Posts Tagged parody
Seddit 1.5 supports multilingual Reddit listening. Also, Joey sang my half-baked PSOLA song!
Posted by Angela Brett in My Software on October 9, 2025
A while ago I added the possibility to configure Seddit (my text-to-speech-focused hands-free Reddit client for macOS and iOS) with multiple voices so that each user’s content could be read in a different voice. Of course, iOS and macOS come with voices that speak a huge variety of different languages, so you could theoretically select, say, a Japanese voice, a French voice, and three English voices, and download Reddit posts and comments in all of those languages. However, until now, Seddit would randomly assign a voice to each user, without regard for the language that user had written in, so if you did that, you could end up with English posts pronounced as if they were French, Japanese character names read out in English, and so on.
In the latest version, if you select voices that speak multiple languages in the Voices tab of the Settings screen, when Seddit encounters a post or comment by a user it hasn’t chosen a voice for yet, it will detect which of those languages the post or comment is probably in, and choose a voice that knows how to pronounce that language.
Of course, this isn’t perfect — it still always uses the same voice for each user, so if a user sometimes posts in French, and sometimes in English, or if they write in multiple languages within a single post because it’s a language-learning subreddit, then some of that is going to be spoken using an inappropriate voice. Also, if someone only writes in English but the first comment that Seddit encounters of theirs is an image meme and the text ‘c’est la vie!’ Seddit might determine that the user speaks French, and then hilariously mispronounce the rest of their posts. Note, if there is not enough text in the user’s first post for Seddit to even guess the language, it will not definitively choose a voice for that user until it encounters another post by them. I have yet to find either of these situations in practice, even while looking for them, so I hope it’s a rare issue.
Nonetheless, all of these situations are better than Seddit just randomly picking a voice for each user, regardless of which language they happen to be writing in. You should try it out, especially if you want to listen to Reddit content in various languages!
I also redesigned the Settings screen on iOS and iPadOS so it’s fullscreen and has a close button in the top right, as per Apple’s human interface guidelines, instead of a ‘Done’ button taking up a lot of space at the bottom and making the tabs look weird.
Note, while writing this post, I tested the regular ‘Start Speaking’ menu command on macOS and the ‘Speak’ command on iOS and found that it will sometimes switch to appropriate voices if I select multilingual text, even if my System Speech Language est réglé sur えい語。 Okay, it doesn’t work well for the French/English parts of that sentence. Maybe it’s only good with switching between languages if I switch scripts, e.g. בַּרְוָזָן утконос カモノハシ. Yep, that works, although if I select any other text along with πλατύπους, it’ll read it as ‘Greek small letter pi’ etc. I guess Greek letters are used too often in English for the speech engine to assume we actually switched to Greek. There were certainly plenty of Greek letters in the Princeton Companion to Mathematics.
Anyhow, I’m thinking I could improve Seddit further by giving each user a voice in each language you’ve selected voices for, and detecting the language for each post/comment, or for each sentence. Though macOS doesn’t do that unless you switch scripts… when I tried adding ‘J’imagine qu’il choisit une nouvelle langue pour chaque phrase.’ as a separate sentence and selected it along with a few English sentences, it read the whole thing in a French voice.
On the subject of interesting text-to-speech behaviour, and interesting behaviour in general, remember my half-written Lola parody about Pitch Synchronous Overlap and Add? Well, the lovely Joey Marianer had an appointment in town a while ago, and sneakily recorded the song in a parking building as a surprise, because I’m usually home so there’s little chance to record things at home without my hearing. I was duly surprised and delighted. Even the disclaimer about the missing bridge sounds like it scans as a bridge! Now you can also be surprised, delighted, and probably confused as to why this half-baked song was considered worth singing.
James Webb Space Telescope (now actually sung) and Seddit 1.4
Posted by Angela Brett in My Software, video on September 26, 2025
In my last post I gave lyrics to a parody of an Arrogant Worms song about the James Webb Space Telescope, and an update to my text-to-speech focussed Reddit client Seddit. I also said two things that turned out to be false:
- Joey and I will probably sing this parody, but it will take more mixing and video editing than our usual songs.
