Live blogging Live.Code.Festival: Benoit and the Mandelbrots by Mattias Schneiderbanger

Drop function – executed simultaneously for all 4 players.
They have done blank slate live coding in many environments. They also use live coding as a compositional method, so do some shows where they just use a code interface developed in rehearsals.
Delbrots and the Man also develop code live during rehearsals and use that as an interface for performance. They sync with the drummer via click track and send their chat window to him via a text-to-speech synthesiser.
If they want the audience to dance, they start with prepared stuff. They also try to think of the arc of the whole evening. In rehearsals, they would pick a random genre from Id3 tags.

More General Thoughts on Live Coding

Live code does not represent a score. code consists of algorithms which are specific, but a a score is interpretable in different ways. Also the text document generated by live coding it not an adequate artefact to repeat a performance
Code allows for de-heirarchicalisation of all musical parameters. Traditional composition focusses on pitch and duration, but improv allows focus on other parts. Live coding emphasises this further.
Composition creates a text – an artefact designed to enable people to create sound. It is prepared and worked out. Live coding does not necessarily generate a written composition. However, in the 21st century, improv and composition are not binary oppositions, something which also applied to live coding.

Questions

Did they publish the silent movie with their sound track? Not yet, because they’re not sure about copyright.
what’s next for the Mandelbrots? Will they make a ton of recordings? Recordings do no change their approach. They only record only their rehearsals.
do they program differently when they’re recording? No, they’ve gotten used to just recording all their rehearsals.
Will they edit their recordings? Unsure.
Will an audience expect them to sound like their records? They can’t know yet.
Do they put performances online? They’ve done that twice. Once to Mexico

My Fantasy Holiday

Thoreau decided he’d had enough of things and moved out to the woods to escape from society. However, it turns out that Walden Pond is not a long stroll from the town he fled. He went to see his mum every weekend. With that in mind, this is what I’d like to spend a month doing this summer or in the autumn or sometime…
I want to stay in a cabin in the forest, next to hot spring, which I would go sit in for a bit at night. The nights would be very quiet and free of city lights. The cabin is stocked with a load of fresh veg and has a good library and some very comfy chairs. The bed is big and comfortable. All the rooms have nice windows. One of them has a couple of good monitor speakers a way to record and my synthesiser.
The internet is only connected between 11am – noon.
Every evening, a friend or two come around to visit and we have dinner, talk and jam or play board games or just talk.
I stay there for one month. At the end, I’m expected to have an LP.
So yes, even in my fantasy holidays, I’m still working…
The only thing I can imagine doing without working is a cycle holiday. And If I were planning one now, I’d probably try to arrange gigs along the route, alas. I’m feeling very motivated to be productive lately and also my anxiety is on the upswing and these are probably related. However, getting a lot done has been good for me in the past, but I wouldn’t mind a day or two in a hot spring or even a ot tub.

Why aren’t there More Women Around Here?

Every so often, the topic of diversity comes up in electronic music. Women definitely make up less than 50% of participants – including in the forums where this topic is discussed. Since I’ve moved to the UK, I’ve seen a few email flurries where men argue about whether or not its a problem that there are so few women participating and if so, what they can do about it. These arguments themselves are probably somewhat off-putting, as there are always at least a few vocal men who like being in a boys club and will argue that things are fine. Even if everybody started from a pro-diversity standpoint, I doubt it would be a particularly fun conversation for the few women who were on the list, lurking. This is why I think efforts like MzTech, Flossie, G-Hack and ETC are a good idea, despite all the places where they’re problematic (which is beyond the scope of this post).
Women-only events do seem to be how the UK is best able to cope with the massively huge tech gap. This gap, by the way, gets more pronounced as level of techiness rises. As far as I’ve been able to determine, there are fewer than five women who are regular SuperCollider users in the UK. This is absolutely a social problem. It seems to be the case that in Japan, women users are roughly equal in numbers or possibly greater than men. Thus there is nothing inherently woman-unfriendly in the programme.
Meanwhile, in America, there is still a gap, but it seems less bad. I don’t have solid numbers, but I’ve seen women at American conferences and they make up a fair percentage of presenters. However, sexism is also very clearly apparent. How is it that women are participating in greater numbers in what seems like it’s a more sexist environment?
Well, it might not be more sexist in the States. It might just be a more open form of sexism. Scientific American just ran an article about benevolent sexism. When sexism seems ‘friendly’, women are more likely to accept it. They gave a hypothetical example:

