combination of notes that they think sounds good. They make a melody, and then come up with a harmony or countermelody to accompany it, and finally add percussion. We call this process composing. It’s purposely choosing certain sounds and notes to play together in such a way that the interactions that occur amongst notes is interesting. Over the course of human history, we have come up with a couple hundred very different styles of music and millions of songs. All of those millions of songs were written by people. They consciously thought up the melodies themselves and played around with chords and notes until they got something they liked. Now, most people can tell very easily if something they are listening to is music or not. That’s because the noises and conversations we hear don’t interact with each other in a meaningful, musical way. Or so it would seem. Some musicians are beginning to realize that nature is quite the composer herself. While it may not appear to be music on the surface, sometimes all it takes is looking in the right places. One of the most common sources of music in nature is the songbird. Listen to this while you keep reading:
Songbirds and other animals (like whales) have a particularly melodic way of communicating with one another. In fact, in Afghanistan, it is quite common for listeners to bring caged birds to a performance of a musician and listen to the performer’s music mixed with the birds’ song. The presence of music seems to stimulate the birds to sing. Sometimes the birds will even perch on the tuning pegs of the musician’s instrument and sing. It becomes a sort of musical symbiosis and the musician plays off of the bird while the bird sings off of the musician.
Some musicians take it one step further and use animals themselves to make music in something like “second order” composition. Brazillian musician Jarbas Agnelli saw a picture of some birds sitting on a power line in his newspaper. He noticed how similar it looked to notes on a staff and decided to see what it sounded like. Here’s the result:
The Thai Elephant Orchestra is another example of composing with nature. In this case though, the line is blurred between who is doing the composing: the conductor, the elephants, or the trainers. To see them perform, you’ll have to watch the video on YouTube since embedding is disabled for it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1NpvHsxjgw
Musicians are also beginning to realize that they can co-compose with nature. By using existing sounds and inspiration directly from our world, new music can be created. This is called assisted composition. Here’s an example where scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider used data from particle collisions to make music:
And these sounds were made using data from solar flares:
Now, both of these last two sounds aren’t what most people consider music. That’s because it is a literal musical interpretation of the data that was used. But musicians can use those sounds as samples and make what sounds more like music. In the case of the LHC sounds, the band Worm put on a concert where they used those particle sounds as part of their performance.
Musicians have also begun using the human voice as a source of music. One of the first people to ever do this was a man named Scott Johnson. He came out with an album called “John Somebody” whose title track used a sample of a female voice saying “who was that guy? John somebody? He was a- he was sort of a-”. I wish I could embed a sample of it here, but it’s an old album and you can really only get it on iTunes. A more recent example of this same sort of music is by a young composer called Pogo. He samples from popular movies and remixes it together to make things like this:
He has also recently started composing using samples from around the house:
We are now at the level of musical abstraction that most people are familiar with. The next step up from sampling human voice and nature is sampling other music. This is of course what techno is. There are a million different subgenres of techno, but they almost all rely on short samples strung together. These can be clips from other musicians or clips that the artist made himself using a keyboard or computer or even modified sythesizers. The next step up from techno is using machines to help make music. Computers can use algorithms to generate sounds and melodies. There are a lot of ways to do it and the idea is not a new one. People have been using computers to make music since they were invented. They usually need some sort of input, which can be data or other music, and they perform some function to the input and output something new. The composer can control what happens to the input and therefore have control over the output. But as computer science progresses, so do the limits of what computer music can be. One great example of this which I’ve briefly written about before is Emily Howell. Emily is an algorithm written by David Cope that can take in a classical piano piece and based on that, write music. It can then use it’s own output as its new input and repeat this process several hundred times until the music it has made is almost entirely original, with only a speck of the original, humanly composed input left. Here’s what it sounds like:
To someone who isn’t a musician, this probably sounds very much like Mozart. But a trained ear can tell that this isn’t very inspired music. It lacks… something. I have a hard time believing that we will ever progress to the point that machines are making music that is as beautiful as that of the famous classical composers. But we are certainly moving in that direction.
I myself have some experience with making music from nature. I did some work on translating human brainwaves into sound. Since that time, more research on my part and new technology that has been released which would allow me much more accurate readings of the brain. I hope to do some undergraduate research in this area soon. I won’t go into specifics here, but I have some interesting new ideas for that project. I’d also like to enter the Guthman New Musical Instrument Competition. The finals are held at Georgia Tech each year and I went to watch them last year. It’s basically a competition to come up with a new instrument (as the name suggests). It was really interesting to see all the things that people had come up with. Some of the entries included a wireless electric didgeridoo and a modified piano. The winner was an electric trombone-like instrument. It just goes to show that the future of music is very exciting and as technology progresses, so will our idea of music.
