DJs, Space Stations and other stuff

The DJ was covered from his neck down behind a screen so that people weren't sure who was up first....

18 Jan 2001

I read this article the other night.. In the December issue of 'New Scientist' there is this article called "Hang the DJ". It's all about this machine/software developed by this guy from Hewlett Packard.

In this spare time he DJ's (of the bedroom variety) and started to think about a machine that could also do this. So blah blah blah eventually he comes up with the finished product.

They decided to test it on a dancefloor full of punters which included a panel of 10 DJ's. Some guy from MOS selected 5 tracks which he was going to mix. Then the machine 'read' these tracks, decided on the order (slower track to start with, building the tempo, etc). because it read the tracks, the machine knew how to beat mix and alter tempos so that the mix was smooth etc etc.

The DJ was covered from his neck down behind a screen so that people weren't sure who was up first. 70% of the punters guessed correctly which one was the machine, and of course, 100% of the DJ panel guessed correctly. But apparantly it was very hard. Most of the DJ's knew simply because they knew how the DJ personally mixes. Anyway, more to it than that, but it was rooly interesting. I have the article if anyone wants it.

Did anyone see the new Space Station hurtle across our skies last night? 11:06 it turned up and there I was outside with my binoculars. Holy shite, this thing MOVES! It sped across the sky in about 2 minutes, about 3/4 of the way across, it blinked out. I think that must of been when the sun could no longer reflect on it panels or something. Anyways, this thing is BIG and even through my wee binos, you could just about make out it's shape. Recommend it to anyone to watch out for it.

You can find out when here

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/SightingData/sighting_index.html

Last night on Channel 4 there was this cool prgramme called 'DJ' and it followed a drum and bass tour with Blame, LTJ Bukem, 2 MC's (Conrad and some other guy) and DAMn it was funny! All the trouble they faced getting Bukem through customs (he had to travel seperately etc) and poor Conrad fell asleep on some plane, noone woke him up and he ended up in Orlando. Bloody funny. Look out for it as it may be a regular series.

Anyway, enough blag from me for the day....!