Corfizz

Tribulation and Wrath

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:30:00 GMT

A foray into some sort of symphonic metal choral electronica religious rock thing. It is based on the Christian eschatological concepts of the Tribulation and Wrath from the Book of Revelation, in which the anti-Christ rules the world while God destroys it in various fiery and torturous ways, culminating in the pouring of seven bowls of His wrath upon the scarred earth and the slaughtering of all surviving humans by Jesus Christ himself (using a sword that protrudeth from his mouth and with the help of an army of 200 million angels), whereupon the fowls feast on their flesh. Like the Book of Revelation, this piece has a weird looping structure and contains lots of things that make no sense. Unlike Revelation, however, it doesn't have any arcane numerical symbolism.

The Tribulation and Wrath are technically followed by a period called the Millennium and then by the new kingdom of God, which could be the subjects of further pieces, but I don't intend to rise to the challenge - hence the "Incomplete Revelation Suite".

I give credit to Bjorn Eriksson for the sounds of the twittering birds, from SoundTransit under the CC Attribution licence.

Download - but beware, the ending may be somewhat... ear-burning.

From Poverty to Africa

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:18:00 GMT

From Poverty to Africa, whose working title was Un Homme, Une Femme, Leur Chameau et L'Angleterre is an amateur independent feature film conceived and produced by MatthewTisot. It is set for a summer 2010 release.

See its website, where you will also find a trailer.

Extended Secret

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:11:00 GMT

Intentionally quirky.

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Caprice

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:04:00 GMT

Short and faintly jazzy.

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The Great Widescreen Swindle

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 10:26:00 GMT

Consider the following mathematical problem.

For the two rectangles as shown, you are given the following:

You are given also that the length of the diagonal, d, of the two rectangles is the same. The question is, which of the rectangles has the larger area?

We can restate this by observing that the length of the wider rectangle is 8p and the height 5p, since this expresses the fact that the ratio of the length to the height is 8:5. Similarly, the other rectangle has length 4q and height 3q.

By Pythagoras, (4q)²+(3q)² = 25q² = d²
and (8p)² + (5p)² = 89p² = d²

The area of the wider rectangle, xy, is 40p² and the other's, ab, is 12q².

Since p² = d² / 89, xy = 40d² / 89
Similarly, ab = 12d² / 25

We can now express ab in terms of xy:
ab = 267xy / 250

Thus, the area of a 4:3 rectangle with diagonal length d is always 17/250 (about 7%) larger than a 16:10 rectangle of the same diagonal length d. In other words, a d-inch widescreen screen is always smaller than a d-inch non-widescreen screen.

This, of course, allows laptop manufacturers to cut the cost of the LCD screen while making it sound as though there is no loss to the consumer because the diagonal length is the same. In fact, it might even sound better to the consumer because of the chic factor associated with the word 'widescreen', attributable to its use in modern cinema.

(Some screens have an aspect ratio of 16:9. For a given diagonal, they have an area 12% lower than their 4:3 counterparts.)

But this is not the only issue here. With a net loss of area for a given diagonal, widescreens give you slightly more width at the expense of height. Having used a widescreen monitor on my 17" iMac for some time now, I consider this to be less inefficient for many purposes. This website, like most websites, for example, is designed to be viewed as a vertical column. In fact, all printed written documents are designed as vertical columns*. Imagine a block of text that stretches across a widescreen or a landscape piece of paper: when you get to the end of a line you'd have to move your gaze a long distance to get right the way back to the beginning of the next line, and it wouldn't be particularly comfortable. Indeed, I have noticed that when viewing web pages or documents on my widescreen, the content is in a strip in the middle and a large amount of the screen (often 60% or more) is utterly wasted, and you have to scroll down more often. Anything involving the reading or writing of textual content - web browsing, e-mails, word-processing, programming etc. - will be better off with a smaller width and a bigger height, so widescreen screens aren't as good for these purposes.

The main reason I got the iMac was to do video editing. Since video editing software has a horizontal timeline, and since video nowadays is often shot in a widescreen format, widescreen is arguably more useful. And obviously widescreens are better for watching widescreen movies.

For any other purposes, such as image manipulation, desktop publishing, gaming, spreadsheets etc. it would appear (from scanning various blog/forum posts, if you want to be specific) that opinions differ. Some people prefer widescreen and some people don't. Some people point out that widescreen laptops have a larger footprint, and may be less comfortable on one's lap.

What is the Great Widescreen Swindle? It is the fact that, flying in the face of the foregoing, every single model of laptop nowadays is widescreen. Non-widescreen laptops have been completely phased out. I would have expected there to be a choice - you know, "consumer choice" - between wide and non-wide, based on the kind of usage considerations outlined above. But no - by using marketing ploys suggesting that widescreen is bigger and better, they have managed to cut their costs across the board and eliminate one aspect (get it?) of genuine choice.

The situation becomes almost laughable when you look at the situation with so-called netbooks. The name netbook suggests that their primary use is supposed to be for browsing the net. So, widescreen isn't really suitable is it? But again, we find that there is currently no netbook on the market that isn't widescreen (this one having been discontinued). The funny thing is - as could have been expected - people were very sceptical about the usability of the first wave of 7" netbooks, championed by the Asus Eee PC. Netbook makers responded by releasing ones with bigger screens - 9" and 10". I speculate that if they had merely made a 4:3 screen of 7" then the usability would have been much better received, and, ironically enough, they would have saved money! (I can also confirm this from my experience, having used both a widescreen and non-widescreen netbook both with screen diagonals of 7".)

