(no subject)

beccatoria, you might be interested in this: Computer composers are changing how music is made.

Context: I've been reading stuff about procedural generation - my mum's fault, she asked me if I'd heard of a game called Elite. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and I have. I was interested to learn that it was one of the first procedurally generated game (Rogue likely being the first), and now I want to play it. But also procedural generation is interesting! I didn't know you could generate other things than content for games, though (since I've only ever heard it used in a gaming context). Apparently Brian Eno has used it for music (why am I not surprised?), and it can also be used to generate art (again, not surprising, I guess, since fractals are procedurally generated, and what is nature but fractals?)

Mind you, while I find it fascinating, I am no programmer (I don't care what my old college teacher said; I was probably only the best in class because there were five of us, and the others didn't really want to learn). Just looking at code makes me want to cry. I can't imagine writing it again ever.

Also this article from Polygon about what procedural generation is is really interesting (imo) - like did you know writing a recipe is procedural generation? (So presumably getting a not-quite right result is a bug in the process ;) )
(This article also talks a bit about No Man's Sky, which. I WANT THAT GAME SO BAD AND IT ISN'T EVEN OUT YET).

Every time I read about procedurally generating a city, I think about the Matrix. And then my brain ties itself in knots and...maybe I shouldn't think about that too hard.

here's an article about No Man's Sky (for the most part), because why not?