Andrew Springman's Web Log

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2010-04-20T18:57:00.001-04:00

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Wes' questions on Phil. 2:12,13

2010-03-19T05:09:00.002-04:00

1. What does it mean to 'work out' our salvation? Isn't salvation a result of an act of faith, a once for all decision?

I think the answer to this one is in the context. Before this verse Paul writes

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others."

After this verse he writes:

"Do everything without complaining or arguing."

These are the examples of how the Philipian chuch and we are to work out our salvation. From that I think a better translation would be "live out". It's like Paul is saying, "Given that you are saved, this then is how you should treat one another." More literally I think it is a reference to working out dough. Again, to paraphrase, "The effects of your salvation should not be confined to you as individuals, but make sure that your salvation effects your whole community...from the inside of you, out to everyone.

2. What does it mean by 'fear and trembling'? Shouldn't our salvation come with joy and peace?

First, I want bring up another passage to talk about the whole "fear" question. Fearing God is a theme throughout the Bible. I've seen a lot of people try to dance around it. I think it is simple. Nothing and nobody can do worse things to you than God, so above all other concerns, make sure you right with Him. More importantly, the flip side of that is that if you have nothing to fear from God, you really have nothing to fear at all. And, guess what: God loves you, and values you, so you have nothing to fear from God. Jesus walks us through this thought process in Matthew 10. He's sending out the twelve and warns them that they will have opposition. He tells them not to be afraid. Why? Because their opposition's father is the devil, but their (our) Father is God. Here's that passage (Matthew 10:22-31):

"All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

"A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!

"So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."

OK, now that I have that out of my system, let's talk about Philipians. I think I've already established from the context that "working out our salvation with fear and trembling" is done by acting humblly toward one another. This passage give us a hint, but lucky for us Paul uses these same words to talk about humility in more depth in another letter. We don't have to guess from the the brief mention here. See 1 Cor 2:3-5. Again, the context, established in chapter 1, is about divisions in the church and about how humility is the cure:

"I [Paul] came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."

3. What does it mean that 'it is God who works' when it just stated that we are to work out our salvation?

Well, there is an element of fearing God. You should act rightly toward one another because, after all we are dealing with God here. However, I think the emphasis is on humility. We have no right to act proudly toward one another. We didn't bring about our salvation. God did. As in the Corinthians passage, we have no reason to boast.

One thing is absolutely clear: "working out our salvation" does not mean "bringing about our salvation". God did it, so in response, let it work it's way out and treat others more highly than ourselves.

Iterative Drawing

2010-02-27T00:39:00.004-05:00

The following were created with Python scripts which use recursion, but go to different depths for different branches of the recursion tree.

Feb 4, 2010

2010-02-04T21:44:00.003-05:00

Added songs to my personal database online

2010-01-15T17:21:00.003-05:00

I added some more of my songs to http://yokefellows.net/songdatabase

These are lyrics (HTML or PDF) and chords (PDF) of worship songs. No recordings yet. None of my coffeehouse/performance/minstrel/troubadour stuff (whatever you call it).

mod the other axis

2009-12-07T07:02:00.002-05:00

This one is done by taking the mod 3 of a function of both axis:

Here are three examples of taking the floating point mod of the other axis (this axis mod the other axis):

Ben's 5th Sunday Rehearsal Artwork

2009-11-24T20:37:00.003-05:00

Rehearsal sound does not require as much attention as Sunday morning. So I had time to work through a new family of expressions. Here's the result.

Incorporating Aspects of Sierpinski Game

2009-11-21T07:38:00.002-05:00

For background on the Chaos Game that produces the Sierpinski Triangle, see http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/playground/sierpinski.html

What I did here was use position in the plane as the input to the game, to choose which of the three points to approach. Then I tweaked it for looks.

