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I decided that today was the day to upgrade my indoor garden. The previous setup was on the floor, with a sawhorse over the plants, and a 400 watt metal halide lamp dangling from underneath the sawhorse over the plants. The problems with that situation mostly stem from the fact that it was too close to the ground. It was hard to keep clean and it was difficult to keep moisture from damaging the hardwood floor. It also allowed for no storage space, so the usable plant space was limited by the bottles of fertilizer, packets of seeds, extra pots, etc. Finally, it wasn't as appealing to the eye. The plants were down low, when they should be high up and visible. To remedy the situation, I took an old table we were no longer using, attached a piece of plywood to the top to make it a little longer, a little wider, and to provide a durable surface that I could drill into. Then I extended the legs of the sawhorse to get the light a little higher. I put the sawhorse up onto the table, screwed it down to the plywood, and rehung the light. Now I had the entire surface of the table for plants, and the underside of the table for storage. If I ever decide to set it up a notch, I'll be able to move the storage to the side (maybe build some little shelves down there?) and then hang some small lights underneath the table for seed starting. To celebrate the new setup and increased space, I planted sugar snap peas, green peppers, columbine flowers, basil, chives and dill. Hopefully in time we will have fresh veggies around once again. Food is much more satisfying when it includes things you grew yourself. Even if you just keep a few pots of herbs on a windowsill, its a nice feeling to be able to add a few leaves of fresh basil or chives to your meal.

Today I went to the wonderful Tour de Fat festival held by the "New Belgium Brewing Company":http://www.newbelgium.com here in St. Louis's Forest Park. The brewery itself is in Fort Collins, CO, my home town, but they are traveling around helping out local alternative transportation initiatives, and getting people addicted to their wonderful beers. There was a race at 9:00am this morning, which I slept through, but I did get to see live music, enjoy several cups of beer, talk to a bunch of other bicyclists, and other fun things. The beer was 2 bucks a cup, which isn't bad, especially considering that all the money from beer sales (not just the profits, but all the beer money) was going to support local alternative transportation and alternative energy groups. The beer is delicious too. If you haven't had a chance to try it, I highly recommend it. It can be found at finer establishments in Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Missouri, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nebraska, Texas and California. They have quite a few beers, all of which are wonderful, but the ones you'll commonly see outside of Colorado are their famous Fat Tire Amber Ale, and their wonderful Blue Paddle Pilsner. Their brewery is fully wind powered, uses advanced water reclamation techniques to save water, recycles all recyclable waste products, and is all around a good place. New Belgium also donates one dollar for each barrel sold to a variety of charities around the country. They are a model of a company that can produce great products, have a great time doing it, and be responsible with our world's resources, all at the same time. Makes you wonder why some other companies have such a hard time with it. Perhaps the highlight of the Tour de Fat was that I got to ride an 1800s style bicycle, you know, the kind with the huge front wheel, and the tiny back wheel! They are very difficult to ride, since my natural bike urge is to lean to turn, which will crash you in a hurry on one of these bikes. I also got to see some other old bikes, one of which was an 1893 bicycle that had front suspension! There was also a group there that was making t-shirts by laying bicycle sprockets down on the shirt and air brushing around it with neon paint. The same group had manufactured several crazy bicycles, one shaped like a big dragon, another with a huge banana on it, another like Elvis, one with a giant pink elephant around it, and another equipped with car batteries and blenders for making margaritas on the move. The group was named, appropriately enough, the Banana Bicycle Brigade. Funny people. It was also the day for Earth Day celebrations, also held in Forest Park. More live music, and hundreds of booths hyping everything from solar ovens and water heaters, to recycled soy wax candles and healing massage. The weather was great, and it was fun to go out and drink and ride bikes with hundreds of other fun loving bicyclists and Earth Day celebrators. Pictures of the festivities, including ones of me riding the 1800's bicycle, are forthcoming! Update: Photos are available in "the gallery":/gallery/TourdeFat2003/, check 'em out!

The Hubble Space Telescope, one of our greatest space programs, just turned 13 years old! It had a difficult childhood, but is now one of the most valuable telescopes we have. In honor of the goodness that is brought to us by optics, I have given my glasses a good cleaning. Thanks, optics! Thanks Hubble!

