Only after about a thousand people emailed and commented saying I should link this:
Link (YouTube) |
It’s amazing work. It’s a great collection of Sagan quotes and observations, and it stands on its own as a piece of music.
And because they didn’t work it into the song:
Billions and billions.
Chainmail Bikini
A horrible, railroading, stupid, contrived, and painfully ill-conceived roleplaying campaign. All in good fun.
Batman v. Superman Wasn't All Bad
It's not a good movie, but it was made with good intentions and if you look closely you can find a few interesting ideas.
Deus Ex and The Treachery of Labels
Deus Ex Mankind Divided was a clumsy, tone-deaf allegory that thought it was clever, and it managed to annoy people of all political stripes.
Batman: Arkham City
A look back at one of my favorite games. The gameplay was stellar, but the underlying story was clumsy and oddly constructed.
Marvel's Civil War
Team Cap or Team Iron Man? More importantly, what basis would you use for making that decision?
http://www.symphonyofscience.com/
This is the website of the folks that put that together. It is an interesting use of the tonal adjustment technology.
The quote you are looking for is in the second song “We are all connected”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk
Actually the line “billions and billions” in that video was said by Bill Nye the science guy, not Carl Sagan. :)
Consider that nit throughly picked!
Carl Sagan never said “billions and billions” in Cosmos, so it’s not surprising it isn’t in the video.
Very cool video.
http://colorpulsemusic.com/ is the ambient/electronic project these guys put together before Symphony of Science. Definitely worth a listen.
Nice effort, but pitch benders make my ears BLEED!
Why not try some science songs that are made by people who actually can sing?
Such as…. http://acme.com/jef/singing_science/
Yes.
For the more advanced nerd:
http://faculty.washington.edu/crowther/Misc/Songs/lyrics.shtml
Glucose, Glucose is a favourite of mine.
Another oldie-but-goodie, this one more math- than science-oriented:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BipvGD-LCjU
That was the Awesome, Shamus.
A little trivia – the reason they never worked in “billions and billions” is probably because Carl never said it. It caught on when Johnny Carson did in a Sagan skit.
A little more trivia – I ran into this quote:
The reason why the song doesn’t use the line “Billions and billions” is that Carl Sagan himself never actually said it in Cosmos. It came from a Tonight Show parody of him (based on his distinctive pronunciation of “billions”, to distinguish it from “millions”). EDIT: Beaten to it.
But yes, I love this video. If you check the creator’s other videos he has a few more songs featuring Carl and a bunch of other scientists.
I like the fourth one, where Jane Goodall is bent into a neat little pentatonic. “It’s a very wuzzy line and it’s getting wuzzier all the time.” And, of course, Neil deGrasse Tyson: “I know that the molecules in my body are traceable to phenomena in the cosmos. That makes me want to grab people on the street and say, ‘Have you heard this?!'”
Edit: Yes, I know that Neil was in the second one and a second reading of my comment makes me realize it was ambiguous. No need to drop any pedantry on that point.
Those are great videos. I actually found the “We Are All Connected” one first and it’s still my favourite. “We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself” indeed!
I always wondered what Carl Sagan would think of Mass Effect.
He’d like the original but complain about how the sequel was too shooter-focused.
(I kid.)
I wonder what he would think of Game Dogs :P
[Insert joke about CS being a marijuana user and WoW/EverQuest/Magic: The Gathering being like crack here.]
Probably think questionably of the idea that most of the other aliens are humanoid bipeds.
They’re not. There’s quadrupeds and floating jellyfish. And some insectoids.
Asari, Turians, Salarians, Drell, Krogan, Volus, Batarians, Quarians… that’s a lot of humanoid aliens (to a greater or lesser degree)
vs Hanar, Elcor, Keepers, Collectors.
I say again, most of the other aliens are humanoid bipeds.
You forgot vorcha (humanoid) and rachni (nonhuman), but yeah, there are an awful lot of races you can animate with a human skeleton. It’s a lot easier to give them emotions, for one thing.
I would like to see a four-legged alien race, though – if the elcor can acquire technology, it shouldn’t be that hard for say a race of aardvarks with prehensile tongues who communicate via separate organs on the throat so they can talk while they work.
Honestly I think a lot of the science in Mass Effect is pretty solid. He might dig it. Also there are a lot of Physic jokes going on in the background.
I heard someone make comment about how the Asari are blue shifting and the I feel the need to listen to the marine in citadel explaining how Issac Newton is the baddest mother fraker in space.
“Makes you feel sort of… Insignificant, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, yeah… Can we have your liver then?”
I don’t have a spacesuit, but oh damn, oh damn ,I want to travel!
Carl Sagan — seriously, I wish I was that cool a geek. I’m really posting just so I can go d’awwww at the fact Shamus changed the site banner to roses; very cute.
…also I’m doing this all while alt-tabbed out of ME2 waiting for the intro to finish. Seriously, Bioware, you even advertise how I can skip stuff with my wonderful space bar button (Which by the way also chooses dialogue options. Wanna punch a reporter in the sto– Whoops! Too late! You already did it!).
Edit: double minus sign actually makes a proper dash? — woah! NEAT. It’s the little things that impress me. Whee. — — —
Great video. As for Mr. Sagan, wish I had that kind of geek-cred. Fantastic mind, he had.
As for the banner…the first thing I thought was not “d’awww” but, “Eeevv-ry rose has its thorn….”
Since there are no words to describe how awesome this is:
\m/^o^\m/
Shamus, I thank you for showing me this. It is a wonderful piece of art.
A fabulous piece of work. I actually hadn’t seen this before, but it’s very good, as far as such things go. Very awesome and very appropriate.
Seen this one already, but spread the word, brother. Good link.
I actually like the next one better “We’re all connected”
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk)
I think We Are All Connected is the best of the series. It’s just full of people who love science, and have the energy and joy to convey that love in their words. Even pitch-moded.
Pretty cool, but am I the only one who thinks the tuner makes him sound a little like Kermit?
Nope, that was the first thing I said to my wife when we watched it.
I’m usually not a fan of pitch-changing, but for Sagan I will make an exception.
This does make me want to listen to “Pale Blue Dot” again, though.
I actually like the pitch-changing effect, I think for these music videos they work very, very well. I couldn’t imagine this with just a normal singer.
That’s true. Generally the tech is used to cover up the fact that someone is trying to sing but can’t – in cases like this (where it’s changing spoken word to song) it does add something worthwhile to the effort.
I love these pieces by Symphony of Science. I have all the ones they have done on a compilation CD that we play for my son.
The new one is up, The Poetry of Reality (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cd36WJ79z4). There’s less Carl Sagan this time, but it’s still good.
Good News! John Boswell, the creator of this clip, has just been nominated for a Webby Award! Vote for him in the People’s Choice Award. Go to http://webby.aol.com/
They will prompt you to sign up, get an email back with your activation code, and then use that to link back to the site.
Once there, use the top link to Online Film and Video
Next screen, click the thumbnail that says Video Remixes and Mashups
Then vote on Carl Sagan – A Glorious Dawn – Cosmos Remixed
Lets rally for John!