I nominate this for the award of “World’s most impractical musical instrument”:
Skyrim Thieves Guild
The Thieves Guild quest in Skyrim is a vortex of disjointed plot-holes, contrivances, and nonsense.
Quakecon 2012 Annotated
An interesting but technically dense talk about gaming technology. I translate it for the non-coders.
Starcraft 2: Rush Analysis
I write a program to simulate different strategies in Starcraft 2, to see how they compare.
Punishing The Internet for Sharing
Why make millions on your video game when you could be making HUNDREDS on frivolous copyright claims?
The Brilliance of Mass Effect
What is "Domino Worldbuilding" and how did it help to make Mass Effect one of the most interesting settings in modern RPGs?
…
*sips tea*
*nods*
It is good that this has been recorded and saved on the internets. The world could always use more cover versions of videogame songs played on improbable and impractical improvised instruments.
And, surprisingly enough, I’m not being facetious. That’s a labor of love, right there. Quirky, misunderstood, too-much-time-on-hands love, but love nonetheless.
I wonder how long it took to make it?
… And dear lordy, my default icon is hideous.
When I first saw this I started drawing up plans for how to make a version of this that’s even cooler…one that doesn’t just rely on a straight line. Something with a zig-zag pattern, where you recross sections multiple times to produce music.
I realized quickly that it could be done, but in order to do it in a timely manner I needed to write a script that would take my “line” of musical bottles and build me a looping course that re-used as many bottles as possible. I haven’t progressed since then.
I’ve not got the programming chops to pull that off. I’m also pretty sure I don’t have the RC piloting skills to pull it off either…but I could probably find someone else to drive the car.
That is teh awesome.
I wonder how long that would take to set up in order to play something more complexe(as opposed to the mario music which really just repeats a few times at several different tempos). Either way that’s pretty cool, and I want to do it, wonder if my nephew will lend me an RC car for it.
The guy controlling the car must have nerves of steel. One twitch of the hand, and the car goes head-long into a large group of perfectly aligned bottles.
But that was awesome! Must have taken an age to set up.
OK, totally unrelated, but have you seen the latest Erfworld? If you haven’t been following it, it’s worth reading the whole thing just for today’s installment (actually, I think it was Friday’s installment) – so many cheat codes mentioned that I didn’t even recognize them all! And used in such a nifty way, no less.
Love the Security Guard at the end…
I can now die a happy man. GAZZA said it best.
but…but
why?
RC-cars, music and alcohol. Three things I like a lot.
And now someone has introduced a way to combine them all.
Brilliant. I need to try that sometimes myself.
For some reason, it seemed to me like they missed a calling… That, clearly, it was the Chocobo Theme that needed to be reproduced in that outlandish fashion.
I’m… Not entirely sure why. I do appreciate the music from FF, but I’m not a particular fan of the games…
Sallright Phlux – write a script to drive the car too…
It might be easier to just use a toy train, if you really want to reuse bottles and have it pass hither and yon.
I feel all fuzzy and warm inside now. Thanks.
Phlux: How about timed hoses adding liquid to the bottles so that when the car revisits them the notes have been altered to continue the tune? :-)
Devnull: Actually an engineering/robotics student friend of mine told me that he would be willing to modify a robot he made for class to take the place of the RC car. I don’t know that a robot would work very well for something like this though. The longer the music track the more precisely you’d have to align your robot to avoid it eventually getting off track and crashing into the bottles.
Unless of course your robot had some sort of visual guidance/obstacle avoidance mechanism, but his robot isn’t that advanced.
I’ve actually started tinkering around with this again now. It’s just a figure 8 track, but I’m pretty sure I can do a 4 car round of “Row row row your boat.” I could do it in a circle with half as many bottles, but my goal is to learn about the logistics of cris-crossing tracks, and that song is only 27 notes long…so it scales well.
Jasper… I kinda like it.
Along the same lines, here’s Mario used as a musical instrument:
Part 1 and Part 2 (as well as others in the related videos)
I would be remiss in my patriotic duties if I didn’t show these videos in response.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KePjkCySBCs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5APJNzv9QI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_BpsH6Nvko
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OygFxVakkg
I nominate this as the most awesome musical instrument ever.