The 'no internet' saga continued bitterly until today, when I once again got the connection reestablished. I'm not going to go into the details, but the final outcome is that "Speakeasy":http://www.speakeasy.net fixed the problems, and credited me for the two weeks without a stable connection. I'm annoyed that it happened, but relieved that its over, and I still like Speakeasy because of how they handled the situation. I'm eating homemade tacos right now, but the reason I mentioned tacos in the title is because of a strange situation I wanted to alert you to. I think I've found a house of ill repute, a brothel, a crack house, or something like that. On Delmar Ave., east of our neighborhood, is a reasonably slummy neighborhood. Along there is a rundown little building with boards over the windows, and a big 'For Lease' sign hanging on the door. That in itself isn't odd, since property values are pretty low right now in the area. However, the building has a big sign out front identifying it as a "Happy Taco", the establishment that apparently had the most recent lease on the property. The strange thing is that the sign is still lit up. All day and all night, the lights inside the sign burn bright, letting everyone know that the "Happy Taco" joint is right here. But the building is clearly closed up. This building has been in this state, lit up sign, "For Lease" sign, boards over the windows, for as long as I've lived in St. Louis, close to two years now! If the Happy Taco had just closed up recently, I could understand. Maybe someone just forgot to turn off the sign I thought, but after two years of running, bulbs have to be burning out, and someone comes to replace them. Why else would they maintain this Happy Taco sign even though the building is just sitting there unused? The answer, my friends, is clear. Something sneaky is going on there. Something underhanded. Something devious. "Happy Taco" is clearly some code word for smack or something, and the lit sign lets everyone know that the facility is open for a certain type of underground business. Instead of cheerful people lining up out front to buy delicious and reasonably priced mexican fast food, dirty people with sunken eyes, pasty skin, and chattering teeth skulk around back to knock the secret knock on the door, and be admitted to the debaucherous house of drugs and sex. Now, let me be perfectly clear. I haven't ever actually seen someone skulk in, nor have I ever smelled smoke coming from the building, or seen heaps of soiled prophylactics lying around out front. But still, I'm quite certain something weird is going on in there.

I've been out of touch for a few days because my internet connection has been down for well over 72 hours. This has resulted in a really jolting sense of confusion and disconnection with the world in general. If anyone has been trying to get ahold of me for the past few days, and was irked that I refused to reply, have no fear, I'll get to you as soon as my connection gets back up. The same goes for anyone trying to email Madalene (though she was able to do some emailing from lab). My DSL(Digital Subscriber Line) provider "Speakeasy":http://www.speakeasy.net was making some internal changes, and moving some people's plans to a PPPOE(Point to Point Protocol Over Ethernet) style system. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with PPPOE, let me just say this about it. It is really bad for someone like me. Here are a rundown of its effects:

• No more always-on connection, I must connect manually when I want to use the internet.
• Lower speed due to PPP overhead.
• Increased hassle setting up linux boxes to use PPPOE stacks.
• Loss of my static IP's.
• Only one computer online unless I buy more hardware or set up one computer as a router.
• No benefits to me whatsoever.

