Learning From Beethoven: Speeding Up The Exchange Of Scientific Knowledge

There is a general belief that science proceeds by smooth cycles of discovery and sharing – that scientists formulate theories, investigate problems, produce data and then publish results for other scientists to check, reproduce and then build on. 

On Techdirt.

Beethoven by Numbers

One of the reasons I am so excited by Spotify is that it is asymptotically approaching an online library of All Music. Even in its necessarily incomplete state, it offers amazing possibilities. For example, one of the key advantages of having all this stuff on tap is that it's possible to create playlists that mix and match in interesting ways.

Here's a great example: a playlist of Beethoven's works ordered by opus number. Now, I already have the Brilliant Classics boxed set of Beethoven's complete works on CD, but that's rather different. In particular, I can't move through the works by opus number easily.

Why might I want to do that? Well, it's an interesting journey through Beethoven's works - not strictly chronological, but historical in terms of what came out when. In particular, it lets me see at a glance all those odd little works that usually get overlooked - the opus 42, 105, 128 etc. that rarely pop up.

The other great thing about services like Spotify is that they let people share in interesting ways by passing on their playlists. It's a level above simply sharing the files themselves, and adds a richness to listening that is not otherwise easy to replicate. It's a hint of a world where all content is freely available online, and we can share and build on each other's insanely stimulating mashups.

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Funding the Musical Commons

One of the huge benefits of openness and sharing is that it divides up tasks into smaller, less onerous pieces: everyone contributes a little, but gets the lot. Here's an interesting application of that idea to funding the creation of a musical commons:

Musopen has been around for a couple of years but has recently rolled out a new version of its web site, added freely-downloadable sheet music, and raised enough cash to professionally record the entire set of 32 Beethoven piano sonatas and place them in the public domain.

One of the site's innovative features is its bidding system, in which users can pledge contributions toward specific pieces. When they necessary amount is raised, a professional musician is hired to perform, say, Bach's Goldberg Variations (currently the top request). Most of the money used to fund the Beethoven Sonatas was also raised from users in small increments, with a $5 average contribution. While individuals can spend that same money purchasing their own copies of such works, a donation to Musopen helps fund a musical commons that makes the pieces available worldwide and for any application.

Free Software and the Categorical Imperative

The Web could have been invented for butterfly minds like mine. For example, in one of Stephen O'Grady's hallmark Q&As (this one on Red Hat's cloud computing announcement) I came across a link that took me to the Wikipedia page about Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative.

I first encountered Kant when I was in my late teens - the perfect age for grappling with those big questions that look too big and daunting when we are older and more sensible. I thought then, and still think now, that his Critique of Pure Reason represents the acme of modern philosophical thought - the Choral Symphony of metaphysics.

I was therefore already familiar with the categorical imperative, not least in Auden's rather fine clerihew:

When the young Kant
Was told to kiss his aunt,
He obeyed the Categorical Must,
But only just.

But reading the excellent Wikipedia entry, with its formulation:

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

brought home to me something that - stupidly - I hadn't really grasped before about Kant's idea: its essential symmetry. Of course, it's there implicitly in the other version, which I knew:

"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means"

but the second form lacks the extra precision of the first.

What struck me is that this is the driving force behind free software - Stallman's belief that we must share software that we find interesting or useful. And more generally, it lies at the heart of all the kinds of openness that are starting to blossom: they are all predicated on this symmetry, on the giving back as well as the taking.

So there we have it: Immanuel Kant - philosopher and proto-hacker.

Virtual Architecture

One of the defining characteristics of Second Life is the ability to build things. The most notable manifestation of this is the tens/hundreds of thousands of buildings that dot Second Life's landscape. If you've ever wondered how people create the amazing constructions there, here's a short YouTube video that gives a handy introduction. (Helpful hint: lose the Beethoven 9 - it's hardly suitable as background music, and really doesn't add anything to the video.)

It's a short machinima from The Arch, which is written by Jon Brouchoud (SL Keystone Bouchard):

I’m a RL Architect, and have recently dissolved my practice into an exclusively virtual mode. I started by using Second Life as a professional tool, and have since decided to devote all of my energy toward developing and contributing to the convergence of architecture and the metaverse.

It's probably the best place to keep on top of the burgeoning virtual architecture scene.

The Sound of Music

Here's an interesting idea:

Use Linux or Microsoft Windows, the open source sndpeek program, and a simple Perl script to read specific sequences of tonal events -- literally whistling, humming, or singing at your computer -- and run commands based on those tones. Give your computer a short low whistle to check your e-mail or unlock your your screensaver with the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Whistle while you work for higher efficiency.

(Via LXer.)