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…
..i havent really found anything that...
February 7th, 2004 at 4:25 pm
She better not grow-up to become a recreational drug user!!!
Love,
Auntie Darlene
February 18th, 2004 at 10:00 pm
Hi there!
.
. Thanks for the wonderful distraction…
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
April 23rd, 2005 at 3:49 pm
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.
April 23rd, 2005 at 3:50 pm
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.
June 4th, 2005 at 10:47 am
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.
September 6th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
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
November 17th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
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.)
December 6th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
well, it seems to a be something alot of people are searching and waiting for, MilkDrop
i too, came here searching for “better then MilkDrop” on google XD
and now i’m sure many more have and will continue coming to this page, learn that babys like milkdrop as well as adults, and probably go to http://www.rabidhamster.org/R4/main.php as well XD
December 6th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
oh and, my sister has 3 weeks old twins, i’m not sure they can see the monitor yet, but when they grow up a bit i’ll be sure to tell her about this idea for re-focusing babys attention ^_^
December 16th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
After sitting here in deep meditation for nearly 4 years, hypnotized by the myriad colors and sounds before me, I had a sudden epiphany: What if there could actually be something better than milkdrop!? Is such a thing possible? Could it even exist in this dimension, or would the sheer awesomeness of it tear through the comparably brittle fabric of time and space??? If even this simple visualizer could rob me of my precious infancy, what would be the fate of mankind if such a radical orifice of sound-driven rapture were born? Logic says that the universe would immediately implode and our lives would all be simultaneously terminated in one grand moment of synaesthesiatical bliss. But, having spent my entire life pursuing higher planes of knowledge through the Transcendent Way of the Milkdrop, I know that logic can often be misleading and that only Google knows all.
So I Googled for something “better than milkdrop” and found… a picture of the back of my head. Seriously… WTF.
From now on, everybody who lands on this page should go straight to geisswerks.com and tell that guy to stop going on all of his trips to the Grand Canyon, Mexico, and Maui and just make MilkDrop 3 already. It’s ok, I’m sure he can work it into his job at nvidia by playing it off as some kind of elaborate tech demo conveniently packaged as a winamp plugin. Please – think of the children!!!
June 3rd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Well, I’m still here after nearly 4 years. So much has happened I don’t even know where to start. So, I wont!
Pia. I love you.
Speaking of epiphanies, my love of gaming has over the years slowly worked me into an increasingly excited state concerning realistic computer graphics and virtual reality. I mean, how profoundly incredible would it be to actually walk down a virtual street looking at the trees, listening to the birds, smelling the flowers and feeling the tickle of a cool but subtle breeze as you watch a pretty sunset. How awesome WOULD THAT BE?
Back to my epiphany, the funniest and most obvious absurdity (although not properly appreciated as such until you’ve completed this round TRIP yourself) is that the natural end of a search for a more realistic reality is arrival at reality itself. Obvious to everyone, but only truly understood by those who have experienced said “arrival”.
So is there actually something better than Milkdrop? Indeed there is. It is the cosmic symphony of vibrating energy that makes up the very fabric of our universe, which all manner of wonderous things derive from.
Seriously though. Sometimes I still just like to stay inside and freak myself out by listening to strange sounds and staring at trippy visual effects which are somehow magically responding to the music.