I’ve recently resumed work on a side-project I started back in 2019 to create a browser-based visual programming language for sound synthesis and music. I was initially hoping to make this a commercial SaaS product, but I got discouraged when I realized that running and promoting a business could easily become a second job on top of my full-time day job, and suck all the fun out of the project. Thankfully, about six months ago, my motivation to work on the project came back. I decided to build an improved version of this software and make it open source.
NoiseCraft is a node-based visual programming language, loosely inspired by Max/MSP and PureData. The main goal of this project is to provide a way for people to explore musical ideas, and to enable people to share these ideas easily. It’s designed to be easy to use and approachable for beginners. There’s only one type, every connection has a floating-point value that changes over time. It runs in a browser and uses the Web Audio and Web MIDI APIs. This means you don’t need to install anything, and you can share links to your projects just as easily as you can in Google Docs. The user interface is minimalistic and designed to be as simple as possible to facilitate learning. No cryptic shortcuts, no submenus, no esoteric terminology.
I want to set realistic expectations. This is something I’ve been working on in my spare time. It’s not trying to be Ableton Live or Reason. It’s definitely not perfect and you could run into bugs. It’s designed with desktop and laptop computers in mind. It might eventually work on tablets, but for the moment, it probably doesn’t (unless you connect a keyboard and mouse to your tablet). It’s been tested in Chrome and Edge. However, it doesn’t yet work in Firefox because we’re waiting for a bug to get fixed. It also doesn’t yet work in Safari. However, despite its limitations, NoiseCraft has many interesting features:
Easy to use sequencer node with multiple patterns
Audio is now rendered in a background thread to avoid glitches
You can copy and paste, even between different browser tabs
Colorful, curved edges that are easier to follow visually
Undo and redo
Projects can be shared in the cloud in a few clicks
Projects can also be saved to local files to a simple JSON format
Ability to play notes from MIDI keyboards and devices
Ability to map virtual knobs to knobs/sliders/mod/pitch bend on MIDI devices
New clock divider and sample-and-hold nodes
I started this project to improve my understanding of synths and sound synthesis. NoiseCraft is ideally suited to explore the possibilities of additive, subtractive and FM synthesis. Most nodes are simple building blocks with a low level of granularity so that it’s easy to understand how things work. By connecting oscillators, filters, delays and other basic components you can create your own synth or groovebox. I’ve linked some fun example projects below to showcase various possibilities:
Many more examples can be found on NoiseCraft’s browse page and some instructions are provided in the help page. With this project, I hope to create a community for the open sharing of musical ideas. If this is something that interests you, I’m also hoping to find skilled, like-minded collaborators to help me improve the software. I’ll keep gradually improving it on my own, but there’s a limit to what a single programmer can do in their spare time. NoiseCraft could use testing, bug fixes and various improvements. Constructive feedback as well as contributions to the help page and documentation are also welcome. If you report bugs, please try to provide details on how to reproduce the issue and please be kind. The project is available on GitHub :)
While you might not be able to enter the Matrix, you can enter a Denny’s… and that’s kind of the next coolest thing, right? Right. And hey, stopping by American’s favorite 24-hour breakfast spot has just gotten even better since the chain has entered into a new, limited-time partnership with Warner Bros. in anticipation of The Matrix Resurrections, the newest entry in the long-running Matrixsaga.
The promotion began, quite fittingly, on Cyber Monday (November 29) and is scheduled to run through January 4, 2022. According to Denny’s, the partnership largely impacts Denny’s Rewards members, who will be transported to a “real-life Matrix” when they log into their account filled with personalized “glitches,” resulting in major savings and exclusive offers.
“There’s a glitch in the Matrix… and it’s impacting Denny’s Rewards Members. Receive offers like free drinks, special discounts and more as a Denny’s Rewards member while the glitch lasts.”
In addition to a five-week period of free menu items and other discounts, the partnership also includes a two-week window of free deliveries with all orders over $5. That promotion is scheduled to run until December 12, and is valid only through Denny’s mobile app.
For people more into bullet-dodging than eggs benedict, The Matrix Resurrections hits theaters and HBO Max December 22, and features returning cast members Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss as well as series’ newcomers Neil Patrick Harris, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Priyanka Chopra.
