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Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Novation Launchpad Lightshow, Random Stuff, and More

- if you've ever seen some of the Novation Launchpad lightshows on the Internet you'll have wondered how they are possible...
Launchpad Basics _ Lightshow Building
Novation Launchpad Light Show
Novation Launchpad Light Show TUTORIAL
Novation _ Launchpad Pro - Making a Lightshow
- I did some digging... The obvious way is to use a music DAW to fire off lights of your choosing since the Novation Launchpad device is a control as well as feedback device. There are actually heaps of free plugins and tools out there to help out with this
novation launchpad lightshow
- I've been interested in something was more 'lightweight' though. Namely a library which could be used to program the device in any which way you desire. I found some code online but it doesn't really do all that much. I decided to see what I could do. Lots of light tests including spelling out out letters, random light colour sequences, movement, etc... You can download the result of my experiment here:
- details are as follows:
# Wanted to see whether I could program a lightshow (independent of a DAW)
# for my Novation Launchpad device. Found the following library/code:
#
# There's obviously a lot that you can do with this device especially
# with the full colour models that move beyond the original RGB modes. 
# The code in this script allows the a Novation Launchpad Mk2 to spell
# out out letters, create random light colour sequences, create worm like
# movement of lights, etc...
#
# As this is the very first version of the program it may be VERY buggy. 
# Please test prior to deployment in a production environment.
- obviously, I've made a many changes to the original code. Classic problems that you often find with 'hobby code' such as lack of modularity, strange naming conventions, lack of commenting, strange error handling, etc...). Had to de-comment and alter to figure some things out...
novation launchpad linux lightshow
novation launchpad linux github.com
- if you've watched this blog for a while you'll have guess I play around with embedded hardware/firmware regularly and dabble in the Electronic Dance Music (EDM) arena a bit. Here are some links to similar experiments for those who are interested:

Random Stuff:
- as usual thanks to all of the individuals and groups who purchase and use my goods and services
- latest in science and technology
- latest in finance and politics
- latest in defense and intelligence
- latest in animal news
- latest in music and entertainment

Random Quotes:
- Maher has expressed the view that a lot of illness is the result of poor diet and lack of exercise, and that medicine is often not the most appropriate way of addressing illness. In an episode of his show about the 2008 presidential candidates' health plans, Maher stated that poor nutrition is a primary cause of illness, and that "the answer isn't another pill."[100] He also has said: "If you believe you need to take all the pills the pharmaceutical industry says you do, then you're already on drugs!"[101]

He has expressed his distaste for the pharmaceutical and health care industries in general, on the grounds that they make their money out of treating people who are made sick by consuming unhealthy food that corporations urge upon the public. He maintains that mass consumption of high-fructose corn syrup is a contributor to the rise in frequency of obesity in the United States.[102]

In a discussion with Michael Moore about the film Sicko, Maher said, "The human body is pretty amazing; it doesn't get sick, usually, for no reason. I mean, there's some genetic stuff that can get to you, but, basically, people are sick in this country because they're poisoned. The environment is a poisoning factor, but also, we gotta say, they poison themselves. They eat shit. People eat shit, and that's, to my way of thinking, about 90 percent of why people are sick, is because they eat shit."[103]
- Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the time has come to move away from hegemonic illusions which are causing strife in the Middle East.

Zarif made the remarks while addressing the 72nd High-level Meeting on Peace building and Sustaining Peace at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Tuesday.

"Conflict prevention requires focusing on the root causes, including the mutually reinforcing afflictions of occupation, foreign intervention and extremism. Additionally, advancing hegemonic illusions or attempting to achieve security at the expense of others through exclusion and block formations, have invariably caused tension and conflict, and led to destructive arms races," he added.

Zarif also noted that Persian Gulf countries must join forces in order to maintain regional peace instead of trying to become regional powers.  

The Iranian foreign minister further called for the establishment of a "Regional Dialogue Forum" and the establishment of new security networks aimed a replacing current national security blocs.

"It is crucial to now shift to a new paradigm based on joining forces to create strong regions, instead of anyone seeking to be the strongest in our region. And shifting from forming security blocks to accepting security networking. Both are predicated on respect for the interest of all stakeholders--large and small--coupled with a win-win philosophy. In the current inter-connected world, no country’s security can be assured at the expense of others," he noted.
- The decision affecting Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province echoes a similar ban introduced there more than a decade ago, after militant groups including the Pakistani Taliban threatened barbers with dire consequences for trimming beards.

