Wonderfully written article that focuses on the ecological and biological roles phosphorus plays. The author did leave out a bit of the discovery lore (perhaps on purpose) that my brain has failed to forget since learning as a youth-
Macquer gave him (the alchemist noted in OP article) formal credit in his textbook, writing that “the phosphorus here described was first discovered by a citizen of Hamburgh named Brandt, who worked upon urine in search of the Philosopher’s stone.” [1]
Of course i found this hilarious, but its a prime example of serendipity. [2]
It (thinking steps) has moments of brilliance, and generally convincing looking steps and improved outputs. Wether that is reasoning seems to be a matter of interpretation.
From skimming the log
>
After popping the 2, the stack is [X11, then pushing X2 would make it [X2, X1]? No, because pushing adds to the top. So after popping 2, the stack is [X1],then pushing X2 adds it on top → [X2, X1].
Wait, no, when you push, you add to the top. So after popping the 2, the stack is [X1], then pushing X2 would make it [X2, X1]? No, wait, the stack is LIFO. So pushing X2 would put it on top of X1 → stack becomes [X2, X1]? No, no. Wait, after popping the 2, the stack is [X1]. Then pushing X2 would make the stack [X2, X1]? No, no. Wait, when you push, the new element is added to the top. So after popping the 2 (so stack is [X1]), then pushing X2 gives [X2, X1]? No, no.
Wait, the stack was [X1], then pushing X2 would make it [X2] on top of X1 → so stack is [X2, X1]? Yes, exactly.
The 01925 dime is worth about US$3 as bullion (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45907742) even without getting into collectors' value, so a couple of dimes or a quarter will pay for a hamburger. You may just have to stop by a jeweler or a pawn shop first.
yeah... almost completely broken on my iphone. something tells me they used antigravity to vibe the website. would explain other issues mentioned like vim keybindings being ignored.
..."Youre absolutely right! I did mess up the internals of that feature and incorrectly reported that it works. let me try again..."
Ive worked on some sonification projects that used signals from xbox kinect lidar, piezos, and other sensors. Co-author on paper i wrote developed a "strummable" theremin that divided physical space with invisible "strings" of various tunings. We preferred running synthesis on PC when possible and just outputting midi and OSC, as DSP on ESP32 has limits for what can be achieved in under 5-10ms. If the goal is hardware audio output, you may need to look into dedicated DSP chips and an audio shield for better DAC- but for prototyping can easily bang a square wave through any of esp32 pins
Thanks for the insights Quinnjh! Would love to hear more about your invisible strings tuning system!
The ESP32-S3 extracts a moving variance signal from spatial turbulence (updates at 20-50 Hz), and I want to map this directly to audio frequency using a passive buzzer + PWM (square wave, 200-2000 Hz range).
Two quick questions:
1. Do you see any pitfalls with updating PWM frequency at 20-50 Hz for responsive theremin-like behavior?
2. Any recommendations on mapping strategies - linear, logarithmic (musical scale), or quantized to specific notes?
As for the tuning system, we didnt get great demo recordings of it, but the invisible strings were linearly mapped as a range onto degrees of a given scale. In our use-case (letting people with disabilities jam without too much dissonance) that key+scale and the master tempo were broadcast to each instrument.
Would have been interesting to play more with custom tunings, but the users we were designing for would have had a harder time using it consonantly. FWIW fully-abled folks like myself sound pretty bad on the theremin, and seeing people play them in orchestras etc displays an impressive level of "virtuosity" to place the hands properly. Quantizing the range of possible positions helps but the tradeoff is sacrificing expressivity.
As for 1) yes, there will definitely be some pitfalls with the relatively slow updates - which may show up as "zipper noise" artifacts in output.
For 2), logarithmic mapping between position and pitch is traditionally theremin-like, but as the theremin avoids zippering by being analog, youll have to get creative with some smoothing/lerping and potentially further quantization. Thats the fun and creative bit though!
Would love to hear about your project again and what approaches you take, and happy to answer other q's so feel free to drop me a line.
Definitely experience this. After losing over 2 hours fiddling between a few sessions and still having no actual control I’ve settled on a handful of python and perl/regex scripts to make sure things are following my own conventions
> I don't think there's a reason to assume that boys are encouraged to play with building toys and games, rather than innately choosing to do this to the exclusion of other types of play - certainly it's as likely to be innately biological as being good at 3-D rotation itself is.
Interesting take. I faced abusive repercussion in daycare for playing with the cooking set and dolls because “those aren’t my toys and it’s wrong”, so while I was inclined to think this was very much socially enforced dimorphism, your comment seems to suggest that I am in some way more “biologically feminine” than most skeptics would like to suggest. curious !
As for us being overrepresented in tech, for a lot of gals I know it’s a way for our merit to be judged over our appearance, similar to socially awkward guys preferring work that doesn’t take constant face-to-face.
Macquer gave him (the alchemist noted in OP article) formal credit in his textbook, writing that “the phosphorus here described was first discovered by a citizen of Hamburgh named Brandt, who worked upon urine in search of the Philosopher’s stone.” [1]
Of course i found this hilarious, but its a prime example of serendipity. [2]
[1] https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/hennig-brand...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serendipity