So Much Drama
When I recorded “Drama in the PhD,” I never expected it to generate quite so much Internet buzz. I think it started when Brad Fitzpatrick, the creator of LiveJournal, described it quite flatteringly in his blog as the “best fucking thing I’ve ever heard.” Various dorks posted line-by-line analyses of my lyrics on their websites, griping about the technical specifics of my jokes: “He really shouldn’t say he controls his flow better than TCP,” one nerd wrote, “since TCP doesn’t have very good flow control to begin with.” My dis track even inspired a cover by a student at the University of Delaware, though I can’t say that he did a particularly great job. All of the attention soon led to an article on Wired.com, discussing my not-so-bitter rivalry with MC Plus+.
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Shortly after the article was published, a TV producer from LA decided to do a piece on nerd rap for German television (specifically, a lifestyle show on Pro Sieben called “Taff”). She asked to come to Stanford to film me and my “geek posse” in our natural habitat, explaining that she intended to present geek rap as a new American trend while juxtaposing it with gangsta rap in an entertaining way. I quickly agreed to participate, but realized shortly after I got off the phone with her that I didn’t actually have a “geek posse” per se. But after a few emails I managed to recruit some friends who were excited enough about getting on an obscure German TV spot that they were willing to join my entourage. We dressed up in ridiculous “geek rapper” outfits and traveled around campus doing stupid things, like soldering circuit boards while drinking forties, beating up an old CRT, and cruising down Palm Drive on our bikes while scribbling on our PDAs and Tablet PCs. As far as I know the clip has yet to air on German TV, but Jawed recorded a pretty cool “making of” video that you can check out. |
For me, the funniest part of the shoot was that the cameraman and interviewer clearly had no idea what any of my lyrics were about.
“OK,” the cameraman would say, “we’re going to shoot that again, and this time I’m doing a close-up, so when you say ’suck on these nuts bitch’ I want you to make sure you do that gesture again where you point at your crotch.”
“Actually it’s ‘mark-and-sweep on these nuts,’” I corrected him.
“Mark-and-sweep?”
“Yeah, it’s a garbage collection algorithm, for reclaiming unreferenced objects to prevent memory leaks.”
“OK, never mind that, just remember to point at your crotch when you say ’suck on these nuts bitch.’”
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The same thing happened when I was being interviewed. The producer asked me how my music combined the elements of computer science and gangsta rap, and I said “well, for example, in the music world when someone is ‘unsigned’ it means they haven’t signed a contract with a record label. But in computer science an unsigned integer is one that’s always interpreted as positive; the most significant bit is used to double the positive range instead of specifying the sign.” “That’s a little complicated,” she said, “do you have a simpler example?” “OK,” I said, “uh, in computer science, ‘linear probing’ is a technique for resolving collisions in hash tables, but clearly in this context it’s referring to sex.” “I don’t get it,” she said. “Well, a hash table is this data structure with efficient…” “No, I mean I don’t get how linear probing refers to sex.” “Uh…” But despite the occasional miscommunication, the TV shoot was a lot of fun, and I look forward to seeing how the clip turns out. |
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The latest event in this string of unexpected publicity was a request for an interview in the “Q&A” section of EE Times. MC Plus+ and I were both interviewed about our rivalry and about CS gangsta rap in general; I believe the story is slated to appear in this week’s issue. The magazine sent a photographer to Stanford and Purdue to take pictures of me and of MC Plus+, and I think they turned out really well. Anyway, in the midst of all of this hype I decided it was inexcusable that I hadn’t recorded a rap song since last April, so today I laid down a new track entitled “The Pimping Lemma.” It’s a tribute to the brave women of computer science. Like last time, I’ll post the lyrics for you to puzzle through; it’s up to you to look up any rap terms or CS terms with which you may be unfamiliar. |
Nerdcore
Lately I’ve been getting into nerdcore/geeksta rap, a unique form of hip hop that is produced by and for nerds. Nerdcore artists range widely in quality, from the incredibly awful to the funny and clever to the truly sublime.
Being a PhD student in Computer Science, my favorite variety of nerdcore is Computer Science Gangsta Rap. I’ve found two artists that fit this category, MC:NP and MC Plus+.
MC:NP is OK, but MC Plus+ is the true champion of this subgenre. He’s a Computer Science PhD student at Purdue, and his lyrics have the wonderful property that you can’t understand all of the jokes unless, like me, you’re a big fan of both Computer Science and Gangsta Rap, since his rhymes frequently reference concepts and terminology from both.
I decided it was time to start up an east coast / west coast Computer Science Gangsta Rap rivalry, so I recorded this dis track that rips on MC Plus+. Spread it around, and maybe it will inspire him to respond in kind.
I was hesitant to insult MC Plus+, because really us Persian Computer Science Gangsta Rappers should probably stick together, but hey, this kind of pointless rivalry is what ends up selling records. If it worked for 50 and Game, maybe it can work for us. There’s also the fact that Purdue isn’t exactly on the east coast… but I think it’s close enough.
Here are my lyrics, for anyone who wants to try puzzling through my confusing jokes that attempt to relate drinking cognac to grammar-based parser generators.
Love Calculator
Have you ever checked out the Love Calculator? Like the Hamster Dance or the Dancing Baby, it’s one of those annoying little web trends that manages to spread, virus-like, until it has saturated the internet community.
Here’s a description of the Love Calcuator, excerpted from the official Love Calculator website:
We all know that a name can tell a lot about a person. Names are not randomly chosen: they all have a meaning. Doctor Love knew this so he made another great invention just for the lonely you!
Sometimes you’d like to know if a relationship with someone could work out. Therefore Doctor Love himself designed this great machine for you. With The Love Calculator you can calculate the probability on a successful relationship between two people. The Love Calculator is an affective[sic] way to get an impression of what the chances are on a relationship between certain people.
I downloaded the Love Calculator and amused myself with it for a while. It consists of two text boxes and a button. You simply type in the names of two people and press the button, and a number that purportedly corresponds to the likelihood of a prosperous relationship between the two people is “scientifically computed.”
Not a bad concept, I suppose, but it seems narrow-minded in its application. Apparently “Dr. Love” holds a rather traditional conception of the idea of love. Inspired by the somewhat less traditional manner in which love is portrayed in the Isaac Hayes song “Simultaneous”, I decided to make the Love Calculator more versatile. I spent a little time deciphering Dr. Love’s secret love formula, and then programmed the new Three-Way Love Calculator.
Now I’m no PhD like Dr. Love, so I can’t claim to have anything approaching his level of expertise in these matters, but it seems to me that this new version of the Love Calculator is a substantial improvement. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
Doesn’t work? You may have to install the VB runtime libraries.
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