A babysitter called Milkdrop!
Pia seems to like Music. Whenever you turn on the CD-player, radio or stream radio stations to the TV, she listens up and seems to enjoy the fact that she hears something different than “Oh - you’re sooo darn cute!”.
Well, daddy listens to Intenet radio stations on his PC every now and then (http://www.somafm.com/ and http://www.swissgroove.ch/ for example). Those Internet radio stations “stream” their program over the network and an application like Winamp (see http://www.winamp.com/) will decode the information and turn it back into music on your computer. Winamp (and other audio players) also has a “Visualization” mode. In this mode a piece of software will interpret the sounds and will try to visualize the audio in the weirdest ways on the screen by forming rhythmic, color-changing patterns and shapes. Those patterns and shapes seem to feel the groove and it is interesting to see audio and visual stimulation go hand in hand. Ryan Geiss is one of the heroes, who developed numerous visualization plugins for Winamp and among them Milkdrop, which seems to be Pia’s favorite.
Well, a few weeks ago I switched on the “Visualization” while Pia was sitting on my lap in front of the computer. She was mesmerized and could not stop staring at the patterns, colors and shapes, while listening to the music. Since then we’ve tried it several times and even when the baby has one of the fuss-attacks this is a guaranteed way to make her shut up and be happy again.
And here she is, sitting on my lap, staring at the screen. The photo is surrounded by some of the things she saw while she was staring at the screen:
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And before you ask: Yes, we limit the amount of time she spends in front of the system…
She better not grow-up to become a recreational drug user!!!
Love,
Auntie Darlene
Hi there!
I stumbled upon your site while looking for images from Chaco Canyon.
My husband and I live in Albuquerque,..so we’re almost neighbours :).
I’d like to comment on your incredible site! I enjoyed my brief visit here and hope to check your travel photos in the future. Right now I have to get back to studying :). Thanks for the wonderful distraction…
Hi,
I was googling for “winamp visualisation better than milkdrop” (not a good search string, but what can i say??). I came across this, quality.
Hope she’s still enjoying it.
-raggi.
Hi,
I was googling for “winamp visualisation better than milkdrop” (not a good search string, but what can i say??). I came across this, quality.
Hope she’s still enjoying it.
Oh, and I almost forgot to say… The reason I clicked on the link was the title contained “KahunaBurger: A babysitter called Milkdrop!” which just seemed that it’d be too entertaining to not click on, I wasn’t disappointed.
-raggi.
Well, I googled +”winamp” +”better than milkdrop” and clicked on the link to this page because you posted your own google search term here. And now I’ve posted mine I have no doubt that the page itself and now both of us will continue to be responsible for others arriving here in search of the same thing so I am going to leave you all with something
http://www.rabidhamster.org/R4/main.php
Check it out.
i just dloaded Milkdrop and thought to myself ‘Man, would this be really something for a little child to see!’
then i searched on Google ‘better than milkdrop’ and stumbled upon this site - featuring a baby doing what i just thought a second before!
groovey
Also got here searching for “better than Milkdrop”. Has anyone found anything better yet?
(It’s hard to imagine anything better than keeping a child quiet.)