Nov 19 Evening Artwork

2009-11-19T21:38:00.003-05:00

Nov 19 Morning Artwork

2009-11-19T07:44:00.003-05:00

Nov 15 Latest

2009-11-15T15:27:00.004-05:00

Here's my latest stuff. All of these were made starting with the default output of itgrapher (a 4 iteration julia set). These are studies in various techniques with the GIMP. I recommend you click on the images and view them full size.

Vacation provides time to catch up with image posting

2009-08-01T22:08:00.004-04:00

Here's some stuff I've work on over the past month. Let me know if you want the math for any of these.

Animation Experiments

2009-07-17T07:50:00.004-04:00

These animations were made with the GIMP Animation Package (GAP), script-fu and my itgrapher4d plugin. They are uncompressed as AVI files, but I've included MOV files for those who don't have support for AVI. The MOV files are compressed and therefore don't look as good, but you get the idea.

aztec.avi | aztec.mov

circlesine.avi | circlesine.mov

circlewave.avi | circlewave.mov

frame.avi | frame.mov

logline.avi | logline.mov

sinejulia.avi | sinejulia.mov

sinephase.avi | sinephase.mov

sw.avi | sw.mov

swiz.avi | swiz.mov

swizzle.avi | swizzle.mov

trans.avi | trans.mov

Messing with velocity and loads of other stuff

2009-06-20T06:44:00.005-04:00

What happens when all the colors (Red, Green and Blue) are calculated from the same iteration? Well, usually a grayscale image or a black and white. But, what if the velocity is calculated differently for each color at the same iteration. Then the colors are not equal at every pixel and color mixing returns.

Note that because I don't have three velocity fields, I just replaced the "velocity" variable in each of the color equations.

Now, you can still make black and white images with alternate ways of calculating velocity. You just have to make sure that the color equations are the same.

Another example of different velocity equations at the same iteration.

Random image I liked

I liked the wood block print look to these next two.

Floor is used on both axis here.

Getting back to an old series of images.

Three variations on a ring.

y2-x2 series

2009-06-05T17:47:00.005-04:00

More B5 and random experiments

2009-06-04T06:17:00.004-04:00

Here's more stuff informed by Bernoulli polynomials and some other stuff I did recently. First, the other stuff...

And now more of B5. Both of these treat the Bernoulli polynomial as a complex polynomial, substituting (x+yi) for x and then separating the real and imaginary expressions into a transformation for x and y (respectively). This first image is a detail when sin() is applied to the x transformation as well as adding the original point with each iteration (the same way you would produce a Mandelbrot set from a Julia set).

This one does not add in the original point, but rather adds sin(y) to x and sin(x) to y. The screen capture of the settings shows 8 iterations. This image was really made with 50 iterations and an escape velocity of 100. Click on the image to enlarge it. It's much better.

In case you are wondering why the print on the settings have become so small, it is because the plug-in no longer fits on my screen with the standard font. I'm going to have to write a plug-in GUI soon. Maybe I can add some features like recalling old settings.

Bernoulli polynomials

2009-06-02T08:05:00.004-04:00

Bill Kracke just sent me an article relating to Bernoulli polynomials. Of course, I had to see how they behaved as iterative transformations. Here's one result (based on B5)

"No Other Name" Chorus

2009-05-23T08:38:00.007-04:00

My last big effort was to get ready for the Creative House visual arts show. Now that the show is over I'm left with two things.

1) A house full of art. I'm in no hurry for everybody to pick up their work because my house looks great. If you haven't seen it, quick, come over before it's gone.

2) A crossroads. What am I going to concentrate on next? I asked Chris his opinion and he said it would probably be something music related. It was a prediction rather than a suggestion. Well, apparently he was right. I started working with Lilypond and I'm now in the midst of creating a class library in Perl for manipulating music and outputting Lilypond code.

The library as originally conceived is just about ready for initial use. It's not ready for publication because it doesn't have the error checking and documentation needed for that, but I can start using it and working out bugs and better interfaces. So, what do I want to do with it?

