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Words of the year Now with homer.

Today’s Zippy ’s yesterday

“How much time do we spend remembering the past?” Today’s Zippy is one for the ages.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

[Here’s why I added 12ft.io to the link.]

Walking blues

At the MIT Press Reader, Telmo Pievani, professor of biology, writes about “Bipedalism and Other Tales of Evolutionary Oddities”:

Archaeologist André Leroi-Gourhan was right in saying that the history of humanity began with good feet, before great brains. But it was an ordeal, particularly in the beginning.

Thank you

“Do thank-you notes still matter?” The New York Times says “Yes.”

Another Mary Miller vote

I should no longer be surprised that “my” representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, IL-15), takes the wrong position on everything. But I’m still sometimes surprised. She just voted against S. 4524, the Speak Out Act,

a bill to limit the judicial enforceability of predispute nondisclosure and nondisparagement contract clauses relating to disputes involving sexual assault and sexual harassment.

Voting yea: 215 Democrats and 100 Republicans. Voting nay: 109 Republicans. Not voting: 4 Democrats, 4 Republicans.

There’s something about Mary.

In better news, the Respect for Marriage Act is is on its way to becoming law.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

MSNBC, sheesh

A few minutes ago the chyron announced “humanity’s return to the moon.” It was smart to avoid man. But consider: other than human beings, who would be in a position to go back?

“A return to the moon” would be better.

Related reading
All OCA sheesh posts (Pinboard)

Encore?

From The Washington Post: “Has the encore left the building?”

Once a given in live concerts, the encore is now seen by some as an artifact of old-school showbiz, rather than an authentic exchange between performer and audience.

The best encores I’ve known:

~ Tom Waits, at the Orpheum Theater. A Waits website tells me that it was November 16, 1980. Waits came back on stage, sat down in an easy chair, and put on a record of (purportedly) the pope leaving Dodger Stadium. In other words, the sound of a crowd applauding and cheering. Earlier in the evening Waits had sat in the chair while changing channels on an old television, providing commentary on whatever he found.

~ Richard Goode, at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Urbana, March 10, 2016. After an all-Bach program, Goode came back on stage, said “More Bach,” and played one more piece.

Related reading
All OCA Tom Waits posts (Pinboard) : Bach, Goode

Prime collaborations

Pure joy, tangentially related to prime numbers: the Supremes and the Temptations singing each other’s hits on The Ed Sullivan Show. But if there’s a live version of “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me,“ I’ve yet to find it.

Something I realized only after listening to “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me“ for maybe a dozen times over the last few days: what I always thought was a echo effect at 2:37 is Eddie Kendricks singing with Diana Ross. No tricks.

[Ed Sullivan oversimplified: the Temptations were originally called the Elgins, not the Primes. Two members came over from the Primes. As a quartet, the Supremes were originally called the Primettes.]

Cicadas in their primes

I somehow developed an interest in prime numbers. But I know when I’m beat. I understand enough though to enjoy this passage from Marcus du Sautoy’s The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics (New York: HarperCollins, 2003). It’s about two species of cicada, Magicicada septendecim and Magicicada tredecim. The first emerges from the ground to mate and die every seventeen years; the second, every thirteen years. “Why,” du Sautoy asks, “has each species chosen a prime number of years as the length of their life cycle?”

There are several possible explanations. Since both species have evolved prime number life cycles, they will be synchronised to emerge in the same year very rarely. In fact they will have to share the forest only every 221 = 17 × 13 years. Imagine if they had chosen cycles which weren’t prime, for example 18 and 12. Over the same period they would have been in sync 6 times, namely in years 36, 72, 108, 144, 180 and 216. These are the years which share the prime building blocks of both 18 and 12. The prime numbers 13 and 17, on the other hand, allow the two species of cicada to avoid too much competition.

Another explanation is that a fungus developed which emerged simultaneously with the cicadas. The fungus was deadly for the cicadas, so they evolved a life cycle which would avoid the fungus. By changing to a prime number cycle of 17 or 13 years, the cicadas ensured that they emerged in the same years as the fungus less frequently than if they had a non-prime life cycle. For the cicadas, the primes weren’t just some abstract curiosity but the key to their survival.

I remember the Great Confluence of 1998 well. An endless din. Shells everywhere. Every moment outside was aural agony. The cicadas were in their primes.

[From a review of the book: “just enough maths to befuddle the layman.”]

A last 2¢ about phonics

Imagine trying to learn a new language — Greek, say, in any of its varieties. It would be impossible to figure out words and their pronunciation without knowing the sounds that the letters make.

Now imagine being four or five or six and learning to read in your own first language. It would be impossible to figure out words and their pronunciation without knowing the sounds that the letters make.

I think that’s the clearest case that can be made for the importance of phonics.

[I thought of this brief bit on my own before realizing that there’s something like it in the podcast Sold a Story, about college students who are taught to read a few words in Korean with or without learning the Korean alphabet. The students who hadn’t learned the alphabet were, of course, lost when looking at unfamiliar words.]