Cosmic Microwave Radiation discoverer demo-hoaxed

February 19, 2009 1:06 PM

In 1989 Rob Pike, Penn & Teller, and Dennis Ritchie (one of the creators of UNIX), prank Arno Penzias, with a funky speech recognition demo.
posted by oonh (6 comments total)

This is a great story, but the pacing on the video is terrible.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 1:51 PM on February 19, 2009

This is a great story, but the pacing on the video is terrible.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 4:51 PM on February 19 [+] [!]

Eponysterical.

It's a nifty idea, but I find the video less compelling as a practical joke and more as a demonstration of how video editing has changed in the last twenty years. I can easily imagine this sort of thing appearing as a segment on any of the late night talk shows; I cannot imagine it taking up nine minutes.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:01 PM on February 19, 2009

Dennis Ritchie (one of the creators of UNIX)

You may know him as the Ritchie of Kernighan and Ritchie, and the "r" component of your C compiler's -kr flag.
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:07 PM on February 19, 2009

I love Penn and Teller, but this is about as funny as recent political cartoons in the New York Post.
posted by butterstick at 2:18 PM on February 19, 2009

Penn only has one arm on his shirt rolled up. Why is that, do you suppose?
posted by boo_radley at 4:22 PM on February 19, 2009

That's some awful palming at the end of the video, even without modern video dissection capabilities.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 2:04 PM on February 23, 2009