Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony Tonight 73
Ellen Spertus writes "The Eleventh First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will be held in Cambridge, MA, on Thursday, Oct. 4, to honor scientific achievements that cannot, or should not, be reproduced. The ceremony, which will be webcast live and broadcast later on Science Friday, is sponsored by The Annals of Improbable Research. The accompanying Ig Informal Lectures will be held Saturday, Oct. 6, at MIT."
Re:isn't that swedish thing. (Score:1)
Similar prize for software? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Similar prize for software? (Score:1)
Re:Similar prize for software? (Most Bugs?) (Score:3, Funny)
How can anyone compete with Microsoft???
:)
Re:Similar prize for software? (Score:3, Informative)
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] [improbable.com].
Re:Similar prize for software? (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of the past results would have made great slashdot stories, how about: Charl Fourie and Michelle Wong of Johannesburg, South Africa, for
inventing an automobile burglar alarm consisting of a detection circuit and a flamethrower."
Noise ratio. (Score:3, Interesting)
Or in other words. I would otherwise greatly encourage, for example you to put ut such a contest, but the fact seems to be (at least to me) that the web is filled with such contests of small communities and groups.
Then again, should you (or anyone) somehow gain a larger community behind such endeavour, and get some outside funding from advertisers or sponsors, then your idea might be worthwhile, or even good. So if you can get these two, and create some working nomination/moderation system for nominees it would sound a great project, but without them you will be having hard time and need lots of will to build such contest. You can note that these fellows have been doing this for a decade now, and had a community at the beginning to start with.
Re:Similar prize for software? (Score:5, Interesting)
inventing an automobile burglar alarm consisting of a detection circuit and a flamethrower."
Far from being a whacky burglar alarm, the device you mention was originally actually an anti-hijack device. Johannesburg is the carjacking capital of the world. I have been resident here for over ten years and I can truthfully say that if you yourself haven't been hijacked then a member of your family or a friend has if you live in this town. I personally have had two attacks in my own driveway, my wife was the victim of an attempt and my father was hijacked and then kidnapped for over four hours.
Most carjack attempts happen at traffic lights or outside your home. The robbers' modus operandi is to walk up to your car door brandishing a weapon - normally a 9mm or an AK-47. Sometimes they just shoot first, drag your body out the way and dump it before driving off. It's impractical to reach for a weapon yourself in these situations since a) you're sitting down and b) your seatbelt is often in the way.
Solution: press a button (the original method of activation) and your would-be murderers get themselves horribly crisped by a sheet of burning hydrocarbons. Sounds damn good to me.
Re:Similar prize for software? (Score:1)
Several years ago now at least.
hummer
Re:Similar prize for software? (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing is, science works by a method of peer review and community respect: your collegues know you do good work because they read it. Software, on the other hand, is not judged at all...
.. except in the Open Source world. Still, I don't think this would work: software either suceeds or fails; the best Open Source stuff simply does it's job well.. it doesn't discover new things.
But all this misses the point. First you need a good name for the prize/magazine. I preferred the 'Journal of Irreproducable Results' to AIR, but that's just me.
Re:Get some PRIORITIES! (OT) (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Get some PRIORITIES! (Score:2)
It is you who need to get a sense of perspective. There's not a damn thing any of us can do about preventing earthquakes. It's a "natural disaster." Or the act of a capricious god. It's relatively safe to assume that the next time an earthquake strikes in that region, the inhabitants will have learned what kinds of structures they can and cannot build, and the damage will be minimized accordingly. In the meantime, what precisely do you know about the humanitarian impulses of /. readers?
Darwin Contest (Score:1)
I think to remember their motto was "For those who helped humanity to advance by removing themselves from it".
But then, the site doens give that many clues on what experiences those guys are awarded for...
Don't Worry (Score:1)
Soon, the Ig Nobel prizes won't be needed. That is, once some more Darwin awards are handed out.
It's a play on words (Score:1, Redundant)
Synonyms of ignoble include disgraceful, shameful, and degenerate.
I'm pretty sure this is not related to the more widely recognized Nobel Prize awards.
The 2000 Ig Nobel Prize Winners (Score:5, Funny)
CHEMISTRY
"Romantic love may be indistinguishable from having severe obsessive-compulsive disorder." [biopsychiatry.com]
COMPUTER SCIENCE
"Detecting when a cat is walking across your computer keyboard." [bitboost.com]
Of course I always knew the first one, so it's quite useful to tell people who are "in love", dunno about the later.
Cat typing detector? I want one! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cat typing detector? I want one! (Score:2)
love=OCD link is interesting! (Score:1)
Re:The 2000 Ig Nobel Prize Winners (Score:1)
Now tell me, how many geeks would have loved to sign up for that one "in the name of science"? The study could have been done with a lot more people if just one announcement had been made here on
Re:The 2000 Ig Nobel Prize Winners (Score:1)
>people if just one announcement had been made
>here on
Yeah, but they probably already HAD a thousand horny guys.
They needed more WOMEN for the study.
-l
Levitating Frog (Score:1, Interesting)
By Far any away the coolest thing is the levitating frog,
Check out the MPegs and Science behind it, fsuking amazing and something I never thouhgt id see
---Any sufficiently advanced motorbike is indistingasble from magic--
ObJoke (Score:5, Funny)
I nominate:
Re:ObJoke (Score:2, Insightful)
To borrow a page from The Princess Bride. I do not that it means what you think it means.
Re:ObJoke (Score:1)
Re:ObJoke (Score:3, Funny)
I'd change that before showing it around, man.
Re:ObJoke (Score:2, Funny)
Last year's winner: IIS, up for a record four years in a row!
That's the first and last time that any Microsoft software has been up for over a year.
And the winner is... (Score:3, Funny)
... for most versatile hybrid polymorphic y-chromosome based genome string :
Once again: Cowboy Neal!
Truth in advertising (Score:3, Funny)
Oh yeh, and the Darwin Awards [adequacy.org] can fuck off too.
Re:Truth in advertising (Score:2)
The Ig Nobel Governors board has already heard about your topic from Brittan's govermental head of science. Their responce was akin to "How can you tell if it's funny or not? If Brittan is not allowed it's scientists to laugh at themselves, then it is a dark day in the land of the Queen."
BTW, durring that year, three Brittish scientists came voluntarily to receive their Ig Nobels.
Gone in 60 Seconds (Score:1, Offtopic)
I don't think they'll be signing, it takes too long. I think they'll just finger print the wedding certificates.
Desides, where is the science in the wedding?
The /. Mongerator Awards (Score:1, Offtopic)
Nominations start NOW! event in a month!
Things you wanted to know, but afraid to ask (Score:1)
Can't take anymore (Score:1)
Not bad, but somebody slap the camera operator! (Score:2)
Just got done watching. Not bad. My biggest complaint were the less-than-stellar technicians operating the equipment. The non-functioning (or just misplaced?) microphones, and the camera operator stubbornly focussing on the podium while the activity takes place elsewhere (e.g. the slideshow...)
Did I hear that right? "Stalinworld"???? (the IgNobel Peace Prize winner...)