Airsickness, etc.

Whilst there are arguable moral ground why you should not use surround sound software to design or construct missiles, submarines, etc., there is also a practical reason. Namely, they will crash (yes, missiles are designed to crash …).

In geometry, in surround sound, a positive x-movement is to the front, a positive y-movement is to the left, and a positive z-movement is upwards.

In aeronautics (and whatever the equivalent is for boats) a positive x-movement is also to the front, a positive y-movement is to starboard (confusion already?), and a positive z-movement is downwards. Why aeronautical people should regard hitting the Earth (or nautical people should regard sinking) as positive is something the author has not elucidated. There must though be an interesting history.

Whimsical as it may seem that aeroplanes 'fly upside down', practically much of the information on the Web is about planes yawing, pitching and/or rolling. For example the following:

attribution: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:ZeroOne
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tait-Bryan_angles

Note that whilst rolling is anti-clockwise here,
pitching and yawing have become clockwise!

The author considered creating a schismatic branch of ambisonics that flowed with the tide (or slipstream). The possibility of having export of the software prohibited by the US Department of Commerce, the ensuing fame, the chat shows, the t-shirts, the income, were all tempting …

October 2007.