The infinite jukebox

The infinite jukebox seems simple enough, but the results can be fascinating if the right song is chosen.

The site takes any song you upload or that you choose from their already uploaded list, analyzes it to find all the beats in the song, matches those beats with other beats in the song, and plays the song on a near-infinite loop, jumping from identical beat to identical beat in entirely different places within the song.

That means that "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson sometimes plays through jumping from five seconds in to a minute and a half, plays for ten seconds, then jumps back nearly to the beginning to continue the process. Not every jump happens, but every possible jump is marked by a connection within the visual representation of the song. Here, for example is "Billie Jean"...

Each connection across the circle shows a possible jump when one part of the song sounds identical to another part. The highlighted green link is the moment that was playing when I took the screecapture, and the highlighted arc is a jump not taken. Right now, "Billie Jean" has been playing for seven and a half minutes on my computer and has played through 585 beats, two other interesting bits of data on the track.

It's a blast to play around with, but check out the already uploaded tracks. Most any song you would want to try has been thrown on their servers already.

What songs did you find that worked the best?

No link you click on should be the best part of your day

• Glove and Boots take on clickbait - Stop sharing clickbait, please.
• The evolution of Billy Hamilton - He's not a great player, but he's not bad, either, and he's getting better.
• ESPN's top 50 college basketball coaches - Mostly linked in because of the sidebar about Tom Crean, about which I agree.

Let's play the alphabet game

Threadless has a t-shirt for sale with the following design, an alphabet of male musicians...

Let's see how many I can name.

A photo retrospective of our pets...so far...

This post is very photo-heavy, so I'm putting in a jump after the first pic of Aylah. Consider yourself warned.

I know you've been desperate to see what's up with the animals at Case de ChemGuy, so here you are.

Our first pet was Aylah, a white cat who was with The Girl in college and moved with us to Cincinnati, Aylah passed away last summer on the morning of July Fourth after fighting cancer and eventually having her leg amputated.

I can see the future

Ah, Buttersafe, you slay me...

There are more panels than what I'm showing you, but I want you to go to the Buttersafe site to see the full, brilliant comic.

We ain't got no room for boring...

• Jeff Tweedy "Misunderstood" 6/11/14 - This was Wednesday night's closer. It was un-amplified and outstanding. (full setlist)
• The Arkham Sessions: a podcast dedicated to the psychology of Batman: The Animated Series - Admittedly, I haven't listened, but if Chris Sims is involved, they must be good.

Reflections about teaching #6

#6 How do you incorporate diversity or moral education in a science/math classroom?

Eesh...the moral part is something that I firmly appreciate pretty much entirely avoiding.

Yes, there are areas where chemistry and morality can overlap, but those are areas that I tend to skirt. I tell the story of Fritz Haber developing chemical weapons for the German government during World War I and his wife eventually killing herself, not being able to live with her indirect involvement. I tell the story of Neils Bohr having to dissolve his Nobel Prize in aqua regia before the Nazi's took Copenhagen. I also relate very tangentially the decisions that had to be made by chemists/physicists in taking part in the Manhattan Project.

These are direct, dramatic examples where chemists have had to make choices of whether to continue with research or to turn away. (Well, the Bohr story isn't, but it's just freaking cool.) In each case, knowledge won out over possibly more moral choices. In the long run the philosophy of science says that the pursuit of knowledge is, of itself, the highest pursuit. Nothing else tops that, and how that knowledge is used is almost always of secondary concern.

I do discuss environmental concerns, and those are - to me - moral concerns. We discuss what should and shouldn't go down the drains and why. We discuss why we should or shouldn't pursue nuclear power. We discuss the greenhouse effect. Those seem natural connections to chemistry education for me.

Now, about diversity, I try to make connections to my students' backgrounds and interests. Sometimes that means mentioning how the topic connects to sports (what electrolytes are, for example), to beauty (soap making and hair straightening), to explosives (the reaction of nitroglycerine), to cars (why different fuels react differently), and to anything that I know interests them.

It also means pointing out that even though most of the scientists we study are white men there were many others involved in the discovery of some of our concepts - Nagaoka theorizing the existence of the atomic nucleus, Meitner and Curie helping discover elements and radioactivity, the research currently ongoing in India, Japan, China, and many other countries.

I don't do a lot of moral teaching, I don't think. Partially because I don't always feel comfortable doing it, and partially because it often feels forced to include it in chemistry.

The dome's never looked so good

My summer job is traveling the country presenting week-long workshops for teachers (primarily science teachers) on behalf of the ASM Materials Educational Foundation. As such, I get to spend a couple of April days at the ASM headquarters in Materials Park, OH in a southeastern suburb (or maybe exurb, I'm not familiar with the area) of Cleveland.