In fact, its unclear to me how PPPOE benefits anyone at all, except the ISP(Internet Service Provider). I've heard vague mutterings about increased security, but I think that is more of a function of the dynamic IP address instead of the actual PPPOE stuff. And even so, I take responsibility for my own computer security, so I'm not worried about that. If anyone knows why PPPOE is good for anything, please let me know. So, when they told me they were switching me to a PPPOE connection, I said, "Screw that, dog! I've gots to have me connection be always-on! I've gots to SSH into me boxen from who knows where! I've gots to keep me static IPs!" So, they agreed to move me to a different plan that would be keeping the static IPs. I'd have to get new IPs, but thats no big deal. A few weeks pass, and one day, the net goes down, and doesn't come back up. Hmm. I give a call to the tech guys, and they respond, "DOH!!! You've been moved to PPPOE inadvertently!" They put in trouble tickets, they call advanced support, they call Covad (the circuit provider), and I get ETAs of 24 hours for connectivity. 24 hours pass, I call more, this time frantic. I'm given more ETAs, more apologies. 24 more hours pass. I call again, this time the guy makes a few small changes, gives me PPPOE connection settings, so I can get one of my boxen online at least, and makes some more internal phone calls. Apparently they are waiting on the bozo's down at Covad to make some changes, and they just weren't happening. Now, despite this experience, I'm still basically pleased with Speakeasy's handling of this. I'm pissed that I've been without a connection for over 72 hours, and now that it's back up, its this crappy neutered PPPOE connection. But they have been trying hard it seems, and each person I talk to seems to have a genuine desire to fix the problem. I just hope they work things out soon. Talk of compensation for the inordinate downtime was brought up, so we'll see how that goes. I've also realized how reliant on the internet I am. Not having a vast source of instant information and communication is really throwing me off. Here is a short list of things that have come to my mind, but was unable to satisfy my curiosity about:

• The URL for a website with videos of plant motion.
• The hours of a furniture store.
• The cost difference between a dedicated ethernet MP3 playing appliance and a mini-ITX computer.
• The exact specifications for the VideoCD format.
• The cost of Funky Porcini's new album "Fast Asleep".
• How the Indian musical notation system works.
• How the MIDI standard handles different temperaments (if it does at all).
• etc.

Every one of those things would take a maximum of 5 minutes to answer given the power of the internet. However, I couldn't figure out any of them. Sure, there is the library, but they close at night, which is the time when I frequently brainstorm and cultivate my curiosity. I have an insatiable desire to know, and the internet enables that. I also felt really out of touch with my friends and family, since I primarily communicate with them using the internet. In any event, I'm going to start looking over the several hundred backed up emails. If your email is among them, don't expect an immediate response, but I'll try to get to you soon! Updates will be sporadic until my connection gets fully restored.

Yesterday Dennis came over and we discussed some music theory stuff that I wasn't very clear on, namely temperament, and the prevalence of non-12-tone systems, like '31 equal' and whatnot. He also lent me a good book on the history of temperament, and its implementation. I'm excited about reading it, and will probably start it tonight. Then we took a trip to the asian store, and picked up some groceries. I tried to remember exactly what was needed for the making of Pad Thai, as taught to me by our Thai friend Tom. We picked up the preserved radish, the wet tamarind, the chives, the banh pao rice noodles, the tofu, the bean sprouts, the black soy sauce and I even bought a new knife. The knife is a cute little cleaver, made in Thailand by a company called "Kiwi Brand". We already had carrot, egg and regular soy sauce at home. I would phrase this all in terms of a recipe, but the way Tom taught me to make Pad Thai, no measurements are really used, its all done by intuition. You start by soaking the noodles in water with some sugar and black soy sauce. No boiling, just soaking. Then you stir fry the radish with some garlic, the egg (leave this out to make it vegan), the carrot, and the tofu. Then you take a hunk of the wet tamarind, about the size of a strawberry, soak it in a small cup of water, and then filter out the pulp and seeds, saving the cloudy liquid. Then you pull the noodles out of the soaking water, throw them into the pan, add the cloudy tamarind water, some soy sauce, some sugar, and all the other ingredients. Cook for a short while, letting the noodles soak up the tamarind water. Add a bit more water if necessary, to make sure the noodles get moist enough. Add some crushed chili powder if you like it spicy! Then enjoy. I'm sure there are other recipes out there that one could follow if a little more direction is needed. The thing Tom impressed upon me however, was that for it to be real Pad Thai, you need to have the preserved radish (also called preserved turnip), the wet tamarind, and the chive. Without those things, you don't have real Pad Thai. He shook his head at many of the Thai restaurants around here who do not use all the real ingredients, and choose to cut corners by using green onion instead of chive, and often forgoing the preserved radish entirely. After making Pad Thai, we went down to Blueberry Hill to see "Seven Nations":http://www.sevennations.com perform. They are a Celtic rock band, whose style encompasses traditional jigs all the way to original modern rock music, and everything in between. The one thing all the songs have in excess is energy. The musicians jumped around on stage, played faster and faster, stomped their feet to the rhythm, and throughly enjoyed themselves. Their complement includes a bassist, a fiddle player, a guitar player (who plays electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and even bagpipes on a few songs), a bagpiper, and a drummer (who has both a regular drum kit, as well as some hand drums). The fiddle player dances with traditional clogs, and even has a mic on his dancing platform, so you can hear the speed of the thumping and clogging. The show was very enjoyable, and a rousing good time. They brought a lot of vigor to the music, and every song made you want to stomp your feet and clap your hands. Check them out if you ever see them in your area.

