The Ig Nobels Are Tonight 41
alphadogg writes "Harvard University's August Sanders Theater will play host tonight to a glittering collection of scientific luminaries, in a ceremony dedicated to recognizing some of the most important research of the year. And it will probably involve stuff like green hair, dead salmon brains, and monkey butts. Yes, it's time again for the annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, where the weirdest and least useful scientific discoveries of the year are paraded before the public in a festival of bizarre nerd pageantry." Slashdot programmer David Hand will be in the crowd, too, triggering a flood of justified envy.
Update: 09/13 14:23 GMT by S : Here are the winners.
Will there be an "ig-Nobel Peace" prize ? (Score:5, Funny)
I hope they will spring a surprise for us and add an "ig-Nobel Peacec" prize, and award it to Obama.
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PEACE PRIZE: Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, for making it illegal to applaud in public, AND to the Belarus State Police, for arresting a one-armed man for applauding. - See more at: http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#sthash.YXMyvdvW.dpuf [improbable.com]
Science vs. Economics (Score:1)
Science is very similar to evolution, not every effort will produce 'substantial output'.
But if noone ever tried crazy things we would not sit here reading and typing on our semi-magical devices.
I have great respect for every scientist who encreases our knowledge - and be it just for the lulz!
my favorite winner: 2008 Economics (Score:5, Interesting)
ECONOMICS PRIZE. Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan of the University of New Mexico, USA, for discovering that professional lap dancers earn higher tips when they are ovulating.
http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/
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There is an Ig Nobel Peace prize? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Why?
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The ignoble Peace prize is to be abandoned.
They realised it was impossible to be any more bizarre or improbable than the real Nobel Peace Prize.
How can you top the 1973 award to Kissinger and Le Duc Tho to end the Vietnam war? ,
Or legendary snake-oil promoter Linus Pauling,
convicted terrorists including Yasir Arafat and Nelson Mandela (OK, maybe)
an AIDS conspiracy theorist, and various war criminals.
Obama really won the inaugural "not being GW Bush prize", but that turned out to have been a little premature
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Obama really won the inaugural "not being GW Bush prize", but that turned out to have been a little premature.
To be fair, he did turn out not to be GW Bush. Whether he was a step forward is another story.
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I dunno, have we ever seen Obama and Bush in the same room together?
Re: There is an Ig Nobel Peace prize? (Score:2)
Yes. At the inauguration for one. Unless you're suggesting that one of them was a replicant...
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Yes. At the inauguration for one. Unless you're suggesting that one of them was a replicant...
No, the meeting was to engage the body swapping equipment. I mean, When was the last time you heard G.W. Bush SAY anything.
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August Sanders Theater (Score:5, Informative)
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It was not named for a person called August Sanders.
Plus its almost halfway into September now! Sheesh.
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Slashdot is usually late posting these stories. It's to be expected.
Re:August Sanders Theater (Score:4, Funny)
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And a good thing too! Poking chickens is illegal in several states.
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Do you actually remember what search engines looked like before Google came on the scene?
They were awful and ad ridden (cf the modern Google - it's rather subtle) and shallow. I moved my home page away from Altavista pretty smartish when I heard of them.
Fault them all you like but G's founders filled a niche nicely with good (enough) maths/algorithms and a canny eye for user requirements and as it turns out by results: good business sense.
They do evil by default nowadays but they are still pretty good at t
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Ugh! (Score:1)
Would love to hear crickets chirping there (Score:1)
Using their little mechanical gear limbs to rub their legs against their wings.
Link to video (Score:3, Informative)
2012 Ignoble Awards [livestream.com]
Where are the nerds (Score:4, Funny)
This is real news for nerds.
I note that the story above about the NSA inventing a new magnifying glass and can now read text down to 2 point or something has shit loads of comments but this one has very few.
Come on you buggers, comment here where it really counts.
Oh - you can't hear me no matter how hard I tap the keys ...... bugger
Cheers
Jon
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... and me with Mod points 'n' all
Kids today.
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Well at least Slashdot programmer David Hand was able to take a break from working on implementing unicode support and attend on our behalf.
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I hate to bring the news but the unicode task has been completed ("not worth the effort for the foreigners") while he team is busy now with ssl ("not worth the effort since the nsa ...") and IPv6 ("not worth the effort, hex between colons hurts the eyes")
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Here's my photo stream (Score:1)
2013 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony [google.com] Photos from the peanut gallery.
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Genuinely jealous (Score:3)
that I couldn't attend. I got lost on the way, there was so much light pollution I couldn't see the milky way.
Timely! (Score:2)
I like how this post went nearly an hour after the webcast started.
Fun research (Score:1)