How might this play out in a day-to-day context? Imagine that there’s an anti-female policy being brought to a vote, like a regulation that would make it easier for local businesses to fire pregnant women once they find out that they are expecting. If you are collecting signatures for a petition or trying to gather women to protest this policy and those women were recently exposed to a group of men making comments about the policy in question, it would be significantly easier to gain their support and vote down the policy if the men were commenting that pregnant women should be fired because they were dumb for getting pregnant in the first place. However, if they instead happened to mention that women are much more compassionate than men and make better stay-at-home parents as a result, these remarks might actually lead these women to be less likely to fight an objectively sexist policy.

So it might not be that British culture (and British people) are less sexist than Americans. They’re just more polite. And the result of this politeness is not that women feel more empowered. Quite the contrary, in fact. Because the sexism is less in-your-face, it’s more effective and participation by women is thus lowered.
Indeed, if men who mean well are making a big deal about how rare it is for women to get involved in something, this can accidentally slide into benevolent sexism. Which leaves us in something of a bind. For those of us who are men and do want to increase participation by women, what can we do about it? I would argue that one step is vigilant moderation, where all sexism, benevolent or openly hostile, is banished from online discussion. And we can refuse to participate in all-male events or panels. Some effort should probably also be extended in this direction for collaborations, projects and musical groups . . . there is probably some size at which it becomes problematic if everyone involved is a man. The growing pool of G-Hack alumnae will hopefully become part of the larger scene. And hopefully more women on stage will empower the women in the audience to start producing. And hopefully those of us men who want to make a big deal about it (‘and they’re pretty too!’), will get the message that this is not the way forward.

A summary of British lols for Americans

So Thatcher died. She was like Regan, but before he was cool. All of his stuff: ruining education, breaking unions, fucking the economy, closing factories forever, laying the ground work for our current financial collapse – she did it all first. This makes her kind of unpopular with people who were negatively effected by austerity. So they went onto itunes and other fine purveyors of mp3s and bought copies of Judy Garland singing ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.’

Meanwhile at the BBC – an institution that does not have an equivalent in the US, but let’s pretend it’s like NPR . . .. Imagine if NPR played the top 40 countdown every week. And imagine if this song was being downloaded in response to Regan. Imagine the exploding heads on Fox News.

The BBC has played all the top40 tunes every week since 1967. There’s a tradition to uphold. Or something. But the Conservative party is in charge of government right now and austerity is all the rage, so no way are they playing the whole song. They’re just going to play a few seconds of it.
One difference between the US and the UK is that in the UK, the slightly-more-left party actually has a spine. And rather a lot of people spend their 99p downloading Ms. Garland and do represent some sort of voice of the people, in a late-capitalism kind of way.
So a debate rages – which 6 seconds of the song will they play??!!!
And meanwhile, as we’re all laughing at this, major cuts to poor people just came into force – city governments are predicting a tsunami of homlessness and have no idea what to do. And the privatisation of the NHS started less than two weeks ago. So while the Ding Dong thing really is hilarious, it’s like the flying monkeys have vowed to appoint a new leader and double down on the policies of the wicked witch of the west.
so, um, lol?

Air Travel Letter

Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to inquire as to the rules for your airport and the TSA in general in regards to what constitutes inappropriate touching. Yesterday afternoon, 7 April, I passed through security at JFK in Terminal 7 and opted out of the scanning machine. The office who patted me down touched my genitals twice through my clothes, once per leg pat. This experience left me feeling humiliated and angry. I want to determine if I what I experienced conforms to the law or if I should file a complaint of assault.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Dr. Charles Hutchins

