atomack

7 ms·

1.
by atomack 4y ago
Here's an article citing research published this year that disputes the idea that our large brain was directly a result of access to extra protein from hunting meat: "They concluded that the evidence for increased carnivory in our
2.
by atomack 4y ago
David Cope's been making algorithmic music for a while - not current but worth knowing about: http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/ edit: There's also this on ambient endless generative music that I thi
3.
by atomack 5y ago
The way we used arxiv worked well in physics, though this is 15 years ago now so might have changed since. arxiv was about distribution. It didn't replace peer review - articles were still submitted to journals and published there too.
4.
by atomack 6y ago
In quantum mechanics, it's a wave function. Wavelike, but not a wave; particle-like, but not a particle.
5.
by atomack 6y ago
One solution is make sure more women can compose music for piano
6.
by atomack 6y ago
Good points. I'd add to this that small hands are actively advantageous for a lot of repertoire. Bach fugues, say, or fast intricate passages can be a nightmare for long-fingered pianists to get their hands around. The OPs focus on big
7.
by atomack 6y ago
Interesting to put this view of the anthropocene next to David Graeber's and how he thinks it shaped the evolution of human society https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/ He and David Wengrow ask wh
8.
by atomack 6y ago
I think to some extent they're forced to peak young. I don't believe musicians are actually at their best when they are young and I'd claim recordings of classical artists through their lives supports this. For classical musi
9.
by atomack 6y ago
According to this guys reading of the burrow: https://newcriterion.com/issues/2018/10/how-to-read-kafka-pa... my efforts at factorio are very kafkaesque
10.
by atomack 6y ago
One point regarding whether or not this is unphysical is that in physical systems, conceptually we work in finite systems and at the only very end of our calculations we take the infinite limit while holding physically observable quantities
11.
by atomack 6y ago
+1 for Paul Sellers. He's a bunch of content on finishing too and I've just tried his combo of shellac + beeswax to finish pine and it works fantastically and is cheap. Also, not youtube, but https://www.ukworkshop.co.u
12.
by atomack 6y ago
Yes, something like that. As I mentioned elsewhere, I wonder if the result might be affected by the acoustics of the room as well as the physical proximity of the sound sources
13.
by atomack 6y ago
Somehow the audience also manages to adjust too, trained or not. The violins and cellos are several metres apart yet I think the audience would agree whether they come off together or not, regardless of where they're sitting in the aud
14.
by atomack 6y ago
But I could play either Jerry Lee Lewis style, arms length from the keyboard with my head back, or Glenn Gould style, hunched over the keyboard and my head moves a metre between the two. So that's around the 3ms threshold where I (and
15.
by atomack 6y ago
There's something weird here though. I reckon more 4 or 5 ms of latenecy is enough to put me off playing something in time (this is about what you aim for using DAWs to record music) and yet if you just think about playing a piano, the
16.
by atomack 7y ago
I'm not sure (1) is 'obviously possible'. Supposing there's a finite number of atomic configurations that produce Abraham Lincoln, there's still an infinite number of atomic configurations so you're probability
17.
by atomack 7y ago
Reminds me of this, https://www.businessinsider.com/steven-strogatz-interview-on... , interview with Steven Strogatz, when he gets onto the idea (and dangers) of what beauty means in maths. Also, this https://plus
18.
by atomack 7y ago
I'm not sure I quite share your view of what art aims to do. Iris Murdoch had a line that tyrants fear art because art forces them to confront the truth. If one believes, as Murdoch suggests, that art aims to express a truth as clearly
19.
by atomack 7y ago
Maybe I'm a luddite but I used books. Any book on common practice harmony will help with most pop/rock and classical up to 20th century. I used Harmony by Piston and happily recommend it. For some jazz theory The Jazz Piano Book b
20.
by atomack 7y ago
I agree with GTP, the author's definition is vague. As GTP alludes to, temperature is defined perfectly clearly in statistical mechanics, through the sensitivity of the entropy to changes in the internal energy of a system (though ther
21.
by atomack 7y ago
I agree with you completely. I agree with the conclusion, but the way the author gets there just looks wrong to me. I feel the scientific method is mischaracterised throughout, for example when the author says it's one of "intenti
22.
by atomack 7y ago
I think it means order in a way that's quite specific to the study of phase transitions. In a phase transition a system switches between a disordered phase (eg a gas) and an ordered phase (eg a solid) as measured by a so-called 'o
23.
by atomack 7y ago
It's a good point that uncertainty relations exist for all kinds of physical observables. But whether they're expressed as commutation relations or as in Heisenberg's original formulation, or whatever formulation you choose (
24.
by atomack 7y ago
I'd say that's more a mathematical statement than physical derivation. The effort of subjects like string theory is to lay down fundamental objects and interactions from which other theories (quantum mechanics, gravity) emerge. Bu
25.
by atomack 7y ago
Yes, I like these sources too. Good for building intuition. I would just add that Heisenberg-like here means that both systems share features of wave mechanics. Doppler type effects aren't quantum mechanical though. When I suggest the
26.
by atomack 7y ago
I feel this -- phd in physics
27.
by atomack 7y ago
It's a bit ungenerous to physicists to suggest they've simply shrugged off the paradoxes of quantum mechanics. The first couple of paragraphs outline reasons why quantum mechanics has gained so much traction. The various attempts
28.
by atomack 7y ago
I think david927's intuition is more correct here. The uncertainty in the position and momentum is intrinsic to quantum mechanics - it's built into the 'wave function'. The suggestion that if one pushes away something by
29.
by atomack 7y ago
In this context, closed system is term used in statistical mechanics that says that there are quantities (energy and particles) that may not enter or leave the system. So I would read this is 'if we assume that money plays the role of