~The Catch-All Drawer~

Monday, April 26, 2004

What a pain

Here is an x-ray of a man who complained of stomach pain, and it turned out he had swallowed a few things that were blocking him up a bit. It is an image from an unusual picture collection of odd things in the news last year.

I haven't browsed through all 74 images, but I might get back to it.

Tossed in by: R.G.B.

. . . Monday, April 26, 2004 (0) comments

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Sapphire

I was really interested in the post by Leah about Aerogel,the light solid, but here is another new substance story, from Slashdot. Here is a liquid named "Sapphire", a water-like fluid that does not get things wet. (please, no Amos and Andy imitations)

The demo: A small fish tank is filled with Sapphire and they submerged a book, a laptop, and a flat panel TV. The electronics were turned on when submerged; all three items came out completely unharmed.

Tossed in by: R.G.B.

. . . Wednesday, April 14, 2004 (0) comments

Name that tune

http://name-this-tune.com/
Kind of an odd, perhaps useful to somebody or just-intellectually-interesting-thing: Parsons code for tune identification. The idea is that for someone who can't read music, or has a haunting tune in their head that they can't get down exactly, you can at least put down the simple Parsons code for it.

Parsons code for "mary had a little lamb" is: *dduurr drruur. The only information needed is the change to the next note: u is up, d is down, r is repeat same note. The asterisk gets it started, the second and third notes go down, the fourth repeats, and so forth. The increment of the note rise or fall is ignored.

If you get that code, (they can even translate your whistle on the site) I guess it really narrows the field of songs that it might be. They have a database of parsons codes to match against.

I tried it for a pop song and got no answer, but tried a classical tune and it gave me some matches, one of which was right. You know that tune that Buggs Bunny chased around to from the Barber of Seville? I coded that as *RRUDRRRUDRRRUDRDDRDD and they included: Rossini, Gioacchino: Il barbiere di Siviglia overture, 1st theme.

Tossed in by: R.G.B.

. . . Wednesday, April 14, 2004 (0) comments

Friday, April 09, 2004

Song Key Lines (Key Line Pie)

Sometimes the first couplet or other key lines of a song set the mood for the whole song, and when you read them or hear them in the background somwhere, you just have to sing it. You have no choice. Send me some more please. . . . . .rgb