"Creating different beard designs is against the Sunnah (teachings) of the Prophet Mohammed," Sulemani Hairdressers Association president Sharif Kahlu told a press conference in the provincial capital Peshawar on Monday.
- WASHINGTON — After the Big Bang, it was cold and black. And then there was light. Now, for the first time, astronomers have glimpsed that dawn of the universe 13.6 billion years ago when the earliest stars were turning on the light in the cosmic darkness.

And if that’s not enough, they may have detected mysterious dark matter at work, too.

The glimpse consisted of a faint radio signal from deep space, picked up by an antenna that is slightly bigger than a refrigerator and costs less than $5 million but in certain ways can go back much farther in time and distance than the celebrated, multibillion-dollar Hubble Space Telescope.

Judd Bowman of Arizona State University, lead author of a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature, said the signal came from the very first objects in the universe as it was emerging out of darkness 180 million years after the Big Bang.

Seeing the universe just lighting up, even though it was only a faint signal, is even more important than the Big Bang because “we are made of star stuff, and so we are glimpsing at our origin,” said astronomer Richard Ellis, who was not involved in the project.

The signal showed unexpectedly cold temperatures and an unusually pronounced wave. When astronomers tried to figure out why, the best explanation was that elusive dark matter may have been at work.

If verified, that would be the first confirmation of its kind of dark matter, which is a substantial part of the universe that scientists have been searching for over decades.
- "He just keeps talking … It's meant to create the impression that he knows what he's talking about. But it's also just meant to drown you in meaningless stuff."
- The study of religiosity and intelligence explores the link between religiosity and issues related to intelligence and educational level (by country and on the individual level). Religiosity and intelligence are both complex topics that include diverse variables, and the interactions among variables are not always well understood. For instance, intelligence is often defined differently by different researchers[1] and also all scores from intelligence tests are only estimates of intelligence because concrete measurements, like those of mass or distance, cannot be achieved given the abstract nature of the concept of "intelligence".[2] Religiosity is also complex in that it involves wide variations of interactions of religious beliefs, practices, behaviors, and affiliations in diverse cultures.[3]

A meta-analysis found a negative correlation between intelligence quotient (IQ) and religiosity for western societies. The correlation was suggested to be a result of nonconformity, more cognitive and less intuitive thinking styles among the less religious, and less of a need for religion as a coping mechanism.[4] Some studies have shown a correlation between national average IQ and levels of atheism in society,[5] although others have questioned whether any correlations are due to a complex range of social, economic and historical factors, which interact with religion and IQ in different ways.[6] Others argue that any differences in national IQ and levels of atheism are not necessarily due to levels of religiosity or nonreligiosity, but are correlated with economic, educational, environmental, and social factors.[7] Less developed and poorer countries tend to be more religious, perhaps because religions play a more active social, moral and cultural role in those countries.[8]

One study suggests that intuitive thinking may be one out of many sources that affect levels of religiosity and that analytical thinking may be one out of many sources that affect disbelief.[9] However, others who have reviewed studies on analytic thinking and nonbelievers suggest that analytical thinking does not imply better reflection on religious matters or disbelief.[10]

A global study found that Jews, Christians, religiously unaffiliated persons, and Buddhists have, on average, higher levels of education than the global average.[11] On the individual level, one study observed that education level is positively correlated with a belief in a god in African countries, and negatively correlated in western countries.
- “In the past, when elephants were sick, they were often released back into the forest. The sick elephants would seek leaves and herbs to treat themselves. But now forests have been largely destroyed; there are few medicinal plants left,” Long added.

Long said elephants were big animals that were generally in good health. Most of their diseases are caused by working too hard and carrying loads that are far too big.

“In recent years, elephants tend to have more tumours in their bodies. The tumours stem from polluted food and water, which leads to lack of nutrition and resistance in their bodies,” he added.

Long often uses the bark of lộc vừng (fish poison tree or barringtonia), and leaves of trâm (Jamblon or syzygium cumini) and some salt boiled to rinse off the injured areas. After sterilising the injury, Long uses soil taken from the nest of termites or fermented rice to cover the open injury.

“Both substances have antibiotic functions and kill parasites and work very well for elephants with tumours,” Long said.
- Modi emphasized that growth needed to be achieved in a sustainable and responsible way. "I see many moving from need-based consumption to greed-based consumption," he said through an interpreter in Davos.

