Wiimote Hack for Multitouch Display

Incredible Wiimote Hack Creates Multitouch Display: "Using a Nintendo Wii remote and some software that he ginned up himself, Johnny Chung Lee of Carnegie Mellon University took a few ballpoint pens, replaced them with IR lights, and presto! Since the Wii tracks IR lights, Lee found that practically any surface -- a projector screen, a tabletop, an LCD screen could be turned into a multi-touch screen "

We use a lot of interactive whiteboards here at school, but this technique seems more useful and easy. Multipoint looks amazing.

Music Theory (Pt 2)

Intrigued at the chromatic equidistance alignment to the diatonic scale, I whipped up an excel spreadsheet to calculate the harmonic values and the error.



The tonal equivalence is pretty good for the most part, especially locking in G and F as the major derivatives from the C based scale. The sacrifice of E, A and B at 1/2 a microtone are on relatively large dissonance valleys, so it should 'sound' Ok compared to losing a G.

It still amazes me that a simple rising scale of 12 equal tempers can accurately place the diatonic scale at 2 spaces apart sometimes while only one space apart on others. One thing that it does make is that each major chord has 4 semi-tones between the 1st and 2nd note, then 3 to the 3rd. (C->E=4 E->G=3, G->B=4 B->D=3, F->A=4, A->C=3)

Music Theory

A while back Matt Farthing had offered to teach a bunch of us how to play the guitar in the School lunch break. It eventually dissolved once we were past he basics, but I did have a chat to Matt about the musical scale and he mentioned something I wasn't familiar with: "each note on a keyboard rises one 1/2 note counting the sharps". This led to a related problem; where's the sharp key between the B&C and E&F? If the white notes are usually a full tone apart, why does it sound natural going up the scale only playing the white notes? Wouldn't there be a marked difference when you hit F and C? Is this just what we are used to?

I dug up some stuff on the net, but nothing really got to the bottom of the problem. Lots of music theory, but mostly history or the blanket statement "Here's C, and here's a chord". I then found Jeff's music theory page and a whole lot of maths harmonics clicked in to make sense. I still didn't know what happened to the missing black key, but it shows why there is a discrepancy between the spacing of the notes. It seems odd that the tonal equidistance of the chromatic scale works so well when translated to 2,2,1,2,2,2,1.

Steaming pile of ... (Pt3, or is that 4?)

Found this as someone's sig.

GameLog 17

Football Manager 08 (20h) - Barrow, 6th EC, Season 2. Really hard to tell how long I have played FM08 as I regularly leave it open as I'm doing other things and it's now over 7 days play time for the savegame. Going to have to start logging again methinks. Finished season 1 in the top spot, but finding it more difficult to pick up the top loaners that carried the team last season. Some good purchases should see us contending by the time the season is through ...
TF2 (19h) - [QGL] won 3-2 CP_Well match over Drunkards in Combat to vault us into 16th on the ladder.
Facebook Poker (4h) - 8412. Can easily fill in the time waiting for a good hand with FM08, which makes this be played more than it should
Facebook Pirates (1h) - Level 7. Found one guy that kept fighting back each time I attacked him, so that made the push to level 7 a little more interesting.

Chistmas music

... is streamable

7 star coaches

EDIT: 7 star rating formula

To get 7 stars in STRENGTH
Your coach must have: fit =>18

To get 7 stars in AEROBIC
Your coach must have: fit =>18

To get 7 stars in GK
Your coach must have: gk =>18

To get 7 stars in TACTICS
Your coach must have: Tac =>18

To get 7 stars in DEFENDING
Your coach must have: def =18 & tac =>18 or
def =19 & tac =>14 or
def =20 & tac =>10

To get 7 stars in BALL CONTROL
Your coach must have: tec =18 & men =>18 or
tec =19 & men =>14 or
tec =20 & men =>10

To get 7 stars in ATTACKING
Your coach must have: att =18 & tac =>18 or
att =19 & tac =>14 or
att =20 & tac =>10

To get 7 stars in SHOOTING
Your coach must have: tec =18 & att =>18 or
tec =19 & att =>14 or
tec =20 & att =>10

To get 7 stars in SET PIECES
Your coach must have: tec = 17 & men+att =>39or
tec = 18 & men+att =>36 or
tec = 19 & men+att =>33 or
tec = 20 & men+att =>30

Dual core TF2

Command to unlock dual core support? Doubles frames! - Gamers Underground: "mat_queue_mode 2"

Barrow promoted!

Finally got round to pushing the last couple of games to the end of the season. I had some good talent brought in on loan, and Hadji mid-season set the formation for the remainder of the season as 5-3-2 with a counterattacking style. I'm impressed by the new version of 5-3-2 in putting the midfielder on attacking runs too. You can flood the box easilty with 5 man crossover runs onto the 2 central defenders. Id have thought it would cramp up but the new engine keeps the guys active. It's not a goal frenzy for the AttMid either. Lots of lovely passes from all 5 players with ample space for the wing backs to cross in. As in FM07 it has problems with a DMid formation, or another 5-3-2 box, but I couldn't get my usual 4-3-1-2 working at all.

GameLog 16

TF2 (13h) - [QGL] won 3-2 on 2Fort with me top scoring.
Football Manager 08 (13h) - Barrow, 1st ECN, Season 1. 6 points clear with 2 games to go in the season. Can't wait for the new season to release some deadweight and look for some better talent. The Loans system feels broken for low league clubs.
Pokemon Diamond (5h) - Just seem to be collecting berries rather than progressing...
Facebook Pirates (3h) - Level 6. Made up an excel spreadsheet for the odds to attack higher levels. Looks like it's not worth it until level 6. Should make a proper blog on it.
Facebook Poker (2h) - Not sure whether to count this stuff, but I'm checking facebook more and more even though is still feels a bit useless. Poker and Pirates are a distraction.