asciilifeform: probably the most easily fundamental concept i know of in what used to be called 'cybernetics' (what's it called today? even exists as a field?)
asciilifeform: for anyone who actually bothered to read the link: i did not yet know the term 'OODA loop' when i wrote that piece.
asciilifeform: i can't even say for certain that it is real. it's rather like describing dreams. if there's no way to get it out of your head, it exists only for you.
asciilifeform: not sure why this isn't making sense to nubbins`
asciilifeform: nubbins`: i've played with continuously-variable synths, as an electronics enthusiast; trust me, it made zero difference.
asciilifeform: except the process of searching by trial and error destroys the head music.
asciilifeform: nubbins`: unless i misunderstand, the linked device is something like a theremin (in the continuously-variable input sense, rather than mechanism per se) ?
asciilifeform: (i mostly gave up on the subject years ago)
asciilifeform: i generally don't discuss music with musical folks because 100% of the time it turns out that they are trying to accomplish something very different with their time
asciilifeform: piano keyboard is meaningless to me. despite plenty of time spent attempted.
asciilifeform: problem is not the tone, but the input.
asciilifeform: nubbins`: as a fellow who can program, and at one point owned a 'commodore 64', i've played with just about every basic kind of synth tone
asciilifeform: i don't even believe, necessarily, that they have achieved anything. but in a logically distinct hypothesis that the snowden papers do not prove 'usg is impotent' any more than the famous kgb defections of the '70-80s proved that soviet intelligence was dead
asciilifeform: usg bureaucracy is every bit as gnarly as soviet equivalents, there are ~two dozen 'spy agencies', each with $maxint budget and practically whole legal immunity
asciilifeform: but mircea_popescu is right! they do outsource crapware production. it is not even an especially deep secret, to where.
asciilifeform won't belabour the point re: how 1) the nsa directorate that ended up publicly pants-down is not the whole nsa 2) the bureau is not the whole of usg intelligence
asciilifeform does not really have strong emotion on this subject
asciilifeform: eh, the 'tor' scrapes the eye like the shit in matsushita
asciilifeform: current experimental rig is (surprised) a gentoo box
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu, jurov, whoever else is awake: anybody got a preferred build system they want to see used for toynode (as well as a name for the latter, toynode is ridiculous) ?
