Fun_People Archive
17 Mar
The Science of Everyday Life - CD Comparison

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 97 16:44:05 -0800
To: Fun_People
Subject: The Science of Everyday Life - CD Comparison

[This reminds me of Don Knuth's paper on The Complexity of Song...  I'll
 try to dig it up (but if some Fun_Person just happens to have it on-line
 somewhere, please send me a copy...)  -psl]

Forwarded-by: "Travis J.I. Corcoran" <Travis-Corcoran@deshaw.com>
Subject: Chomsky Rings My Bell

http://www.salonmagazine.com/feb97/media/media2970217.html

A three-minute sample of Noam Chomsky's "Capital Rules" CD was analyzed.
It was compared to a three-minute sample of the popular disco song "Ring
My Bell." The results are as follows:
[Note: use a fixed-width font for this (courier)...  -psl]


                                 Chomsky Speech    Ring My Bell
                                 --------------    ------------
 Number of "uhs"                        34              0

 "Uhs" per minute:                      11.33           0

 Number of "aaaaahs!"                   0               7

 "Aaaaas!" per minute:                  0               2.33

 References to "tyranny":               3               0

 References to "transnational
 corporate power":                      1               0

 References to slave trade:             1               0

 Requests to "ring" speaker
 and/or singer's "bell":                0               42

 Uses of phrase "ring my bell
 ding dong ring aaaah!"                 0               3

 Uses of phrase "ring my bell
 ring a ling a ling push!"              0               2

 Total number of references to good
 things (including bell ringing):       0.5             56

 Total number of references
 to bad things:                         29              2
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