This year we were up there just after ASM had announced their new logo. You can see it in the video up above, but here's a still of it...

It's a needed update from their older logo...

...and gives them an opportunity for some new branding, such as in their six posters that we were able to see sitting in the dome's employee lunch area...

 

None were ready for production while we were there. I know, because I asked. I particularly love that second one, with the tagline "Make big plans!" referencing a quote by architect Daniel Hudson Burnham:

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work.

It's a quote that is engraved on the Eisenman Fountain underneath the geodesic dome that rises above the ASM headquarters - and referenced in an editorial from Michael Connelly, one of the ASM trustees.

If you're ever in the area, stop by and check out the dome. It's a sight to see.

Did Bill Watterson see his shadow?

In case you haven't seen it all over the web, Bill Watterson poked his head above the surface of the Earth this past week, collaborating with Stephan Pastis, the author/artist of the entertaining Pearls Before Swine comic strip.

Pastsis waited - at Watterson's request - to reveal the collaboration on his blog until after the third of the Watterson-drawn strips had shown up in the funny pages. In the blog, he wrote (among a lot of other words which are well worth reading):

Let me tell you. Just getting an email from Bill Watterson is one of the most mind-blowing, surreal experiences I have ever had. Bill Watterson really exists? And he sends email? And he’s communicating with me?

Apparently - to the shock of us all - Watterson does, indeed, exist and sends email, though that's apparently the only technology he uses:

And this is when I found out that Bill Watterson is not comfortable with scanners or Photoshop or large email attachments. In fact, by the end of the process, I was left with the distinct impression that he works in a log cabin lit by whale oil and hands his finished artwork to a man on a pony.

Watterson did pop his head up in the recent year by drawing the poster for Stripped, a documentary about the comic strip industry - and to win the Grand Prix, but to get a series of three strips drawn by Watterson is a revelation for those of us who grew up loving Calvin & Hobbes.

Here's the first of the three strips, but you can see all six strips in the series (two introducing the Libby character) at this link.

They're pretty well perfect, and Pastis even referenced the final Calvin & Hobbes strip with the wrap up.

Thank you, Stephan Pastis...and for so many spectacular strips in your career, thank you Bill Watterson.

Hey, man. I've got something to tell you...that might shock you.

• This new Facebook feature pinpoints exactly when your life went downhill - I will never be this happy again.
• RIP, The Last of the Navajo Code Talkers Dies - This one's tragic.
• Getaway - Can anybody come up with a great crime for this situation?

Can't a daughter be concerned about her mother?

• Weather versus climate change - There's snow in April. They're burning down the rain forest. I mean, that's not normal. Separately, I like the dog analogy.
• 15 things you might not know about Caddyshack - link bait is sometimes worth clicking on
• Fordite:updated - looks like we won't be getting more Fordite.
• Why do students get summers off? - Most of the reasons you've heard aren't true.
• Ill Communication at 20 - Great album...great, great album...
• X-Men PSAs - careful about Liefeld syndrome
• When to sign an NBA player to a max contract - I'm ejoying fivethirtyeight.com mroe and more.
• Alison Krauss & Union Station in Louisville - They were at the Palace, a gorgeous venue 

Reflections about teaching #4

#4 How does teaching affect your view of the world?

Teaching seems to be one of the most inclusive views of the problems (and strengths) of our society that I can imagine.

Teachers see consistently that the things that lead to success in school - and that doesn't always mean success in life, I know - are outside the control of schools to a great and glorious degree. Success in schools come from a message at home that success in schools matter, and it's incredibly obvious which students have gotten that message for their lives.*

Teaching also allows for a view of some spectacular - and some pretty pathetic - parenting. We see parents who for all sorts of reasons are detriments to their children's education. We see parents who yell and scream at teachers, who demand that their children don't get the consequences that just might turn the student away from whatever misguided path they're on. We see parents who abuse and belittle their children. We see parents who ignore their children, abandoning their children to take care of younger brothers and sisters while the parent disappears for days on end. 

And, sadly, I don't have any idea how to fix those things.

People become the kinds of parents they saw far too often.

People have children when they're not in good situations to raise children - too young, too economically unstable, too little support in their system.

Far too many people have no idea how to parent, how to talk with their child instead of at their child, how to use the television in moderation and educationally instead of as a full-time babysitter, how to read to their child so that he or she comes to love reading.

Far too often there aren't easy ways out of the cycle of poor parenting because without education, without training, without assistance, the same mistakes are made - and all of that takes money, time, and desire to change...things that are often far too lacking.