So that happened.
I don’t want to go through the naked scanning machines partly due to concerns about radiation. The machines are not regularly calibrated or inspected and are not held to any kind of standard even approaching how medical devices are regulated. Even if they’re safe when they’re first installed the lack of maintenance is a major cause for concern.
And part of my concern with the devices is that they’re invasive without actually increasing security. That the newer machines, such as the ones installed at JFK, do not actually allow somebody to look at naked images does not allay these concerns. Operators pick a pink or a blue button depending on their guess as to the passenger’s primary and secondary sex characteristics. The machine then takes a scan and compares the passenger’s naked body with an idealised form of naked bodies. Areas of difference are then highlighted for additional scrutiny. Therefore, anyone who has a hidden disability that impacts their physical form or otherwise has an atypical body configuration must disclose this to the TSA workers.
My choices would therefore seem to be discussing my genitals with a TSA worker or having them felt by a TSA worker. Because this discussion would likely be extremely triggering, embarrassing and exposes me to the possibility of harassment, I’ve always chosen to opt out of the scanning machines, as is my right under US law. However, while the screener hopefully was not entirely aware as to the shape of my genitals, having them touched by a stranger under these circumstances also turns out to be more disturbing than I would have expected.
While I understand that not all genital touching is necessarily sexual in nature, this is a fundamentally different experience than one in a medical context. When examined by doctors, they explain what is going to happen immediately before it happens. While the TSA agent did mumble through a list of his prescribed actions, I was not warned of what was about to happen as it arose. Also, medical examinations always at least offer a chaperone or else provide one automatically. Finally, medical examinations are concerned primarily with my health and well-being, which is exactly the opposite power dynamic. Because consent is somewhat unclearly explained and is effectively coerced, this kind of invasive touching invites comparisons to sexual assault. And honestly, I don’t know if I was assaulted, as this has never happened to me before.
One of the oldest rights in the US, even before the Bill of Rights applied to individuals, is the right to travel unmolested. The TSA agent clearly violated that right and my person, so my only question is whether this is condemned or compelled by the law, as it certainly does not fall in between.
In frustration and unhappiness, I asked the agent if it would be easier if I removed my trousers. I then immediately apologised for this comment, saying he was just doing his job, which I assumed to be true at the time. He replied threatening me with arrest if I did so. Even after explaining several times that I was not intending to remove any clothes and regretted my choice of words, he kept repeating threats to escalate, advising me not to make things more difficult for myself.
I deeply regret that I’ve planned two separate trips to the US instead of combining everything into one trip. There is no question this experience will effect how often I visit home. I am a stage where I am not easily triggered by things related to being transgender, but for a lot of people, this situation, if the screener’s action was legal, would be so triggering that it would effectively ban then from air travel. Other travellers are also likely to avoid visiting the us, including tourists, which obviously has economic impact, and academics attending conferences as well as those travelling for business. This thus then increases an intellectual and economic isolation of the US.
For all the people I missed in New York who are wondering when I’ll next pass through, I’m afraid it’s not going to be for a very long while.

Dr Ew (contains spoilers)

These evil people are clearly suspicious. They have hacked a young woman’s head so she can actually understand the internet. #drwho #ew
@PennyRed

