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...the IgNobel Award Commitee want a word.

It's this kind of cutting edge research (sponsored by Diet Coke tm) that has made our reasearch in the UK the envy of the IgNobel world :-)

Clearly, they were running in for the Ig Nobel awards. I wonder what field though.

The Annals of Improbable Research, the humor magazine for scientists, once had an article entitled "Advances in Artificial Intelligence". After the title and author affiliations, the page was appropriately completely blank...

No! THIS is comparing apples and oranges!

Check the amount of flicker due to the refresh rate by grinding or chattering your teeth while staring at it. (See halfway down the page.) I'm not kidding.

I nominate them for an ig-nobel prize

This would be on par with comparing apples and oranges.

Apples and Oranges -- A Comparision

oooooh... steven pinker has such luxuriously flowing hair!!!

In particular note the bit about the fish and seaweed being mailed: "postal supervisor warned our mailing specialist that he could be fined for mail service abuse, even as a recipient, should this happen again."

I think just signing the guy up for mailing lists is missing out on the truly beautiful possibilities offered by the USPS.

You don't have to necessarily read them as long as you make sure to use a well respected credible resources!

My first impression was that they didn't have the listing of awards on the site, which was disappointing. I tried a google search and was able to find a page with the list, actually links to the current and previous lists.

My first impression was that they didn't have the listing of awards on the site, which was disappointing. I tried a google search and was able to find a page with the list, actually links to the current and previous lists.

The winners - from the source - are here. I notice one old favorite on there - the periodic table table, which I linked to from my chemistry web site myself. Ahh, literalism ...

Funnier, though, is the pet washing machine. Unfortunately, I can't read the language, but they do have photos ... :)

http://www.improb.com/ig/2002/ig-winners-2002.html

I'd like to bring back an old analogy I once heard with Clipper Ships and Galleons. Both were shipping and both had piracy problems on the high seas. The Galleons had armaments and even more heavily armed escorts, perpared to fight off any pirates. The Clipper Ships were simply FAST, and couldn't be attacked or boarded by pirates. Both were viable shipping models, and both got the cargo there. But the armed escort of the Galleon did *nothing* beyond make sure the cargo got there. The speed of the Clipper made sure the cargo got there, plus it got there faster, delighting the customer.

I don't know what your analogy has to do with fighting Palladium. Should we dismiss your analogy if it is built on bogus information?

First, I suspect you will find that the period of the galleon didn't overlap with the period of the clipper ship.

So the two different kinds of saliing ships never competed with one another. You say the clipper, "couldn't be attacked or boarded by pirates"? Umm. Can I tell you a feature of sailing ships? They depend on the wind. No wind, the sailing ship just sit there, drifting. It is called being becalmed. A becalmed ship is extremely vulnerable to being boarded.

Now maybe by "galleon" you merely meant, big old slow merchant ship that is not a clipper. Maybe you think I am being really pedantic. But picking the wrong metaphors can really wound a good cause. Consider the story of Ken Keyes Jr.book "The 100th Monkey" . The intent behind Keyes book was to work toward disarmament and world peace. But, rather than think this was a worthwhile cause, in and of itself, he hitched his fight to a crazy analogy based on a bogus account of a psychic phenomenon that he took seriously. It made him look ridiculous and considerably undermined his argument...

The fraud is a particularly interesting one, but it is off-topic.

Actually, "who" versus "whom" is a holdout from German, where the words "wer," "wen," and "wem" are the respective nominative, accusative, and dative case constructions of our "who" and "whom." "Who" is used when you're referring to the subject of a sentence; "whom" is used to refer to a direct or indirect object.

I'd recommend learning German to any native English speaker; it improved my understanding of English grammar dramatically. I'd also recommend learning the poem "Der Werwolf" in your second semester of studies (it's a cute little poem on declension and you can find it here if you already speak German).

Swinging back to your post, Mr. Z, differentiating between and correctly using "who" and "whom" should be unconscious, just as the average high school graduate should be able to multiply three-digit two numbers together quickly on a sheet of scratch paper. The inability of many students these days to do either is nothing short of a tragedy of epic proportions.

Isn't this infinitely more interesting?

Sure, mod me offtopic. But please, post something INTERESTING on slash occasionally, ok?

A spam filter that works. Problem Solved.

On a similar vein, the telemarketing optimisation project at the annals of improbable research has some other protocols for getting rid of the blighters

Try putting it between the Annals of Improbable Research and the Journal of Irreproducable Results. That might work.

Other than that, I'd suggest Troy's bear suit and magic materials for the fashion-impaired tornographers. :-)

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor people whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced."

I'm gonna nominate them :-)

Reminds me of the HOTAIR: Postal Experiments, which was on Slashdot a while ago.

They actually managed to send a brick, but yes, it had to be wrapped.

TECHNOLOGY
Awarded jointly to John Keogh of Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia, for patenting the wheel in the year 2001 , and to the Australian Patent Office for granting him Innovation Patent #2001100012.

The Nobel prizes are useless, the real stuff is here :)

I Disagree!
Apples (the fruit variety) and Oranges can indeed be compared, as this paper points out, in a scientific experiment.

For a hillarious article on USPS shipping experiences from a tooth in a clear box to a Helium Ballon (requested negative shipping charges), see Postal Experiments from the Annals of Improbable Research.

...and try this address for winners...

http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-2001-winners.html

The winner and effect of the 1996 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry is not exactly a secret...not that there has been consumer demand yet to ignite charcoal in 3 seconds, nor is there a consumer grill which is not severely damaged by the process.

I think that initiatives like the Darwin award and the Ig Nobel prize are great. Maybe it would be a good idea to introduce such a prize for software that is too faulty or insanely difficult to use, or code that is too unreadable. Ermz, I am preaching for the wrong choir here, since some people actually like making unreadable code :)

No, you ARE comparing apples to oranges.

I think you need to read this

This is

You're welcome

This is....

Check out the Ig Noble awards. I think this guy could be a candidate (provided he lives - don't know if they give them posthumously). From their website:
WHAT: The Ig Nobel Prize honors individuals whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced." Ten prizes are given to people who have done remarkably goofy things -- some of them admirable, some perhaps otherwise. WHY: The Igs are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative -- and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.

Would you believe it has already been done (snicker>? Well, consider the source of this article at The Annals of Impropable Research. They dropped a cat named Esther 100 times each from six various heights. It's funny stuff!

There is still a lot of speculation about why cats purr. Mine usually purr when I pet or feed them. They will also purr while growling/hissing/meowing, all at the same time, if they get hold of any skinks (similar to PCP in humans...)

Felis Domesticus as a species is pretty bad-assed. Cats are considered the best predator pound-for-pound on the planet. Yet they spend 2/3 of their day sleeping. Cats have basically enslaved the most advanced species on the planet. They don't need an opposible thumb because we can open the cat food for them. After we're done wiping ourselves out, cats will eventually become the dominant species on Earth.

Would you believe it has already been done (snicker>? Well, consider the source of this article at The Annals of Impropable Research. They dropped a cat named Esther 100 times each from six various heights. It's funny stuff!

There is still a lot of speculation about why cats purr. Mine usually purr when I pet or feed them. They will also purr while growling/hissing/meowing, all at the same time, if they get hold of any skinks (similar to PCP in humans...)

Felis Domesticus as a species is pretty bad-assed. Cats are considered the best predator pound-for-pound on the planet. Yet they spend 2/3 of their day sleeping. Cats have basically enslaved the most advanced species on the planet. They don't need an opposible thumb because we can open the cat food for them. After we're done wiping ourselves out, cats will eventually become the dominant species on Earth.