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The inventor of the comb-over patented his work in 1977, and won the igNobel prize last year. I'm sure the comb-over technique operates in an optical frequency range in order to be effective.

Excuse me, I should have linked here.

It's probably not the fact that software can be granted patents but the fact that patent enforcement is horrible. People have patented the combover. People have patented the wheel. God damn it. Enforce the laws!!!! Enforce the laws!!!! http://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html

Apples and Oranges: A Comparison.

Come on, this guy is a genius, they should consider him for Nobel prize this year.

Your subject, comparing apples and oranges, is invalid:

http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volum e1/v1i3/air-1-3-apples.html

http://www.darwinmag.com/read/0502/apples.html

http://www.improbable.com/ Annals of Improbable Research...their monthly newsletter can be subscribed to ..it is enlightening to read....everytime

Still not sure if this is real or not, but it's funny either way:

http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volum e9/v9i3/kansas.html

I live in Kansas. Kansas really is flatter than a pancake.

"Though applications may not come for awhile, the article says that in the future this technology may be used in devices to detect bioterrorism chemicals." Come on, do we really need to have the terrorism angle pointed out for every new technology that comes along??? It's BS to get science funding cause apparently the only R&D budget the U.S. still subsidizes is military and anti-terrorism. I swear, it's only a matter of time before people start trying to claim research into the drag coefficient of sheep over various surfaces (See: http://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#i g2003Ignobel Awards ) qualifies as an anti-terrorism expenditure.

See here for information on how to nominate them

If a bored NASA engineer can, why can't I ?

One-fifth of an atmosphere is a vacuum? That's pretty high pressure if you ask me. Most modern areas of science need much much lower pressures than that to be viable (10^-3 torr at the very least).

But, hey, isn't it *fun* to know that there are some cheap (tabletop) experiments that are still out there waiting to be done?

Many of the really good cheap science has been done already, but that isn't to say that it's all used up! You could always win an Ig noble by studying beer froth

You mean like comparing apples to oranges? http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volum e1/v1i3/air-1-3-apples.html

The two are apples and oranges.

Apples and Oranges - A Comparison.

The amazing thing is how well Moore's law has stood up against repeated Malthusian forecasts of its demise. One still presumes that the fences of quantum uncertainty, relativistic delay, and heat production will prevent Moore's law from continuing number of device doubling indefinitely, without major paradigm shift (async to beat the clock?reversible to beat heat & entropy? optical? quantum?), but mere technological advances may continue far beyond my Malthusian imagination.

================
Cole's Law -- Finely Sliced Cabbage with dressing.

A for aggravation

However, perhaps we are all a little quick to judge. After all, all we have is a news summary. We must wait for the full article to come out in a scientific journal. May I suggest Annals of Improbable Reaserch ? Scorn it now, but perhaps we are seeing next year's recipients of the ig Noble Prize?

A for aggravation

However, perhaps we are all a little quick to judge. After all, all we have is a news summary. We must wait for the full article to come out in a scientific journal. May I suggest Annals of Improbable Reaserch ? Scorn it now, but perhaps we are seeing next year's recipients of the ig Noble Prize?

I've come to the conclusion that nearly all of human behavior can be summed up by the following two apparent facts about humanity (taken as a group):

• People are lazy.
• Thinking is work.

This applies to teachers as well as children - and dealing with the "smart kids", who tend to come up with odd, novel ways of looking at and asking about things makes the teachers have to think. Really good teachers LIKE that sort of mental challenge, but I think most are just ordinary people who don't like to "work". Discouraging time-consuming, thought-provoking smartness just makes their lives easier.

(Someone once told me that one of the few college degrees you can get that does not require ANY science classes is...a Bachelor's degree in Education. That, right there, says something if it's true. Can anyone confirm or refute this claim?)

Some nerds still try to fight against that tendency, though. One of the nerdliest humor publications I know of is The Annals of Improbable Research (yes, the same people that host the IgNobel Prizes every year...). Every issue of their magazine includes a very short, concise "teaching guide", which begins with:

"Three out of five teachers agree: curiosity is a dangerous thing, especially in students. If you are one of the other two teachers[...]"

Personally, I'd love to see copies of this getting plastered all over every "educational" institution, everywhere in the world (I find it hard to believe that the US is the ONLY place in the world with this problem, fundamental human nature being what it is everywhere...).

I've come to the conclusion that nearly all of human behavior can be summed up by the following two apparent facts about humanity (taken as a group):

• People are lazy.
• Thinking is work.

