A to Z Challenge 2016

P is for Pruning

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Who does not love hacking away at some old trees? I know I do and my trusty pruning saw has been well used lately.

When we moved we inherited some gnarled aged fruit trees which we have gradually been cutting back into something, hopefully, resembling a healthier state. Tree 1

The general rule is that one should be able to throw one’s hat through the middle of the tree – the idea being that it is open to let light in and air circulate to enhance the fruit’s growth. We are getting there with some trees..Tree 2

But the large Bramley at the bottom of the garden is going to need a little more effort and/or a crane 🙁

Tree 3

O is for Oscillators

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Who does not love messing about building software synthesisers? I know I do and a basic component for these are oscillators.

Oscillators are used in all manner of things but it is the wobbly wobbly oscillations that can be used to produce a sound that are of most interest. Such things have been around since the late 1800s but today one can recreate their functions with computer software. Here is a simple example I made using the excellent Audulus app.

N is for Nothing

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Who does not love the idea of posting nothing? I know I do.

A true Zen saying: Nothing is what I want.

Frank Zappa – Dummy Up

Once upon a time we did not have a zero so we could not have nothing but someone thought it would be a good idea – and it probably was.

Today a computer programmer will sometimes have to distinguish between zero, nil and null which can all mean different types of nothing.

That’s it. There is nothing more to be said.

M is for Microbiome

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Who does not love the notion that we exist primarily as an environment for bacteria and viruses to live? I know I do and I am.

As we are aliens on planet bacteria it is hardly surprising that our hosts live all over us in return for letting us live here. In fact we probably would not survive here without their help.

It is not known just how many billions of them live on and in our bodies. It is popularly thought that the bacteria outnumber human cells in the body by 10 to 1 but that figure is disputed and it may be that the numbers of bacteria and human cells are about equal. The numbers reduce briefly after a bowel movements but increase with just about everything we touch.

Not to mention the animals that live on us.

L is for Live Coding

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Who does not love the confluence of coding and music? I know I do and live coding adds a performance element to the process.

Live coding involves writing code that is producing music from scratch and editing and changing the code as the music develops.

As can be seen here once values are changed the revised code is passed to the computer for processing (when it flashes pink) and the revised music is played…

There are an increasing number of languages available for live coding. The above example is Sonic Pi which is probably the easiest to start with as it comes as a ready to go app and does not require any faffing around in the Terminal etc. Others include ChucK, Alda, Extempore which grew out of impromptu (Mac only) etc. There is some debate as to whether graphical languages count as coding but I say they do so that is the end of that debate.

Here is an excellent demonstration of the process by Andrew Sorensen using Extempore…

So that this A to Z thing does not become a catalogue of old records L is definitely not for the greatest record ever made…