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[Snarky]

There are no chords, just single notes?

And how do you define the repetitions that are disallowed? Two sequences of at least three notes each with the same intervals in each sequence?

There's no way to have an indefinite sequence of notes that never repeats the same two intervals. Since after the first note there are only 22 possibilities for the second note, and 22 possibilities for the third note after each of those, there are only 22*22 = 484 different possibilities for the intervals in a sequence of three notes.

So before you've played 500 notes, there will have to be some repetition.

Edit: Guess I didn't read your condition 2 carefully enough. Seems like you're already aware of this. I would represent the notes as a sequence of intervals (since there are 22 possibilities, we can represent them by a string of letters [A-V]), and each time I want to generate a new one, I'd do 22 substring tests to check whether the last two intervals + each of the possibilities already exists in the string. Then I'd select one at random from the others, add it to the string, and repeat. If all were taken, I'd go back recursively and change the last note. (You might want to keep track of the blocked notes for each position as you go along, or the process will get really slow as you get close to the limit of the possible sequences.)

[Nikolas]

Two sequences of TWO notes are a repetition. And yes it's not indifinite, I know that!

I think that the solution could be to have 22*22 (but that's impossible as well... Eventually you'll run into a dead end).

So I would be looking for anything that I can stop at any point and say "it's enough". This is for a part of a work, so it doesn't have to be complete. Plus with the right accents (so if you start a strong beat on 24-28-23 and later on you go to 28-23-something else... It might be tricky but the mind can't keep the pitch information for too long I think).

One of my problems in GWBasic and generally when coding is that I don't know how to 'keep track what's been done already'. So if you asked me to take on a phonebook and search for a name, I would go blindly until I found the name, or somehow go closer to the name little by little, but not crossing out names already done... (

[arj0n]

I'd also bet it would be the sudden rush of sugar. Try this: Make some sugar water, with tons of water and drink it. If it brings headaches then you're done. If not then you might want to research a little further.

That's for sure not what causes the headache.

If I'm not mistaking they use some sort of filler up for most wines. I don't know what the stuff is called but it's know to cause headaches. Especially cheaper wines have this. I don't know about the other drinks, but they too give me slight headaches.

I've heard of that too and it might cause the trouble.
I think they add something to apple- and grape juices/drinks too.

Still got no clue what they add that causes the headache...

[Wonkyth]

@Nikolas: From what little I know of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, I'm assuming this is somewhat related?
I'll have a go at it, just for fun.  

Edit: It appears my knowledge of surrealism was rather limited... 

[Snarky]

Two sequences of TWO notes are a repetition. And yes it's not indifinite, I know that!

I think that the solution could be to have 22*22 (but that's impossible as well... Eventually you'll run into a dead end).

It's worse than that, mate. If you don't want any repetition of even one interval, your sequence can't be more than 23 notes long!

[Nikolas]

Dang! Yes, sorry... I meant 2 intervals, not 2 notes. Obviously for 2 notes, you need 1 interval and thus you would end up at no. 12.

wonkyth: Yes and no... :-/

There is the twelve-tone technique, but it's hardly related.

Imagine this (if it can help): a huge orchestra is playing a series of notes. All with the same duration. And the listener cannot find a single motif to be repeated, a single idea to be repeated. Just a very long array of permutations of notes... That doesn't stop. Nothing to latch on. With no logic behind it, no musical logic, no other logic! (Only there is the logic to avoid repeated material at all cost).

That kind of thing... So it's actually the deconstruction of musical logic I'm interested in, rather than the other way!

[Wonkyth]

Yeah, just after posting that I realised that it doesn't make sense in that context.
My knowledge of more complex musical theories is practically non-existent, and twelve-tone technique was the closest thing I've had any experience with.

However, I've now had the opportunity to look this stuff up, and since I didn't even know it was there, I thank you for introducing me to it. 

I've had a preliminary fiddle, using the info you've posted, and created a little console app which at the very least does something similar to what you described. It cut's one or two corners, I think, but it's kinda tricky to do a desk-check on it when I'm not entirely sure what the desired results are. 
Oh, and the max number of notes it'll output is limited to ~250 due to the maximum number of lines the console will display... 

Shall I send you a copy of my attempt?

[Snarky]

One of my problems in GWBasic and generally when coding is that I don't know how to 'keep track what's been done already'. So if you asked me to take on a phonebook and search for a name, I would go blindly until I found the name, or somehow go closer to the name little by little, but not crossing out names already done... (

There are generally four approaches off the top of my head. The first is to keep a list (or more generally, a data structure) of things you've done which you keep adding to (and checking against). The other is to keep a list (/ d.s.) of things left to do that you keep removing things from until it's empty. The third is to set a flag on each item to let you know whether it's done or not. The last and often most efficient one is to do things in some particular order, and just keep track of how far you've got in that order.