This applies to teachers as well as children - and dealing with the "smart kids", who tend to come up with odd, novel ways of looking at and asking about things makes the teachers have to think. Really good teachers LIKE that sort of mental challenge, but I think most are just ordinary people who don't like to "work". Discouraging time-consuming, thought-provoking smartness just makes their lives easier.

(Someone once told me that one of the few college degrees you can get that does not require ANY science classes is...a Bachelor's degree in Education. That, right there, says something if it's true. Can anyone confirm or refute this claim?)

Some nerds still try to fight against that tendency, though. One of the nerdliest humor publications I know of is The Annals of Improbable Research (yes, the same people that host the IgNobel Prizes every year...). Every issue of their magazine includes a very short, concise "teaching guide", which begins with:

"Three out of five teachers agree: curiosity is a dangerous thing, especially in students. If you are one of the other two teachers[...]"

Personally, I'd love to see copies of this getting plastered all over every "educational" institution, everywhere in the world (I find it hard to believe that the US is the ONLY place in the world with this problem, fundamental human nature being what it is everywhere...).

I've come to the conclusion that nearly all of human behavior can be summed up by the following two apparent facts about humanity (taken as a group):

• People are lazy.
• Thinking is work.

This applies to teachers as well as children - and dealing with the "smart kids", who tend to come up with odd, novel ways of looking at and asking about things makes the teachers have to think. Really good teachers LIKE that sort of mental challenge, but I think most are just ordinary people who don't like to "work". Discouraging time-consuming, thought-provoking smartness just makes their lives easier.

(Someone once told me that one of the few college degrees you can get that does not require ANY science classes is...a Bachelor's degree in Education. That, right there, says something if it's true. Can anyone confirm or refute this claim?)

Some nerds still try to fight against that tendency, though. One of the nerdliest humor publications I know of is The Annals of Improbable Research (yes, the same people that host the IgNobel Prizes every year...). Every issue of their magazine includes a very short, concise "teaching guide", which begins with:

"Three out of five teachers agree: curiosity is a dangerous thing, especially in students. If you are one of the other two teachers[...]"

Personally, I'd love to see copies of this getting plastered all over every "educational" institution, everywhere in the world (I find it hard to believe that the US is the ONLY place in the world with this problem, fundamental human nature being what it is everywhere...).

...That way, some uneducated terrorists from The Great Wherever won't get new ideas using Google keyword searches like "explosives", "bombs", "nukes"...

What? You mean like Al Qaeda getting caught trying to reproduce something from the Journal of Irreproducible Results?

As it happens, a bunch of mathematicians with waaay too much time on their hands are going through the computer proof by hand. I'm sure that'll make for interesting reading when it comes out. I found this out courtesy of the Annals of Improbable Research - invaluable background reading to be found at www.improbable.com , highlighed in their email summary mailing.

Now, thanks to MRI, we get to see pictures of very interesting things such as sex in an MRI tube...

He reminds me somewhat of Cosmo Kramer - except he actually made his way into the academia, which is nothing short of amazing - in the proud tradition of Joshua Norton, emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico by grace of God.

if you haven't read it, the AIR feature on murphy's law is a great read.

Hey, I consider it useful that Trinkaus discovered that woman in vans don't stop for stopsigns. I've never liked those minivan driving soccer moms.

Link

by Scott A. Sandford, NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California We have all been present at discussions (or arguments) in which one of the combatants attempts to clarify or strengthen a point by comparing the subject at hand with another item or situation more familiar to the audience or opponent. More often than not, this stratagem instantly results in the protest that "you're comparing apples and oranges!" This is generally perceived as being a telling blow to the analogy, since it is generally understood that apples and oranges cannot be compared. However, after being the recipient of just such an accusation, it occurred to me that there are several problems with dismissing analogies with the comparing apples and oranges defense. First, the statement that something is like comparing apples and oranges is a kind of analogy itself. That is, denigrating an analogy by accusing it of comparing apples and oranges is, in and of itself, comparing apples and oranges. More importantly, it is not difficult to demonstrate that apples and oranges can, in fact, be compared (see figure 1). Figure 1. Granny Smith Apple and Sunkist Orange Materials and Methods Both samples were prepared by gently desiccating them in a convection oven at low temperature over the course of several days. The dried samples were then mixed with potassium bromide and ground in a small ball-bearing mill for two minutes. One hundred milligrams of each of the resulting powders were then pressed into a circular pellet having a diameter of 1 cm and a thickness of approximately 1 mm. Spectra were taken at a resolution of 1 cm-1 using a Nicolet 740 FTIR spectrometer. Figure 2 shows a comparison of the 4000-400 cm-1 (2.5-25 mm) infrared transmission spectra of a Granny Smith apple and a Sunkist Navel orange. Figure. 2 Conclusions Not only was this comparison easy to make, but it is apparent from the figure that apples and oranges are very similar. Thus, it would appear that the comparing apples and oranges defense should no longer be considered valid. This is a somewhat startling revelation. It can be anticipated to have a dramatic effect on the strategies used in arguments and discussions in the future.

