Cycling 74 » Topic: Hotbits, capturing a stream.

Hotbits, capturing a stream.

steve_j — Sat, 15 May 2010 14:56:25 +0000

In the hotbits page (http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/) there is a java applet that appears to be streaming sonified pulse data of the detector they are using. Does anyone know if i can stream this directly into max, i am currently using soundflower, but that entails having the wepsite open in a browser.

Any one have any ideas?

Re: Hotbits, capturing a stream.

Peter Castine — Tue, 18 May 2010 17:06:04 +0000

Since Hotbits can only deliver its so-called random bits at 100bps, it’s not going to be a high-quality noise source. Basically all you’re getting is Geiger counter clicking.

I have considered adding a capability to Litter Power of grabbing seeds from Hotbits. This would give anyone who feels the current seeding mechanism isn’t somehow “random enough” a hotbit feeling while still providing completely random data at real audio rates (and better). But the response to the idea has been pretty underwhelming to data, and until there’s a lot of demand, there are higher priorities.

For a more flexible Geiger counter, I tend to prefer lp.ppp~. But I would, wouldn’t I?-)

Re: Hotbits, capturing a stream.

volker böhm — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:23:34 +0000

> Does anyone know if i can stream this directly into max

at the heart of the applet-code (which is downloadable from the site) there’s a call to Math.random(), which is afaik an ordinary random number generator. so you should be able to recreate the clicking inside max easily.
if you are looking for the specific ticking sound, the soundfile they are using in the applet is included in the source code zip. so you might like to replace the [click~] object in the example below with this file and should get pretty close to the ticking form the site.

– Pasted Max Patch, click to expand. –