Raam Dev’s Weblog

Yamaha TENORI-ON

More YouTube videos of the TENORI-ON.

A little old (in the technology world anyway), but still very cool. More YouTube videos of reactable in action.

Official site: reactable.iua.upf.edu

The sound of Hang Drums is absolutely amazing. Today was the first time I heard them and I’m already hooked. Manu Delago’s site has an audio player (top right corner of the site) and I’ve been listening to his music all day.

I recognized the way Manu’s fingers hit the Hang Drums. After reading his background I discovered he’s had experience with the Indian Tabla; a percussion instrument that I took a few classes for when I was young.

I was clicking through a bunch of flash loops on a site that I found on Raf’s tumblr blog. Some of them were pretty funny and a lot of them have really cool songs. Now I know this is really old (2006) but one in particular has been stuck in my head all day:

Apparently the music comes from the traditional Finnish folk song “Ievan Polkka” — a part of the song that has absolutely no meaning at all (yes, the part in the flash is all gibberish!). Click on the picture above to see the actual flash I’m talking about.

There are a bunch of variations of Loituma Clock, including a real clock, a longer 5 minute techno version, and even a Darth Vader version! If you’re interested in the swf file, you can find it here.

This site is the closest I can find to an “official” site for the Loituma Clock itself, while the Loituma Girl (taken from episode two of the Bleach anime series) has her own Wikipedia page. And of course this post wouldn’t be complete without a link to the video of the real authors singing the original song.

I’ve been looking for something to replace iTunes as the main library for my 20,000+ mp3s. Whatever application replaces it needs to stand up to some high expectations, including the ability to manage such a large number of mp3s without slowing down or crashing, and a rating system that allows me to rate my favorite songs (I’m always finding new songs in my huge collection, so rating them is important for when I want to come back to them). Of course, the ability to import my current iTunes library and support for my iPod would be huge pluses.

Welcome SongBird, a multi-platform media player developed by a group known as the Pioneers of the Inevitable. They’re responsible for the creation of Winamp and the Yahoo! Music Engine. The current version of SongBird is 0.2.5 and although it’s a bit rough around the edges (literally, the edges don’t look as smooth as they should) it still shows a lot of promise:

The list of features is very impressive and includes support for importing your iTunes library, interfacing with your iPod, and of course, an iTunes-like rating system. SongBird also has a built-in web browser which automatically searches the current webpage for any available music and allows you to play the music in SongBird as if it were a local file. Check out the SongBird Screencast to get a better idea of how all this stuff works.

I’ve started using SongBird on my Mac and so far I love it. A couple more skins (known stylishly as feathers in SongBird) would be nice, especially an iTunes skin. SongBird is still in the development stages and, as far as I can tell, is not an open-source project. However the website says the group does “support the Mozilla Foundation’s mission to preserve innovation and choice on the Internet”. This means that even if there is a cost associated with SongBird when it’s finally released, I’ll be happy to purchase it knowing the money will go towards a good cause.

I have gained a sudden interest in classical music! It’s strange because classical music is nothing ‘new’ to me. Growing up, I would constantly hear classical music playing in the retail stores my parents owned. My mom would often listen to it in the car during our long commutes between the different stores (sometimes the entire day would be spent delivering product to the different stores). I eventually grew a strong distaste for classical music and found it very annoying after only a few minutes. It was always very difficult to concentrate while listening to it.

Today I randomly started listening to a classical music station after becoming frustrated about not being able to decide what kind of music I wanted to listen to (Internet radio). Although I am not entirely sure where the interest is coming from, for the first time (at least as far as I can remember), I loved what I was hearing. It was music to my ears (pardon the pun)!

Now I’ve been listening to classical music for the past 9 hours and it’s simply amazing. It doesn’t randomly cause me lose my train of thought while I’m in the middle of coding and there are so many variations that becoming repetitive and boring seems impossible. I have read programmer polls where the majority of programmers stated they listened to classical music while programming, and I’ve read articles about how listening to classical music while studying can help you retain information. Until now, I’ve never been able to understand how that was. I have tried coding to classical music in the past but quickly found it distracting.

I don’t know what flipped the switch, but I think I’ve finally discovered the calming and concentration-enhancing effects of classical music!

I can’t get this song, and commercial, out of my head. I finally found the song and downloaded the album (through mininova.org). The song is Souvenirs by Architecture In Helsinki.

After listening to the whole song, I discovered the beginning is the only part I seem to really like, and as such, I’m considering cropping out the portion of the song from the commercial and creating my own mp3 to put on repeat.