The current Doctor Who series has exactly zero women writers. Perhaps this is why it’s kicked off with a show that fails the Bechdel Test – at least between adults. The child and the nanny do have a brief conversation.
The show has two strong female characters and two strong male characters as well as two additional supporting male roles. The major male players are of course, The Doctor and a character that one might not expect to have a gender: The Great Intelligence. The other male roles are two subordinates at an evil company that hacks people. The strong female roles are Clara, the Doctor’s new sidekick; and the woman in charge of the evil company.
As Laurie Penny notes, the evil company adds computer knowledge to Clara’s head. Previously, she was entirely inept at getting online, ringing a helpline for aid logging in to wifi. She seems to be a middle class woman in her 20’s in modern-day London, who has access to a netbook and a reason to want to get online. The idea that she would be unable to manage something as simple as loggin in to wifi actually seems profoundly unlikely.
Her job is working as a nanny, a reprise of the job of her previous incarnation. The Doctor keeps trying to ask how somebody as obviously clever as herself got stuck as a nanny – an often female-specific job. Things are not getting off to a great start.
The other strong woman character never speaks to Clara. She mostly speaks to her two male assistants, to the Great Intelligence and to the Doctor. At the end, after the Doctor saves the day, she is reset to her state before the Great Intelligence started shaping her personality and actions, or ‘whispering in her ear’ as she puts it. UNIT finds her sitting on the floor, speaking in the voice of a little girl, asking where her mummy and daddy have gone. Her talents and even her entire self is thus not her own, but belonged to the male Great Intelligence.
Clara did get to save the day in her debut, but only by offing herself in the process. She manages to live through this episode – sort of. She dies twice, but the Doctor brings her back both times. As she’s dead, she’s especially helpless as a captive and thus is not able to play an active part in her own rescue. However, she’s not useless. She discovers the location of the bad guys through a clever insight into social engineering – that the weak point in computer security is usually the people. However, this insight is not entirely her own. All of her computer knowledge and therefore all of her hacking skills, remember, have come from the bad guys. Again, this mirrors her first episode where she also has superior hacking skills than the Doctor, but only because the Daleks have tampered with her mind and body.
The power of women in the episode is, therefore, largely not really their own, but given to them by the machinations of a male intelligence. Meanwhile, the Doctor’s abilities come from his own great intelligence and from his magical powers – he uses the sonic screwdriver to ‘hack.’ This device functions more or less as a magic wand in recent years. In this episode, he also has a magical flying motorcycle. (The linked article at the top mentions JK Rowling as a sci-fi author. I would normally strongly contest this claim, but her influence on Doctor Who is very clear, thus pulling the show further and further away form sci-fi and towards fantasy.) The source of the Great Intelligence’s power is not yet revealed in it’s current arc – it’s a nemesis from the old days, so a backstory does exist, but without benefit of that knowledge, one does assume it is intelligent and powerful in it’s own right.
The episode does not contain any great moral questions of good and evil and does not intentionally engage gender roles in 21st century Britain. Instead, it gives us the doctor acting silly, doing magic and centres mostly on London geography. The tallest new building in the capital, which is also a a ticketed tourist attraction, is the main point of action, but there’s also South Bank and a joke about the blue police box at Earl’s Court.
For those of us who miss Davies, there are not LGBT characters, but there are some POC and there are women working in tech jobs at the evil company, although these are not speaking parts. These women, like their male colleagues, also have gotten all their job training via evil mind control, so this doesn’t really imply anything about their abilities, but it’s better than nothing, I guess.

So you changed your facebook icon?

The US Supreme Court just heard arguments for two cases involving marriage equality. Up to 57% of Americans now think marriage equality is a good idea and a bunch of people, mostly straight allies, have changed their facebook icons into red equals signs to show this.

The equals sign is the logo of HRC, a gay (and not bi and really not trans) advocacy organisation. They’re run by and for A-gays and give awards to vulture capital firms for not discriminating against gay people while giving bonuses or while making people homeless, jobless and hungry. Not that they’re legally required to avoid this discrimination. In 34 states, it’s still legal to fire people for being gay or to throw them out of their homes. There is no federal hate crimes law. Gay people are not in the Civil Rights Act or the pathetically weak ‘ENDA’ which the HRC has been failing to get through congress for my entire adult life. That bill would prevent discrimination in employment only and only for gay people, as the HRC has specifically lobbied to prevent trans inclusion. Because trans people are icky and they’re sure it’s much more likely to pass if it excludes us. Really. any day now it will pass. … Not that they’re spending much capital on it, political or monetary. A-gays aren’t worried about getting fired.

The HRC wants you to know that gay people are just like you: rich, white and privileged. And normative. Why shouldn’t two men be able to have a wedding reception at their country club? So the legal talent and the money for the marriage cases are coming from freshly outed Republicans. Other funding is coming from straight people who saw Brokeback Mountain and cried. No, really. The single biggest block of people who have been pushing for marriage equality is straight women who liked Brokeback Mountain.

And so marriage equality has become a social barometer. Just like voting for Obama proves you’re not a racist, backing gay marriage and changing your facebook icon means you’re not homophobic. Because gay people are just like you! So if you feel uncomfortable around queeny men or especially around butch lesbians or around people you read as trans, no need to worry about being homophobic if you support gay marriage. No need to worry about having appropriate sex-ed for LGBT kids. No need to worry about the homeless LGBT youth who might want to build a shelter in your neighbourhood and drive down property values. It’s totally ok to think Grindr is icky and condemn it entirely with no first hand knowledge, because you support gay marriage!