In your phone book example, the last approach is best. The book is ordered alphabetically, so we use a method called binary search. That pretty much means we open the book in the middle, and see whether the name you're looking for is before or after that page. Then we look in the middle of that half of the book, check whether it's before or after, and so on. We keep track of the beginning and end of the pages we are looking at (top and bottom indexes). So if the phone book is 500 pages, we know when we start that the name we're looking for is between page 1 and page 500. Then we look in the middle, and might find out that it's between page 250 and 500. Then we check in the middle of that, and see that it's between page 250 and 375. Then between 250 and 312, between 281 and 312, 281 - 296, 288 - 296, 292 - 296, 292 - 294, and finally, that it's on page 293. That's 500 pages searched in 9 steps.

You can keep the top and bottom indexes in two variables, which show how far you've got in your search so far.

[Nikolas]

Thanks for replying above!

Another quick question, if I may.

I'm using Finale 2010 on a dual screen setup. Sadly the coders didn't not think make manual placement of sub-windows possible, so everytime I'm opening a new window/dialogue/etc it's in the middle of the setup, which is... the seperation of the two screens!

The software cannot fix that currently.

Is there a way to control it perhaps?

Here are two screenshots of the dual monitor setup: www.nikolas-sideris.com/AGS/finale1.jpg
www.nikolas-sideris.com/AGS/finale2.jpg (in full size both).

There is the ultramon, but anything else? Perhaps free?

[m0ds]

Just need some general advice, using Hotmail with Firefox. It seems to come and go in waves, but right now I'm experiencing a problem whereby clicking any link in Hotmail, ie, inbox, delete or the messages does nothing. And this isn't the first time, in fact, it's probably beyond the 50th time since I started using Firefox years ago. Some times it does this, then in a few weeks time, I'll probably be able to click all those links with no problems.

Any ideas, would it be Java related? Just updated Firefox, it hasn't helped this situation. And the previous version was doing it. But BEFORE I went to Mittens it was working fine, so I just don't get it, can't figure out where the problem is originating from. Any other experiences of such or ideas for a fix appreciated

[LRH]

My ignorance in the field of streaming things online has bothered me for ages but I've been too lazy to post about it. There's quite a lot I want to know, since I find it all very fascinating.

1.) When a video streams, what exactly is going on? Is the computer simply taking bits of information at a time and storing them temporarily as they play, or is it actually relying entirely on another computer and just acting as a medium in which to show you?

2.)Similar to the question above, how does...well, everything else work? As far as pictures and such... when you access a website with pictures and text, are the pictures and text temporarily saved to your computer while you view them? Or does the explorer simply show you pictures and text stored on another computer without the need to temporarily store them? Does this process vary depending on the file medium?

Sorry for packing so many questions into one post but my fundamental misunderstanding of how the internet works has been driving me crazy lately.

[poc301]

My ignorance in the field of streaming things online has bothered me for ages but I've been too lazy to post about it. There's quite a lot I want to know, since I find it all very fascinating.

1.) When a video streams, what exactly is going on? Is the computer simply taking bits of information at a time and storing them temporarily as they play, or is it actually relying entirely on another computer and just acting as a medium in which to show you?

2.)Similar to the question above, how does...well, everything else work? As far as pictures and such... when you access a website with pictures and text, are the pictures and text temporarily saved to your computer while you view them? Or does the explorer simply show you pictures and text stored on another computer without the need to temporarily store them? Does this process vary depending on the file medium?

Sorry for packing so many questions into one post but my fundamental misunderstanding of how the internet works has been driving me crazy lately.

1)  The data is sent as usual, but in sequential order.  This means the software can interpret it as it comes in, and play it live.  It doesn't have to download the entire thing to use it.

2) Anything you load is saved to your "Temporary Internet Files", a folder on your computer.  The browser uses that to display the site you're looking at.  If there is no update since last time you visited, it just reads that data instead of retransferring it again.

So yeah, nothing is ever done in a web browser without being downloaded to your PC first.  Unless I am missing some new technology, but I don't think so

-Bill

[Snarky]

My ignorance in the field of streaming things online has bothered me for ages but I've been too lazy to post about it. There's quite a lot I want to know, since I find it all very fascinating.

1.) When a video streams, what exactly is going on? Is the computer simply taking bits of information at a time and storing them temporarily as they play, or is it actually relying entirely on another computer and just acting as a medium in which to show you?