- This completes all the major features I have planned the app — I have other ideas for improvement, but I don’t think they’re essential. I’m hoping that the next update will be simply to remove the text saying I’m looking for a job.
Well, the other night Joey asked if I wanted to sing the song, and I said, “Okay! I should change into a more space-related shirt first” and then Joey produced two James Webb Space Telescope T-shirts out of nowhere, having secretly ordered them previously. So we changed into the shirts, and then we sang it, directly into a camera together, with no warmup or practice, and Joey trimmed the ends and put the video on YouTube. I had thought we’d sing our separate parts, get them perfect, then mix them, and make a video with some relevant educational images. Instead, here’s an imperfect but pretty good recording already!
I know where I made a mistake, but I’m not going to hang a lampshade on it so you’ll notice.
As for Seddit, well, not only did I not get the job I was hoping for when I wrote that, I also decided to update the app to use the new Liquid Glass design language that came out with iOS and macOS 26. I found and fixed a few other issues along the way. Here are the changes in Seddit 1.4:
- Features
- Added support for liquid glass appearance in iOS/macOS 26
- Moved playback controls to a liquid glass overlay so you can see more content around the edges
- Bug fixes
- Made sure compliments purchased on the Support Seddit screen are always shown in the same order
- Made the Voices Settings screen on macOS show which voices are Enhanced or Premium (I also filed bug FB20362911 with Apple about this, because there’s some system behaviour that’s inconsistent between iOS and macOS)
- Fixed an issue introduced in Seddit 1.2 whereby posts whose comments are not all read would be shown as read instead of partly read
You can get the latest version for Mac, iPhone, or iPad on the relevant App Store.
On the subject of songs and liquid glass, check out this song by James Dempsey about liquid glass:
Thanks to Seattle Xcoders, I was lucky enough to have seen the live debut of this, and another performance of it, which I recorded but don’t have permission to share yet.
I haven’t actually had any legibility issues with liquid glass though — and if I did, I know I could always turn on Reduce Transparency.
James Webb Space Telescope (Arrogant Worms parody lyrics) and yet another Seddit update
Posted by Angela Brett in My Software on September 15, 2025
This is to be sung to the tune of Big Fat Road Manager, by The Arrogant Worms:
Giant rocket to the sky
Not many people really know why
It’s gotta stay cool as the stars parade
It’s got a gold coat and some doped ass-shades
It’s the James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope!
It beat a hurricane and lots of delays
(James Webb Space Telescope)
Refused to fail in three hundred ways
(James Webb Space Telescope)
It had a long time and a lot to do
(James Webb Space Telescope)
On its way to Lagrange point two
It’s the James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
It found a new moon and some old black holes
(James Webb Space Telescope)
A planet circling a mate of Sol’s
(James Webb Space Telescope)
Its pictures show 8-pointed stars
(James Webb Space Telescope)
That’s how you can tell they are
From the James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
You may wonder why the space telescope’s so far
That way it can block the heat from our Earth and Moon and Star
It sees through clouds in infrared
(James Webb Space Telescope)
Back through time as the wavelengths spread
(James Webb Space Telescope)
So far back that now it sees
(James Webb Space Telescope)
Light from earliest galaxies
As our James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
It’s still our James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope
∎
Recently I remembered that I’d started writing this parody back when the James Webb Space Telescope launched. So I filled in some of the gaps, and then watched this excellent documentary about the telescope to fill in some more:
I found out about that documentary from NASA’s Curious Universe podcast, which I found out about from NASA’s Houston We Have a Podcast podcast. I recommend both, but especially the latter.
I considered saying it had ‘huge-ass shades’ as a reference to the ‘big fat ass’ in the original lyrics, but then I discovered that the sunshades were coated with doped silicon, and I couldn’t resist making a reference to the phrase ‘dope-ass’ while also doing the xkcd 37 thing. They are ‘ass shades’ in a sense, because they’re behind the telescope, i.e. on the side it’s not looking towards.
