Filk from the past

I just read an email—I received it a couple of weeks ago, but it got caught in my spam-trap address—from Walter Smith of Haverford Physics, asking if he could post an old filk of mine to his collection of physics songs. (He used to have a link to the song in binde's filk archive, but that seems to be no more.)

It made me smile, that this goofy little ditty I wrote ten years ago is still generating some interest. I should finish the other filks that have been bopping around in my head.

Anyway, I don't want to steal Dr. Smith's thunder, but here's the filk in question, for posterity:

The Auld Cosine

Should SOH-CAH-TOA be forgot
By our overburdened minds,
We'll use our HP-48s
To find the auld cosine.

The auld cosine, my friend,
The auld cosine!
Adjacent over 'potenuse:
That is the auld cosine.

(Actually, it is still available online—in Russian.)

Intake and output

(Must stop falling behind in posting.)

Hey, I did two things!

Thursday night I went to a lecture on dispelling myths in math, which I expected to be a sort of lighthearted tour through mathematical urban legends. Mathbusters, perhaps. As it turned out, the first two minutes of her talk covered racism, genocide, and the Holocaust (or H'Caust, as the NY Post called it recently), leaving me blinking. She did lighten up after a while, though it remained more political than I expected. I was pleased to discover I remembered enough college math to follow her proofs, though I sometimes disagreed with her social conclusions. The "urban legends" were of interest only to mathematicians—"Did this particular Scottish mathematician rely overmuch on infinite series expansions? No, you monkey!"—but I was sufficiently interested in math to be interested, if you get my meaning. And I remembered how much I enjoy the company of undergrad geeks; young classicists are fun, but nostalgia crashed over me while I sat behind a young Weird Al, watching him try to put the moves on his girlfriend and reading the bad marimba jokes on the back of his T-shirt. Of course, I felt old and awkward at the reception afterward, Kendra's tales of the weird guy who used to show up at Michigan classics lectures vivid in my mind, so I munched a couple of cookies and fled.

Friday I played for yet another contra, and this one was considerably tighter than the last. Elvie won the fellowship she'd been waiting on, so I suspect she was a bit more focused. We had a didgeridoo (which I apparently know how to spell) for a while, and a very nice hammered dulcimerist who chatted with me and laughed at my jokes. I got something akin to a solo during one dance, and received a few compliments afterward; people were spinning and rocking even when they were out at the top, which is always a good sign. Unfortunately, I'd gotten into a terrible, teary row with a good friend that afternoon, and while the music was blissfully distracting most of the time I sank into melancholy between sets. (We've made up, but the issues remain, and I'm still rather depressed about it all.) Still, there is nothing like playing music to make me feel more optimistic.

I find your lack of faith...disturbing.

Genndy Tartakovsky, the clever boy behind Samurai Jack and other things, produced a very nifty Clone Wars micro-series last year. He's gone and made another, rather less finely sliced, one: five 15-minute chunks, airing every day this week at 7PM on Cartoon Network. They'll air in a 90-minute block Saturday at 8PM, too.

The Force is with Genndy. Watch 'em, whatever you think of the prequels.