Two Disturbing Musical Studies

I make my living as a musician these days and I find almost any scientific study of music interesting. Here are two that have recently crossed my desk. The first is one from Nature.com and covers an idea that many have long suspected, but had little data to prove.

To summarize, over the past 50 years or so, popular music has been becoming louder and employing less variation in melody, timbre and chord progression. I can offer several anecdotal reason for this, but you should read the article and form your own opinions.

The second study is from Scientific American and discusses how harmony affects mood. To quote from the article: "Daniel Bowling, a cognitive neuroscientist at Duke University, analyzed the intervals, or distances between notes, in melodies from Western classical music and Indian ragas in a study published in March in PLoS ONE. He found that in both types of music, the size of the average interval is smaller in melodies associated with sadness and larger in melodies linked with happiness."

"Bowling suggests that music mimics the natural patterns of our most primitive instrument—the voice. To test his theory, he collected speech samples from 20 English speakers and 20 Tamil Indian speakers and looked at whether the changes in frequency predicted the emotional content of their words. He found the same pattern as he did in written melodies: the sadder the speech, the more monotone the delivery."

It doesn't really take a genius to put these two studies together and see the implications and I, for one, find those implications disturbing.

9 Cool Secret Subway Stations

Here's a great photo-essay from Flavorwire. Subways have always fascinated me. So far I been on only three. New York City's, Boston's and Washington D.C.'s. Each is different and had its own charm. The photos in the piece feature abandoned ones.

Fun Time! How To Lose Weight In 60 Seconds.

Extra-Jurisdictional (and Illegal) Police Operations

Here's an interesting article from the Associated Press. It seems that in New Brunswick, N.J. the locals have discovered a on-going police operation, but it's the NYPD that is running the operation. A little out of their jurisdiction.

But that shouldn't surprise us, what with Maricopa County, Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio thinking that he is a Federal Agent tasked with investigating a sitting President. Reports of police behaving in illegal fashions with impunity are surfacing in many places in our nation. Perhaps it's time that an independent group start auditing our police forces to determine if they are using precious resource to follow personal agendas.

Travel Photo of the Week

Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

Microgrid For Power Local, Cheap, and Reliable Power

Good things coming from a jail. That's a surprise. This from MIT Technology Review....

"A recently completed distributed energy project at the large, 4,000-inmate Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County, California, ties together power from fuel cells, solar panels, wind turbines, and diesel generators—all located at the jail—to form a microgrid that can operate independently of large, centralized power plants. The system keeps the power on when storms take down the grid, which is essential for safety at the maximum security facility, and it's saving the jail about $100,000 a year."

I'd like to see this idea taken a step further. Separate power plants for each building in the US that can be "grid-able" if one or several go out. Which makes me wonder, what's Bloom Energy up to these days?

One Square Meter House

This from Tiny House Living.

Which Super PAC Ran That Ad? There's An App For That.

This from Forbes magazine and MIT's Media lab.

"The Super PAC App, soon available for free in the iTunes store, will use audio fingerprinting technology employed by apps like Shazam and SoundHound to identify adverts."

Now you can find out just who is behind the ad that's extolling or trashing your candidate. That way you can fuss and fume to all your friends how such and such is ruining the world with their ill-got riches.

I just love election season, don't you?

Finally, Bionic Eyes

This in from Extremetech.com. It looks like the age of bionic replacement body parts has finally arrived. We've all seen the prostheses that have been developed by the military and high tech research. Now comes bionic eyesight.

From the website......

"The first of these implants, Argus II developed by Second Sight, is already available in Europe. For around $115,000, you get a 4-hour operation to install an antenna behind your eye, and a special pair of camera-equipped glasses that send signals to the antenna. The antenna is wired into your retina with around 60 electrodes, creating the equivalent of a 60-pixel display for your brain to interpret. The first users of the Argus II bionic eye report that they can see rough shapes and track the movement of objects, and slowly read large writing."

"The second bionic eye implant, the Bio-Retina developed by Nano Retina, is a whole lot more exciting. The Bio-Retina costs less — around the $60,000 mark — and instead of an external camera, the vision-restoring sensor is actually placed inside the eye, on top of the retina. The operation only takes 30 minutes and can be performed under local anesthetic".

Darth Vader, come on down. It's your turn on "The Time Is Ripe!"

One More Gadget

Here's a website that features new gadgets for those inclined to be early adopters. You never know quite what you'll find here. Lots of electronics, but the are also simple things that make life easier like the Freakeys key covers pictured here.

I also liked the recent Mr. Snot tissue box entry.