Maybe what I have come to realize, how my view of the world has changed is that I understand that the problems are complicated and sadly not Gordian-ly so.

* I can't remember where I read this argument, but it's an interesting one. 

The upper class families aren't terribly worried about education because they have learned the lesson that they will succeed in life because their family and their friends have succeeded. They know that they'll get the education they need as a checkmark -  not as a route to success - no matter what they do.

The lowest socioeconomic class doesn't worry about education because it is simply another societal institution that is going to mistreat them, that is going to be used to deny them and their families a route to success. 

It's only the middle classes that see education as a route to future success, so it's only the middle class students who really value education.

I don't know that I believe in that theory fully, but it's something that has made me reconsider the effects of economic class on educational value. It may not be as linear as it is often made out to be.

Mind MGMT - you'll love it...because they'll make you

I usually stick to the cape and tights crowd in comic books. It's pretty rare that I meander too far into independent comic territory.

This month I'm glad I wandered because I read the first two volumes of Mind MGMT, a very surreal series about a super-secret agency tired to no government and populated by people with powerful mental abilities - telepathy, precognition, emotion manipulation, fault-seeing, and many more about which we learn over the course of these two volumes.

The story is engaging, revealed in very slow succession from the initial offerings of a reporter searching for answers to an entire flight of amnesiacs. Along her way the grains of sand add up to a shape that is only viewable from a distance on an ever-shifting foundation. Every fact along the way comes from an informant who might or might not be trustworthy, and the writer makes unique use of the format by adding in comments in each page's margins that put the facts into further question with each revelation. In the end, very little is for certain.

This has lead to closet industry of bloggers trying to ferret out the truth among the misdirections.

Each of the first two volumes ends with a partial conclusion, the first because the author wasn't sure that a second volume would be forthcoming, the second with a sense of finality that feels almost fully final - or at least would if I didn't know that there were already published subsequent issues.

The artwork also matches the story beautifully, with washed-out watercolors and dreamy, flowing lines breaking up the page, leaving us even on less sure footing of who is telling the truth every step of the way.

Check it out...

A last summer in Cincinnati...

No, I'm not leaving, but some of my students certainly are.

Graduation was yesterday, and one of the graduates explained that this was probably going to be his last summer with some of his friends. He asked me what things he should do around Cincinnati to close the years out right.

Here is my list of suggestions...

• Places to eat
• Knotty Pine on the Bayou - best Cajun food in town...beautiful setting in Northern Kentucky along a creek...the new place actually seems to have a few floors and walls that are plumb, a change from the old place...
• Terry's Turf Club - no doubt, best Hamburgers in town, fun location that tends to be packed at the obvious meal times (weekend lunch, Thursday-Saturday dinners)...go at an off time (2pm, weekday afternoons) for the best chance at getting an immediate seat...burgers are awesome...stick with simple toppings the first time so you can see how great the actual burger is, then go for their creative and tasty sauces when you go back...
• Senate - This may not have been the first restaurant to go into the Gateway Quarter revitalization/gentrification of Over the Rhine, but it's one of the best examples (for good and for ill)...the food is outstanding (poutine, burgers, hot dogs, all of it)...the decor is very much new school reuse/recycle, and the menu is creative...
• Eli's Barbeque - My favorite restaurant in town...some might say it's an example of hipster gentrification of a blue collar neighborhood, but that's where the cheap land is, so I'm going to say it's a place that offers excellent food at dirt cheap prices ($7 for a perfect sandwich and two great sides) with loads of outdoor seating - particularly in the neighboring community park and garden space...free music on lots of summer evenings...food trucks stopping by to offer up dessert...last summer they offered rib tips up at 5lb for $8 toward the end of the summer because the tips sell more slowly than do the ribs 
• downtown food trucks - the food truck movement is making a serious impact around the city...of the choices, I would have said have a Cafe de Wheels burger, but they're gone through an ownership change, and things are very much up in the air...instead, try New Orleans to Go and get an extra cup of the glaze...it's to die for...
• Quatman's -this one comes to you from Calencoriel (aka Rebecca Heckman) because she's a big fan of the simplicity of a Quatman's burger...The Girl and I tried it, and she digs it, too...me? I think it's too plain...it's a remnant of a working man's era, a time when the factories would let out a few hundred guys for lunch, and they needed a good five-cent hamburger...it's an institution in Cincinnati, and because of that you should definitely hit the original in Pleasant Ridge/Norwood
• Zip's - another one that is a Cincinnati 'best burger' staple (even though The Girl and I both think Terry's and Senate are both far better burgers)...it has its strengths, but the thing that matters is that half the people in town name it as the best burger in town...
• Aglamesis Brothers - Graeter's is more well known and more widely spread, but Aglamesis Brothers is an east-side tradition with smooth, rich ice cream and high quality sweets...make sure to hit the original in Oakley Square and wander the neighborhoods to see some of the beautiful homes around...
• Graeter's - most everybody in Cincinnati has been to a Graeter's ice cream shop somewhere...the original doesn't exist anymore, but the second one does still exist, and it's in Hyde Park...go, get yourself some giant chocolate chips 
• GreekFest - This one's very much time-sensitive as it only comes around the last weekend of June...take a few bucks (but take canned goods to get in free)...and enjoy the baklava... 
• St Rita's Fest - Cincinnati is a Catholic city the centers around its church festivals, and this is the biggest of them...plus, it's in the Princeton district which makes it easy...I've never actually been to this one...I think I've only ever been to the St Max festival near my house, and it's a pretty small one...

