Paul Jay's Ponderings

If I could use some kind of temporal technology to make an effective pinhole camera into the distant past for observation, I'd be considerate enough to not use a flash. (Even if it means not being able to see anything.) It's annoying to whoever in the past is being observed. Also, do you really want to see what some historic figure does in their own privacy? Geez, have some kind of common courtesy. I'm sure someone would think it'd be neat to see Jesus, Lincoln, Tesla, Edison, or whoever - but really - there are times when they *should* be left alone. Ok?

Labels: bored, funny, strange, timetravel, weird

Just had an idea for a game that would be pretty funny. Get two Atari 2600 paddles (the kind that have a common socket) and a Joystick. Then cue them into a 8-bit blip music soundtrack. Follow the blocky pixel art on the screen that cues the upcoming rythm/score. Joystick would have 8 different directions to follow & fire button to a rythm. The two paddles would follow frequency blocks, and modulate playing with their buttons. Keeping pace would play a cool & fun funky composition, and maybe throw in some funky sound effects on an extra track when there are score bonuses.

So essentially it'd be like an 8-bit retro spoof of Guitar Hero or Rockband. But I think it'd be fun to try if someone actually made it. (Don't see why it wouldn't be technically feasable.) Just need to use a common file format for old school blip music.

If I had the equipment and programming knowledge, this is what I'd be looking for:

• A patch of noise similar to the rest of the background noise, but a noticible hair stronger in signal than the rest for a given frequency range. A little plateau of sorts in the background noise spectrum.
• This noise bump is likely to exhibit some sign of doppler shift in frequency over time.
• Natural white noise pops and clicks are fairly random in spread, and fairly random in timing. When looking at this particular patch of "louder white noise" - this would be part of the "Aha!" factor: this clump should exhibit an uncanny syncronicity of pops and clicks in the given spread when viewed at fine enough resolution on the time scale. That means large groupings of pulses of signal vs no signal should get all their ducks in a row on a given time beat.
  
• Do some signal processing to filter out the synchronized pops and clicks (those that exhibit an obvious time beat pattern) from the rest.
• Then look for obvious signs of digital encoding over the spread of pops and clicks.
• Try to figure out if any signal clues are embedded. If it's a "hello" signal, there should be a decryption key built into the data stream somewhere.

Dunno if any actual SETI researchers are doing this, but it's neat to ponder over.

Labels: SETI