Here’s a fun fact: you know that opening jingle before every one of Ashens’ videos? I had learned recently that that was a clip of procedurally generated music, from a program called Dunc’s Algomusic MkIIIb.

This kinda computer-generated music had always intrigued me in a way, things like making computers spit out jazz through neural networks and whatnot. Although Algomusic is definitely more primitive in a sense (compared to all the kilowatts used for training an AI) it’s fun to see what simpler algorithms and random seeds can still do. Also, I can’t help but feel algorithm-based generation has more charm and personality to it, as in the end it’s following a human-written pattern. Neural networks just remind me of the robot uprising.

And I should mention, the algorithm’s input/seed is indeed the song title. Grab a copy of Algomusic MkIIIb (later versions use different algorithms) yourself, type in “Doctor Ashen” and you’ll get to listen to the full thing. How you define “full thing”, though, is how long you’ll be able to handle it, since Algo̶̢̧̯̫̼̞̍m̶͉̼̩̱̠͌̽̓͑̿̈̄͆̂us̴̨̡̨̛̙͚̞̲̜̬̠̣͖̪͋̏͂͂̀̒̋̔͒͘͠į̷̣̮͒̈͊͗͝ć̸̡̢͎͉̳̦̣̹͕̱͈̀̆͐̆͛̓̚͝͠͝ͅ ̶̠̙͓̬̪̠͇̎͐̃̑̚͘stops̵̨̼͕̱̫̣̤̟̖͓̗̿͛̊͜͝ ̷̗̱͒̃̒̓̓̀̾̃f̵̜̻̱̳̑̆͠o̷͙̱͚̝̍͝r̸̯̟̖͖̙̤̥͉͈̄̏̈́̍̊͛͗͜͝͠ ̶̧̫̟̭͎͇̙̥̫͎̞̜̠͋̋͂̽̔́̏͆̉̆̄̿̚ͅṇ̴̡̲̹͖͇̦͚̰̼̺͕̭͆̊͐́͜o ̴̨̨̺͍̫̩̳̠̳͐̇͐̌̈́̊̃̂͘̚o̶̫̲͈̜̮͙̳͎͕͋̏̒̀̇͊́̂͒ņ̸̢̲͓̲͓͉̥̣̝͈͆͆̄͌̏͊̉̚͘͠e.

You can hear a portion in this video where he reviewed a bunch of these fake iPod radios:

And, of course, I did a fair bit of Algomusic testing myself as well:

Every harvest in Disco, perfect pears grow on all the trees. The town’s residents take pride in it, as like 99.9% of it is all just perfect pear trees and they’re really, really hard to miss by this point.

Then this guy shakes them all down and exports the fruit before anyone gets to appreciate it.

The absolute madman. I can see him running for Congress.

These are man’s greatest invention. I stick my water bottle in front of the sensor, I just about misalign it and the water splashes onto my hand. I stick it in right, and it fills up, but it doesn’t stop filling up until it doesn’t detect the water bottle, which is great, because when I pull my water bottle away from it, it spills out onto the water bottle’s edges.

Clearly, a button would have been too old-fashioned.

I love technology!

1/22/2020; Wednesday, 2:49 PM

Hey, hi. Been a little while.

I have now churned out some of the first major updates for the year, including a brand new about page and an index update. As well as that, I put out the first of hopefully many more posts on the Somnolescent blog. I’ve been kicking around some ideas for bringing back Discount Store Tech Reviews from the early days, but it’s all TBD.

I got into an alt rock indie band called Shaimus recently, known for a couple tracks in the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games (two series I have not yet gotten into; to this point I’ve only played DDR) and this masterpiece of a video. I never considered myself a rock guy but it’s genuinely banging, boppy and sometimes airy stuff; highly recommended. In fact, I’d suggest listening to all three of their albums. They’re excellent. I’ll be writing an excerpt on Like a Fool for a Somnol post coming up very soon.

Alongside that I’ve been digging deeper into C418’s work the past couple of days, namely his 2013 album One. If you’re familiar with the Minecraft soundtrack do check his other stuff out, it’s good. While I’m talking about music, there’s a section for that on said about page, so check that out :^)

I’ve been keeping myself busy with schoolwork and sessions of Animal Crossing: New Leaf with the gang in between. I’m not expecting to be crazy active development-wise but I’ll be getting up to speed on something soon enough, I’m sure. I’ve also been thinking of fleshing the microblog out so it isn’t a whole ton of stuff on one single page, with the embeds, images and all that; perhaps split up by month. Expect something along the lines of that soon.

You felt something alone
You keep to your own
We’ll never know will we dear?

Steps you took from the start
To be where you are
But I don’t know where you’ve gone
And like a fool I look around
For the answer with my head in my hands
So I have to close my eyes

To all but my own world because
The more I find, the more I realize I am,
Just a rebel and a fool

Shaimus – Just a Fool

1/4/2020; Saturday, 9:54 PM

The past couple days, I have been working on a Discord rich presence application for Mario Kart Wii’s online multiplayer through Wiimmfi, a Nintendo WFC replacement. Despite how hacked together it is, due to the lack of a web API on Wiimmfi’s part and some markup that’s kind of a pain to parse normally, I’m satisfied with how it came out.

You can get it and read the readme on its GitHub page here. If you’re not Python-savvy, I’ve compiled executables for Windows and OS X with pyinstaller.

1/1/2020; Wednesday, 8:20 PM

First post of the new year! Am still trying to get back to grips after all of the holiday nonsense. Photos from my walk yesterday are now here and on my Flickr, with some really nice sunsets. I fiddled with them a bit and ran some color adjustments. Good stuff.

SPEAKING OF WHICH look at this! Lynx lad’s real! It’s honest-to-goodness official!

Apricot saying it’s 1/1/2020 is still super weird. I’m just gonna change that to say 1/1/1998+2 to ease my conscience.