More info:
Nanotechnology with Stephen Fry
// August 1st, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized
Cool short documentary on the future of the small. There’s some really neat information and images from electron microscopes and scanning tunneling electron microscopes which I liked.
How sure are we that the Higgs exists?
// July 28th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
This is an excellent little article on how confident we are in the existence of the Higgs Boson particle. It’s a good read if you’re unfamiliar with basic particle physics of the Standard Model. The short version is, basically there’s some pretty strong evidence that the we will find the Higgs and that it’s in the mass range that we expect. But only time will tell.
The Noob’s Guide to Rooting your Android Phone
// July 23rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
FAQ
I recently rooted my HTC Incredible and I thought I’d compile all that I had learned in the process here. I can only guarantee that the following information applies to the HTC Incredible, the Desire, the Aria, the Hero, and the EVO. The method I will be describing uses the tool by Team Unrevoked, who did an outstanding job. First, some commonly asked questions, and questions that I had prior to rooting:
What is rooting?
In Linux, the root user is the equivalent to the administrator in Windows. Just like in Windows, you can right click things and choose “run as administrator”, in Linux you can run things as superuser. Basically it lets you run things as root even though you are logged in as a regular user. When you root your phone, you are allowing yourself to run things as superuser which means powerful applications can be run that can do things normal apps can’t.
Why should I root?
There are a couple reasons to root. First, you can run apps that require root access, like the wireless tether (turn you phone into a wireless access point using your phone’s data plan). You can also change the behavior of the lights on your phone, take screenshots, and get access to a terminal. The second main reason to root is to use custom ROMs. A ROM is basically a customized version of the Andriod OS. Developers can make tweaks and fix annoyances that are in the stock version of Android and can make their own user interface. The most popular ROM is Cyanogen. There are a bunch of ROMs out there and there’s an app that lets you manage them and boot into the one you want. The third reason to root is the Clockwork Recovery mod. Normally, if you turn your phone on while holding the volume down button, you will see a white screen with a bunch of text and options on it. This is the built in recovery and isn’t really used except for special purposes. the Clockwork Recovery mod replaces that screen with a different one that lets you upgrade your Android version and make something called a nandroid backup. It’s a complete image of your phone that you can use to revert back to a working installation in case you accidentally screw something up.
Ok, so I want to root. Is it hard? Will it take a long time? Is it possible my phone will get bricked?
Thanks to the Unrevoked Team, it’s insanely easy. Just follow the guide below and you’ll be fine. I had never rooted a phone before and it took about 4 minutes from unrooted to rooted. There is almost zero interaction on your part, so it’s highly unlikely that your phone will get bricked. However, I can only speak for the phones listed above. Also, I don’t take any responsibility if you do manage to brick your phone.
Will rooting my phone void my warrenty?
Yep, it sure will. But don’t worry, you can unroot your phone almost just as easily as rooting it. I’ll post a guide on how to unroot later. You can google for tutorials if you need to know. Once you have unrooted, there is no way that your carrier can tell that it was ever rooted.
Will I lose all of my data during the rooting process?
No! Again, thanks to the great work of Unrevoked, you will not loose your contacts or apps.
What about my user interface? I like the HTC Sense UI, will it go away? How will my phone be different after it’s rooted?
All rooting your phone does is allow you to have more permissions. Unless you specifically install another ROM, the only difference you will see on your phone is the addition of a superuser app. Other than the changes made under the hood, you will notice nothing different about how your phone behaves.
How to root
If you are running Windows
You need a driver for the process to work. If you’ve installed HTC Sync or any program from Verizon or Sprint, uninstall it and any drivers they came with. Turn off your phone. Go to unrevoked.com and pick your phone. Download the file for your OS. Run it and extract the contents to somewhere you’ll remember (I used my Desktop). Open the HBOOT.html file that it unzipped and follow the instructions to install the driver for your phone. If you have and Android SDK installed, you may see the phone appear as Android ABD instead of Android Bootloader. To fix that, just right click on it and choose update driver. It’ll ask if you want to search for drivers online or in a specific location. Choose specific location and point it to the Android USB Driver folder. It should reappear as Android Bootloader.
If you’re running Linux or Mac
You’re good. Don’t worry about the driver thing.
Rooting
Ok, so now comes the easy part: rooting your phone. Turn on your phone like you normally would and let it boot up. Unplug it from your computer. Start the EVO3 application on your computer and it should say that it is waiting for USB connection. Once your phone is done booting, plug it in and don’t touch it anymore. The phone will reboot a couple times. Watch the text on the EVO3 program, as it’ll tell you what’s going on and what it’s doing. After a while, if everything went well, the EVO3 program will say “Done”. You can unplug your phone from USB. Your phone will be in the Clockwork Recovery screen. To boot back into your phone, just choose the top option by pressing the optical sensor button (if you have an Incredible) or by pressing the power button. It’ll reboot into Android and you’re done! You can go to the Market and download root only apps. If something doesn’t work, google the message that EVO3 give you and there is a big community that will be able to help you better than I can.
