The Wire That Sings
Air will not stay attached to the back of a wire. It peels off alternate sides, kicks the wire as it goes, and the rate it does that at barely changes across four decades of flow.
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Days 66 to 55
- 66
sounddeep - 65
Outrun Your Own Sound
Drag a source about and its sound leaves from where it was, not where it is. Push it past the speed of sound and the waves pile onto a cone that nothing in the code draws.
sounddeep - 64
One Bit a Letter
Guess the next letter of a sentence until you get it. How far down your guesses the answer sits measures how much English you already know, in bits, and you will beat the machine.
deep - 63
Which Is Louder
Two clips with identical peak levels, and one is obviously louder. Your answers reveal which of three measures you are actually following, and it is not the one on the meter.
sounddeep - 62
Same or Different
Hold a note in your head for three seconds and you can spot a twenty cent change. Put six other notes in the gap and it takes fifty. Fill it with noise instead and almost nothing happens.
sounddeep - 61
How Far Is That Wall
Clap, hear the echo, click the distance. You will be within about five per cent in a minute, and completely lost outside a band three and a half doublings wide.
sounddeep - 60
How Many Voices Can You Follow
Two voices in different places are far easier to separate than two in the same place. The help has a size in decibels, and at this pitch almost none of it comes from your head being in the way.
sounddeep - 59
The Whistle You Cannot Blow
A browser will hand you a 96 kHz audio context and let you synthesise a 35 kHz dog whistle without complaint. Three ceilings stand between that and a dog, and the code only clears one of them.
sounddeep - 58
Point at the Sound
A shooting gallery for your ears. Switch off one cue at a time and the score tells you what that cue was worth, in degrees.
sounddeep - 57
The Wedge You Can Bow In
A bowed string will only speak inside a wedge of bow force and bow position. Two boundaries, two different power laws, and the gap between them closes near the bridge.
sounddeep - 56
Blow Into a Tube
A clarinet with no oscillator in it. A tube and a flap of cane, and the note is what the loop between them settles on.
sounddeep - 55
One Knob, Three Sounds
A tone whose loudness wobbles. Speed the wobble up and it becomes three separate notes, without the signal changing in any way at all.
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