Overheard in the Lab of the Day

A colleague was whistling the marching tune one hears in The Bridge in on the River Kwai, and after I asked him if we were suddenly in the British Army, I wondered what the name of the song was. Luckily, there’s a way to find such things out, called the internet (which is apparently a series of tubes.) Turns out it’s called The Colonel Bogey March, and the Wikipedia entry implies it has some interesting (not G-rated) lyrics, which it does.

… And Then a Hockey Game Broke Out

The Onion: South African Vuvuzela Philharmonic Angered By Soccer Games Breaking Out During Concerts

Spontaneous high-caliber soccer games have thus far plagued every orchestral vuvuzela performance of the season, which opened June 11 at Cape Town Stadium. As musicians took their places in the stands and began warming up for the evening’s performance of lighter pieces by post-minimalist composers, they noticed the audience was not sitting in its traditional place in the stadium’s central area.

As the Philharmonic learned later, its only spectators were the national football sides of France and Uruguay, who played to a 0-0 tie as the frustrated vuvuzela virtuosi played a full program of concerti written for the distinctive straight plastic horn.

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I can’t wait for the next Austin Powers movie, with Vuvu Zela as the annoying Jar-Jar-Binksian sidekick who drones on and on in a loud abrasive monotone, not really talking.

Dr. Evil: Vuvu, what do you think of my evil plan?
Vuvu: Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Weeeeeeeeeellllllllll, uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhh …

Miracles? Ain't No Such Thing, You Clown

The Buzz On “MIRACLES”

Yes, most of the miracles we mention can easily be explained away by science, that’s why we say the line “fuck scientists.” Their factual findings sometimes explain away the Earth’s cool mysteries. Part of me wishes they were lying. Part of me doesn’t want to know how they really make crop circles. My imagination wants to believe it’s aliens or somethin’. If people can’t relate to that, then that’s their loss. I mean, seriously, it must truly suck to have no imagination about these things. Us Juggalos have deep imaginations, and an awesome sense of humor.

There’s more in the interview, along the lines of how if things aren’t miracles, then they aren’t amazing, and if you think they aren’t miracles, then you aren’t showing appreciation for them. Which is the gist of the lyrics of the song.

To borrow a little from Andy Dufresne: Do you know how to read, you ignorant fuck?

Ignorance truly is bliss, isn’t it? Stupidity must be heaven. I do not, do not, do not understand the position that understanding something destroys the beauty or wonder of nature. I’ll tell you what blows a scientist’s mind — seeing something cool and then figuring out what’s going on. Scientists don’t ignore “miracles,” we try to understand them, because as wondrous as the sight might be, there’s just so much more going on, if only you’d look under the surface. Calling them miracles is the lazy way out.

Random Thought

If, back in the day, Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon had starred in a murder mystery, but none of them had perpetrated the crime, would it till be a whodunnit?

See the Music

Record grooves under an electron microscope

It has CD pips, too, for those of you too young to remember what a “record” is.

But if you put a needle in the groove and moved them relative to each other, the needle would wiggle back and forth. Use a transducer to convert it to an electrical signal, amplify it and send it to a speaker (which would essentially do the reverse). The groove is a composite of all the waveforms of the song, added together.