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Randomly Generated Paper Accepted to Conference

mldqj writes "Some students at MIT wrote a program called SCIgen - An Automatic CS Paper Generator. From their website: SCIgen is a program that generates random Computer Science research papers, including graphs, figures, and citations. What's amazing is that one of their randomly generated paper was accepted to WMSCI 2005. Now they are accepting donation to fund their trip to the conference and give a randomly generated talk."

3 of 658 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Random Relpy by B3ryllium · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Who the hell is "Relpy"? Any relation to Ralphie from the Simpsons?

    My cat's breath smells like cat food!

  2. Re:The blind publishing the blind. by shawb · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Of all the people, you would think at least psychologists would appreciate clear, concise descriptions.

    Nah, clear, concise descriptions will allow anyone else to see that you are just plain bullshitting.

    --
    I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
  3. Re:The blind publishing the blind. by Rostin · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I'm not going to lie and claim that I totally understand the second paragraph. But I understand enough of it to recognize that it was not randomly generated and that it does have a meaning.

    It seems like nerdy sorts of people nearly always reason this way when confronted with Dilbert-esque speech:

    1. I am a smart person, and I understand everything.
    2. I do not understand this.
    3. Therefore, it is nonsense.

    Or perhaps like this:

    1. Ideas that can't be stated with mathematical precision are crap.
    2. This statement is not specific enough to make a good programming specification.
    3. Therefore, this statement is worthless.

    Is it possible that the problem is not that the second paragraph is pointless, but that nerdy people have a harder time "getting" the point because of how they are accustomed to thinking?