A Fall

 A story I recently wrote has been published on Pure Slush. Read it here: http://pureslush.webs.com/afall.htm

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KeyNote – Musical Typing

I was thinking how each key we type produces a slightly different sound/pitch. It would be interesting to see how each key’s pitch differs from other keys. And then when we type different words – does it produce a certain kind of music?

And can this music be used to understand words/language differently? A different version of spoken/auditory english maybe?

I began by typing! a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a . A whole bunch of a’s. Recorded the sound on Soundbooth. Then I raised the pitch 3 octaves up (36 half-tones). So that the sound would be clearer.
However, there was a lot of ambient noise which also became audible (and sounded very creepy). Hear Audio.

Nontheless, I mapped out the pitches of the sound using a very cool voice-training program called Passaggio. Passaggio outputs a real time pitch map. The pitch of each sound appears a small green or red dot on the note it hits.

Because of all the ambient noise, my pitch map wasn’t very accurate. However, there was  a clear pattern. Clusters of dots appeared along certain notes. Using lines, I tried to map out the exact notes which appeared more frequently.

The outcome was ironical. I pressed the a-key some 19 times. Out of this, the note ‘A’ was the most common pitch. Actually it was halfway between G# and A. Some strange semi-tone. This note appeared in all 3 octaves mapped (in different intensities). A bass D note also appeared in less intensity.

Next step is to record and plot ‘Hello World’ and see what sounds appear.

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Missed Calls in India? Find out who now!

Ever got a missed call and wondered and wondered who it could possibly be from? Well, know you can know! Well, not exactly. Through the free missed call lookup service you can now see the location and the operator of any mobile phone in India.
I came up with the idea when a ‘shady’ friend of mine sent me border-line ‘shady’ messages when she got a new number.  The data available is not 100% up-to-date and is mostly restricted to GSM phones. Will try to update as and when.

Post script: Since this was such a technical project involving php and mysql (finally understand it a bit!), the need to make it ‘arty’ is more than needed. Ideas include tracking its growth using Google Analytics and some devious viral marketing schemes. Facebook for one. Sending out SMS’s (SM-messes :) to whole bunch of ppl with this link seeing if they respond. Saying ‘I’m your garbage. Trace me’. Haha.  Hmm.. viral marketing warplan needed! Full on combat! End result a pictoral representation of Analytics data? To show how humans function like viruses. Matrix style.  Okay whatever.

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