I’ve put links in the lyrics to some of the things where I could find a specific-enough link. The hurricane referred to is Hurricane Harvey, which hit Texas while the JWST was undergoing testing in a cryogenic vacuum chamber. As you’ll see in the documentary, it was a nail-biting time! The next line refers to the 344 potential single-point failures during launch and deployment which there wouldn’t have been a way to recover from. Really there were a lot of nail-biting times. But it all went well!
I linked to NASA’s explanation of Webb’s diffraction spikes, but I think this diagram from wikipedia also shows it very well.
Joey and I will probably sing this parody, but it will take more mixing and video editing than our usual songs. On the other hand, I can hear Joey singing it in the other room as I type this, so it might be ready fairly soon.
In other news, I’ve released version 1.3 of my text-to-speech-focussed reddit client for macOS and iOS, Seddit. Here’s what I changed:
- Added ‘Go to currently speaking item’ button in the toolbar, so you can quickly find the post or comment that’s currently being spoken, e.g. to open links or open the post in a browser to respond
- Enabled the ‘Settings…’ menu item and standard Settings window style on macOS
- Added headings and other changes for improved navigation of posts and comments using VoiceOver or Switch Control.
This completes all the major features I have planned the app — I have other ideas for improvement, but I don’t think they’re essential. I’m hoping that the next update will be simply to remove the text saying I’m looking for a job. 🤞🏻
So I leave my bags behind (Galilee Song parody, now actually sung!) and another new version of Seddit
Posted by Angela Brett in My Software, video on September 2, 2025
Hey look, Joey Marianer sang the parody song lyrics from my last post! Check there for the lyrics and the aviation incidents referenced.
There are some more song parody lyrics, but first, a word from my sponsor: me. Just like last time, I’ve released a new version of Seddit, my text-to-speech-focussed Reddit client for macOS and iOS. This has a feature I’ve wanted to add for a while — the possibility to select multiple voices, and read each user’s posts and comments in a different one. The variety makes it easier to keep paying attention when listening for a long time, and having each user consistently use the same voice should make it easier to follow conversations.
I made some other changes in this version too. Here’s a full list of them:
Features
- Added the possibility to have each user’s posts and comments spoken in a different voice
- Added settings for whether to read out the subreddit name, and date and time for each post.
- Added the option to load no comments — this was for Joey, who wanted to try listening to short story subreddits while obeying the “don’t read the comments” rule of the internet.
Bug fixes
- Fixed a bug whereby turning off the ‘Say “Link” instead of reading out URLs’ setting would not work
- Fixed a bug where comments that weren’t loaded would be read as “comment by unknown user” Comments that aren’t loaded due to the comment depth settings are also no longer displayed.
- Fixed a potential crash when opening the app if posts had been deleted on another device
On the subject of text-to-speech, nine or ten years ago I read a book and a bunch of papers on speech synthesis in order to write a term paper for my Web Development for Linguistics degree. The term paper was longer than the text of my thesis, because my thesis also included source code for a web site and a Mac app. Anyway, from this book I learnt about PSOLA (Pitch Synchronous Overlap and Add) which is used to change the pitch and duration of sounds for text-to-speech, as one might do to change prosody, or create a robot choir.
Newer voices don’t use PSOLA so much, as (to put it simply) they have more samples of actual speech in different situations, so they don’t need to modify samples for the sake of prosody. Note, this is ‘newer voices’ as of a decade or two ago; I don’t know whether the latest crop of ML-based voices do things the same way. Anyway, I assume this is why the newer macOS voices don’t support the TUNE format I used for my robot choir.
At the time, I wrote an utterly silly partial parody of Lola, by The Kinks, about PSOLA. I thought maybe I’d finish it or maybe even make it less silly[why?], but I never did, and now I don’t remember enough about how PSOLA works to fully understand what I originally wrote. So here is that draft. It really doesn’t scan, but I hope it doesn’t scan in amusing ways:
I was trying to synthesise some prosody,
but my source and filter were mixed up just like granola
G-R-A-N-O-L-A, granola.
So I found a new way to make it sound rad
It’s called pitch-synchronous overlap and add, that is PSOLA
P-S-O-L-A PSOLA. Pso-pso-pso-P-SOLA.
Well I didn’t want to sound like a smallpox blight
So I really took care with my to get my epochs right
for PSOLA. Pso-pso-pso-P-SOLA.
