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[wierd]

They should have anodized it, to make it jet black.

Also should have put a microcontroller and a software defined radio inside, powered with an array of thermocouples. that way it could make low intensity radio bursts in mathematical patterns.

[Sime]

Has anyone used the  Labview, the graphical system engineering programming language?

It looks kind of fun.  I was wondering if it might be suitable for designing and prototyping the game mechanics and logic of complex strategy games.

[Reelya]

Right tools for the right job. Something like Unity or other actual game engines have more of the stuff needed for prototyping.

LabView looks like it's built around getting data from external instrumentation, it's not designed for building simulations, for example if you want to model stellar evolution, LabView wouldn't be the thing you use.

[methylatedspirit]

I've heard of musical roads, roads that essentially work as 1-bit, 1-voice beepers to make sound as a vehicle passes over it. Would it be possible to pull off something like the title theme for Chronos for the ZX Spectrum (warning: loud, nonexistent dynamic range), as difficult as it would be to execute in real life?

[Bumber]

Just don't make it play Those Endearing Young Charms.

[Reelya]

I've heard of musical roads, roads that essentially work as 1-bit, 1-voice beepers to make sound as a vehicle passes over it. Would it be possible to pull off something like the title theme for Chronos for the ZX Spectrum (warning: loud, nonexistent dynamic range), as difficult as it would be to execute in real life?

Musical roads are definitely not 1-bit 1-voice beepers. That interpretation would lead to a couple of issues. For a start, if you say that it's 1-bit because they're only 1 height, then if you ask what's the sample rate, then that would be infinity since how far you space the bumps apart isn't constrained. Additionally "voice" is an abstraction. Any speaker is capable of emitting a signal of infinite voices. "Voice" only makes sense for synthesizers.

A musical road is in fact more like a frequency-modulated analogue signal, compared to ones that go up and down, which would be amplitude-modulated analogue signals. The main issue that would limit the voices would be that the sample rate, when viewed as a frequency-modulated signal is quite low, and I'm guessing that to encode two tones at once without distortion you'd really need a sample rate which is at least the lowest common multiple of both frequencies.

[methylatedspirit]

If you had the instrumental and vocal tracks to a song, how far can you desync them before people start noticing? I mean, there's these videos where people just desync the vocal track and have them one beat off relative to the instrumental, like here, here and here. I think most of you would agree that these things are... wrong, at least at first*. That's an upper bound of 1 beat. So now I'm asking, how much can you desync them before people just go "what the hell am I listening to"?

^{*(i'm listening to these things and it's starting to sound normal. help)}

[Frumple]

Eh, depends on the person, the situation, and the song, y'know? I'm reminded of an old story about Reed's Metal Machine Music, where it was reported at one point a rather drug riddled party ended up playing one of the parts for significantly longer than the piece actually lasted; the disc they were playing from was damaged, and near the end started skipping and whatnot.

It took, like, over an hour for anyone to notice; they were impaired enough and the song messy enough folks just couldn't tell part of the song was skipping/repeating. There's some bits of music out there you'd be hard pressed to tell if it was desync'd to begin with, especially if you're not already well familiar with the song.

[methylatedspirit]

I turned too fast while cycling on wet tiles, fell, and I think I fucked up my knee to some degree by landing mostly on it. It's a small burning pain if I don't move it, but moving it... there's pain throughout, but then it peaks at a certain point through that movement. My IRL friends already told me that I should go to the campus clinic to get it checked out. I'm fine with that. I'd take the opinion of a doctor who can physically check me.

There's a problem, though. The clinic doesn't open until Monday. What can I do myself to prevent damaging the knee any further? Should I stop cycling for a bit, even if that's my preferred mode of transport?

[Arx]

Rest, ice, compression, elevation. Don't cycle and ideally avoid using it as much as possible.

[methylatedspirit]

Is there a way to apply a notch filter to all audio coming from my computer? A not-insignificant portion of the media I consume has a 15KHz tone in it, which I'm sure comes from a CRT. It's annoying since I can still hear these tones. I know it's trivial to do this if you have the audio file, but I want one that works on all audio I listen to.

[TheSteppeWolf]

@Chess players: What is the best way, to teach chess to a 8 soon to be 9 year old child who hates losing? I hope to teach him to lose gracefully too...

[TD1]

The baaaasic idea is to attack the centre while supporting those pieces with ones further back.

It's called developing the piece.

First teach them what the pieces do, of course. And as for losing gracefully, many chess players acknowledge defeat before it actually happens and concede the game.

If you can get him to do that, it might be a good sign.

[TheSteppeWolf]

The baaaasic idea is to attack the centre while supporting those pieces with ones further back.

It's called developing the piece.

Honestly that can be for our second, or third game. I meant like... the mentality a chess player should have, also how to teach him to avoid doing obvious blunders, like hanging his queen, or something. Also make sure he understands castling/stalemate/passing capture.

[Naturegirl1999]

When my brother and I play chess, he does not let me concede, even though he and I both know I’ll lose