So far my experiments have been macros for music notation, a short hand. I think next I want to go a little further into "musical intelligence" (as David Cope calls it). However, not too far...more of a guide than algorithmic composition. I'm thinking of creating tools for making interesting melodies and then harmonizing them.

To that end, I'm rereading "Melody in Songwriting" by Jack Perricone (Berklee Press) and Tom Pankurst's SchenkerGUIDE.

Of course, I can't read anything good without creating something. So, I wrote this worship chorus:

no_other_name.ly
no_other_name.pdf
no_other_name.midi
no_other_name.ogg

The melody here was a result of the writing tip at the end of Chapter 2 in Perricone. He basically says to test the independence of a melody by droning the root of the key and listen to the melody on top of it. I like the song that resulted, but I'm not sure I really agree with the advice. A melody will demand a change in the bass even if it stands on its own. So, I've come up with my own tip for testing the independence of a melody: sing it out loud with no accompaniment. Duh!

I'm interested in your feedback. Also, I'm interested in lyrics submissions for the verses and bridge.

Audio files of latest Perl compositions

2009-05-16T10:18:00.004-04:00

I've been plugging away, making improvements to my Perl music scripts.

These were created with my scripts, lilypond and rendered to wav and ogg with timidity. The mp3 files were made with iTunes (see note below).

I previously posted the score to this recording but I only rendered half of it:
2009051101.pdf
Here's the recording:
2009051101.wav (big)
2009051101.ogg (smaller)
2009051101.mp3

Some you haven't seen/heard:

Very short piece in a Chinese scale:
2009051301.pdf
2009051301.wav (big)
2009051301.ogg (smaller)
2009051301.mp3

The first 13 bars of this are exactly the way I originally wrote this. However, be representing the piece abstractly I was able to create the rest of the variations easily:
test.pdf
test.wav was too big to upload to Blogger
test.ogg
test.mp3

NOTE:
I posted these as mp3 for those who don't have Ogg Vorbis players, but I really encourage you to look into Ogg. It doesn't have the licensing requirement that MP3 has. Thus it is much friendlier to open source programmers. If you want to play Ogg files with Windows Media Player, read http://windowsxp.mvps.org/ogg.htm

Becoming a responsible Perl programmer

2009-05-14T07:15:00.002-04:00

I turned my Lilypond routines (see previous blog entry) into a Perl module (but have not submitted it yet). I even read "perldoc perlnewmod" and followed the advice there.

Avoid Reinventing the Wheel (or the Music::Lilypond module)

The first advice was to search CPAN to make sure I'm not creating a redundant module. I'm glad I did that because I found some interesting stuff.

Music::Chord::Note
can create arrays like (0, 4, 7) from chord names. Doesn't support Lilypond chord syntax. Perhaps I can extend it.

Music::Scales
can create arrays like (0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11) from pretty big list of supported scales

This is the exact same array format I chose for chords and scales. Great minds think alike! That will save me some work. If I want to extend those, I will have to submit the changes to the author, but not before I can use my changed versions. I'm kinda eager to do a submission anyway. I want to learn this whole open source process.

Music::Note
OO code for representing a note. It doesn't support lilypond note format...perhaps I could extend it.

Music::Tempo
could be useful down the road to support italian tempo names

Music::Chord::Namer
Converts notes like C E G (string or array) to chord names C. Perhaps I can extend this in two ways. One, I'd like it to support Lilypond chord syntax (see App::Music::PlayTab::LyChord below). Two, I'd like it to work with arrays of semitones, such as (0, 4, 7) , and return the chord color name without the root note.

App::Music::PlayTab::LyChord
parses Lilypond chords for a Tab app. Might be a good reference. I might use it to extend Music::Chord::Namer and Music::Chord::Note

Use module-starter

This was another great piece of advice. Even if I never submit my module to CPAN, this gave me a structure for documenting my code, a way to add my documentation to perldoc and the man pages and a starter structure for module testing my code.