If you’re not dumb then you’ll soon understand
How I speak like a woman then sound like a man
It’s P-SOLA. Pso-pso-pso-P-SOLA. Pso-pso-pso-P-SOLA.
[It doesn’t look like I wrote anything for the bridge (is that a bridge?) of the song, so just pretend it keeps going roughly like before]
It was used to make synthesized speech sound natural
But now there’s some super-sized features that fill that role-uh
R-O-L-E hyphen U-H role-uh
So that’s my guess if you’re wondering why r-
ecent voices don’t sing in my robot choir:
No PSOLA.
So I leave my bags behind (Galilee Song parody lyrics) and a new version of Seddit
Posted by Angela Brett in My Software on August 19, 2025
Whoever else you believe is in the sky looking after you, you can be sure that the crew of any airliner you fly in are there to keep you safe. So here’s a parody of the hymn ‘The Galilee Song’ about surviving an emergency water landing. It’s based on the stories of Pan Am Flight 526A, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961, and US Airways Flight 1549:
Both the right wing engines glitched, when a plane had barely climbed,
So the pilots deftly ditched; soon a rescue crew arrived.
Panicked flyers feared the sharks in the sea where they came down,
So instead of boarding rafts, some stayed in the plane to drown.
So I leave my bags behind
Leave through unfamiliar doors
Set my raft upon the deep
Pull my life vest inflate cord
Once some halfwits stormed a flight, made impossible demands,
So the captain who was bright, steered them stealthily toward land.
They came down just off a coast; those with life vests could be saved.
Some inflated theirs too soon, trapped inside that sinking plane.
So I leave my bags behind
Leave through unfamiliar doors
Only after I am free
Pull my life vest inflate cord
One plane struck a flock of birds; there was nought to do but glide.
Skiles and Sully, undeterred, ditched the plane and no-one died.
Though ’twas not an ocean flight, there were crucial vests and slides.
A stroke of luck that now we cite in the transport safety guides.
So I leave my bags behind
Leave through unfamiliar doors
Set my raft upon the deep
Pull my life vest inflate cord
So I leave my bags behind
Leave through unfamiliar doors
Only after I am free
Pull my life vest inflate cord
∎
After I posted the chorus of this along with my last aviation-themed parody, Joey made noises about potentially singing it if I wrote the rest, so that’s what I did. The chorus is very catchy, so I hope it reminds people what to do if they need it.
The original song has a strong enough tune that you barely notice that it has basically no rhymes, only a little assonance in the chorus. I couldn’t help putting in a bunch of rhymes though. Where’s the challenge, otherwise? The chorus still pretty much rhymes with the lines of the original chorus rather than with itself, though, which doesn’t make sense for anyone who doesn’t know the original, but is so very tempting for those who do, because the chorus is catchy enough to inspire faith… to the non-rhyme scheme.
So I add a bunch of rhymes
Fix the song’s familiar flaws
To absolve it of its [bleep]
Wait, that word was not untoward!
As I mentioned in my last post, I’m including a song parody each time I post about a minor update in an app I release. Well, I’ve released a new version of Seddit, my text-to-speech-focussed Reddit client for iOS and macOS. The new version has three new features, so it’s not such a minor update, really. Here’s what’s new:
Features
- Settings for sounds to play between posts and comments — now you have two options for the sounds to play when going up or down levels when reading comments. You can also choose to turn off the sounds played between posts or when going up or down comment levels.
- ‘Random from previous’ option when autoloading more posts, so it will automatically load posts from any of the subreddits you have previously loaded posts from, instead of just a specific one
- Option to say ‘Link’ instead of reading out URLs in posts and comments
Bug fixes
- Fix to a potential hang when autoloading posts
You can get the latest version of Seddit from the app store!
Rotation Speed (Sam Bettens parody lyrics) and a new version of Lifetiler
Posted by Angela Brett in My Software, News on August 14, 2025
This is a parody of Coasting Speed by Sam Bettens, because ever since I learnt the phrase ‘rotation speed’ from Mentour Pilot, I’ve had it in my head to the tune of Coasting Speed every time I’ve taken off (as a passenger) in an aeroplane. I’ve added a little to this parody with each flight. This is from the perspective of the flight crew and cabin crew, talking to the passengers.
