I got this in an e-mail, so unfortunately I don’t have a link for you.
The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.Here are this year's {2005} winners:
1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly
3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
4. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
5. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido: All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.
And the pick of the literature:
18. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an ass.
"Scientific" conference to present random gibberish as research
Among the scientific papers scheduled for presentation at the World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI), scheduled to be held July 10-13 in Orlando, Florida, is "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy".
"Rooter" describes in detail the researchers’ methodology:
"the model for our heuristic consists of four independent components: simulated annealing, active networks, flexible modalities, and the study of reinforcement learning" and "We implemented our scatter/gather I/O server in Simula-67, augmented with opportunistically pipelined extensions."
WOW! That is so technical I have no idea what they’re talking about! I’ll bet you don’t understand it, either. But don’t feel bad. Nobody on earth can understand it. It is computer-generated nonsense, as reported here:
A bunch of computer-generated gibberish masquerading as an academic paper has been accepted at a scientific conference in a victory for pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Jeremy Stribling said on Thursday that he and two fellow MIT graduate students questioned the standards of some academic conferences, so they wrote a computer program to generate research papers complete with nonsensical text, charts and diagrams.The trio submitted two of the randomly assembled papers to the World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI), scheduled to be held July 10-13 in Orlando, Florida.
To their surprise, one of the papers -- "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy" -- was accepted for presentation.
So how in the world does a “scientific” conference schedule for presentation a paper which amounts to random gobbledygook? Well, for one thing, apparently nobody connected with the conference ever even read it:
Nagib Callaos, a conference organizer, said the paper was one of a small number accepted on a "non-reviewed" basis -- meaning that reviewers had not yet given their feedback by the acceptance deadline."We thought that it might be unfair to refuse a paper that was not refused by any of its three selected reviewers," Callaos wrote in an e-mail. "The author of a non-reviewed paper has complete responsibility of the content of their paper."
In other words, as long as it was submitted close enough to the deadline, and looked like a “scientific” research paper, a collection of material from the back of cereal boxes could get on the agenda at this particular “scientific” conference. Because it might be “unfair” to refuse it. When did “science” get to be about whether it is or isn’t “fair” to reject a submission made too late for even a cursory review? Isn’t science supposed to be all about review and careful investigation? Is this a case of the “self-esteem” approach to education making its way into the scientific community?
And what about accountability and responsibility? Oh, wait, they've got that covered: So what if we schedule the presentation of randomly-generated nonsense as "scientific" research at our "scientific" conference? "The author of a non-reviewed paper has complete responsibility of the content of their paper." Hey, we're not responsible for what gets presented at our conference.
“We accepted this paper without ever reading it because it might be “unfair” to reject it for the reason that it was too late to be properly reviewed.”
Would you conduct your business this way? “I signed the mortgage contract because it wasn’t ready in time for me to actually read the terms.” “I bought the car because it might be unfair to make the salesman actually explain the features he was talking about.”
How many more “scientists” are out there doing business this way?
Incidentally, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened:The prank recalled a 1996 hoax in which New York University physicist Alan Sokal succeeded in getting an entire paper with a mix of truths, falsehoods, non sequiturs and otherwise meaningless mumbo-jumbo published in the journal Social Text.
Sometimes “science” just isn’t very scientific. And sometimes, “science” just isn’t very smart.
Hat tip to GeoBandy for the original post on this topic.
AP) - People scurrying to meet Friday's tax deadline might consider this: It's taking you and your fellow Americans 6.6 billion hours to do all that paperwork. The basic tax return -- the Form 1040 filed by most people every year -- accounts for 1.6 billion hours. The Internal Revenue Service furnished those statistics to the White House budget office, which keeps tabs on the government's bureaucratic demands.
And when you're done contributing your chunk of that 6.6 BILLION hours and looking at how much of YOUR paycheck government takes and spends for you, go visit Citizens Against Government Waste and spend a few minutes looking into what government does with YOUR money.
According to a Reuters report, high silica levels in tap water may prevent or reduce the occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease in a population.
In a study conducted over a period of more than ten years, researchers followed the health of over 7,000 French women from five different cities. The findings suggest that a high level of silica contained in tap water seems to dramatically reduce the occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease:
Women with normal or higher mental function at the outset had a higher daily silica intake, the investigators report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.The relationship remained statistically significant after taking account of age, location, income, educational level and history of stroke.
In a second phase of the study, women living in Toulouse who had normal or higher cognitive scores were followed for up to seven years. During that time, 60 women developed Alzheimer's disease while 323 maintained normal cognitive function
The women with Alzheimer's disease were 2.7 times more likely to have daily silica intake considerably lower than those without Alzheimer's disease, the researchers found.
Previous research has linked aluminum with the formation of “senile plaque”, believed to be a contributing cause in the development of Alzheimer’s, and the researchers have suggested that perhaps silica counteracts the effect of aluminum. The French study did not find a correlation between aluminum levels cognitive functions, but the researchers explained that this may be because aluminum levels among the subjects were very low overall.
I got this in an email, with no information about where it came from. If you know anything about its origins, please let me know.
It is the year 2005 and Noah lives in the United States. The Lord speaks to Noah and says:"In one year I am going to make it rain and cover the whole earth with water until all is destroyed. But I want you to save the righteous people and two of every kind of living thing on the earth. Therefore, I am commanding you to build an Ark."
In a flash of lightning, God delivered the specifications for an Ark.
Fearful and trembling, Noah took the plans and agreed to build the Ark.
"Remember," said the Lord, "You must complete the Ark and bring everything aboard in one year."
Exactly one year later, a fierce storm cloud covered the earth and all the seas of the earth went into a tumult. The Lord saw Noah sitting in his front yard weeping."Noah." He shouted, "Where is the Ark?"
"Lord please forgive me!" cried Noah. "I did my best but there were big problems.First, I had to get a permit for construction and your plans did not comply with the codes.I had to hire an engineering firm and redraw the plans. Then I got into a fight with OSHA over whether or not the Ark needed a fire sprinkler system and floatation devices.Then my neighbor objected, claiming I was violating zoning ordinances by building the Ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the city planning commission.I had problems getting enough wood for the Ark, because there was a ban on cutting trees to protect the Spotted Owl. I finally convinced the US Forest Service that I needed the wood to save the owls.However, the Fish and Wildlife Service won''t let me catch any owls. So, no owls.The carpenters formed a union and went out on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the National Labor Union. Now I have 16 carpenters on the Ark, but still no owls.When I started rounding up the other animals, I got sued by an animal rights group. They objected to me only taking two of each kind aboard.Just when I got the suit dismissed, the EPA notified me that I could not complete the Ark without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed flood.They didn''t take very kindly to the idea that they had no jurisdiction over the conduct of the Creator of the universe.Then the Army Corps of Engineers demanded a map of the proposed new flood plain. I sent them a globe.Right now, I am trying to resolve a complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that I am practicing discrimination by not taking godless, unbelieving people aboard!The IRS has seized all my assets, claiming that I''m building the Ark in preparation to flee the country to avoid paying taxes.I just got a notice from the State that I owe some kind of user tax and failed to register the Ark as a "recreational water craft."Finally the ACLU got the courts to issue an injunction against further construction of the Ark, saying that since God is flooding the earth, it is a religious event and therefore unconstitutional.I really don''t think I can finish the Ark for another 5 or 6 years!" Noah wailed.
The sky began to clear, the sun began to shine and the seas began to calm. A rainbow arched across the sky.
Noah looked up hopefully. "You mean you are not going to destroy the earth, Lord?"
"No," said the Lord sadly. "The government already has "