• Places to visit (free)
• Eden Park / Krohn Conservatory - the views of the Ohio River to the east of CIncinnati from the overlook are unequaled anywhere in town...the Krohn Conservatory is one of the iconic locations in Cincy (including in Airborne)...mirror lake is a great place to see the river, too...
• Ault Park - Ault Park has a very different feeling than does Eden...overlooks over Lunken Field, formal gardens, a gorgeous pavilion...historically significant in Cincinnati...
• Mt Storm Park - the parks in Cincinnati really are gems that not enough people take advantage of...this one's in Clifton and has some great views...
• Sawyer Point / Serpentine Wall / Friendship Park - Cincinnati's defining feature is the river and the hills around town...this park, along the river, is the center of town...where the fireworks happen, where concerts take place, where the place was thirty-some feet underwater in the flood of 1937...
• Devou Park -  best place to see the Cincinnati skyline - obviously in Northern Kentucky...
• Purple People Bridge - lump this one in with the Sawyer Point visit and the Newport on the Levy, too...make a full day of it and have a blast walking around the river from both sides...
• Union Terminal - it's the frickin' real-world Hall of Justice...and it's the most distinctive building in all of Cincinnati...the museums are nice and all, but it's the building itself that is Cincinnati proper...make sure to enjoy the murals and Tower A...I loved when PHS had their prom here for a few years...great, gorgeous space...
• Northside - Cincinnati is a city of neighborhoods, each with very distinct character...Northside is a mixture of hipster kitsch, gay-friendly, and working-class people...start at Knowlton's Corner and work your way north to Bruce St...have a snack at Melt...visit the library...stay mostly on Hamilton Avenue until you get to probably Pullan...
• Findlay Market - Findlay is an interesting place, serving the needs of the local patrons (typically for a more urban, African-American palate - chitterlings, tripe, greens) and desires of a more hipster-ish crowd (upscale popsicles, imported cheeses)...the fires in the early 2000's lead to a much different, larger, fancier Market, but the spirit has survived...
• Newport on the Levee - mostly here for the aquarium and the river side of the levee...park and walk down to the river from the pavilion...maybe head into Bellvue via the river walk...
• main library (PLCH) branch - PLCH is one of the best library branches in the entire country, and the main branch is the mother ship...hang out there for a couple of hours, visit the children's museum, see the atrium on the south block, get your way to the rare books collection, and get up to the roof...beautiful...

• Places to visit (cost) 
• Cincinnati Zoo - my favorite place is the manatee room (but less so since they took out the seating wall)...check out the new African pampas exhibits, especially...beautiful polar bear viewing...wonderful white tigers...Calen asked that I also mention that lots of people miss the botanical gardens, check them out, too...
• Reds game - sit up high (400- or 500-sections) on the 3rd-base side of the stadium because you get the best views of the river from up there...pick a mid-day game if you can...eat the hot mett (or the Big Red Smokey)...get the garlic fries...have a helmet sundae...
• Carew Tower - It's $2 to get to the observation deck (plus parking downtown, somewhere)...it's the highest part of Cincinnati that you can get to...chuck a penny at Paul Brown Stadium if you must...
• Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park - technically in Hamilton, but it's the greater Cincinnati area, at least...private sculpture park set on attractive, very hilly grounds...price is a bit steep ($8 for adults)...unique place in the area...
• Morgan's canoes at Fort Ancient - take an afternoon (and some sunscreen)...take a lazy ride down the river...look up at the highest highway bridge in the state...have a blast...
• concert at Riverbend - wait to make sure the weather's nice, wait until the last minute, and buy a couple of tickets for the lawn...pack a picnic (check their website to make sure you know what you may and may not bring in)...make an evening out of it...

