I used it for a while to understand mindfulness (vipassana) and problems I was facing in understanding the concepts and problems I was facing during the practice. It was pretty good, brainstormed well, knew references to original writings etc. Was useful.
Came across this rare article which looks at this topic in depth and breadth. The appendix also has lot of meta writing, which is quite useful. Very open and unbiased writing based on author's experiences.
I got 10/20 though I am not too familiar with most artists. I am wondering if it is just me or folk with more experience with the said artists do better.
I am planning to add more features. Say volume control - a volume square and place more beans there to increase volume. Or a pause button - currently while placing beans hand gets into camera view and gets interpreted as object and plays several odd notes haha. Things like that.
One plan is to try with people. Camera overhung and people walk below and compose music as a group!
So the narrative was emotional/trauma release. When people get into altered state, the narrative said that their unresolved emotions would come to surface and be felt into their body and then they accept those things from the past and then the emotions would dissolve and there will be a 'release'. Its a common narrative, I wrote and organized the content so that a first timer would get impressed to expect a release. It worked for several people.
Though not acute, you can see the effects very easily. Within couple of minutes of deep breathing we could create peripheral numbing and tingling effect. (yoga folk say you are feeling energy moving though body and that kind of stuff haha)
Sounds counter intuitive but breathwork reduces o2 to brain. Basically due to reduced co2, blood vessels in the brain constrict.
Having said that, I worked with a breathwork teacher for a while, creating narrative for the session, for mental imagery and guidance. It also had music as a backdrop. Fun times. And it was definitely altered state for a lot of people.
How to improve one's speaking voice. Mine is tiny, no strength, no quality, monotone. Found something called "kharaj ka riyaz" and practiced it for a few weeks and voice quality and strength improved. Then quality went down and my voice is not irritable and scratchy. I hope it recovers.
I tried creative coding. Sonic Pi, Processing, p5js, there are so many frameworks built around creative coding that I didnt know even existed. It was really fun.
My solution to fermi paradox is intelligent civilizations realize futility of life and get enlightened and just die out. Similar to moksha in hinduism.
+ 1 for propranolol. Its a beta blocker. It binds to receptor sites for adrenaline so adrenaline doesnt have effect. Usually anxiety attack is a loop where brain panics, triggers body reaction like increased heart rate etc and that causes brain to panic further and this loop escalates. Propranolol blocks this loop in the body, as in, heart rate wont increase.
Seconding use of Processing. It was written for electronic arts, new media art, and visual design communities with the purpose of teaching non-programmers the fundamentals of computer programming in a visual context.
I have used it often, found it easy, has necessary functionality for graphics and interfacing.
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity."
This app converts visual scene as seen from phone's camera to audio. Soundscape of a kind. Not sure how useful this is but I have been hearing about this app for quite a number of years.
Breath focused meditation gear syncronized with pulse rate - today people breathe based on a count, like 4-7-8 is a popular pattern. 4 count inhale - 7 count hold - 8 count exhale. problem is the pattern doesnt account for metabolic level, so I plan to use pulse sensor to monitor pulse and breathing count will be in terms of pulses. This might create some feedback loop so not sure if it will work.
The gear I have is a cheap heartbeat/pulse monitor integrated with raspberry pi.