And yes, it’s gay marriage. After all, the HRC just told trans people just this last week, to take down their flag, since “gay marriage isn’t a trans issue.”

Did I mention I got the first same sex divorce in the State of California? I can’t say I’m especially proud of this fact. I will say that having a legal structure for divorce made the split a lot easier than it would have been otherwise. I might get married again some day. Aside from everything else, it has implications with immigration law. And if I don’t have to appear in court and change my birth certificate, so much the better. So yes, I support marriage equality, which is also a transgender issue. And so is the staggeringly high rate of unemployment and under-empolyment among trans people in San Francisco, which is probably one of the most trans-friendly cities in the US.

I’m glad that allies are supporting this largely symbolic drive towards equality. But now let’s talk about why lgbt people, tend to be poor. Let’s talk about suicide rates. Let’s talk about bullying. Let’s talk about something that’s not just for the happily ever after, not just for the lucky. This alone doesn’t make everything all right and it doesn’t make you all right either. I know most of the people copying the symbol of a tarns-hostile organisation don’t even know the source of the icon. And that’s why this really is just not enough.

An Open Letter

Background information below.

Dear Madam or Sir,

I am writing to ask what trans-run or trans-lead organisations or campaigners you are collaborating with for your campaign to drive mobile billboards around the Daily Mail?

I am also writing to ask you to reconsider this campaign. While I broadly agree with your goals, this campaign is expensive and I think the money could be better spent elsewhere. Due to the effects of economic discrimination, most trans people in the UK are far from rich. Many struggle to meet normal expenses or those transition -related expenses that are not met by the NHS. Obviously, harassment from the Daily Mail makes the daily lives of many trans people that much harder and contributes to the economic discrimination they deal with, and it’s a good use of funds to fight this. However, because these funds are limited, it’s important to be judicious as to how they are spent. Existing community organisations like Trans Media Watch are already running campaigns around newspapers and other British media. They also have relationships with media organisations and MPs. Donating money to them would certainly go further than a short-lived publicity stunt involving mobile billboards.

Indeed, I wonder who the intended audience of the billboard campaign is. Surely the Daily Mail is already aware that they’re full of hate. After Leveson, Parliament is certainly also aware. I would think even the general public is broadly aware of this at the moment. Therefore, it seems this would most succeed in drawing attention to your own organisation rather than the problem at hand. And while I’m sure you’re a very worthy cause and have admirable values, again, I don’t think you should be asking trans people to pay for your advertising campaigns. Would you consider dropping the billboard idea and raising money for a pre-existing trans organisation instead, like TMW, GIRES, Press for Change or one of the many other advocacy or front-line groups that are dedicated to helping trans people or improving our lot politically?

I fear that most of your money will not come from tans people at all, but from those with a strong and commendable interest in being allies, who want to Do Something and feel good about themselves in the process. Again, this is not the most judicious way of directing those well-meant donations. Our allies can feel just as good about themselves if they give to an established, long-running, sustainable campaign that succeeds at meeting it’s goals as they would feel giving to this publicity stunt. Perhaps they might even feel better, as the organisation the decided to support keeps making progress, vs having only a fleeting feeling of do-gooding which dissipates quickly as the Daily Mail continues to be awful after your short billboard stunt ends.