FYI, I used the Synaptic Package Manager to install module-starter on my Ubuntu machine. It is called libmodule-starter-perl there.

Use Carp

Another interesting thing that they advise is to use Carp to report errors in the way my routines are called and use warn and die for problems caused by my code. I didn't know about Carp. It makes a lot of sense.

Of course, I don't have no stinking error checking yet, but when I do, I'll use Carp.

It was easy and it actually worked!

I created one syntax error cutting and pasting from my old code, but other than that, I was able to convert my old script from using local routines to using my new module in the first try.

So, being a responsible Perl programmer actually isn't all that bad. I feel all grown up. Maybe I can move out of my parent's house? ...but I swear I'll scream if you try to take my blankey.

dipping my toe into the algorithmic composition pool

2009-05-12T21:02:00.004-04:00

Listen to this midi file and read the score.

2009051101.midi
2009051101.pdf

These two files were output by LilyPond based on this input file:

2009051101.ly

That file was output by a Perl program I wrote. That program consists of generic routines and data for creating piano pieces from an abstract data type defining harmonic, melodic and rhythmic patterns. The portion of the script that defines the data specific to this piece is:

#patterns for the piece
my @harmonic_progression = (0, -4, -1, -5, -2, -6, -3);
my $rh_pattern = [[0,2], ['r'], [0], [1],
[0,2], [1], [0], [-3],
[3, 5], [0], [-3], [2,4],
[0], [-3], [1,3], [-3]]; #scale degrees
my @rh_rhythm = (16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16);
my $lh_pattern = [[0], [3], [7], [9]]; #scale degrees
my @lh_rhythm = ("4.", 8, "4.", 8);

#build the piece
my $scale = \@harmonic_minor_scale;
my $root = $middle_c - 3; #a
my @the_piece =
(
{
"scale" => $scale,
"harmonic_progression" => \@harmonic_progression,
"rh_pattern" => $rh_pattern,
"rh_root" => $root + 12,
"rh_rhythm" => \@rh_rhythm,
"lh_pattern" => $lh_pattern,
"lh_root" => $root - 12,
"lh_rhythm" => \@lh_rhythm,
"count" => 2
},
{
"scale" => $scale,
"harmonic_progression" => [0],
"rh_pattern" => [[0,2,4,7]],
"rh_root" => $root,
"rh_rhythm" => [1],
"lh_pattern" => $lh_pattern,
"lh_root" => $root - 12,
"lh_rhythm" => [1],
"count" => 1
},
);

If I change the line

my $scale = \@harmonic_minor_scale;

my $scale = \@major_scale;

the resulting piece has a completely different harmonic quality, but still works. If I've done things correctly, I could theoretically enter any piano piece in this format. Then I could tweak some of the parameters and end up with a different piece that also works.

At the core of the Perl program is the ability to modally transpose patterns based on other patterns. I've long thought modal transposition would be a great modification to LilyPond, but Perl is soooo much easier than Scheme and it's much easier to manipulate LilyPond code than to manipulate the internals of LilyPond. Someday I'll bite the bullet and either create some LilyPond/Scheme functions or actually extend LilyPond with C. Until then, I'm enjoying this.

Stuart Hameroff on Consciousness

2009-03-20T09:06:00.001-04:00

Beyond Belief: Science, Reason, Religion & Survival

Salk Institute for Biological Studies
November 5 - 7, 2006

Session 4

Stuart Hameroff, VS Ramachandran

November 5, 2006

The link:

http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival/session-4-1

Never Mind the Singularity, Here's the Science (Wired, 20080324)

2009-03-19T17:42:00.001-04:00

http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/16-04/ff_kurzweil_sb

two single-iteration images

2009-03-10T18:50:00.003-04:00

Introducing Z^3 and Z^4+Z^3+Z^2

2009-03-10T07:14:00.004-04:00

Well, this first one is not really in the series of the title, but the rest below are.