The Sound of Sorting – "Audibilization" and Visualization of Algorithms (2013) | Hacker News Reader

The Sound of Sorting – "Audibilization" and Visualization of Algorithms (2013)

panthema.net

37 pointssgy8 comments

Reminds me of Aud which turns your server logs into audio so that you can analyze them the way you listen to a car engine for healthy and unhealthy patterns.

http://dzello.com/blog/2014/01/10/listen-to-your-log-files-w...

Fwiw, "sonification" (rather than "audibilization") is the semi-standard term for the audio version of "visualization".

There's a good bit written about it, including a recent book: http://sonification.de/handbook/index.php/chapters/

This is pretty mind-bending. When you know a little about the algorithm being played, it does feel like taking a dive inside the processor. But maybe a different synthesis method, with a richer timbre would make the videos that much more interesting. Use a simple Karpluss-Strong string simulator fed into a standard chorus+reverb, pan each note according to its position in the visualisation, and we'd be taken to a freakishly higher level of immersiveness.

Maybe I'll look at the source and see if I can apply this.

When I use the on-board "sound card", I get to hear... something (my CPU? memory access?) that is directly related to stuff going on. I.e. Running some programs idly in the background gives a certain static fuzz, files being read are shorter or longer bursts of noise, moving windows around sounds a certain way etc, anything involving the GPU is even louder, and so on. It's obviously annoying, because it's certainly not filtered to sound pleasant, but also kind of fascinating.

When im running OSX in a VM I can actually hear the sound of the typing cursor flashing...I still have yet to figure ot what it is. It is super faint, can only be heard in complete silence.Sort of a ticking noise.

I was thinking of looking into radix sorts, because it sounded better than quick sorts.

lost it at bogo sort

Love it

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