The perils of recursion

« previous post | next post »

Via BoingBoing and many LL readers:



24 Comments

  1. James said,

    February 10, 2010 @ 6:40 pm

    Like staring into the abyss.

  2. Catanea said,

    February 10, 2010 @ 7:03 pm

    Like the Vache qui rie. But with sound.
    Great.

  3. Brian said,

    February 10, 2010 @ 7:19 pm

    "I am sitting in a webcast, different from the one you are in now."

  4. Ben said,

    February 10, 2010 @ 7:33 pm

    Hofstadter would love this.

  5. Chris said,

    February 10, 2010 @ 7:58 pm

    Someone please send this to Dan Everett!

  6. HP said,

    February 10, 2010 @ 8:44 pm

    I was going to post a mildly amusing comment, but Brian just made me superfluous.

  7. Rubrick said,

    February 10, 2010 @ 10:10 pm

    If you think that's cool, you should check out this.

  8. uberVU - social comments said,

    February 10, 2010 @ 11:55 pm

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by PhilosophyFeeds: Language Log: The perils of recursion http://goo.gl/fb/9n0i

  9. GAC said,

    February 11, 2010 @ 1:25 am

    Sounds like some electronica music I've heard :P

  10. fs said,

    February 11, 2010 @ 2:56 am

    Since Brian's comment may have been a bit cryptic, allow me to link directly to the Wikipedia article on the topic. That's what this reminded me of too, haha.

  11. RG said,

    February 11, 2010 @ 5:24 am

    I believe this is what's known on the Internet as "dividing by zero".

  12. Adam said,

    February 11, 2010 @ 5:35 am

    Douglas Hofstadter came up with this idea 30 years ago (but could only implement it in treeware).

  13. Joe said,

    February 11, 2010 @ 6:34 am

    Yeah Google "Recursion" and click on "Did you mean: recursion" link.

  14. Darryl McAdams said,

    February 11, 2010 @ 11:57 am

    DAMN YOU DANIEL EVERETT!!! ::shakes an angry fist::

  15. Pekka K. said,

    February 11, 2010 @ 11:58 am

    This reminded me of the many times I've heard people calling radio talk shows while next to their radio and causing feed-back loops, prompting the host to tell them to turn their radio down. Those sorts aren't usually anywhere near as interesting as this one was, though. This one was strangely beautiful.

  16. Peter Howard said,

    February 11, 2010 @ 5:18 pm

    Another interesting trick is to point a video camera at a monitor displaying its output.

  17. Mark said,

    February 11, 2010 @ 5:32 pm

    Nice Alvin Lucier reference.

  18. Terry Collmann said,

    February 12, 2010 @ 4:19 am

    I have a comic annual from the 1930s, formerly my mother's, with a front cover that was a drawing of two sailor characters and two mermaids reading that same annual with a front cover that was a drawing of two sailor characters and two mermaids reading that same annual with a front cover that was a drawing of two sailor characters and two mermaids reading that same annual with a front cover that was a drawing of two sailor characters and two mermaids reading that same annual … and so on. When I was 10-year-old the idea of an illustration that was both outside and inside itself, to infinity seemed as boggling as MC Escher.

  19. I am sitting in a room « Senza Sord said,

    February 12, 2010 @ 10:04 am

    […] Music Leave a Comment Tags: Alvin Lucier, Classical Music, Language Log I ran across this on Language Log. In the comments, some wise guy points out the resemblance of the video to Alvin […]

  20. SJ’s Longest Now » !*&@$%# again! said,

    February 12, 2010 @ 9:05 pm

    […] Via languagelog. Share and Enjoy: […]

  21. Chas Belov said,

    February 13, 2010 @ 2:06 am

    Reminds me of Steve Reich's works.

  22. spotlights « light bulb moments said,

    February 13, 2010 @ 1:09 pm

    […] The perils of recursion – Live Webcast FAIL […]

  23. nrcw.com » My Google Reader Shared Items - February 14, 2010 said,

    February 14, 2010 @ 9:13 am

    […] The perils of recursion […]

  24. Eirik Hektoen said,

    February 17, 2010 @ 1:15 pm

    There is also the pseudo-recursive cover for Pink Floyd's Ummagumma album:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PinkFloyd-album-ummagummastudio-300.jpg

RSS feed for comments on this post