Thank you for your time,
Dr. Charles Céleste Hutchins

I’m not linking to the fund raising campaign that I’m writing to because I would rather not send users to their site. Briefly, this group has decided to raise £5000 to ‘encircl[e] [the Daily Mail’s] headquarters with mobile billboards plastered with the stories of the people whose lives [they have] ruined.’ This is all related to the untimely and tragic death of Lucy Meadows. She was monstered by the press in general, and specifically her home town paper, but outrage has largely fallen on a Rush-Limbuagh-esque columnist named Richard Littlejohn who wrote some rather nasty things about Lucy a few months ago.
There was a candle-lit vigil in front of the Daily Mail headquarters on Monday in reaction to this. Accounts I’ve read say that a large number of cis people showed up to stand in solidarity. Indeed, at the last protest I went to that was in regards to how the media treats trans people, cis people also outnumbered trans people.
I see this absolutely as a positive thing. I’m very happy that we have allies standing with us and that outrages against us are drawing general outrage. However, as with any instance where one is acting as an ally, it’s important to remember that allies are necessarily present in a supporting capacity. This means listening to those with whom one is allied and letting them take the lead and decide the direction of things.
I strongly suspect the the US-based for-profit company running this fund-raising campaign has slightly overstepped the normal boundaries of being an ally and tried to move more into a leadership role. Indeed, as they are for-profit, what is their revenue model? It’s obvious that they, like every petition site, are harvesting our personal information to sell it. How much of the money their raising for this silly stunt are they keeping? How much is going to overhead? How much is allocated for graphic design? Who is doing the graphic design? Who is going to be included and excluded from this billboards? Who decides? Is this even a trans-specific campaign? What is their ultimate goal? To target DM advertisers? Subscribers? To get the paper to entirely re-think their content?
This is all a reminder to pause and think before donating on something, including rage-donations. These can be really powerful and positive, like in the case of Feminist Frequency. But in that case it was very easy to see where to donate. Because Meadows cannot tell us what she wants, we need to be wary of those purporting to speak for her or for the community in general. The most important thing in giving money is not that feeling you get upon having done so, but whether it actually goes to the goal you are trying to support. Are you helping the person targeted? Are you making lasting change? Alas, we can’t help Meadows and I don’t see how this could make lasting change.

Some cis people don’t like the word ‘cis’

Before you ask, here’s a article in the New Statesman today where a cis woman complained that she was being asked to be aware of privilege when approaching feminism (horrors, I know) and complained specifically about the word ‘cis.’ Others have done a better job than I responding to that article. But I want to put my oar in.
This reminds me about some previous and ongoing conflicts in feminism and society. One has to do with LGB issues. A lot of straight people didn’t like the word ‘straight’ at all. Nobody asked them if they wanted the name. Gay people just foisted it off on them and then told them to check their privilege when they complained. ‘We’re not monolithic!’ they said. ‘We all have differing and subtle approaches to our sexuality and deserve to be taken as individuals!’ Which is funny, because a lot of gay people feel the same way about themselves!
No group is monolithic. There are as many ways to be gay as there are gay people and as many ways to be straight as there are straight people. The word ‘straight’ actually was meant as a value judgement, wherein heterosexuals were being called uptight and boring. Speaking as a straight person, I think that’s a bit unfair, but then given that straight people then were insisting that they be called ‘normal,’ I’m not overly excited about a minor slight in return.
Trans people are also not monolithic. There are a lot of ways to be trans – despite medical gatekeeping insisting on a standard narrative, we still have a huge amount of variation. And, indeed, there are as many ways to be cis as there are cis people.
Maybe you’re a cis person who doesn’t like the word ‘cis.’ You weren’t consulted on this. You’re not a carbon copy of your gender ideal. How dare people imply that there should be category for non-trans people! You should just be called ‘normal.’
I would like to urge you to examine your privilege. Which is another way of telling you to get over yourself. There’s billions of cis women and cis men on the planet. Nobody is alleging that you’re all carbon copies of each other. You say you’re more complex than just that. Well, so is everybody.
Another monolithic grouping is ‘white’ as in ‘white people.’ Past arguments and current about privilege in feminism often revolve around race. White feminists didn’t want to have to deal with their dual status as both members of a victim class and members of an oppressor class. Some meant well. Some were all for their own liberation, but still wanted people of other races to know their place. Many found it jarring to think about themselves as privileged.
And indeed, cis women who are fairly gender non-conforming don’t tend to think of themselves as having privilege. And in many ways, they certainly don’t. Yet, they still aren’t compelled to tell their life stories to psychiatrists in order to access appropriate medical treatment, but even aside from that something else came up in the news today.
A primary school teacher named Lucy Meadows killed herself. She had transitioned over winter break. The UK is a small country, so this was national news. The media was swarming around her home and her work. Richard Littlejohn (the UK’s equivalent of Rush Limbaugh) wrote a column attacking her. She was just trying to live her life and the media decided, during a vulnerable time, to turn her life into a spectacle and showcase her as a freak.
So no, gender-nonconforming cis people don’t live lives of amazing luxury, but they don’t need to worry about being attacked in the Daily Mail, misgendered even in death. Effeminate, straight cis men don’t need to worry about facing jail time for having relationships, but this has happened twice recently to young trans men in the UK.
But hey, nobody forces cis people to hang out in the feminist haunts of tumblr or other corners of the internet. If they don’t like the word ‘cis,’ they don’t have to engage it. Nor pay attention. Nor let it define their lives at all. And trust me, that’s a privilege trans people don’t get.
The purpose of talking about privilege is not a contest to give an award to the least privileged person on earth. It’s to be respectful in dialogue and to prevent furthering of injustice – something that can easily happen by accident. And really – I’m not overly impressed with somebody taking to a newspaper column to complain about being made aware of their privilege. Especially not given the role of newspapers in Lucy Meadows death.
If you’re feeling despondent over this and are in danger, please contact your doctor or GP (Americans can google to find free clinics in their area). There is also help over the phone. In the UK, LGBT people can call the LGBT switchboard (before 11:00 pm) 0300 330 0630, call the samaritans: 08457 90 90 90 or ring 999. In the US, LGBT people can call 1-866-488-7386 or anyone can ring 1-800-suicide. In an emergency you can got to a hospital emergency room or call 911. You are not alone and there is help available.