• Bit of a drive
• Young's Jersey Dairy - we all need ice cream...and miniature golf...and fried food...and candy...and a batting cage...and a driving range...and while you're there swing into town to get some Lego sets at Blokhedz...

Sit down, write two letters.

• Cool and creepy: a huge fog bank rolls in over Lake Michigan -  bad photography of what would've been terrifying to see
• Incredible giant living sculptures at Atlanta Botanical Gardens - The orangutans are the best.
• Tours: Newriff - New bourbon distillery barely across the river...

• This is Morgan Freeman's voice on helium - There's no reason artistically other than that it's entertaining.
• Metal in the microwave explodes...or does it? - the science...explained...
• Here's Nic Cage being Nic Cage with the greatest talkshow entrance of all-time - The man is a treasure...a weird, weird treasure. 

• Greatest Twitter account ever - Ask me what the secret to comedy is...
• Here's how much it costs to book 10 of your favorite bands - Anna Kendrick is a bargain. 
• Neil Patrick Harris's autobiography will be a choose your own adventure - because of course it will be.

• Here's a first look as Disney Animation's first Marvel Universe movie, Big Hero 6 -  It's called synergy.
• 21 times this Lego holiday couple was better at Instagramming than you - This may have to replace Beaker. The packing would be easier.
• Talking blues with Dozier, a one-man Irish invasion - Great stuff...lucky to hear it on NPR...
• American Footgolf League - There's a course in Cincy. I may have to play this summer.
• Lego Collectible Minifigures 12 Minifigures List - Not that the list matters because I'll them pretty much no matter what they are.
• Detroit agate: the Motor City's most unique export since the Edsel - I'd totally buy those even if they were lead-based paints.
• Box of infinity - There was something like this in Boston that I got to stick my head into.
• Do you love science? - I love science. So does the author of Cyanide and Happiness.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Just because there's a correlation between two data sets doesn't automatically mean there is causation between the two. Take, for example, the various examples of spurious correlations at the blog Spurious Correlations. The site will even generate new correlations at your request.

correlation = -0.933

correlation = 0.992

 correlation = 0.993

These aren't from Spurious Connections, but they're relevant, too.

From Dinosaur Comics

From Glen Gilchrist

PS: In retrospect, maybe the title should be cum hoc ergo propter hoc rather that post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Back home again, in Cincinnati

I finally hunted this down after having heard it a few times in the past couple of years during the Reds' seventh-inning stretch. Connie Smith, everyone...



More Cincinnati songs after the jump...

"Son, this will keep the bad guys away..."

• The 2014 Idaho GOP Governors Primary Debate Will Make Your Faith in Politicians Plummet - Nope, but it is hilariously entertaining. May I recommend 4:41...8:26...19:40...and so much more...I'll be voting Harley Brown this spring!

Better Baking Through Science

Last quarter, one of my students turned in an extra credit assignment in which she had made chocolate chip cookies and done a little research to explain the chemistry that went on while the cookies baked.

She brought in the cookies for the class, and they certainly weren't bad. They weren't the best I'd ever had, but they were cookies I didn't have to make myself. I'm not one to look a gift cookie in the mouth.

The best part of the project, though, was the two resources to which she pointed me. The first is a video from Ted-ED that explains a lot of the science involved as dough turns into cookie.



The second is from SeriousEats and goes through variable by variable, eventually finding what they say is the best recipe around. The author explores the macroscopic results that all twenty-one change make and the science involved.

I need to do some baking because their final results - with a little sprinkle of salt on top - look outstanding.

I wish I could link you to the Cooks Illustrated recipe, because it's got some interesting takes (browned butter, one whole egg + one yolk, extra brown sugar). Sadly, though, it's behind a paywall. If you're willing to pay, Cooks Illustrated is a fun site from tip to tail.

Reflections about teaching: from Katie

Taking a break from the questions I had listed and answering something posed by Katie on my first post...

Is there a defining lesson that your students have taught you throughout your career that other careers may not get the opportunity to experience?

I think the lesson that I've learned that I don't know every other career gets to learn is that I had a wonderful childhood, and I owe my parents a phenomenal round of thanks for what they did for me.

I deal with a whole lot of wonderful young people day in and day out. I also work with a fair number of students for whom school isn't the first priority, and I understand that many of them aren't too worried about the chemistry that I'm teaching because they're worrying about what they're going to eat that night, about how they're going to write the lab report while working six hours after a full school day, how they're going to help out with the bills at home, which side of the family they're going to hang with this week, and a hundred other challenges that I didn't have to deal with when I was growing up.

I can't imagine that my friends in the labs at P&G or painting houses get to learn that nearly as well.