Cicada Nights: Adventures In Self Education

I finally heard that fancy long sound Cicadas make,
I've been waiting forever.

In the years that I was settling down in New York,
they were up and about, and it was really nice to hear them again.

It has been a big day for my inventions as well,
I've been able to minimize my mp3 player to a reasonable size.

Though the smaller battery runs out in hours,
not days, but that is to be expected.

I have to tidy up some software,
I have to re-write monitoring of Bluetooth devices...

Because the files that represent them on Linux,
are actually deleted when the Bluetooth device goes to sleep.

So I have to close the file-handle,
and go back into waiting for input device mode, which I recently coded-in

It all just takes,
3 lines of code,

At the gym,
I realized that all my songs have to come in three speeds.

140 beats per minute for lateral footwork,
where I twist my feet left and right, which isn't as fast as classical dance moves.

150 beats per minute,
which should be my standard 2.5 hour workout.

(But isn't as I halved my workout time,
due to the Pandemic.)

And then the upper speed of 160 beats,
which is for dancing without dumbbells.

I am still working on my posture, so right now the little dumbbells,
and the mask, are making breathing more difficult.

I wanted to spend this year mostly on cardio,
and my goodness...

Just couple of weeks ago, I had to look back on my bicycle,
to check for traffic...

And instead of getting a 120 degree view,
I caught 190 degree in the corner of my eye, so cardio is working out for me.

I just tried it again standing up, with my feet pointed forward,
I can see 190 degrees behind me by turning my knees torso, upper body and head - this can't be normal.

But, my music player, you see, is capable of manipulating the speed of music,
giving me rest, proper workout or high speed workout.

This is not a computation performed live,
the little Raspberry Pi computer can't handle that.

But a desktop computer can process 100 songs,
probably in 20 minutes.

Which brings me to my song composition,
this is another thing that I figured out today.

I am able to enrich the background of the songs I compose,
by actually adding standard sea-like noise, and then adding some reverb, and filtering it down a little bit.

This is very strange for me, I expected that background noise is best created with blended drums, base guitar,
but standard wet noise works very well.

I first noticed use of noise in a re-make of Alan Walkers Faded, it is refereed to as uplifter and downlifter,
and though those samples are richer and actually fade-in/fade-away, as far as my lightweight EDM goes, noise is noise.

I made a sample project, not really a song,
that show how the noise fills-in the background, I play that now;

(SAMPLE PLAYS)

I left my favorite discovery, and milestone for last,
because as small as my Raspberry PI mp3 player is.

It needs a purpose made case that can house the smaller battery,
that will take under account all the ports and a customizable push button that comes with the battery module.

Which in the current Mark-II prototype serves as the play and shuffle button,
double press being a stop button, and long press being a sleep button.

This is nothing I can create out of a stock Aluminum Project Box/Enclosure,
and while this takes me to the 3D printed cased realms.

The first thing that comes to my mind is a CNC milling machine,
I am just crazy about aluminum, and how it dissipates heat, and how it looks.

But this is something that is many months away,
as first I need to learn how to use Open Source CNC software.

I just want to see simulated tool-paths on my screen,
I already have an SVG model of a case, there are many online - but I know a huge tangent when I see one.

So I have built my MP3 player invention, I even went from Car Player to Workout Player,
but I got stopped by the world of 3D printers and CNC milling machines, as that is a whole new adventure, for another year.

It is great though,
I went to the local hardware store today.

I held Aluminum stock in my hands,
I searched for a nibbling tool, sheet metal tools...

I traced the micro-usb ports of an existing case I have,
I stared intently at my Dremel tool.

To me all of this represents another semester of self education,
there are dozens of new things to learn here.

It is how it has always worked for me,
finish the little MP3 player and a great new world of CNC milling and 3D printing opens its gateways.

It is really hard to start watching lectures or tutorials about programming CNC machinery,
until there is that need, to finish a little project.

There is no education like self education, it is never about finishing some one thing,
but about all the branching things that we visit learn, along the way.