Fun with Cellular Automata

The SuperCollider code is stolen from redFrick’s blog post about cellular automata. All I have added is the SynthDef, one line at the top to set sound variables and one line in the drawing function to make new synths based on what blocks are coloured in.
Ergo, I haven’t really got anything to add, but this is still kind of fun and Star-Trek-ish

(

SynthDef(sinegrain2, {arg pan = 0, freq, amp, grainDur; var grain, env;

 env = EnvGen.kr(Env.sine(grainDur * 2, amp), doneAction:2); // have some overlap
 grain= SinOsc.ar(freq, 0, env);


Out.ar(0,Pan2.ar(grain, pan))}).add;

)


//game of life /redFrik
(
// add sound-related variables
var grainDur = 1/20, lowfreq = 200, hifreq = 800, lowamp =0.005, hiamp = 0.085, rows = 50, cols = 50;


      var envir, copy, neighbours, preset, rule, wrap;
        var w, u, width= 200, height= 200, cellWidth, cellHeight;
        w= Window("ca - 2 pen", Rect(128, 64, width, height), false);
        u= UserView(w, Rect(0, 0, width, height));
        u.background= Color.white;
        cellWidth= width/cols;
        cellHeight= height/rows;
        wrap= true;                     //if borderless envir
        /*-- select rule here --*/
        //rule= #[[], [3]];
        //rule= #[[5, 6, 7, 8], [3, 5, 6, 7, 8]];
        //rule= #[[], [2]];                                             //rule "/2" seeds
        //rule= #[[], [2, 3, 4]];
        //rule= #[[1, 2, 3, 4, 5], [3]];
        //rule= #[[1, 2, 5], [3, 6]];
        //rule= #[[1, 3, 5, 7], [1, 3, 5, 7]];
        //rule= #[[1, 3, 5, 8], [3, 5, 7]];
        rule= #[[2, 3], [3]];                                           //rule "23/3" conway's life
        //rule= #[[2, 3], [3, 6]];                                      //rule "23/36" highlife
        //rule= #[[2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8], [3, 6, 7, 8]];
        //rule= #[[2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8], [3, 7, 8]];
        //rule= #[[2, 3, 8], [3, 5, 7]];
        //rule= #[[2, 4, 5], [3]];
        //rule= #[[2, 4, 5], [3, 6, 8]];
        //rule= #[[3, 4], [3, 4]];
        //rule= #[[3, 4, 6, 7, 8], [3, 6, 7, 8]];               //rule "34578/3678" day&night
        //rule= #[[4, 5, 6, 7], [3, 5, 6, 7, 8]];
        //rule= #[[4, 5, 6], [3, 5, 6, 7, 8]];
        //rule= #[[4, 5, 6, 7, 8], [3]];
        //rule= #[[5], [3, 4, 6]];
        neighbours= #[[-1, -1], [0, -1], [1, -1], [-1, 0], [1, 0], [-1, 1], [0, 1], [1, 1]];
        envir= Array2D(rows, cols);
        copy= Array2D(rows, cols);
        cols.do{|x| rows.do{|y| envir.put(x, y, 0)}};
        /*-- select preset here --*/
        //preset= #[[0, 0], [1, 0], [0, 1], [1, 1]]+(cols/2); //block
        //preset= #[[0, 0], [1, 0], [2, 0]]+(cols/2); //blinker
        //preset= #[[0, 0], [1, 0], [2, 0], [1, 1], [2, 1], [3, 1]]+(cols/2); //toad
        //preset= #[[1, 0], [0, 1], [0, 2], [1, 2], [2, 2]]+(cols/2); //glider
        //preset= #[[0, 0], [1, 0], [2, 0], [3, 0], [0, 1], [4, 1], [0, 2], [1, 3], [4, 3]]+(cols/2); //lwss
        //preset= #[[1, 0], [5, 0], [6, 0], [7, 0], [0, 1], [1, 1], [6, 2]]+(cols/2); //diehard
