Dorkbot
This is a shameless plug for a (somewhat) monthly event called dorkbot which is a salon/party for people doing strange things with electricity. It's usually 3 presenters, and show and tell/partying afterwards. People are encouraged to bring 'work in progress' projects and get feedback from the audience. Boing Boing's own David Pescovitz was a presenter at the inaugural meeting (thanks david!). Being that June is the 1 year anniversary for SF dorkbot, after the geek portion, people should stay and party!
This month's meeting will be held:
June 4th Wednesday at 7:30pm
1005 Market St #216
FREE ADMISSION
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Arts and Crafts
One of the rockets made yesterday. An excercise in making do with what's available, the choice of materials dictated it's design. Using a hot dog for a nose cone and arms and legs for fins created an unusual flight pattern. This year at least, no police cars were hit.
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The Lonely Island: Dorks on Film
The Lonely Island is a collection of
hilarious MP3s, short films, and music videos, apparently made by three guys with a DV cam and tons of free time. The level of production values is pretty remarkable for random videos made by a bunch of random guys and thrown up on the Internet. What's even more surprising is how they ever got Brooke Shields to be in a video, let alone huffing ether. Oh wait, maybe the ether explains it. [Not entirely safe for work]
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Unusual Experiments with Sound
Hypersonic sound could be used to create a space where people know they are alone in, but be made to think they're hearing voices in their head.
HSS works by using high frequency ultrasonic energy emitted in a beam which is converted into audible sound in midair. The nice thing about it is that the sound source can be directed to any point in the space (including inside a person's head) without the use of conventional speakers.
A 64 yr old inventor Woody Norris has something called a hypersonic sound cannon that he's pranked people in a mall with. Aside from that, this tech is being used to develop non-lethal weapons. His company makes sonic bullets which give people instant migraines by emitting intense beams of 145 decibel sound at them. Sound choices can be preselected including a wailing baby played backwards at 110 decibels. Covering your ears is useless. (I know as I think the SRL pulse jets are 150 decibels and earplugs, earphones, and hands over ears were not enough to stop the skull vibration effect when it's aimed right at you). The good thing is the effect ends immediately, soon as it's turned off or is aimed somewhere else even if it's still right next to you.
Noise artists could augment their repertoire with this. Some of the sounds they'd probably want to play around with can't be produced with speakers. According to Scott Arford 7hz (also the name of his noise space) is the resonant frequency of a chicken's skull. It's also a frequency that stimulates sexual arousal as 7hz corresponds with the natural pulsations of sperm released during sex. Not a frequency that is easy to produce (and only effective within a very narrow range). The only musical instrument (electronic or conventional) capable of producing 7hz would be a large pipe organ. An interesting one is the LHPO (Large Hot Pipe Organ) created by SRL friend Bastiaan Maris. The LHPO consists of twenty pretuned pipes wih a diameter of ten inches and up to ten meters high. The sound is produced by detonating propane-air mixtures inside the pipes
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