The takeoff’s cleared
We’ve finally reached
rotation speed
We known we’re each
prepared for takeoff
and we start to fly
You board your flight
You stow your bags
Tray tables up
Do your belts up tight
We know you’re ready
As we get you high
But it’s not a rush
We take our time
your life
is in our hands
Ohhh
When the engine’s drowning out all other sound
When the landing just won’t stick, and we go around
We won’t let you, we won’t let you down
but we’ll get you down
At altitude
We are pressurised
We’ve got attitude
And you inside
So you’re breathing easy
When you’ve got to fly
But the flight goes on
And on and on
It might seem much too long
Ohhhh
When the engine’s drowning out all other sound
When the landing just won’t stick, and we go around
We won’t let you, we won’t let you down
but we’ll get you down
Sometimes life is scary when you’re all up in the air
But we’ll be there
We won’t let you down
but we’ll get you down.
We won’t let you down.
The engine blocks all other sound,
The landing sticks, we won’t go around
We won’t let you, we won’t let you down
but we’ll get you down.
We won’t let you down
but we’ll get you down.
We won’t let you down
but we’ll get you down.
∎
I think parts of this could still be improved, but I’ve decided that each time I release a minor update to an app, I should post about it, and include an old song parody or poem that’s been gathering dust each time — that way, two things that might not have been enough to post about on their own will both get posted.
This one is probably good enough to post by itself, especially as I’ve also written another partial parody about aviation, which I will put later in this post. But first, an ‘ad break’ for the new version of Lifetiler! After releasing Seddit a week ago, I set to work fixing some issues I had noticed in Lifetiler, the app I wrote to chart my once-long-distance relationship with Joey Marianer. I have now released version 1.2, with the following fixes:
- Features
- Pinch-to-zoom is now supported in the Tiles view, both on iOS and macOS. Previously you could only change the tile size using a slider at the bottom of the screen, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of pinch-to-zoom before. The slider is still there, but now you can also use pinch-to-zoom, or the zoom rotor setting in VoiceOver.
- On macOS, you can now change the width of the ‘Export as Image’ and ‘Document Settings’ panels
- Fixes for large font sizes on iOS and iPadOS
- I’ve fixed several screens where text was cut off or just poorly laid-out at larger font sizes.
- I’ve made sure tiles scale according to the font size setting, in the ‘List’ screen/pane, as the default size for the main ‘Tiles’ screen, and for the list of existing symbols when adding a date range, and settings for how to show tiles not in date ranges, or in simplified mode (where all tiles within date ranges are shown as the same symbol.)
- Fixes for VoiceOver (and probably other assistive technologies)
- I’ve made the VoiceOver interface correctly reflect what is seen in simplified mode, and for empty tiles
- I’ve fixed a bug whereby the tiles in the existing symbols list, and settings for how to show tiles not in date ranges, or in simplified mode, were not accessible to VoiceOver if they were currently set to coloured squares rather than emoji.
You can get the new version on the App Stores for macOS 15 Sequoia or later and iOS/iPadOS 17 or later.
Okay, now for the other aviation-related song parody I promised. This is a parody of the chorus of the Galilee Song, a hymn we used to sing at my Catholic high school. The original lyrics go:
So I leave my boats behind!
Leave them on familiar shores!
Set my heart upon the deep!
Follow you again, my Lord!
But when you’re evacuating an aeroplane in water, remember God helps those who help themselves… so here’s what you should be thinking:
So I leave my bags behind
Leave through unfamiliar doors
Set my raft upon the deep
Pull my life vest inflate cord
That’s all from me for now! I’m off to apply for more jobs and work on more features in Seddit.
Circles (Soul Coughing parody lyrics)
Posted by Angela Brett in Moving to the USA on February 6, 2025
These lyrics are to be sung to the tune of ‘Circles’ by Soul Coughing. They refer to the proposition that we use tau (τ) defined as 2π, instead of pi (π), counterarguments to that, and neverending friendly rivalries about it.
