August 5
<p>I'm back!
<p><b>Zeke's Better Judgment:</b> You know how Jean Grey keeps getting killed in the X-Men comics? And each time, she ends up making some big return? And it's supposed to be a big deal and everything, but you start to wonder why the other characters even care anymore? You being "back" is like that. <p>I don't know why I keep letting you talk. Anyway, to start things off, I'm going to answer the big question that's surely on everyone's mind.... <p><b>Zeke's Better Judgment:</b> Why you keep putting on those 3D glasses? <p>What? No. I mean the question of filler. Before I left I said I would arrange some sort of filler. Well, I did -- I suggested to Sa'ar and Derek that they write some newsposts. Sa'ar did one, but I ended up not having time to post it. So here, slightly belated, it is. <p><i>What ho and salutations, all and sundry.</i> <p><i>Sa'ar Chasm here. Since Zeke is up to his eyeballs in trying to make math fun for kids -- a Herculean task if there ever was one --</i> <p>Hey! <p><i>-- he's asked the rest of the staff to keep you all entertained for the week. I figure I should probably do something to earn my keep around here, so I agreed.</i> <p><i>Today's link combines two of my passions: chemistry and parody. In 1959, tunesmith and satirist Tom Lehrer penned a little ditty about the periodic table to "a vaguely recognizable tune." Flash forward half a century or so. Someone called Mike Stanfill had too much time on his hands and created a rather clever <a href="http://www.privatehand.com/flash/elements.html">Flash animation</a> for it. Be warned: the last line contains a highly questionable rhyme.</i> <p><i>Incidentally, the "vaguely recognizable tune" is one of my karaoke standbys. When I manage to get all the way through it without passing out or tying my tongue into a knot, there's cheering from the back of the room.</i> <p>And if you buy that, I've got a bridge over troubled water to sell you. <p><i>So, go enjoy Tom Lehrer's "The Elements Song" and come back tomorrow for, uh, I dunno, something. Possibly dancing monkeys, but no promises.</i> <p>No promises? Wow, Sa'ar's a quick study. It took me a long time to learn that lesson about newsposts. Now come back tomorrow for big updates! Big! Big! BIG! |
I love that song, and I adore Tom Lehrer. My high school chem teacher would play that on the first day of the course to see who "got it," and it happened that year that I was the only one who did. (The rest of the class just sort of rolled their eyes and collectively muttered "There she goes again.") I never heard whatever else he said the rest of the lesson because I couldn't stop giggling.
Didn't the Animaniacs do something similar? was it geography? |
Animaniacs did a countries of the world song, but there are a few notable exceptions that don't show up. I forget what they are, but I was surprised. Still, a great song overall.
|
Yeah, I've seen the flash. You can also see one here http://www.privatehand.com/flash/elements.html
No idea if it's identical, better, worse, etc. My only complaint is that I believe that about a dozen elements have been discovered since, so they can't be included. I've been told that the Harvard/discovered rhyme is actually okay, if you have an accent from a particular place. I've heard much worse. In fact, Dave Barry once made a point that in a song someone actually did a world/good rhyme, and that if he were God he'd never let anyone get into heaven who'd try a rhyme like that. I can't help but agree with world/good, but Harvard/"discovearde" is borderline. Maybe just a hundred years of purgatory. :) |
Sorry, it is the same flash. When you see "this flash" as a hyperlink, you don't really pay attention to the address. How do you do that, anyway? I always have to have the entire line as blue hyperlink. Annoys me to no end in Word when I type an address and have to turn OFF the hyperlink. None of my printers can handle blue. Seriously, designers of word processing programs, is it so hard to add a line of code that says "oh, and if you're exporting nonblack letters to a printer, just make the letters appear black to the printer's computer." I'm no programmer, but I can't imagine it's that hard.
|
Quote:
Besides, you come up with a rhyme for "Seaborgium" or "Meitnerium". Quote:
/backpedal Quote:
|
Seaborgium=bubblegum?
Meitnerium=you could mangle "serum" to rhyme with this. Okay, fine, so you give each of them their own line ending in a rhymeable word. |
Quote:
Edit: Wikipedia says not dead. Good for him. |
Quote:
A singing group I belong to had a Tom Lehrer night once. "The Elements" (the periodic table song) was the centerpiece, someone else did "The Hunting Song," and I got to do "The Masochism Tango." A lot of his work, including some very clever advertising material, is truly classic. |
Nope, not dead. I used to have an article bookmarked which told what he'd been up to of late, but the computer upon which I'd done so suffered a S.M.E.F. -- all I can remember for sure is that he was teaching math at UC Santa Cruz as of early 2004 (and, I think, still the odd semester at Harvard, but don't quote me on that.)
For the heck of it, here is a Tom Lehrer website containing lyrics to most of his songs and... other stuff. Do yourselves a favor: find and listen to a recording of "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" -- you can thank me later. http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ilies/wink.gif Edit: I'm not 100% sure this is the right article, but it seems to cover most of the same points as the one I mentioned above, so here you are. |
Here's a much longer article from a few years ago on what he thinks of his work and career.
|
Read that one before -- it's a good one. http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...s/thumbsup.gif
|
Quote:
I second this recommendation. |
When they see us coming, the birdies all try 'n hide / But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide...
I endorse this song. Gatac |
My favourite Lehrer song will always be "Who's Next." It was on one of the tapes my dad would play on long car trips when I was a kid, so I knew it long before any of his other work.
If you didn't know that, you'd probably have guessed that my favourite was "New Math." And I do like that one. It led to a funny incident last fall when I ran a tutorial section for first-year math and they were covering non-decimal bases. We'd just done a problem in base 8 and I mentioned that Tom Lehrer had a funny song about this. They told me they knew -- because it was mentioned in their textbook. I looked, and sure enough, there was a footnote referring them to "New Math." Never let it be said that textbook authors lack a sense of humour. (Actually, it's not a bad suggestion. The song gives perfectly clear directions for a base 8 math problem -- what makes it funny is how fast he goes through it, plus the incomprehension of the audience. You know you've got the hang of base 8 when you can follow what he's saying.) That same tutorial, incidentally, was when I had one of my finest hours. I told them we could perform the given calculation in any base we wanted. Why? Because all your base are belong to us. Brought the house down. Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
The individual words I understand, but I'm having trouble making sense of the whole... |
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Yes.
For us not to be able to understand it... The language its in must be old...Impossibly old... |
All times are GMT. The time now is 02:12 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.