Given that impact, I can see why Elliott Management would look at Twitter and wonder why it is that the company can’t manage to make more money, but the fact that Twitter is the nexus of online information flow reflects the reality of information on the Internet: massively impactful and economically worthless, particularly when ads — which themselves are digital information — can easily be bought elsewhere.
[…]
So let’s review: there is both little evidence that Twitter can monetize via direct response marketing, and reason to believe that the problem is not simply mismanagement. At the same time, Twitter is absolutely essential to a core group of users who are not simply unconcerned with the problems inherent to Twitter’s public broadcast model (including abuse and mob behavior), but actually find the platform indispensable for precisely those reasons: Twitter is where the news is made, shaped, and battled over, and there is very little chance of another platform displacing it, in large part because no one is economically motivated to do so.
Given this, why not charge for access?
I tell you, when Thompson gets it, he really gets it. “Massively impactful and economically worthless” could be etched in the stone foundation of Twitter’s headquarters.
I happen to be one of the truly sick freaks for whom Twitter is their favourite social network, and I think that is true in part because I do not really understand it. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest — I get what they do and what they are for. But Twitter? It is brief bursts of shouting, shared links, photos, reply guys, and automated feeds. It is chaotic.
I like it so much that I would pay $50 a year to be a member — no joke. And I do not want more half-steps like Twitter Blue. Just charge me for access and I am sure I would pay it, like I would have done for the past fourteen years I have had an account with the site.
I have a family friend who worked at our local Salvation Army headquarters as a a secretary. This particular office took all the Christmas donations for children in need, put them in a warehouse, and on a designated day the staff and their friends picked through them all, taking whatever they wanted. She saw people hauling away bikes donated for specific families. Some local children had hundreds of dollars of gifts donated in their name, and on Christmas they received three cheap things, items likely not even from the person who sponsored them.
My friend quit, and I’ve not given them a dime of my money since then.
Do not give to the Salvation Army.
Do Not. Give. To. Salvation. Army
My turn.
I’m a wildfire and disaster logistics specialist.
I deal with a lot of agencies who provide disaster relief.
I used to say the Salvation Army’s disaster services were the one (literally the ONE) good thing they did.
They would come in, set up a canteen trailer, make and pass out hot coffee and donated food in a disaster, usually being one of the first agencies to get there and the last to leave.
Then I found out.
Every time they did this, regardless of if they were actually invited or deployed by the agency in charge (usually FEMA, sometimes others) they would SELF-DEPLOY. Meanjng they would just show up. Ok. That’s not TOO bad, sometimes agencies have to take initiative and get there before the red tape is sorted out. BUT. They, after they left at the end of the incident, they would send FEMA or the host agency a BILL. They used one or two paid employees (usually the driver of the truck and a supervisor); and many VOLUNTEERS, but they would bill for EVERYONE’s Labor at standard federal rates. They would bill for the food they distributed even though it was all donated by another agency or private parties. They would bill for the coffee they made and the supplies. Except they would use electricity from the shelter location, water from donations or from the shelter, and in many cases, they would get the coffee and industrial filters DONATED, but bill for them at retail prices.
Don’t FUCKING give to the Salvation Army.
The Salvation Army is also ass to the workers. A good number of people join it, naively thinking that it’s doing good, and end up leaving cynical and beaten down. The management is hostile, if not outright abusive, and demand some ridiculous hours of it lower to mid-level staff. Don’t support these people.
Unsettling update
Find better local charities and shelters and give to them instead!
Also just for even more horrific context on the original twitter thread?
Salvation Army reached out to Milknmuffins and asked what shelter she’s at with the promise to address the abuse in it. She…ended up saying where she was. She was thrown out onto the street. It’s also all on Twitter.
They invited her to a personal talk so she could explain the situation in person.
And then they threatened her with a screenshot of a rape-threat made supposedly by her:
And then threw her out into the street while claiming she broke house rules that
So yeah, the Salvation Army is a bunch of entitled assholes that will treat the most vulnerable like shit if they dare try to do anything that makes them look bad
i know people mostly know this already but they kick LGBT people out of their shelter routinely and one trans person died from exposure afterwards
furthermore theyre just homophobic transphobic evangelical christians only surivive through very good pr
also there was that whole child sex abuse case in austrailia (actually almost 500 cases)
like its amazing to me that there are still non-right wing people out there who give money to and support the salvation army
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