Monthly Archives: December 2005

Wolf whistling for Xmas

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And if you fancy a unique free ring tone Xmas gift for your mobile what could be better than WolframTones? The ringtones are an experiment in applying Stephen Wolfram’s discoveries to the creation of music. To explain:

“At the core of A New Kind of Science is the idea of exploring a new abstract universe: a “computational universe” of simple programs. In A New Kind of Science, Wolfram shows how remarkably simple programs in his “computational universe” capture the essence of the complexity–and beauty–of many systems in nature.

“WolframTones works by taking simple programs from Wolfram’s computational universe, and using music theory and Mathematica algorithms to render them as music. Each program in effect defines a virtual world, with its own special story–and WolframTones captures it as a musical composition.”

More fat fingered fun (olympic standard)

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Loved the story that London won the 2012 olympics ’cause of a button pushing error – another example of fat finger syndrome after I posted about one just ten days ago:

“A leading Olympic official has suggested that London may have won the right to stage the 2012 Games only because one of the 104 members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) pressed the wrong button in the third-round vote.

Alex Gilady, the Israeli who is one of the most influential members of the IOC, claimed that the mistake helped Paris, rather than Madrid, to reach the final round against London. Madrid had been widely regarded as the biggest threat to London in a straight fight.

It is believed that the blunder was committed by Lambis Nikolaou, of Greece, who protested publicly at the microphone after the secret ballot in Singapore on July 6 that he had not had time to register his vote. In fact, an examination of the poll showed that all the eligible IOC members had voted in that round.” (The Times, 22 Dec 05).