John Colton's blog

Remember the "Slap the Dickens" people? (See these blog posts: StD 1 and StD 2 and 3.)

I tracked down a few more such videos:

StD 4: Slap the Oz


StD 5: Slap the Spielberg (the Goonies)


and StD 6: Slap the Rudolph


Pauline, the kids, and I had a good time this morning watching the three of them. :-)

A student of mine from last semester just emailed me this link. It was a photo contest sponsored by cracked.com designed to poke fun at "Hollywood science". Some great stuff there.

http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_82_if-hollywood-taught-science-class_p19

My personal favorite was the student's essay response about why a bus traveling horizontally at 50 mph can bridge a 20 yard gap in the highway: "From the moment the leading edge of the bus was over the gap, physics entered into slow motion rules, making it awesome."



The Starfleet Physics Technical Manual slide was pretty good, too, with topics such as "What Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?", "Overcoming relativity", and "Using the words 'phase' and 'shift' to solve any problem".

He's the main reason my kids will periodically go to Jazz games with me. What a class act.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u76d_BDCboo

Thanks to Ben Stevens for pointing this out:
http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/

It's a lot like that old "Powers of 10" video that you might have seen in a high school science class, but with a user-controlled slider. Amazingly well done. I just spent the last 20 minutes looking at it.

In honor of the Sing Off finale coming up on Monday, here's another sweet one-man multi-track a cappella cover that I just found.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700091651/No-more-US-Mormon-missionaries-to-be-allowed

My first reaction to this was, "It's got to be a joke, right?" Sadly, no joke.

The crux of the matter is this:

Earlier this year, a Swiss court ruled missionaries are subject to the foreigner-employment quotas, deeming them as "gainfully employed" and falling under worker quotas regarding individuals with particular work skills.

Gainfully employed?? Yeah, I got up at 5:30 am for 5 years to work as a paper-boy (with help from parents, thanks Mom & Dad!), worked full-time for three summers, saved 95% of all the money I made... so that I could be "employed" for 2 years as a missionary? Last time I checked, "employed" means that they pay you, not you pay them! I guess that's why I spent about $350/month to support myself while on a mission in Germany from 1989-1991.

Memo to the Swiss court: that's a pathetic interpretation of the LDS missionary program.

Our department colloquium was given by a person from Energy Solutions. In the question/answer section at the end, I asked him if his company hired any physicists (bachelor's or graduate degrees), because I figured many of the students in attendance might be curious.

He began his answer to me by saying, "Well, when you get your degree..."

I let him finish the sentence, then said, "Actually, I'm a faculty member." He turned bright red.

:-)

Here's your reminder, Deanna: The Sing-off starts tomorrow night on NBC.

Here are the groups that are competing:
* Committed (Huntsville, Alabama) - I don't know them, but they sure sounded good in the promo
* Eleventh Hour (Kettering, Ohio) - A high school group, I've actually reviewed two of their albums for RARB: http://rarb.org/reviews/932.html#john-colton, http://rarb.org/reviews/1019.html#john-colton. They are great for a high school group, but I expect them to be one of the first to be eliminated.
* Pitch Slapped (Boston, Massachusetts) - from the Berklee College of Music. I'm not 100% sure, but I think I listened to one of their albums for CARA award judging last year. If I recall correctly, the album was OK, but not one of the very best.
* Groove For Thought (Seattle, Washington) - Don't know them.
* Jerry Lawson & Talk of the Town (Oakland, California) - As mentioned previously, this group is the descendant of the Persuasions, one of the classic doo-wop groups that started in the 1960s. In fact, their most recent album is even listed on the Persuasions' wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persuasions. I own six Persuasions albums, and am very excited to hear them. In the end, though, I suspect that at age 66, Jerry Lawson might not be as contemporary as today's viewers are going to like.
* Men of Note (Cherry Hill, New Jersey) - Don't know them.
* The Backbeats (Los Angeles, California) - As mentioned, this is a newly formed group with (among others) Courtney from last year's competitor Noteworthy.
* On The Rocks (Eugene, Oregon) - This is the group that sang the Lady Gaga "Bad Romance" version I posted about a month ago. It'll be fun to see them perform that on the Sing Off (it's on the promo).
* Street Corner Symphony (Nashville, Tennessee) - I don't know them, but they sure sounded good in the promo.
* The Whiffenpoofs (New Haven, Connecticut) - This is the oldest collegiate a cappella group in the country, having been founded in 1909. That's 101 years old, this year. I'm not sure what style they sing; quite possibly it's more traditional glee-club-type fare than contemporary a cappella. We'll see!

Thanks to my dad for sharing this with me. If this doesn't make you smile, nothing will. Be sure to watch the ending. :-)

P.S. The final movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony often makes me feel that way, too!