When you were younger you were taught a circle formula
That its perimeter is πd, that is, 2πr
πd gets you all round the circle
All around the circle, all around the circle
All around it
πr’s just halfway round the circle
Halfway round the circle, halfway round the circle
Halfway round it
And now you’re older, there are folks attempting to convince
That 2π’s τ and you should use it for circumference
τr gets you all around the circle
All around the circle, all around the circle
All around it
πr’s just halfway round the circle
Halfway round the circle, halfway round the circle
Halfway round it
Pi-tau-pi-tau-pi
Am I coming or going?
Tau-pi-tau-pi-tau
Am I halving or doubling?
Pi-tau-pi-tau-pi
Am I coming or going?
Tau-pi-tau-pi-tau
Am I halving or doubling?
But I can’t find out what’s the area
It was πr-squared, and now, τr squared on two
τ is now twice, π can do everything
Change it to τr, and complicate the formula
πr-squared is all around the circle
All around the circle, all around the circle
All around it
τr-squared’s twice around the circle
Twice around the circle, twice around the circle
Twice around it.
This row*’s just going round in circles (*with ‘row’ rhyming with ‘cow’, meaning ‘fight’)
Going round in circles, going round in circles
Round and round them…
(repeat entire song indefinitely)
I was not familiar with the original song, but we saw Holy Bongwater perform Nurples at FuMPFest 2024, and when I found out it was a parody of a song about circles, I knew what I had to do. I was motivated to finally finish it by a deadline for a maths music feedback group with a group of people I know from MathsJam. There were a few suggestions, but nothing that stood out as being a definite improvement — it was π of one, half a τ of the other, really. So I’ll put the lyrics here, and you’re welcome to sing them or change them as you see fit. They’ll likely be sung at MathsJamJam this year, perhaps along with This Tiling Never Repeats, which wasn’t sung last year because not enough people were familiar with the tune (and it’s a little harder to get the hang of than this one.)
In other news, after watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, Joey and I watched all of Lower Decks, and have got several seasons through Deep Space Nine. I now know that the combadge I put on my Star-Trek-like dress (which most closely resembles Starfleet cadet uniforms and Deep Space Nine uniforms) is only used for the first two seasons of Deep Space Nine, so the person who told me I had the wrong combadge for the dress was probably thinking of later seasons of DS9.
Since my last post I finished Advent of Code 2024 (which it turns out does not necessarily get more difficult each day, but does continue to be fun and somewhat nerdsnipy), did some more LeetCode exercises, did the final round of interviews for the job that had recommended practising with LeetCode, and did not get the job. So, I’m still looking, but now I feel pretty well prepared for most kinds of interview that could come my way. Meanwhile, I’ve started making a new multiplatform (iOS/macOS) app that a friend of mine always wanted to exist. A very rough, but functional, version of it is on TestFlight already. If you are a big Reddit user, and especially if you are also blind or visually impaired, you might want to try it, but please be aware it is in the early stages and there are many things I already plan to improve.
I have also uploaded a video from when we arrived in New York on the Queen Mary 2. I’m currently doing some light editing on a video from when we left Southampton, which I had forgotten I filmed. As mentioned previously, I still have more videos of my move to edit. On the more practical side, I’ve finished unpacking all my boxes, and filled my shiny new bookcases with books, and my new CD/DVD racks with CDs, DVDs, and also books.
This is when the [poster] wall comes down
Posted by Angela Brett in Moving to the USA on November 11, 2024
Here’s a video in which I take down my posters in my apartment in Vienna, in order to pack them up to move to the USA. It includes improvised song parodies and silly jokes from Joey Marianer and myself.
