any sufficiently advanced blogging is indistinguishable from blather

Melody project: the great reprogramming – update 2

Yesterday I successfully designed, programmed, and tested a melodic information symbology, making melodic information easier to input. This should also save the program time and memory, as it will only have to decode the string of symbols if and when it needs them, and when it no longer needs them it can delete them again. The only caveat is that the symbol strings themselves are always held in memory. I’ll leave it like that for now; if I have memory problems in the future, this issue may need more attention.

My goals now are to use this symbology to create a set of knowledge for the program’s knowledge base for further algorithmic reprogramming, restructuring, and testing. An in-depth look at my meaning of this is strictly confidential.

Thank you for reading update #2. I will keep the blog informed of any and all progress made on this revolutionary product.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Melody project: the great reprogramming – update 1

I’m working on reprogramming my melody generator from scratch in an attempt to make it more organized and more efficient. A higher degree of modulation should also make the programming of future feature additions easier. My overall goals are as follows:

1 – Reprogram the algorithm and get it output easier-to-interpret text
2 – Get the program to output MIDI files
3 – Begin adding other features

For now, work continues on goal #1. I’m trying to program a symbology, so that the program can store a bunch of melodic information in the form of encoded strings. It can then decode these strings when and if it needs to. This is in an attempt to save both time and memory, and to make adding future features much easier for the programmer. An in-depth look at my meaning of this is strictly confidential.

Thank you for reading update #1. I will keep the blog informed of any and all progress made on this revolutionary product.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Animation Mentor class 3 almost over… what next?

My final week of Animation Mentor Semester 3 is wrapping up! I turned in my last assignment on Sunday; here’s what it looked like through the four weeks I worked on it:

There are still some problems with it, but I think I’m getting better. That’s 3 semesters down and 3 to go! I’m halfway done!

As I’ve stated before, I’m taking a leave of absence for 12 weeks instead of jumping right into semester 4. I’m going to be working as hard as I can on my automatic melody generator, so I’ll keep this blog updated with my progress on that. My current goal is to create it as an Android app. Other platforms may follow, depending on its success or lack thereof.

I also started a new project: I’m creating a Grand Theory of Human Intelligence (or GTOHI), not only detailing the basic principles of what intelligence is and how it works, but trying to simulate the results of human intelligence with basic artificiall intelligence programs. This project might fall flat on its face, but I have some ideas that I think are definitely worth exploring. There’s a lot of research to do, so I probably won’t have a product based on my findings until I’m 70 or 80 years old… or dead.

By S P Hannifin, ago

A poem! Woohoo!

Here’s a poem I wrote a few days ago as I thought about the coming Singularity… I call it:

Post-Singularity

Remember us, the nameless ones,
Who used to have a face.
Who built and worked and wondered
And then left without a trace.

Remember us, the troddened ones,
Who suffered pain and fear,
And questioned all existence
For the sake of one child’s tear.

Remember us, the stupid ones,
Who thought of nothing new
Because just living was a chore
That took all day to do.

Remember us, the ugly ones,
Who were not bred the gene.
Who dreamt the feel of symmetry
And dreamt of being seen.

Remember us, the wrinkled ones,
Who so young met death.
Whose love and faith could never fade
As could our needed breath.

Remember us in sun and moon,
And see us in the stars.
We never thought the world was yours,
We thought that it was ours.

——————–

Oh, and here’s another short one from a couple years ago… still a few words I’m not sure about, but whatever… ’twas written for a fantasy story I’ll never write…

Wake

You can’t imagine what they imagine,
Can’t see the things they see.
Your worlds are both too far apart,
There’s too much in between.

But someday you will know, my son,
You’ll learn to tread the wall.
There are things you cannot dream
And you will see them all.

By S P Hannifin, ago

The Singularity is near… ?

Jürgen Schmidhuber at Singularity Summit 2009 – Compression Progress: The Algorithmic Principle Behind Curiosity and Creativity from Singularity Institute on Vimeo.

Also check out: Formal Theory of Creativity & Fun & Intrinsic Motivation

“Someday computers will be artists. They’ll be able to write amusing and original stories, invent and play games of unsurpassed complexity and inventiveness, tell jokes, and suffer writer’s block.” ~Scott R. Turner

P.S. Notice this is exactly the same kinda thing Feynman was saying in that video I posted last week.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Describe my unwritten symphony, please?

I haven’t composed in months, and the composing part of my brain is getting really itchy and will need to be scratched soon. Animation Mentor and work are keeping me too busy for such self-indulgence, so before I just jump right into composing a new piece, I’d like to try something new. I’ve been thinking about trying to do this for while, but I guess I was afraid I wouldn’t have the skill. I still probably don’t have the skill, but I’m not afraid anymore!

So… I’ve never written a fully-fledged multi-movement symphony before, and I hope to tackle that. But before I do, I thought it would be tremendous fun to have you, yes you, dear reader, whoever you are, write a brief description of the first movement of the symphony as if it already existed and you were writing a Wikipedia entry on it.

For example, you might say:

Hannifin’s Symphony No 1 begins with a cheery tune on the oboe, reminiscent of a Sherman brothers song. But then thunderous brass enters, the tempo quickens, cymbals clash on every measure, and the orchestra descends into a dark waltz in C minor. The snare drum emerges with strange rhythms, and a dark melody, introduced on the violins, quickly spreads through the orchestra like a dark disease. After 10 minutes of dizzying arpeggios, the movement ends quietly, with the oboe playing its opening theme, but shifted into a minor key, as if whatever joy it had at the beginning has been driven out by darkness.

Or something more or less descriptive. Whatever your imagination can conjure.

The description can be as traditional or as outlandish as you want; anything goes. That’s part of the fun of the challenge! However, I won’t be able to use every piece of every description (if I get more than one). I will create a final description by randomly choosing pieces from each description I can obtain, so the final description is sure to be wild fun. Then I will take on the description as a serious composition assignment, and try to compose to it as strictly as I can. I’m sure I’ll fail some parts (like if you write “the orchestra then descends into an 8-part fugue”), but it will be fun (and perhaps educational) to try!

So, if you have a few moments of spare time, please comment on this post with a description of the first movement of Hannifin’s Symphony No 1 as if it’s already been written. Thank you!

(I’ll end my search for descriptions on March 25, 2011, in about two weeks. I’ll try to do the same thing for a second movement with new descriptions, after uploading the first movement to YouTube.)

By S P Hannifin, ago