Greg Ross of Futility Closet wrote about composer Conlon Nancarrow, who wrote piano music unplayable by humans.
Born in Texarkana in 1912, Conlon Nancarrow had no access to technology that could realize the music in his head. He studied music briefly and played trumpet in venues ranging from beer halls to cruise ships, but he found himself frustrated working with human musicians. In 1940 he withdrew to Mexico City, where, working in almost complete isolation, he began composing pieces for player piano.
This expedient was “a tremendous amount of work, punching all those holes by hand, one by one, hundreds and thousands of them,” but it enabled him finally to hear his music. “I’d never heard it played. Some composers are pianists and can at least play their music on piano, but I couldn’t do even that, because I am not a pianist.”
Twitter, where Donald Trump posted 123 bonkers tweets today and Nazis and psyops bots roam free, is rolling out a pop-up feature that lets users add an emoji reaction to a Direct Message, kind of like a similar feature that exists in iOS iMessage. So fancy!
Artist Refik Anadol, who has appeared on Boing Boing before, designs dreamy installations using artificial intelligence. Some of them he calls ‘data paintings.’
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The Nintendo Switch is an undeniably awesome gadget, pairing old-school gaming styles with modern-day graphics and functionality for a new generation of gamers. The only complaint people seem to have is that its controllers are somewhat lacking, which is why more and more Switch-enthusiasts are picking up this Gbros. Wireless Adapter that lets you play […]
More and more people are flocking to a wide variety of careers in IT, thanks mostly to the high pay, plentiful advancement opportunities, and an exciting atmosphere that offers new challenges every day. The only problem is that this high demand means competition can be fierce if you’re entering the job market for the first […]