Yesterday I had the unique experience of helping 50 screaming preschooler's find something fun and amazing in the world of science. We have a special area at the science center for kids who are a bit too young to enjoy the more cerebral exhibits and demonstrations through the rest of the center, so they can gather in the discovery room for 45 minute blocks and enjoy fun science related toys without so much emphasis on learning facts and information. They can play in a replica cave, make a track for marbles to roll down, build puzzles, look at fish and lizards, and even see and hold live Amazonian cockroaches! The idea is not to force science upon them, or to lecture them, but rather to facilitate exploration in their play. When kids play, they are really learning. We call it play, but they really work hard at it, learning about the world around them that is so new. When we can make that process enjoyable, then they will grow up appreciating exploration, science, and the search for a greater understanding of ourselves, and the world around us. And that's our goal. The roaches are one of my favorites. Blaberus giganteus is the species we have, the Giant Cave Cockroach, native to the Amazon rainforest. They can grow to over 4 inches in length, though ours are only about 2-3 inches long. Unlike American roaches which are thought of as pests, the Amazon roaches are wild and live on the floor of the jungle. The roaches play an important part in the ecosystem, breaking down detritus on the forest floor, and aerating the new soil. They aren't filthy like one might think, and are actually quite clean; they even preen and wash themselves like cats. They are gentle and docile, and don't mind being held, they just crawl around tickling your hand. They never bite, and their wing casings are very delicate and beautiful, once you get a good look at them. Many kids are nervous about them at first, but once they have a chance to hold one, they really get to liking the roaches too. I think thats a big step for kids. People think of the roach purely in terms of pestilence. And while I agree that roaches don't really belong indoors, I must also remind myself that they are living beings like ourselves, and only want to eke out a living in this world. Roaches have been around for a lot longer than humans have, and will likely be around long after we are gone. One might say we are the ones infesting their homes, rather than the other way around. So I think its good when a kid can get over their fear and hatred of this rather innocent living creature, and instead see it as an object of wonder and life. So in recap, bugs == good. I'm going to go geek with Dennis about Forte Night music theory stuff, so hopefully I will come back better educated about music in general, and be more equipped to write some music theory software. We might also watch some anime, and then go see "Seven Nations":http://www.sevennations.com play here in town. Karaoke may or may not follow, it is yet to be determined.

Yesterday I finished my orientation at my new job. As part of it, we heard a lot about customer service, relations, and safety. Safety is a big concern, because the museum caters primarily to children. Every day, over 1000 kids come through, and each one of them is a potential accident. One thing stressed to us was the danger of the escalator. Escalators are fun, but are also pieces of big heavy equipment with pointy teeth and strong motors. We were shown a particularly gruesome video of a kid getting caught in one and almost strangled to death. It caught his jacket, pulled him down, and began squeezing it around him, choking him. It also pulled part of his arm in, gave him a vicious fracture, and tore up his side. The video wasn't taken at our center, of course, it was filmed at some subway. We also watched a news cast about a kid who died from falling off an escalator. This was all to drive home just how important escalator safety is, but was a little shocking. Then we watched a video set in the 24th century about how to respond to emergency alarms, and how to direct crowds and whatnot. The video was pretty standard, but for some reason, set in the future. I don't understand that at all. Then we learned how to not get robbed on our way to the parking lot. Exciting! Then I got permission to park my scooter very close to the building, instead of across the street in the employee lot. Another victory for the alternative vehicle! I've got a few days of 'immersion' ahead of me where I'm expected to learn things like the location of all the bathrooms, the names and locations of major exhibits, the cost and show times for the OmniMax movie theater (a very cool theater with a huge dome screen), and so on. Basically walking around without my employee badge on so I can learn everything before people start asking me questions. I'm very excited about this job. I think its perfect for me. Also, its a new position, instead of a replacement, so instead of being expected to do something like somebody I'm replacing, I'm expected to forge ahead and define the position on my own. There are expected duties and basic protocols of course, but the details of how the position works, and how that position fits into the rest of the center depends on me. A good opportunity, I feel. Plus, everyone I've met so far has been incredibly happy, excited and vibrant. The work atmosphere is decidedly different than some other places I've worked recently that will remain nameless. People are there because they want to be, and everyone, from custodial to management, seems to really enjoy working in the fun environment. I've got high hopes for this.