I took this video partly to have a record of my poster wall (though I also have a photo of it which I sometimes use as a Zoom background) and partly because if I get permission to do so, I’ll make a music video of Sam Bettens’ song ‘Go’ documenting the entire move, and a sped-up version of this video will be used for the lyric ‘this is when the wall comes down’. For now I’ve just used that one clip of the song, since I suppose it’s short enough to be fair use. Other songs referenced in the video are:
- Guy Williams’ National Anthem of Libya from Taskmaster New Zealand
- Another Lobster, by Kornflake (which is a parody of Another Postcard, by Barenaked Ladies, but I realised when watching that yesterday that I hadn’t actually heard it before, and only knew of it via Another Lobster)
- Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd
- Want You Gone by Jonathan Coulton, as sung by Ellen McLain on the Portal 2 soundtrack (it just seemed appropriate to end with ‘gone’, since I was starting with ‘Go’)
My posters are still in a crate on a truck somewhere between Montréal and here, so my home office currently only has a map of the route we took on the Queen Mary 2, and a Dogcow print, which I had wanted for a while but wasn’t prepared to pay the shipping and import fees for while I was living in Austria.
Aside from the music video, I have several other videos about moving here that I still need to edit, including:
- several hours of 4K footage from the Queen Mary 2 as it left Hamburg
- several more hours of 4K footage from the Queen Mary 2 as it arrived in New York.
- at least one more clip from MoMath
- various clips taken on my phone during our road trip from New York to my new home in the Seattle area
So watch this space! (I’m adding links as I upload the videos mentioned) Or subscribe to my YouTube channel and watch that space instead.
I’ll also put more photos from the trip on Flickr, so that’s another space you can watch. For now I’ve only put up panoramas from our pre-move trip to Fügen, our view of New York from the Queen Mary 2, and our road trip from NYC to Seattle.
In other news, Joey and I once again went to the MathsJam Annual Gathering in the UK. We didn’t give any talks, participate in the bake-off, enter a competition in the competition competition, or write any new parody songs for the MathsJam Jam this time. I won one of the competition competition competitions by writing the joke ‘What do you get if a Platonic solid loses a duel with its dual’ for the pre-determined punchline ‘the phantom of the solid’, but even that was just based on a poem I wrote (and performed) previously. We did, however, participate in Taskmathster as one of the Saturday evening activities, then two days later in London, we did the Taskmaster Live Experience. Both were a lot of fun!
Also, I have just released a new Mac app! It’s the one I made to create charts of days Joey and I have spent together while living apart (as seen in my previous post about moving to the USA). I’ll post more about it later today, but I think it needs its own post.
Dumb Parody Ideas at FuMPFest 2024
Posted by Angela Brett in News on October 9, 2024
FuMPFest is a funny music festival put on by the Funny Music Project, which I had never attended in-person because it’s not worth travelling from Austria to the USA for just a weekend. But now that I live in the USA, I finally got to go! It was put on as part of Con on the Cob, and was quite similar to the comedy music track at MarsCon (also run by people from The FuMP), which I have been to a few times when it happened to be a week out from JoCo Cruise. Both are approximately the same friendly group of comedy musicians and comedy music fans, having a small comedy music festival while surrounded by a larger convention.
One thing that happens at FuMPFest is the Dumb Parody Ideas contest, where people sing a few lines (up to 90 seconds per idea) of dubious song parodies. I had a few ideas for this years ago (I have a note with the lyrics from 2021), but never had a chance to enter… until now! The first one is a parody of Losing My Religion, by REM, inspired by the six and a half years of regular FaceTime calls with Joey while we were still living on separate continents:
Lyrics:
That’s me in the corner.
That’s me in the FaceTime, losing my connection.
The background is a screenshot I took while losing my connection in a real FaceTime call with Joey. The me in the corner was added in post, a little larger than the actual size of the inset which would have me in it. Joey’s playing ukulele offscreen.
The other parody idea I had was of Enya’s ‘Only Time’, which (like most things), Joey sings better than I could. We recorded a video of it before FuMPFest, because the only Dumb Parody Ideas panel I’d seen was at an online-only version of the con in 2020, so I wasn’t sure whether people would be doing them live for this one. The first take was pretty hilariously bad, setting us up to laugh through some of the later takes, so here’s the video with out-takes.
Lyrics:
Who can say where the road goes?
Where the day flows?
Google Maps.
In the end Joey did perform it live, followed by another dumb parody idea that Joey came up with on the day. A few hours before this panel, Devo Spice showed a short horror film which featured the song (of anonymous authorship) ‘I Sh💩t More in the Summer’. Joey parodied it with the things we do more at FuMPFest, taking inspiration from the FuMPFest bingo cards we were given.
