Warping it up! » Art

String-Theory applied to Music

Fini Alring — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:03:18 +0000

I have always found the nature of musical tones interesting; this interest just increased! – We have a lot to learn from studying the maths and nature of waves in general, and applying the science to music might just be one of the greatest ways to do this. Go go string-theory!!

An anonymous slashdot reader notes a Time.com profile of Princeton University music theorist Dmitri Tymoczko, who has applied some string-theory math to the study of music and found that all possible chordal music can be represented in a higher-dimensional space. His research was published last year in Science — it was the first paper on music theory they ever ran. The paper and background material, including movies, can be viewed at Tymoczko’s site.

The Demo Scene – An introduction

Fini Alring — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 12:29:58 +0000

As an old demo group (GiGA Prod.) founder, organizer, main coder and 3D animator, I wouldn’t miss this opportunity to introduce ya’ll to the wonderful Demo Scene, a sub-culture of the Warez Scene, where people strived to outperform each other in the fields of programming (coding), graphics (2D+3D) and music (sounds and tunes).

Scene Rep – About The Demo Scene

Scene Zine Monthly

Mammatus Clouds Rule!!

Fini Alring — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 07:54:47 +0000

Looming presence

As most of you don’t know, I am a big cloud fan and it never siezes to amaze how infinite chaos can reveal such beauty. I have never seen this type of clouds before – the Mammatus clouds, remind me of melting snow, and have a remarkable dense substance that makes them very special to look at. I will definitely be looking forward to experiencing these wonders in person.

Photos of the Mammatus clouds are (c) copyrighted by Jorn C. Olsen.

See more Spectacular Mammatus Clouds over Hastings, Nebraska.

Be sure to visit Jorn C. Olsen’s Gallery.

Inkscape 0.42: Scalable Vector Graphics Editor

Fini Alring — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 21:36:18 +0000

Ok! Why did I not know about Inkscape before today??! It looks amazing and it’s said that the new version is a major feature update, and although I haven’t tried it out yet, from the screenshots it’s pretty easy to see that this tool is also for the big boys, it works with SVG which makes even more happy, since I was about to begin some SVG experimenting anyways soon, and it’s soo boring to draw complex vector drawings by handcoding, believe you me!!

Here’s the intro text from the Inkscape Website:

Inkscape is an open source drawing tool with capabilities similar to
Illustrator, Freehand, and CorelDraw that uses the W3C standard scalable vector graphics format (SVG). Some supported SVG features include basic shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, and grouping. In addition, Inkscape supports Creative Commons meta-data, node-editing, layers, complex path operations, text-on-path, and SVG XML editing. It also imports several formats like EPS, Postscript, JPEG, PNG, BMP, and TIFF and exports PNG as well as multiple vector-based formats.

Inkscape’s main motivation is to provide the Open Source community with a fully W3C compliant XML, SVG, and CSS2 drawing tool. Additional planned work includes conversion of the codebase from C/Gtk to C++/Gtkmm, emphasizing a lightweight core with powerful features added through an extension mechanism, and the establishment of a friendly, open, community-oriented development process.

* Inkscape.org – Draw Freely

* Slashdot | Inkscape 0.42: The Ultimate Answer

Is Programming Art?

Fini Alring — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 15:28:23 +0000

chromatic writes “A constant question for software developers is ‘What is the nature of programming?’ Is it art or science? Does creativity or engineering lead the design and implementation of a program? John Littler talked to several well-known and well-respected programmers (including Guido van Rossum, Andy Hunt, Bjarne Stroustrup, Paul Graham, and Richard Stallman) to find their answers; he shares their thoughts and his own in Art and Computer Programming.” From the article: “What the heck is art anyway, at least as most people understand it? What do people mean when they say ‘art’? A straw poll showed a fair degree of consensus–art is craft plus a special degree of inspiration. This pretty much explains immediately why only art students and art critics at a certain sort of paper favor conceptual art. Conceptual art, of course, often lacks a craft component as people usually understand the term.”

* Slashdot | Is Programming Art?

Star Wars III – My Review

Fini Alring — Thu, 19 May 2005 03:47:10 +0000

I have been a major Star Wars fan since I was about six years old, and I can tell you quite simply: It was worth the wait!
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a magnificent ending on one of the greatest sagas of all time (including future). First I must emphasize the visuals in this movie WILL blow you away, it’s just ludicrous cool quality constantly and it is very hard to point a finger at just about any of the visuals. The sound is just as good as the first trilogy, although I must admit listening to the sweet music was not the top priority when seeing it the first time. Hayden (Anakin) does a really good job of turning evil, compared to his pretty vague performance in Episode II, you can easily tell that his skills have improved, but I’m sure his script has too!
Personally I think the ‘turning evil’ part happens a little to quick, but I guess the show must go on, this movie is just like going nuts in a candy store, sweet treats everywhere. Even though this is by far the most dark of the films, it’s quite possibly also the most laugh-inducing, being filled with small jokes and silly comments especially from our droid friends. The movie puts many things in perspective and you will be given a great deal of information that will combine the whole saga in to one mother of a force-tale…
I rate it at 9.8 out of 10, were it not for a few worrying details it would be perfect, but again nothing can be that perfect..? – Thanks Lucas, I owe you one!

A Question of Scale

Fini Alring — Mon, 16 May 2005 00:36:50 +0000

I found a great gallery of images showing stuff at all scales, from “Quarks to Quasars”.

Excerpt from 10²¹: Given an estimated age for our solar system of 4.5 thousand million years, the Sun has made about 15 to 18 orbits around the galactic core.

Bruce Bryson writes: “This is a visual journey consisting of 42 images — 42 powers of ten. At one end of the journey is the immensity of the known universe, 13.7 billion years old with a radius of at least 12 billion light years (and probably much larger). At the other end of the journey is a depiction of the three quarks within a proton.”

* Quarks to Quasars, Powers of Ten

Tetris Shelving

Fini Alring — Sun, 15 May 2005 16:26:18 +0000

I came across these fantastic Tetris Shevles, amazing furniture, that comes with quite a pricetag, but I’m sure it’s very high quality.

* Brave Space
* Tetris Shelving | www.inhabitat.com