When is an Interrobang not an Interrobang? What *is* an Interrobang?
Do you have to be a Kibologist to be an Interrobang Cartel musician?
But isn't it a tenet of Kibology that *everyone* is a Kibologist?
The story so far:
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8 Apr 2003: | <j6vs6b.nli.ln@catarneh.blit.ca> |
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Chris Reuter informs us that, as of a decade ago, the
official term for women who hang around with and are
attracted to nerds is "geek freak".
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17 Apr 2003: | <e78659ea52e1d15e170973adf970a789@news.teranews.com>
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| Casey B suggests "She's a Geek Freak" as an Interrobang
Cartel song title.
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14 Sep 2003: | <u47k4aok9b.fsf@mep1.phy.syr.edu> |
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I post the "Geek Freak" lyrics.
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15 Sep 2003: | <1g1c717.1pwo4bi1fro3cwN%25yoof@jwgh.org>
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Jake adds the lyrics to the !? web site.
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26 Sep 2003 | <u4u16zxz2j.fsf@mep1.phy.syr.edu>
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I sorta casually mention an Outsider is working on a
rendition of the song.
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<Pine.LNX.4.44.0309261734350.31967-100000%40monster.apt.net>
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Jimpson accuses me of outsourcing.
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31 Oct 2003: | <u4znfhzcaa.fsf%40mep1.phy.syr.edu>
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I identify the Outsider as my old friend Major Zed.
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28 Jun 2004: | <u4vfhbbxf8.fsf%40mep1.phy.syr.edu>
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I hint that a song not about Kerri is imminent.
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Yes sir, it's all mounting to a FEVER PITCH and I now can inform you
it's HERE. [... text removed by editor ...]
Zed is, as I said, not a practicing Kibologist; but I am, and there's
a reference to Kibo in the revised lyrics (see below), so, I dunno, is
this an Interrobang song or not? Zed's said he'd be proud to have it
considered as such, which just goes to show how far out of the loop he
is. I suppose it's up to Jake whether to put the song on the !? web
site or not -- Zed and I certainly give him permission to do so. And
frankly, I think Zed's done such a damn fine job here, the Cartel
would be nuts not to include it.
We did a fairly extensive overhaul of the original lyrics; here they
are in final form, with Zed's annotations:
She's a Geek Freak
Lyrics by Doctroid and Major Zed
...Copy down and copy down and copy down and copy down...
Copy down and copy down and copy over in your room and
Read it damn it read it gotta know it get it grok[1] it gotta
Think about it think about it learn to do it soon
Well she knows he knows he knows it and she knows he thinks he's got it
So she wants to get him somewhere tell him she wants to see his software
She can't grep[2] a spool[3] in Unix[4] still she feels some real magnetics
She's a geek freak, maybe show him some hooter
She's a geek freak, by the supercomputer
She's a geek freak, and she needs a nerd to love tonight
With her freckled tomboy cheekbones and a dose of female hormones
She goes looking for the doughboy with his janky[5] shirt and corduroy
Hair a nightmare, bad complexion but she's 404[6] on finding him
She's a geek freak, tries to be an attractor[7]
She's a geek freak, at the breeder reactor
She's a geek freak, and she needs a nerd to love tonight
Left cosets[8] regular polytopes,[9] knot invariants[10] and Cauchy
sequences[11]
Right cosets[8] regular polytopes, knot invariants and Cauchy sequences
Butterfly catastrophe,[12] Grassman bundle surgery[13]
Normal subgroups[8] regular polytopes, knot invariants and Cauchy sequences
So she tries the T.A.s[14] later says as far as commutators[8]
Go she doesn't see the point so could they talk about neutrinos[15]
Maybe slip one in her pocket - maybe give them both what they wanted
She's a geek freak, get a little romantic
She's a geek freak, with a quantum mechanic
She's a geek freak, and she needs a nerd to love tonight
Copy down and copy down and copy over in your room and
Read it damn it read it gotta know it get it grok it gotta
Think about it think about it learn it do it soon
Well she....
FOOTNOTES:
- Grok - understand. From Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land"
- Grep - search command in Unix
- Spool - temporary file serving as a queue, e.g., printer output
- Unix - a real computer operating system
- Janky - of inferior quality ('90s slang)
- 404 - clueless. From web browser "404: Object Not Found" error
message
- Attractor - subset of a phase space approached asymptotically by
a dynamical system.
- Left coset, right coset, normal subgroup, commutator - left
cosets are aG, right cosets are Ga, a subroup G is normal if aG=Ga,
a commutator is an element of the form (a)(b)(a^-1)(b^-1). This is
all jargon from mathematical group theory (abstract algebra) which
is important in quantum physics, God only knows why.
- Regular polytopes - N-dimensional generalization of regular
polygons
- Knot invariants - quantities defined on knots that are the same
for equivalent forms of the knot. For example, crossing number is
the minimum number of crossings in a diagram of the knot. Boy
scouts could be physicists.
- Cauchy sequence - a mapping from counting numbers to a metric
space where for any epsilon>0 there is an N such that... oh, never
mind.
- Butterfly catastrophe - one of the basic surfaces in Rene Thom's
classification theorem (catastrophe theory). Not related to the
"butterfly effect" (a butterfly flaps its wings and causes a
hurricane). Not really, anyway.
- Grassman bundle surgery - the Grassman manifold is the set of
linear subspaces of a vector space. A bundle is locally a product
of a vector space and a manifold. Surgery is the topological
operation of defining the global structure of connectivity of a
bundle. Think Moebius strip. Glad you asked?
- T.A. - teaching assistant, typically an underpaid, overworked
graduate student
- Neutrino - chargeless, massless subatomic particle traveling at
the speed of light. No, wait, it has a little bit of mass and it
goes almost at the speed of light. But it has no charge. They
think. Better check back next month.
[Original lyrics:]
She's a Geek Freak
lyrics by Doctroid Doctroid Holmes
copy down and copy down
and copy over in your room
and read it damn it read it
gotta know it know it know it gotta
think about it think about it
learn it do it learn it
well she
knows you know you know it and she
knows you think you got it and she
wants to tell you something that she
likes that piece of software she can't
hack a code in emacs but she
really gets attracted she's a
geek freak
geek freak
pasty shorty white boys with a
facial bad complexion with an
overweight imbalance and an
oily hair disaster it's an
urban fashion nightmare but she
wants to tell you something
well she
doesn't see the point of commu-
tators but she hangs around with
physics TAs and she tells them
she would rather hear about the
muon get one in her pocket
give him what they both want she's a
geek freak
geek freak
[instrumental break]
left cosets right cosets
regular polytopes
knot invariants
cauchy sequences
left cosets right cosets
regular polytopes
knot invariants
cauchy sequences
she's a
geek freak
geek freak
copy down and copy down
and copy over in your room
and read it damn it read it
gotta know it know it know it gotta
think about it think about it
learn it do it learn it
well she