Today is my first day at my new job teaching science to people of all ages at the local science museum. My job description includes the line "Make science fun and stimulating for everyone who comes to the center." And that's a job description I can live with. Wish me luck. UPDATE: First day went well! It was a touch boring, because a lot of it was just paperwork, getting ID photos taken, getting parking passes, etc. But I met a lot of people I'd be working with, and got free lunch, so it was nice. Tomorrow I get more 'orientation' but then its full bore.

"Andrew":http://www.andrewsw.com requested more information on Set Theory, a branch of music theory that Forte Night deals with, in a comment to my last post. I was going to email him, but figured I'd post about it instead, so that anyone else who is curious can also partake of the information. Now, IANAMT(I Am Not A Music Theorist) (I Am Not A Music Theorist, to those of you who aren't hip to the latest in Internet acronyms), and what I know is mostly from the perspective of having to write a program about it. Hence, I'm quite clear on the mathematics behind Musical Set Theory, but not very clear about the practical applications of it. However, I have a few friends who are very clear on it (they are composers) and I'll query them for more information which I'll add to the post later. I'll also forward specific questions people have about it along to them, just post them in the comments. Read on if you dare, things will get a little complex as we go. By the early 20th century, the idea that a piece of music should always have a tonal base, "D-Minor" for instance, had grown tired. Before that, pieces were almost always written in terms of a specific key that was always returned to, which is where we get all the pieces that have names like "Concerto for Strings in C-minor" and "Sonata for Quartet of Contra Bassoons in F". People began to experiment with other methods of writing music and organizing their pitches. Arnold Schoenberg broke the mold in the very early 1900's by writing atonal music, and using a 12-tone system he developed, where a composer arranges all twelve of the tones into an ordered row, and performs manipulations on that row to generate the pitches for the piece. That is refered to as Serialism, and is another thing I don't know much about. Set Theory is related to Serialism, but revolves around the idea of organizing pitches into unique sets, and then organizing the sets by their properties, and then using related sets to make your music. It was pioneered by Allen Forte in a book he wrote called "Properties of Atonal Music". Set Theory is not a contrived theory, but was based originally on analysis of compositions by Schoenberg and other Serialist composers as an attempt to glean more order and understanding from their methods. Its important to note at this point that Set Theory and Serialism both deal only with the pitch content of a composition, and do not deal with things like tempo, rhythm, etc. A pitch class set is any unordered set of unique pitch classes. Allen Forte dealt primarily with any set containing between 3 and 9 elements. Each element is a pitch class, which you and I know as just notes. There are 12 of them, and they are referred to numerically, with C being 0, so the pitch classes are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, which corresponds to C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, and B. Of course, all of those notes can be represented in several ways, for instance, F# can be E##, or Gb. A# could be Bb, or E could be D## or Fb. When to use each form depends on what key you are in, as well as various ease of