Ben Farahmand: 2016

Binaural Beat Generation, Creating an Illusory Sound with Code

A little while ago I came across a phenomenon known as binaural beats. It's an auditory illusion that's created when two tones are presented to each ear separately, meaning one ear can't hear what the other ear is hearing.

I was curious in exploring this and wrote a brief piece of code using processing, which you can try out below if you download the processing environment.

What I also thought was interesting is the ability of a binaural beat to generate synchronous neuronal activity corresponding to the following mental states:

Gamma, 30 to 50 Hz
Beta, 14 to 30 Hz
Alpha, 8 to 14 Hz
Theta, 4 to 8 Hz
Delta, 0.1 to 4 Hz

I tested this code on myself for about 10 minutes and was able to quickly enter a meditative state. Anyways, try it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

Balance Bike Reaches 250 Downloads!

It's been a while since I've written anything about Balance Bike, the educational android app I released last year. Young kids engage through pictures, touch, and sound to learn words, colors, numbers, and letters.

This project was my way of teaching myself how to do android programming. I also haven't been marketing it, people have been discovering it organically and the app has finally reached a milestone, 250 downloads! It only took a year. :)

You can download it from the play store.

User Research Presentation by Michael Margolis

I came across this really great presentation and explanation on how to quickly do user research in the context of the startup. The presenter, Michael Margolis, is a Google Ventures partner and has been doing this kind of work for more than twenty years. He works with the GV startups to help them understand their users and to figure out how they should build their products in order to meet the needs of their users.

One argument that sticks out from his lecture is the reason for observing users. He argues that the importance of observing users is to understand the 'why' of particular user actions. He compares observing users to looking at detailed website analytics. Analytics will reveal what people are doing, yet it won't reveal why they're doing what they're doing. Seeing the metrics of a certain website funnel, or being able to see the data of people dropping off at a certain page doesn't give insight into the problem that might be causing users to drop off. Discovering the 'why' behind a certain problem will then reveal the solution.

I Don't Always Farm, But When I Do, It's Vertical

Two weekends ago I had the bright idea to grow some of my own vegetables in a cardboard box. After a quick trip to the hardware store to get some soil and seeds, I was on my way. I grabbed the easiest veggies to grow: radish, spinach, microgreens, and mixed greens. The results are below.