Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Mad World by Gary Jules (3:19)

I've always liked this song, since I first heard it in Donnie Darko, but I never new the video was so cool!

Music decoded from 600-year-old carvings in the Rosslyn Chapel (4:40)

A father and son deciphered the symbols found in the Rosslyn Chapel (the one featured in the Da Vinci Code). They turn out to be a song, with the notes represented using Chladni patterns. A simple experiment demonstrating the visualisation done by sprinkling sand on a metal plate and vibrating the plate, for example by drawing a violin bow along the edge, the sand will then form itself into standing wave patterns such as simple concentric circles. The higher the frequencies, the more complex the shapes produced. Very cool!

News article: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL014372920070501
Wikipedia article on Chladni patterns: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymatics
Official site of the discoverer: http://www.tjmitchell.com/stuart/rosslyn.html

A very catchy tune "Oh Nine, Eff Nine" (1:05)

If you're wondering what the it means, it's the encryption key for BlueRay and HD-DVD. Read more here: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/02/the_new_hddvdbl.html

Apparently these numbers have caused BIG problems for Digg because they received a cease and desist order, but were unable to stop the community from inundating the site with the hex digits. Read the story.