readability semantics that musicians understand better than I. Also, we have the fact that while playing a piano, Eb is the same as D#, but on a string instrument that isn't the case, D# is actually a little lower than Eb. So, for simplicity and clarity, we primarily use the numbers for Set Theory stuff. Say you have a group of notes, which makes up a chord and a 'set', [3,9,4]. That might be Eb, A and E, to a musician. That is a basic pitch class set. There are thousands of them, basically any combination of between 3 and 9 notes, without duplicates, but in any order. In order to categorize the notes, we have to group them by their various properties. Based on experimentation, Allen Forte determined several mathematical procedures that can group the different sets and show relationships between the sets. Three basic transformations that can be performed on a given set are Inversion, Complementation, and Transposition. To invert a set is to take every element, and subtract 12. Remember that since every note is represented from 0 to 11, subtracting 12 from 3 would result in 9, since when you go under 0, you 'wrap around' to 11, and continue going down. It is often helpful to visualize a clock face, with each hour being a different note (only the top is called 0, instead of 12). As you subtract, just go counterclockwise around the clock. The inversion of our set [3,9,4] would be [9,3,8]. Another way to use the clock metaphor is to imagine if you marked each note on the clock, and then got the mirror image of the marks, so each mark moves to the exact opposite position on the clock, flipping over the line between 0 and 6. For this reason, 0 and 6 invert to themselves, since they would be right on the 'mirror line'. Complementation is the process of getting the complement of a set. The complement of a set is simply the set that contains every element not included in the original set. The complement of our set [3,9,4] would be [0,1,2,5,6,7,8,10,11]. Transposition is the process of sliding the set up and down the scale, ie, subtracting or adding the same number from each note (remembering to 'wrap around' at 11). Using the clock metaphor again, we can imagine rotating the marks we made on the clock around, turning all of them at once as we move them around the clock face. The values can be transposed up or down by any value, but typically we transpose the set to that one of the values is equal to 0. In that case, our set might be transposed down by 3, giving us [0,6,1], or maybe down by 4, giving us [11,5,0]. This process will be used later to determine more about a set. The inverse and complement of a set aren't very useful by themselves, but they are necessary to determine the two important values for a set, that being the Normal Form, and the Prime Form. The Prime Form is the most generalized form of a set, and is the 'umbrella set' that the original set belongs to. Many sets can all have the same Prime Form, and in doing so, expose fundamental relationships to one another. To get the Normal Form of a set, we order the notes from largest to smallest, so [3,9,4] becomes [3,4,9]. Then, we transpose the set so that the first note is 0, sort it in order of largest to smallest. Then we transpose the original set again, but this time making the second note 0, then sort again. We do this as many times as necessary to generate all the possible 0 transpositions of the set. The first one (transposing down by 3) is [0,1,6], then the second one (transposing down by 4) is [0,5,11], and the third (transposing down by 9) is [0,6,7]. So now we have three sets, which are each various transpositions of the original set, sorted from smallest to largest:

