School started a few weeks ago, which is one of the reasons why new Space U. episodes now tend to be few and far between. The other reasons are as follows: Mass Effect 2, assistantship applications, tennis, a new lifting regimen, a moderate-sized genetic algorithm software project (which technically falls under the category of school), and occasionally composing computer generated music. I just finished ME2 (an awesome game) and am nearly done with assistantship apps, so the list is shrinking.

I’d like to draw your attention to that last item–computer generated music. Over New Year’s I began playing around with some open source linux music software, and it quickly became a favorite pastime. I experimented with several programs before finally determining that a combination of MusE and Hydrogen would fulfill most of my music creation needs. I recommend checking them out if you are in any way musically inclined. I don’t have any special hardware–my CPU and integrated sound are sufficient to produce halfway-decent sounding songs. I do have an old Yamaha YPP-50 that I’ve connected via midi usb, but you can compose without any external hardware at all. If you’d like to hear some of the fruits of my labor, they’re up on my site here or here at ReverbNation. The songs are posted under the name Expatriate Einherjar, because artists are allowed to do crazy shit like that. I make no apologies for the quality of the compositions. Enjoy.

Joe out