26 avril, 2009

Miracles are nothing special says E. J. Littlewood

If you have never experienced a miracle yet that simply means that you're not normal and you should probably see a doctor. The famous British mathematician E.J. Littlewood has proven mathematically that miracles are to be expected at a rate of about one in every 35 days. If you don't believe this check the details over here and do the math yourself. Littlewood's Law is a jewel of clear and rigorous scientific thought. It's God's gift to atheists. No need to come up with cramped explanations of funny phenomena. It's all perfectly normal.

25 avril, 2009

Schoenmaekers and Mondriaan - positively mystifying

Mathieu Schoenmaekers (1875–1944) is remembered as the philosopher behind the Dutch art movement De Stijl, made world famous by Piet Mondriaan. Here's a short account of how this happened: in 1910 the philosophically inclined Schoenmaekers (a former Catholic priest) came up with a new religious view. He called it Plastic mathematics or Positive mysticism, the word ‘positive’ meaning scientific.

01 avril, 2009

RE-201 Roland Space Echo impulse responses 25-200 BPM

A hardware secondhand Roland RE-201 Space Echo is very expensive nowadays. These IRs don't offer the same flexibility as a real Space Echo but the sound is as warm and as analog as it gets. Please note that the noise was removed so if you need more realism you have to add a bit of noise. You can even try using only the left or right part of these stereo IRs, or set the wet signal to mono.

Visual dubbs

Mr. Wassily Kandinsky from Moscow was one of the greatest abstract painters of the 20th century. Or maybe i should say THE greatest. When he painted he heard sounds at the same time (synesthesia). That's why i think it's fair to say he was not only a painter but also a dub scientist. This year there's a really big Kandinsky exposition in Centre Pompidou until the 10th of august.