So you want to generate interesting melodies.

1. Make a file called 1235.txt containing, one per line, all 24 unique permutations of the elements 1 2 3 5.

2. Cp 1235.txt to D.txt

3. Use sed to convert the numbers in D.txt to notes. Now you have 24 permutations of the major tetrachord in D.
4. Play them each. If it sounds like it increases tension, mark the beginning of that cell in 1235.txt with a +. If it sounds like it decreases tension, mark with a -.

Now those 24 melodic cells are divided into two groups: tension increasers and resolvers.
5. Rinse and repeat for all 12 keys.

You now have 13 plaintext files, filled with stuff like + 1 2 5 3 and - D E F# A
6. Figuratively roll dice to decide, given a +/- cell, what the next cell should be.

33% chance a + follows a +, etc.

Now you're outputting a stream of dynamic tensions: ++-+++-+-+---+ etc
7. Already this sounds good. It's got tension and release baked right into it.

Zero AI, it's literally just some plaintext files.

8. Return to step 6, except add in a separate dice roll for whether the next cell is to stay on the same scale, or move an interval above.
9. Now a cell like E D A F# has a chance to be followed by a tension-increasing cell a tritone higher. Or a tension resolving cell one chromatic step lower:

E D A F#
G# C# E D#

Etc.
10. Now the magic part: do the exact same thing you just did, except with those above pairs of cells instead of individual cells. Listen, mark as +/- if they increase or decrease tension.
And voila. Without any AI, not a single bit of fancy machine learning involved, literally just plaintext files and a text editor and utilities like rand and shuf, you're generating complex melodic lines with dynamic tension and release. Just a bunch of dice under the hood.
You can get fancier. Make a d.a.txt where you gsub the fifth to a flatted fifth, and toss that into the mix. Make a d.b.txt where you toss in a wild flatted seventh instead of a second. Add it to the mix.
You can, literally using just plaintext and rolling imaginary dice, generate basically infinite melodies that sound interesting, that have a dynamic flow that randomly selecting individual notes does not.
This is what I'm playing with at the moment.

Try it. Like it? Reward my incredible laziness.

https://t.co/aHjAaZYHrw

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The US immigration act of 1907 signed by Teddy Roosevelt: ableist as hell. https://t.co/ficeXOImo5


One theory for why the Spanish flu was so unusually lethal for young people:

They hadn't lived through the previous flu pandemic of 1889-1890 (https://t.co/OiDZYtdbWx) that killed about 1 million people. And thus had no carryover immunity.

It's suspected that the 1889 pandemic was not influenza, but a coronavirus.

The 1889 virus spread rapidly, killing mostly the elderly.

The 1889 virus was the first truly modern pandemic: people knew about germs, it spread via trains, it spread at the speed of modern transportation and commerce
Look at some historical examples of mass psychogenic illnesses: dancing plagues, laughing plagues, meowing nuns,

Here's a video on them:

They are interesting, but what is more interesting to me is Culture Bound Syndrome.
https://t.co/hMKaApUMZn

Basically: mass psychogenic illness, and presentation of various mental illnesses, do not occur in a vacuum. Cultures shape them.

For instance, Koro.

There have been several mass outbreaks of men completely convinced their penises are shrinking, anchoring them with string at night so they don't get sucked back inside.

Almost all in Southeast

Here's a description of one outbreak in Hainan in 1984:

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