Here's an example of a marketing statement I saw in relation to a widescreen Acer laptop:
"A wide-aspect 15.4" screen provides 30 percent more viewing area than traditional 4:3 XGA displays, for additional space and more windows"
This statement is technically true, but only because they specify that the 4:3 display they are comparing with is XGA. XGA refers to the screen resolution: 1024x768, and indeed, the widescreen version of XGA called WXGA has a resolution roughly 30% greater than 1024x768. So: although a 15.4" widescreen screen is actually smaller than a 4:3 one, it can give you greater space if they use a higher resolution. But equally, they could just use a higher resolution on a 4:3 screen too.

[In the past, 15" screens on laptops did have 1024x768 resolutions, but then they started using resolutions of 1400x1050 and even 1600x1200 at the more expensive end of the spectrum. So, these older laptops often had higher resolutions than the newer ones, for which 1280x800 seems to be the most popular. In fact, 1280x800 seems to be the most popular resolution for screens sizes of 13.3", 14", 15" and even 16". Some 15" laptops nowadays sport a resolution of 1366x768 (which is an aspect ratio of 16:9) and some have a resolution of 1440x900. 17" laptops tend to have a resolution of 1440x900 at the cheaper end and 1920x1200 at the most expensive end. Let's compare the areas. The following chart shows the percentage area difference relative to the widescreen formats:

As we can see, the 4:3 resolution of 1600x1200 is more spacious than all but the most expensive widescreen resolution, which is only available on (heavier) 17" models, whereas 1600x1200 used to be available on 15" screens.]

What about scripts that are written in columns from top to bottom (e.g. Japanese or traditional Mongolian)?

Audio

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 22:10:00 GMT

These compositions were made mostly with GarageBand (i.e. a software MIDI synthesiser, rather than with real instruments).

Incomplete Revelation Suite
- Approaching Tribulation
- Tribulation and Wrath
Caprice
Extended Secret
Back in the Garden
Laughter by the Lakeshore
Jig Around the Fig
Sacred Pottery
A Major Problem. (Get it?)
Iridescence and the Prince's Revenge
Laughing With Terror
G Major Joy
The Learning Curve
Sin
Drop Down

I also acknowledge Ben Boldt, for his software instrument collections, which I believe are used in most of the pieces here.

Note that these pieces of music, as per the licence notice on the right-hand side, are all under the CC Attribution licence.

Approaching Tribulation

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 22:07:00 GMT

Strings, a harp, a piano, a double bass, a choir... drums and an electric guitar! This is part of the 'Incomplete Revelation Suite'; the sequel is Tribulation and Wrath.

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Sacred Pottery

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:58:00 GMT

Some slower, but still happy, music.

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Laughter by the Lakeshore

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:57:00 GMT

Another happy piece of music.

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Back in the Garden

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:54:00 GMT

Another nice, happy piece of music.

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Jig Around the Fig

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:53:00 GMT

A jolly piece, inspired by an inexplicable urge to use as many passing notes as possible.

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Sin

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:49:00 GMT

I'm not sure why I called this piece Sin, but there must have been some logic behind it. It is a much edgier piece than the others.

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Drop Down

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:49:00 GMT

Drop Down is ambient electronica (!). Motifs from Pachelbel's Canon are subtly interleaved. I give credit to the user 'morewaves' for the sound of a river in Japan, obtained from Freesound, the user 'tigersound' for a sound effect also from Freesound, the user 'djgriffin' on Freesound for his Tibetan throat singing and the Freesound user 'cyberworm' for the throat singing briefly heard at the end, all of which are under the CC Sampling Plus licence.

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The Learning Curve

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:48:00 GMT

The Learning Curve (so called because it began as my first serious composition) is actually now the merger of three and a half different compositions. The transition between each piece is marked by a SwooshingSound effect, but the music is otherwise seamless. Since it's quite long, it's harder to perfect - in other words, I think it has flaws. Although instrumental, its classical elements are also supplemented by pop-style beats and repeating melodies. But here it is anyway.

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G Major Joy

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:48:00 GMT

G Major Joy is the antidote to Laughing With Terror, and a testament to how different G Major is from G Minor. Another 'feel-good' piece.

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Laughing With Terror

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:45:00 GMT

Laughing with Terror, a composition in G Minor, with assistance from 'Celestianpower', is available:

I give credit to Bjorn Eriksson for the sounds of the twittering birds, jeeps and (apparently) apes in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania, obtained from SoundTransit under the CC Attribution licence.

Iridescence and the Prince's Revenge

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:45:00 GMT

With input from 'Celestianpower'. This one features an oboe and a story.

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A Major Problem

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:44:00 GMT

Some happy music. A Major Problem. Get it?

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GrammarRefs

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:18:00 GMT

I have made some pocket-size 'emergency' grammar reference booklets, inspired by PagePacker. You should go to that web page to see how to fold and cut the page to make your booklet. It only requires a single side of A4! These booklets would only be useful for people who have already studied the grammar that it refers to; they can then use it simply as a handy, quick reference.

Bear in mind that I don't speak Turkish or Spanish (at least, not very well); I compiled all the information by researching various sources, including http://turkishlanguage.co.uk and http://www.cromwell-intl.com/turkish/nouns.html. I didn't copy anything - just read and absorbed the info and set it down in as compact and helpful a way as I could find. Needless to say, however, that there may be inaccuracies or omissions. If you notice any, please contact me.

German
- Ready-to-print PDF
- PDF
Spanish
- Ready-to-print PDF
- PDF
Turkish
- Ready-to-print PDF
- PDF
French, Italian and Spanish all together - this one needs beta-testing!
- PDF