...for the 2004 edition of the Ig Nobels!

I've been waiting to use this...

"Not only was this comparison easy to make, but it is apparent from the figure that apples and oranges are very similar."

I think an appropriate comparison would be if I was a non-mind-reader in a mind-reading community, and my child couldn't read minds either. If I learned of a new procedure that could give my child mind-reading abilities, I might not run out to get her a mindwave 2000 implant for a variety of reasons (jealousy, fear, not understanding the need).

For the communities of people who have always lived without a given sense, the above scenario would probably be a good approximation of what they'd have to struggle with. I don't see myself as being hampered by my inability to know what other people are thinking, and I might see it as silly to have my child have an operation to be able to do so. People fear change and things that are different from their experiences, and that's something to keep in mind when making comments about situations like that one.

(Yes, he's the guy who won an IG Nobel prize.)

Actually, Caldera was a company that knowingly and intentionally released it's code under the GPL. It hired people to work on code with the express intention that the code would be released under the GPL.

Here's one of those employees, Ronald Joe Record. According to his bio "...In 2001 he was purchased by Caldera Systems as part of Caldera's acquisition of the server software division of SCO. In 2002 Caldera changed its name back to SCO. He is currently an Open Source Architect for SCO" ... and ..." author of "Porting Open Source Software to SCO"." He's also a member in good standing of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists(TM) .

Yeah, looks like we found this year's Ig Nobel award.

Don't be too sure... the 1993 "Visionary Tecgnology" Ig Nobel Prize was "Presented jointly to Jay Schiffman of Farmington Hills, Michigan, crack inventor of AutoVision, an image projection device that makes it possible to drive a car and watch television at the same time, and to the Michigan state legislature, for making it legal to do so."

member of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists?

Here he is, complete with red hat.

I smell the smell of an IgNobel prize in the air.

The chaps over at the Annals of Improbable Research have done some experiments into USPS package handling:

Postal Experiments

Good reading!
SG.

Who remembers this article a while back?

The USPS, even when faced with items such as an unwrapped deer tibia and rotting wheel of cheese, had a 64% received rate. Right now they're looking alot better than UPS or Fedex.

The "experiment" is documented here at the Annals of improbable research.

1. Original (no prior art)
   
2. Not obvious to one skilled in the field
   

If you did read through the pages to the past winners you might have noticed that they have a category of computer science (from year 2000 awards):

COMPUTER SCIENCE Chris Niswander of Tucson, Arizona, for inventing PawSense, software that detects when a cat is walking across your computer keyboard.

Some others of past winners are quite hilarious too. So for the lazy ones: link to past winners is here [improbable.com].

The Post Office may have such limitations, but I'll bet the DEA doesn't. See This AIR article (look for "wrapped brick").

But what if the DEA intercepts it thinking it's cocaine or something?! I read the article that someone else linked to, and they claim that they mailed a brick (with correct postage). They got a notice about it, and when they went to the post office, it was smashed open. My understanding was that the DEA smashed it open, thinking it contained drugs or something... That must be a fun job. ("Hey, a brick! Let's smash it open!" "Hey, a bunch of AOL CD's! Let's smash those!" "Hey, someone bought Microsoft Windows! Let's do them a favor and smash that!")

BRM may not be used for any purpose other than that intended by the permit holder, even if postage is affixed. In cases where a BRM card or letter is used improperly as a label, the USPS treats the item as waste.

So, we can stuff all of the bits of paper that they expect us to return in the envelope and mail it back. Just don't fill them in.

Technically anything else is a breach of this rule. I'm sure they can't claim that it's improper usage to return blank forms to the junk mail sender.

Zwack.

p.s. for an interesting experiment in what HAS been sent through the US mail try this article from Hot-AIR

Here is a study on what the USPS will (and will not) ship. My favorite is the deer tibia: The clerk put on rubber gloves before handling the bone, inquired if our researcher were a "cultist," and commented that mail must be wrapped.

--

As discussed in the article yesturday, they don't let you do that. This is the thread with some more info about that. Here is some more info on what can and can't be done.

I found http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volum e6/v6i4/postal-6-4.html on Memepool. It details just what you can get away with when (ab)using the USPS.
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That previously mentioned semi-flappable image is illustrated here.

It was pretty much supersceded by the Annals of Improbable Research . They're the folks responsible for the Ig Noble awards.


...phil