Wireless Tether
I found out the long way that on an Incredible, the Wireless Tether app doesn’t work out of the box. First, make sure that you have the latest drivers for you wireless card on your computer. Next, download this file: http://www.mediafire.com/?undhjydn0oy
Make a directory on your SD card called android.tether (just in the root directory, ie F:/android.tether) and paste the file you downloaded in there. Reboot your phone for good measure and you should be good to go.
So that’s how to root your phone. If you’ve got any questions, comment and I’ll try to answer. You can also try googling for errors and stuff because a lot of people have done this and there’s a large support community. All in all, the Unrevoked method of rooting is pretty foolproof and unlocks the full potential of your phone.
Epic new physics engine does really well with squishy stuff and dirt
// July 20th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized
I’ve never seen physics engines that can do the kind of stuff this can. It seems particularly good at squishy stuff, sticky stuff, and granular stuff. The dirt demonstration I think is the most realistic (and not because it’s the only full render). The engine is called the Lagoa Multiphysics engine. The technical name for squishy, sticky, and granular stuff is “deformations”, “elastic structures and incompressible fluids” and “high friction granular media”. Still, it’s pretty impressive.
David Merrill demos Siftables
// July 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
Had to post this. I’m really interested in new human computer interaction, and this is another great example of the kinds of things we’ll see.
How to mount shared folder in virtualbox
// July 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
This is a quick little post that shows how to mount a shared folder in a linux guest from a windows host in virtualbox. Here’s the two commands to run:
$ mkdir /home/username/share
$ sudo mount -t vboxsf share /home/username/share
where share is the name of the shared folder (click the folder icon in the virtualbox window and it’ll tell you the share name and the path.
My RSS Feeds
// July 19th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized
It’s been a while since I shared my RSS feeds. I am subscribed to about 100 feeds. I have dropped some and added some since last time and I think it’s a pretty good representation of my interests. If you’d like to import them to Google Reader, just download this xml file and import it under Google Reader settings. It’s an OPML export, so any RSS reader that is compatible with that scheme will work.
My RSS FeedsReal life Iron Man holographic prototyping
// July 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
One of my favorite pieces of technology in the movie Iron Man was his holographic prototyping device. He could sketch something out in CAD (in the air) and then manipulate it and test it right then with a hologram. With some new technology (which really isn’t a new technology, just a new idea with old technology), that kind of thing is actually possible.
So here’s how I figure it could be done: constructing things in 3D space could be done with IR LEDs and IR cameras (like the Wii does it). In fact, there are already projects like those by Johnny Lee and lots of others that allow for finger tracking and interactive whiteboards using a Wii remote. It would just be a matter of cleverly placing the IR cameras. The hologram technology already exists to make holograms fairly similar to the ones in the movie. To physically interact with the models, this research would work:
Basically, they use ultrasonic sensors to track motion (which could be improved using the IR tracking mentioned above). Once they know where the virtual object is, they can shoot small, direct streams of air to let you feel the object. Now, this would be weird since it wouldn’t feel very solid, but I think it would help. If your object tracking was good enough, the model would basically snap on your arm (in the case of Tony Stark) once it entered the interactive area. Imagine having a whole photoshop-like program running as a hologram. You could grab and drag parts, extrude, color, render, animate. And it would be the most natural thing. I feel inclined at this point to mention the Sixth Sense project at MIT.
(Here’s the full TED talk about SixthSense)
Imagine walking into a design meeting and everyone puts one of these on. Each team in charge of each part of the project could show off their models and then combine it with other peoples’. The guy who CADed a pair of legs can attach them to the torso designed by another person on another computer. You could then see how the parts would interact without fabricating a single thing. And if something didn’t work, just open up your holographic CAD program right there, make some changes (which I suspect would take much less time than a conventional CAD program because of how natural it would be to interact with) and then try again. You wouldn’t even need powerful computers on your hip, because you could have all of the animation and rendering and stuff being done remotely on a beefy cluster hundreds of miles away. The only technology that doesn’t exist yet in that scenario is a portable holographic projector. But pico projectors like those being used in the Sixth Sense project exist readily and could be used in a similar way. In fact, you could fake a hologram by using existing polarized 3D technology (just have a silvered surface to project on to preserve the polarization and wear polarized glasses). It seems to me that as computer-human interaction develops, we will move away from the traditional square screen with square windows to a method that lets us be more mobile and interact more naturally. I cannot wait for the future, and as an engineer, I get to make the future. I get to develop and test these new systems and explore things and ideas that no one has explored before. It’s going to be so much fun.
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