"The question is: Is this really development, or is it the beginning of society's downfall?"
- "Reggie has redefined what a spinal cord injury is because up till now, they thought a 'complete' injury was characterised by a complete loss of sense and function below the injury," he said.

"But there might be small numbers of nerve fibres, functional, still running through the injury site, some pathway," he continued.

"Reggie's technology elevates the ability of the lower part of the spinal cord to hear the small signals that are coming through the injury site, so it may not be a 'complete' injury."

The latest spinal cord stimulation study shows participants require less and less stimulation to achieve the same movements, suggesting the therapy sets a "cascade of repair events" to bring about recovery.

In addition, yet-to-be-published research by Dr Edgerton shows electrical stimulation can also be used to manage high blood pressure, which is an important finding because high blood pressure caused by dysreflexia is a leading cause of death among paralysed people.
- "Faith has always accompanied us, it strengthened when our country, our people faced particularly difficult times," Putin said in an interview for the documentary film "Valaam," a clip from which was broadcast by the Russia 1 TV channel.

"There were such severe years of militant atheism [during the Soviet period] when priests were killed, churches were destroyed. But at the same time a new religion was being created — Communist ideology, which is very similar to Christianity, in fact. Freedom, equality, brotherhood, justice — all of this is enshrined in the Holy Scripture, it's all there. And what about the Code of the Builders of Communism? This is a sublimation, it's really just a primitive excerpt from the Bible, nothing new was invented," the president said.
- HIGHEST INCOMES BY POSTCODE
• $192,500 — 2027 (NSW: Darling Point, Edgecliff, Point Piper)
• $190,777 — 3142 (Victoria: Hawksburn, Toorak)
• $182,829 — 2030 (NSW: Dover Heights, Rose Bay North, Vaucluse)
• $180,412 — 2023 (NSW: Bellevue Hill)
• $167,266 — 3944 (Victoria: Portsea)
• $161,360 — 2088 (NSW: Mosman, Spit Junction)
• $159,736 — 2063 (NSW: Northbridge)
• $150,230 — 6011 (Western Australia: Cottesloe, Peppermint Grove)
• $147,757 — 2110 (NSW: Hunters Hill, Woolwich)
• $146,521 — 2028 (NSW: Double Bay)
LOWEST INCOMES BY POSTCODE
• $12,004 — 2387 (NSW: Bulyeroi, Rowena)
• $15,411 — 3482 (Victoria: Watchem, Watchem West, Morton Plains)
• $18,291 — 4732 (Queensland: Tablederry, Muttaburra)
• $21,540 — 3889 (Victoria: Errinundra, Manorina, Club Terrace)
• $22,119 — 2308 (NSW: Newcastle University, Callaghan)
• $22,520 — 3542 (Victoria: NSW: Tittybong, Cokum, Lalbert)
• $23,641 — 2386 (NSW: Burren Junction, Nowley, Drildool)
• $23,881 — 5306 (South Australia: Wynarka)
• $24,261 — 3391 (Victoria: Brim)
• $24,641 — 3237 (Victoria: Weeaproinah, Wyelangta, Yuulong)
Source: ATO Taxation Statistics 2015-16
- In genetics, the mutation rate is the frequency of new mutations in a single gene or organism over time.[2] Mutation rates are not constant and are not limited to a single type of mutation, therefore there are many different types of mutations. Mutation rates are given for specific classes of mutations. Point mutations, are a class of mutations, which are small or large scale insertions or deletions. There are also Missense and Nonsense mutations, which are variations of point mutations. The rate of these types of substitutions can be further subdivided into a mutation spectrum which describes the influence of the genetic context on the mutation rate.[3]

There are several natural units of time for each of these rates, with rates being characterized either as mutations per base pair per cell division, per gene per generation, or per genome per generation. The mutation rate of an organism is an evolved characteristic and is strongly influenced by the genetics of each organism, in addition to strong influence from the environment. The upper and lower limits to which mutation rates can evolve is the subject of ongoing investigation. However, the mutation rate does vary over the genome. Over DNA, RNA or a single gene, mutation rates are changing.

When the mutation rate in humans increases certain health risks can occur, for example, cancer and other hereditary diseases. Having knowledge of mutation rates is vital to understanding the future of cancers and many hereditary diseases.[4]
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Saving Money (without Sacrificing), Random Stuff, and More

- use price matching when you can to get an extra discount. Note, a lot of companies advertise low prices just to get you through the door. ...