Here's something fun just for you to look at:

Spoken Into:  (This little tune was inspired by a well-known mishap when the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft was lost in space last week. Because of "human error" in computing stemming from space engineers using two sets of measurements, failing to make a simple conversion from English avoirdupois units of miles, yards, feet, and inches as well as pounds and ounces to its metric equivalent, which utilizes kilometers, meters, kilograms, and grams, the trajectory of the satellite was oriented at an altitude too low to withstand the atmospheric stresses on the planet's surface.

While space scientists are scrambling to determine whether a similar error is buried in the
computer files of two other spacecraft currently cruising through space: the Mars Polar Lander,
scheduled to hit the Martian surface on Dec. 3, and the Stardust craft bound for a comet, let's party. You've heard this one before, but play it again, Sam.) This is a parody.

• Simply Irresistible Pt. 2 (just like the record),
  (with great apologies to Robert Palmer and
  NASA-Jet Propulsions Laboratories)
  
  (Hungarian Fiddle Music Intro)
  
  How can it be permissible
  It compromise my principle
  Yeah yeah
  This kind of check is pitiful
  But this kind of stuff is typical
  
  I'd a career you'd endorse
  (And it's a job, of course!)
  I'd been obliged to perform
  When I first took the course
  Well, math used to look good to me
  But now I found it
  Simply irresistible, simply irresistible
  
  The program is so powerful, huh!
  The data inaccessible, whoa whoa!
  Computations irreducible
  And my figures irrefutable!
  
  It was just basic laws
  And I kind of sawed logs
  Then I sort of took pause
  And then I spaced out because
  
  Metrics used to look good to me
  But now I found them
  Simple as a breeze-able, simple as a breeze-able,
  Simple as a breeze-able
  
  Sine/cosine, there's no telling
  Where the figures went (Simply irreversible!)
  They're all mine, there's no other way to go!
  
  They're indisputable
  Even snoozing at the wheel
  Cosmology is better
  Than this simple little deal
  
  I studied in my Pocket Ref
  Sun system did its stuff
  NASA used to look good to me
  But now I found it
  Simply a big snooze-able
  
  Sine/cosine, there's no telling
  Where the figures went (Simply irrefutable!)
  They're all mine, there's no other way to go,
  whoa!
  
  (guitar break/coffee break)
  "Convert From" .. "Into" ... "Multiples"
  The columns interchangeable, ooh ooh
  The figures were so Blissable!
  Computations indivisible, yeah yeah
  
  It's a phase I'd been forced
  Under duress to endorse
  But it was obliged to perform
  When I helped set its course
  Figures used to look good to me
  But now I found them
  Simply incomputable!
  
  At firing time, there's no telling
  Where the payload went (Simply undeployable!)
  On the firing line -- there's no other place to go, oh-oh!
  (Simply unemployable!)
  
  My fault, mine! there's no telling
  Where the worry went (maybe I'm arrestable!)
  My oh my, there's no other way to go, GIGO
  (Simply irresistible!)

¶ 9/17/2013 01:04:00 PM