2.)Similar to the question above, how does...well, everything else work? As far as pictures and such... when you access a website with pictures and text, are the pictures and text temporarily saved to your computer while you view them? Or does the explorer simply show you pictures and text stored on another computer without the need to temporarily store them? Does this process vary depending on the file medium?

Sorry for packing so many questions into one post but my fundamental misunderstanding of how the internet works has been driving me crazy lately.

Pretty much anything you see on the web always relies on a remote computer ("web server") sending you something, and your computer displaying or rendering that something. You need to be connected to the internet because the things you want to see are on the web servers, and you need to have a computer (rather than, for example, just a monitor and keyboard connected directly to the modem) to figure out how to display the things you receive.

Now in principle, the web server could just send you "this is what your screen should look like" and an image that you just splatted directly to the monitor (or to be more precise, to the video memory in your graphics card). Essentially a constant video stream sent just to your computer. And in that case you might not even need a computer, or at least not a very advanced one: this is often called a terminal system. That's how VNC works (where you can control a computer remotely from another computer). But it would take a lot of bandwidth, be very inflexible between different screens and computers, and cause a long lag any time you wanted to scroll, or hover over a link, or do anything else that would update the screen. And it would be a ton of extra work for the web servers. So what they do instead is to just send you the data and say "you figure out how to display this", and then your browser interprets it and renders the screen locally. That's why the same web page can look slightly different in different browsers, and also allows you to do things like change the font size without bothering the web server.

Web pages are sent as text files in HTML format, and you can just save them if you want to look at them when you're off-line (though links between different pages may not work because they're pointing to the internet address instead of the local copy, and interactive stuff that involves talking to the server, like the buttons on this page to post the message I'm writing, obviously won't). Images are sent as image files, just like the ones saved on your computer.

With video streaming, they could send each image and the sound constantly, and your computer would just have to put it on the screen and send it to the speakers, but again, that would be very inefficient, and if any of the images or sound bits got lost it would ruin the video. (And messages get lost all the time on the Internet; it's just that the system is smart enough to detect when it happens and send it again until it gets through.) So instead they send little chunks of the video file (in order) and lets your browser figure out how to decode and render it. So you can take the same video and make it full-screen, for example. That's also why sometimes some videos won't play on some systems (like the iPhone had trouble with a lot of videos for a long time), because they don't know how to render it. The server keeps sending you the next chunks of the video as fast as you're playing them (or even faster, and then the browser just keeps them in a buffer until it's time to play them), but if you jump around too much in the video you have to ask it to send you the bits from the part you jumped to.

So the web server sends you text, images and chunks of video, and the browser keeps those things in memory while it needs to display them. Then it either throws them away, or saves them to files on your computer. Anything you see on the Internet has been sent to your computer and can be saved if you want to, but it won't always work by itself. For example, you can save the Google homepage as a file, but it won't let you do Google searches offline because every search involves talking to the Google servers.

[LRH]

Wow, fantastic answers. Thank you both Bill and Snarky! I'm happy that I know how it all works now.

[cat]

The download link to my game was broken because of my stupid host but thanks to Peder I now have a reliable host. Who do I have to contact to remove the "download link broken" message from the gamepage?

[bicilotti]

The download link to my game was broken because of my stupid host but thanks to Peder I now have a reliable host. Who do I have to contact to remove the "download link broken" message from the gamepage?

Game page >> scroll down. You should find a:

Are you this game's author? Then you can edit its entry.

Voilà!

[cat]

I fixed the link. But it still shows the download is broken.

Nevermind, it's ok now.

[Stupot]

Just need some general advice, using Hotmail with Firefox. It seems to come and go in waves, but right now I'm experiencing a problem whereby clicking any link in Hotmail, ie, inbox, delete or the messages does nothing. And this isn't the first time, in fact, it's probably beyond the 50th time since I started using Firefox years ago. Some times it does this, then in a few weeks time, I'll probably be able to click all those links with no problems.

Any ideas, would it be Java related? Just updated Firefox, it hasn't helped this situation. And the previous version was doing it. But BEFORE I went to Mittens it was working fine, so I just don't get it, can't figure out where the problem is originating from. Any other experiences of such or ideas for a fix appreciated

I used to find Firefox would get buggy with certain websites once in a while and clearing my cache generally solved it in the short term, but looking back, it did happen fairly frequently.  Be like me and switch to Chrome :-)

[Buckethead]

while taking some screens from a game i accidently remapped my keyboard. many letters now appear as numbers. does anyone know  sulution? i've already tried changing language presets. thanks in advance!

[selmiak]

are you on a laptop without a numpad? Then you might have turned on the numpad, search for some FN combos to turn it off again.