Cory Doctorow:Avant-garde jazz saxaphonist Rudresh Mahanthappa's latest CD, Codebook, blends improvisational jazz with rhythms and melodies derived from beautiful mathematical concepts and equations -- while the drummer beats out hidden Morse Code messages. The Wired News review has links to sample MP3s and lots of crunchy details on what sounds like a fantastic CD. My dad -- jazz aficionado, PhD in math education -- will go bonkers for this.
Link(Photo thumbnail clipped from an image on Rudreshm.com)The very first track, "The Decider," is a groovy primer on how to turn math into music. Its bristling melody (.mp3) is derived from the Fibonacci sequence, an infinite series of integers that governs the structure of everything from pineapples to the Parthenon...
Returning to the realm of number theory, the tune "Further and In Between" is based on the cyclical number 142857. Like all cyclical numbers, this one has some very strange properties; for example, if you multiply it by 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6, you get the same digits in a different configuration (for example, 2 x 142857 = 285714).
technorati tags:jazz, math, rudresh+mahanthappa
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The 3G Stepper from 3G Bikes is a bicycle that is powered by your vertical motion. Instead of peddling with your two feet like a normal human being, you stand upright and place your feet on two decks on either side of the bicycle. Movement here is what powers the bicycle. If this catches on, I don't see why we don't return to those old timey bikes with a huge wheel in the front and a tiny one in the back since they're both as silly looking. Jump for a few more pics of this fine invention.
In Animator vs. Animation, an hilarious nightmare of a Flash animation, a stick figure drawn in the Flash interface comes to life and does battle with its unseen creator, grabbing pieces of the Flash authoring UI and improvising armaments from them. It's like an updated version of the Warner Bros toons where Daffy fights it out with the artist's paintbrush.
