Moonbell Creates “Beautiful Music” From The Lunar Surface
Moonbell, a surprisingly complex MIDI composer and visualiser that draws inspiration from lunar topographical data, poses a pressing question: Is there music hidden on the moon’s surface? The answer depends heavily on your definition of the word “music”.
Created in part by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, this animated web toy might not render the most appealing soundscapes straight away, but it gives you plenty of tools to at least try to coax notes out of two years of topographical data collected by the Kaguya moon orbiter. There are two playback modes: Orbit, which translates the altitudes along a fixed rotational path into sounds, sort of like a phonograph needle; and Free Scratch, which lets you plot a listening path along the moon’s surface with your cursor. Both modes have a slew of MIDI instrument options, as well as adjustable speed.
Fiddle as I may, I couldn’t really create anything that most people would consider listenable—the only consistent aesthetic I could achieve was “Childhood Clown Nightmare”—but that’s not the point: For a certain class of aspirational armchair astronauts, anything that brings us even a micrometer closer to experiencing space, the moon, or really, anything that isn’t earth in a new way, is an unqualified, unconditional Good Thing. [Moonbell via Pink Tentacle]
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@OMG! Ponies!: I got a Feeva!
LEWD98
@OCEntertainment: The problem is that the bernoulli drive sacrifice is getting harder and harder to accomplish. When you summon the god can you ask him if he has another preference, maybe 3.5 or CD is okay?
@OMG! Ponies!: No thems bar codes on cheap horses.
@myfriendtheZebra: That depends. Do you consider them black horses with white stripes or white horses with black stripes.
@myfriendtheZebra: You're a reverse racist.
@OMG! Ponies!: Its alright send the virgins to me i will train them and send them right up to ponies. you can call me a minor god i just want a few girls for myself deal?
@OCEntertainment: Sweet, the altar is almost finished! Make sure you upload those pics to www.OMG!Ponies!IsOurLord/Savior.com/altar so the rest of us can get in on the altar action!
And WTF about Purple tunics? I thought we agreed at the last meeting that we were special ordering the purple snuggies with our user names stiched on the back and with hoods? That's what I ordered anyway.
ddmeightball
@OCEntertainment: Just what I need - people summoning me.
Next thing you know, you guys are going to want me to go around smiting Digg and Engadget and Facebook.
Well, just so you know - my sacrifices call for slaughtered hogs, an offering of the bounty of the ocean in the form of bushels of shellfish, and barrels of fine distilled spirits.
Do not confuse me with other gods. I don't want any slaughtered bullocks or oxen or hinds nor do I want wine. Pork, shellfish and liquor only! Also, don't try to offer me a kid boiled in its mother's milk. It's not that I'm Kosher; it's that goat meat is nasty.
Also - no virgins! I don't have the patience to teach some confused 16 year-old girl her way around my bedchamber.
@ddmeightball: Yeah, I made contact with his hairdresser, she gave me the hookups in exchange for setting up her wireless internet. I set an old boombox in her back room and gave her a speak-n-spell, told her it was the Facebook. She seemed happy with it.
So, yeah, the candle light vigil in Ponies! honor is set for the 12th. You still gonna bring the purple tunics?
[en.wikipedia.org]
@OCEntertainment: Wow, sounds like we are going to need to add seconds to the time stamp on the comments just so we all can compete with Ponies! greatness.
Btw, OC, how is that alter in your closet to Ponies! coming? Get a lock of hair yet? ;-)
ddmeightball
@ddmeightball: Technically, since Ponies! is lower on the page, it was entered a few seconds prior to tawni.
The superiority of Ponies! is empirical and verifiable.
@tawni: Nah, I would say you two were equal since the time stamps were the same. Well, your timing was equal, but lets be honest no one could actually be Ponies! equal.
ddmeightball
Moonbell needs more cowbell!!!
Awww Ponies just beat me to it...
Moonbell is great and all but really, what I asked for was MORE COWBELL!