Sci/Tech Humor

Local Content

Not original unless stated. This is just stuff that to my knowledge haven't been put up by anyone else.

• Stories from science (e.g. Enrico Fermi once attended Robert Oppenheimer's students' seminar - and couldn't understand a word of it. However, he was cheered by the last sentence "...and this is Fermi's theory of beta decay." )
• Zimbabwean Computer Terms
• I.J.Good's compilation of What Scientists Really Mean When They Say Things "It has long been known that..." = I haven't bothered to look up the original reference... "It is hoped that this work will stimulate further work in the field." = This isn't very good, but neither is any of the others on this miserable subject.
• Ian Stewart's "An infinite number of even primes"

Stuff I wrote for Zimaths many moons ago

• Chikwama and Chimbumu get out of jail (If link fails, try alternatives A and B)
• Pi Mnemonics (If link fails, try alternatives A and B)

Sci/math funnies elsewhere

• Journal of Machine Learning Gossip. New journal whose mission statement says

  The Journal of Machine Learning Gossip will publish unoriginal, previously published non-research in machine learning and related fields, as long as we think it's funny. We won't violate other people's copyrights, however, so make sure you have permission before you send us anything. Unless it's really funny. We'll publish anything if it's funny enough.... Personal attacks and vitriolic criticism are not welcome. Diatribes can be ok (see previous paragraph).

  Check out their open problems, of which the first is "Get a paper accepted at NIPS, COLT or ICML with the word "Marxist" in the title."

  Their papers section is small but select, with "Markov Indecision Processes: A Formal Model of Decision-Making Under Extreme Confusion" and "Choosing the most appropriate data set for a fixed learning algorithm" (yeah, that's the paper with the lines "We do not know who discovered water but we're pretty sure it wasn't a fish. Not even a big fish with a latin name.")

  Don't drink anything while visiting this site.

• PCA analysis of Supreme Court decisions. See associated NYTimes article (free subscription required)
• Microsoft Supercomputer Discovers New Integer Between 5 and 6
• Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass
• Reinventing the wheel
• Proof Techniques. A fine collection. Includes Proof by Intimidation, Proof by Vigorous Handwaving, Proof by Wishful Citation, Proof by Funding, ...

  On the same topic, a nice qotd is "This is a one line proof... if we start sufficiently far to the left."

• Does Typography Affect Proposal Assessment? Preliminary study that tells us that more research is needed to figure out what font to use when applying for funding.

  Excerpts from teaching evaluations

Ditto, for computer related stuff

• Computer features we wish we had
• Deep online conversations with Eliza
• The Genesis File

        #In the beginning was the computer. And God said 
        :Let there be light! 
        #You have not signed on 
        :God. 
        #Enter user password. 
        :Omniscient. 
        #Password Incorrect. Try again! 
        :Omnipotent. 
        #Password Incorrect. Try again! 
        :Technocrat. 
        #And God signed on 1201 a.m., Sunday, March 1. 
  

• Lesser Known Programming Languages. Such as C--, LITHP, SARTRE (statements written in it have no purpose, they just 'are') or SLOBOL?
• The nightmare game
• Six Nerds in search of a computer game
• Beatles' Songs, revised (Yesterday / All those backups seemed a waste of pay / Now my database has gone away / Oh I believe in yesterday)

Other stuff that could appeal to the suave procrastinator

• The Acme catalogue. Yup, the one of Looney Tunes fame. The one with the correspondence school of boxing.

Collections on other sites

• EFF "Net Culture - Humor" Archive
• Statistical Genetics Humor
• Annals of Improbable Research
• Cartoons from Rich Tennant, Sidney Harris.
• Science jokes, including a nice big section on graduate students. Speaking of which, ...

Of course, Sitereview can't be left out. And that's dot ORG, not dot COM.

Cartoons

• Microsoft's cartoons
• Sidney Harris' Cartoon Gallery
• 5th Wave. Cartoons from Rich Tennant
• Nick Kim's science cartoons
• Best of rec.humor.funny.jokes CS/Math division. (By Zero.)

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