The iTunes screensaver uses album artwork from your music collection to create a 10x8 grid of ever-changing covers, one of which flips and changes every two seconds or so. It's cool. I made life difficult for myself, however, by noticing that Beck's 'Sea Change' album was a photo of just his head, and that the Dandy Warhols' 'Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia' was an image of just a torso. Wouldn't it be great, I thought, if Beck's head sat on Dandy's shoulders?! Wouldn't it?
Well, much staring at the screen ensued. And continued to ensue. Still ensuing, until finally I could take no more. Beck's head was flipping all over the screen, but never onto a deserving set of shoulders. I had a three-head stack of Beck's heads, I had a peeled banana on the Dandy's shoulders, I had seen almost every possible combination but the one I wanted. I finally gave up (as a cunning strategy to then make it happen), and surely, soon enough, Kate gargled out a scream from another room and told me to come running! The impossible had happened. Fortunately, in anticipation, I'd left my camera next to the TV so as to be able to document the moment and provide proof to those who would never believe.
I only had time to click off one shot before Beck's head rotated back into oblivion and the moment was gone. I wasn't too happy with the quality of the image - it's a bit UFO in the night sky over Maffra - but you can get the idea.
It may never happen again...
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Not that you asked, but doodling around on the back of an envelope - a figurative envelope of course; the more mundane reality involves a spiral notebook and MS Excel - I arrived at a few interesting numbers.
ReplyDeleteAssuming (my favourite word) that one of the images changes every second, and that you have one hundred pieces of artwork for the software to choose from, then you would expect to have to sit and watch for 3 hours, 10 minutes and 28 seconds before the head and torso line up again.
Double your collection to 200, and the time becomes 12 hours, 41 minutes and 54 seconds.
300 would mean you would have to wait 1 day, 4 hours, 34 minutes and 17 seconds.
I'd assume (that word again) that you're not particularly interested in the maths behind this...
So, how many CDs do you have artwork for?
Oh, and one more thing - did you know that Transvision Vamp had a song on one of their albums called Andy Warhol's Dead; and did you conciously have that in mind when titling this post?
ReplyDeleteTwo things, two things. I'll come in again.
I'm incredibly interested in the maths behind it, but I'm also incredibly interested in someone else doing it for me, you see.
ReplyDeleteOne cover does rotate every second.
Kate's Mac only has 56 albums on it, and that's the one I've been focussing on. I liked my chances more with a number like that. My Mac's still in the shop, so I can't tell you how many albums are on it, but it'd be over 400, I'd think.
Isn't your calculation dependent on a complete loop of all possible covers with no repeats though? I don't know what sort of algorithm iTunes uses, but I think it's a random one, or whatever that fake random is. I seem to remember you talking about computers and random number generators, or something, at some time in years long past. So maybe it really never will happen again?! At least not in my lifetime. Maybe it's something our children will have to look for in the eastern sky?
I only remember two things about Transvision Vamp: 1) that the lead singer was Wendy James, and 2) that Mike had a poster of her falling out of her clothes on the back of his bedroom door. Oh, and 3) that I didn't like them. And 4) that I thought they had a stupid name... I'll come in again.
ReplyDeleteAny other similarities to anything else living or dead is purely coincidental. Clever, but coincidental.