        //preset= #[[0, 0], [1, 0], [4, 0], [5, 0], [6, 0], [3, 1], [1, 2]]+(cols/2); //acorn
        preset= #[[12, 0], [13, 0], [11, 1], [15, 1], [10, 2], [16, 2], [24, 2], [0, 3], [1, 3], [10, 3], [14, 3], [16, 3], [17, 3], [22, 3], [24, 3], [0, 4], [1, 4], [10, 4], [16, 4], [20, 4], [21, 4], [11, 5], [15, 5], [20, 5], [21, 5], [34, 5], [35, 5], [12, 6], [13, 6], [20, 6], [21, 6], [34, 6], [35, 6], [22, 7], [24, 7], [24, 8]]+(cols/4); //gosper glider gun
        //preset= #[[0, 0], [2, 0], [2, 1], [4, 2], [4, 3], [6, 3], [4, 4], [6, 4], [7, 4], [6, 5]]+(cols/2); //infinite1
        //preset= #[[0, 0], [2, 0], [4, 0], [1, 1], [2, 1], [4, 1], [3, 2], [4, 2], [0, 3], [0, 4], [1, 4], [2, 4], [4, 4]]+(cols/2); //infinite2
        //preset= #[[0, 0], [1, 0], [2, 0], [3, 0], [4, 0], [5, 0], [6, 0], [7, 0], [9, 0], [10, 0], [11, 0], [12, 0], [13, 0], [17, 0], [18, 0], [19, 0], [26, 0], [27, 0], [28, 0], [29, 0], [30, 0], [31, 0], [32, 0], [34, 0], [35, 0], [36, 0], [37, 0], [38, 0]]+(cols/4); //infinite3
        //preset= Array.fill(cols*rows, {[cols.rand, rows.rand]});
        preset.do{|point| envir.put(point[0], point[1], 1)};
        i= 0;
        u.drawFunc= {
                i= i+1;
                Pen.fillColor= Color.black;
                cols.do{|x|
                        rows.do{|y|
                                if(envir.at(x, y)==1, {
                                        Pen.addRect(Rect(x*cellWidth, height-(y*cellHeight), cellWidth, cellHeight));
    // the new line
    Synth.new(sinegrain2,[freq, x.linexp(0, cols, lowfreq, hifreq), amp, y.linexp(0, rows, lowamp, hiamp), pan, 0, grainDur, grainDur])
                                });
                        };
                };
                Pen.fill;
                cols.do{|x|
                        rows.do{|y|
                                var sum= 0;
                                neighbours.do{|point|
                                        var nX= x+point[0];
                                        var nY= y+point[1];
                                        if(wrap, {
                                                sum= sum+envir.at(nX%cols, nY%rows); //no borders
                                        }, {
                                                if((nX>=0)&&(nY>=0)&&(nX<cols)&&(nY<rows), {sum= sum+envir.at(nX, nY)}); //borders
                                        });
                                };
                                if(rule[1].includes(sum), {     //borne
                                        copy.put(x, y, 1);
                                }, {
                                        if(rule[0].includes(sum), {     //lives on
                                                copy.put(x, y, envir.at(x, y));
                                        }, {    //dies
                                                copy.put(x, y, 0);
                                        });
                                });
                        };
                };
                envir= copy.deepCopy;
        };
        Routine({while{w.isClosed.not} {u.refresh; i.postln; (1/20).wait}}).play(AppClock);
        w.front;
)