• [0,1,6]
• [0,5,11]
• [0,6,7]

One of these is the most compact of all of them, and that one is the Normal Form of our original set. Compactness is determined by counting the interval between the first and last notes, a lower interval means a more compact set. In the case where two of the possible transpositions have the same interval from the first pitch to the last pitch, the one with the smallest second note is the most compact, if two sets have the same second note and the same last note, the one with the smallest third note is the most compact, and so on. In this case, here are our three sets, and the intervals from the first note to the last:

• [0,1,6] = Interval of 6
• [0,5,11] = Interval of 11
• [0,6,7] = Interval of 7

As we can see, the set [0,1,6] is the most compact, hence, is the Normal Form of our original set. The process of getting the normal form of a set is called normalizing a set. The Prime Form is what we are really after here, and it is generated by taking the inversion of the Normal Form, normalizing that inverted set, and then comparing the two for compactness. The most compact of those two is the Prime Form. In this case, if we go do the math (I'll go through fast this time), we get the inversion of [0,1,6], which is [0,11,6], sort it to get [0,6,11], transpose each to zero and resort, giving us [0,6,11], [0,5,6] and [0,1,7]. The most compact of these three is [0,5,6]. If we compare [0,5,6] to [0,1,6] (our original Normal Form), then we see that [0,1,6] is the most compact of the two. Remember that if two sets have the same interval from first note to last note (6 for both sets, in this case) then we see which has the smallest second note. Hence, [0,1,6] is both the Prime Form as well as the Normal Form of our original set, [3,9,4]. This is actually a special set, popular with Schoenberg and his followers, and was nicknamed "The Viennese Trichord." There are many sets that have the Prime Form of [0,1,6], and these are all sonically related chords. The Prime Form gives us a 'picture' of all the sets that it contains. These sets will sound similar in the same way that all Major chords sound similar in traditional tonal music. The Prime Complement is another group of sets we can determine is related to the original set. I won't do the math this time, but to get a Prime Complement, you take the complement of the Prime Form of a set and get the Prime Form of that complement. That Prime Form is another group of sets that will also be related to the original Prime Form's elements. The Prime Complement of our original set, and of the Prime Form [0,1,6] is [0,1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9]. Another way to identify a Prime Form is through its 'Forte Number', a number assigned by Allen Forte to each of the Prime sets. All possible Prime Forms for sets containing between 3 and 9 elements have a Forte Number. There are 226 such Prime sets, each of which has a Forte Number, and together encompass all possible sets of between 3 and 9 elements. The Forte Number for [0,1,6] is 3-5. The first number indicates the number elements in the set, and the second number is an arbitrary catalog identifier. The Forte Number of the Prime Complement above is 9-5. Note how the second number is the same and how the inverse of 3 is 9. Another property of a pitch class set is it's Interval Vector. An Interval Vector is a count of how many of each musical interval are contained in the set. When speaking of Interval Vectors, we are usually referring to the Interval Vector of a set's Prime Form. An Interval Vector takes the form of 6 digits, like 100011, where each digit is a count of the number of intervals of that value. An example is easier to understand. For our set [0,1,6], there are three different intervals, the interval between 0 and 6, between 0 and 1, and between 1 and 6. Since there is an interval of 1, we put a 1 in the first position, since there is no interval of 2, 3 or 4, then those positions are 0, there is 1 interval of 5, and 1 interval of 6. Hence, the Interval Vector for [0,1,6] is 100011. From a musical perspective, each interval is measured in terms of half-steps. Going up one number is equivalent to going up a half-step, so the interval between 0 and 1 is a single half-step, and would be called a "Minor Second". Two half steps would be a "Major Second", three half-steps a "Minor Third", four half-steps a "Major Third", five half-steps a "Perfect Fourth", and six half-steps a "Tritone." [0,1,6] contains a Minor Second, a Perfect Fourth, and a Tritone. On the other hand, the set [0,1,2,3,5,6] has the Interval Vector 433221. When two sets have the same Interval Vector, they are said to be Z-Related. [0,1,6] has no Z-Relation. Z-Related sets, having the same interval quantities, will be sonically related to one another. The sets [0,1,2,3,5,6] is Z-Related to the set [0,1,2,3,4,7], because they both have the Interval Vector 433221. There are a few other properties of sets that aren't implemented in Forte Night yet, such as "combinatoriality" that involve matrices that I don't fully understand yet. If I choose to implement these in Forte Night at some point, I'll read more about it, and post some details. If you want to learn more, your best bet is to look up "The Structure of Atonal Music" by Allen Forte (ISBN: 0300021208) at your local library, which is the defining work for Musical Set Theory. If you'd like to see a chart of all 226 sets, download the source code to Forte Night (find it on the "projects":/projects/index.shtml page) and look at table.h, a file containing a structure of all the sets, in a fairly human readable form. You can also post questions below, and I'll forward them along to my composer friends for clarification if its something I can't answer myself. Thanks for reading.