Lyrics:
We chant COG! more at FuMPFest
than we do at any other time of year.
We yell ‘moisture!’ [more] at FuMPFest
than we do at any other time of year.
Eat from a food truck
“Corned beef and Cabbage”
Tune a guitar on stage
We all stall more at FuMPFest
than we do at any other… …stalling for time of year!
Both Losing My Connection and Google Maps were finalists in the competition, though we didn’t win the coveted golden spatula. Surprisingly, Joey’s last-minute parody was not nominated, despite the more developed lyrics and clear pandering to that specific audience.
Overall, we had a great time at FuMPFest. It was all streamed live on The FuMP’s Twitch channel, and at least for now, there are archives of the shows available there.
The next big thing on my calendar, which also includes song parodies and can be attended virtually, is the MathsJam Annual Gathering.
As promised in my last post, I put my new macOS app on TestFlight, and have already fixed some issues that were pointed out. It’s the app that made the chart of days that Joey and I have been together in person. It could be used to chart anything where you can summarise each day with a few colours or emoji — long-distance relationships, travel, moods, daily progress towards goals, the timeline of a novel you’re writing, weather, etc. If you’re interested in trying it, let me know somehow and I’ll add you to the list of testers. Otherwise, watch this space and get it when I release it some day soon.
When I’m not going to conventions, working on apps, and trying to convince various internet companies that I live here, I am still looking for a day job. Let me know if you know anyone who would like to hire me.
This Tiling Never Repeats (Split Enz parody)
Posted by Angela Brett in News on October 29, 2023
I mentioned in a previous post that I was working on a parody of History Never Repeats, by Split Enz, about the aperiodic monotiles that have been found recently. I’ve finished it, so here are the lyrics:
This tiling never repeats
Unending plane the kite and dart complete
We wish to show we can improve
We may assume, there’s always more to prove
It was the best we used to know
From David Smith, a savage blow
Penrose is great, but now we sing
A monotile beats his tiling!
This tiling never repeats
But some might say, reflected tiles are cheats
We wish to show we can improve
We may assume, there’s always more to prove
You say we’ve all been played for fools
We can’t reflect, if that’s the rule
Better to work than make dispute
They made a change and now it’s moot
This tiling never repeats
There’s not a need the Spectre doesn’t meet
And there’s a way to make more and more
Leading us to a space we can explore
This tiling never repeats, this tiling never repeats
Infinite shapes, just turn the dials
Aperiodic monotiles
Pick one and all the plane is spanned
We think at last we understand
This tiling never repeats
A manifold with manifold defeats
And there’s a way to make more and more
Leading us to a space we can explore
Never repeats!
Never repeats!
Never repeats!
This joins Symmetry and Seven Bridges (of Königsberg) Road in Joey’s and my submissions for this year’s MathsJamJam. Joey Marianer (yes, the one that I’ve somehow ended up married to!) also sang (and sent for inclusion in the Jam) Polygon Pam, a parody of The Beatles’ Polythene Pam written by Chella Quint:
I look forward to seeing Joey at MathsJam (and then Chella afterwards) and singing them together! I also look forward to eating some aperiodic monotile confections which will inevitably be baked for the MathsJam BakeOff.
I mentioned in a different post that Joey had been working on some cover songs which I was excited to share. The one I was most excited about is a slow cover of Entire Dog by Worm Quartet. It lasts almost twice as long as the rather frenetic original, and Joey initially sang it this way completely off-the-cuff one day over FaceTime. After a few slight revisions, I declared it was so good it should be stolen and used on Glee. But Joey kept singing it to me and making it even better.
If you think Joey made a mistake with some SI prefixes, read the video description. To really tie the post together, here’s a slow cover of a frenetic Worm Quartet song that also mentions math — and other kinds of multiplication… let’s just say it’s NSFW — Tired Of Not:
Both of these songs are on Worm Quartet’s new album, Carpe Tedium, which I highly recommend. Joey has been practising genre-benring covers of several more tracks from it, too.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Please tell me if you do something cool with it.
Creative Output 