I've started a project to port my application ForteNight that I wrote a while back to Cocoa for use on OS X. Why? Partly as an interesting side project, and partly so I don't forget how C! Oh yeah, and I'm also doing it for all those people out there who just need to have a tool available for doing calculations relating to Set Theory, an obscure branch of music theory pioneered by Allen Forte. Granted, there aren't many (maybe none) but if there are, then they can commence their rejoicing. This will be an experiment in blending C and Objective-C, which should actually be fairly easy, because Objective-C is just a superset of C, adding exactly one syntactic form, and about a dozen keywords. If code is valid ANSI C, then it is, by definition, valid Objective-C. The challenge will be to integrate this command line code into the OO(Object Oriented) environment of Cocoa, the development framework for OS X that I prefer to use. The code is currently very procedural, which is fine, but it doesn't lend itself to easy code reuse. OO(Object Oriented) programming principles suggest that code should be broken into logical pieces (objects) that are free to remain ignorant of each other's internal operations, and use standard forms and methods to communicate with one another. This makes it easy to change parts of a program without breaking other parts, and it facilitates easy reuse of code, making life easier for programmers. It will be interesting to convert the procedural style of ForteNight to an OO(Object Oriented) style. This will also give me an opportunity to try out CoreAudio and do some more graphics work to generate diagrams and plots of the information. Should be interesting. The project will probably be licensed under the GPL(General Public License) or perhaps a BSD(Berkeley Software Distribution) license, open source either way, so anyone who's curious how it looks under the hood is welcome to take a look once I have some functional code posted. If you'd like to check out the current C code (which should compile happily in a CGI or CLI(Command Line Interface) mode on most *nix's, including Solaris, Linux and OS X), check out the "projects page":/projects/index.shtml and scroll down to ForteNight. You can try a live version, and download the code.

...So I guess I'll have to rent it! Three points to whoever gets the reference. However, it is true that money can't buy the things that truly make us happy, those things being compassion and empathy for all living things. However, it is helpful for maintaining a standard of living that limits suffering that stems from poor nutrition, poor housing, poor sanitation etc. Also, there are some services that one often must pay for, but that can bring contentment and happiness. For instance, say that happiness to you includes being tied up and spanked by a man in clown make-up and leather underpants, then you can rent the Professional Adult Clown services of "Ouchy the Clown":http://www.ouchytheclown.com. Though, for those of us who need something other than the irreverent antics of a scantily clad clown wielding a riding crop to make us happy, the search goes on. It is my hope however, that someone out there reading this thinks to themselves, "I've always wanted a naughty clown to take me to the limits of desire," and is able to partake of Ouchy's services. Such a person probably feels pretty alone, since I can't imagine that a very large portion of the population desires such treatment, let alone from a clown, but folks, Ouchy is here for you. Ouchy understands. Ouchy cares. It would be fun to have him DJ at a party though.

I saw the movie "Bend It Like Beckham":http://us.imdb.com/Title?0286499 this evening at a sneak preview of the US release here in St. Louis. The movie was very delightful, and was an interesting story. Jess, the daughter of an orthodox Sikh family living in England has a dream, that is, she wants to play football (soccer to us Americans) in a pro team. However, her family is against her, her shyness stands in the way, and the impending marriage of her sister places pressure on her to finally 'settle down' and become a 'proper woman'. Through the help of friends, and eventually her family, she is able to show her talent, and follow her dream. The movie is funny, a teensy bit romantic, and has great characters who's familial issues make for lots of interesting and shocking scenes. All in all, a neat movie.

As you all know, the French are a bunch of whining cowards who betrayed the US recently in our fight for Freedom. That is why the House of Representatives had to rename the French Fries and French Toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast. In the spirit of telling the French just how much we hate them now because they decided to oppose the Machine of War, er, the Machine of Freedom, we have to expel everything French from the US. Starting with the Statue of Liberty! Yes, the very hallowed statue was actually given to the United States by France! Lets send it back to them, letting them know that we don't like them any more. Thankfully, an action group called "Send Back Liberty":http://www.sendbackliberty.us/whoarewe.php has already started to help us convince our leaders to remove the statue, and replace it with a statue of Ronald Regan, the greatest US President ever.

In a move that will probably shock many of you, but that some of you have probably seen coming for a long time, I have decided that my gender isn't as clearly defined as I thought it was... Namely, I'm not nearly so masculine, and am actually quite feminine, on the gender scale. For this reason, I'll soon be undergoing surgery to modify my genitals, and add breasts. I'd also like, from this day forth, to be called "Shirley". This blog will continue, and I will start a new blog to document the surgery, and my re-adaptation to life as a woman. I thank all of you who have supported me and been my friend as a man, and while I know that some will be turned off by me after my surgery, I hope that most of you can find it in your hearts to realize that I'll be the same person I always was, just with female genitals, and the name Shirley. Thank you.