The Annals Of Improbable Research

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Have you ever heard of the magazine The Annals of Improbable Research?

They're a periodical about scientific discoveries that, while legitimate, is nonetheless bizarre, frivolous, weirdly specific, and/or in some way offensive.

They also give out yearly awards for such research (there's some really interesting ones among the winners for 2011)

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

OK, so, serious question, here.

You seem to have been around, off and on, for quite a long time. You're probably not a kid, I don't think. So, what I'm confused by is that you seem to have exactly no idea who anyone on the board is, or what any of us are about, and now you are bringing up this thing which, while perhaps not everyone is familiar with it, has been kind of one of those "periodically circulates the web and is wildly popular" kinds of things for some time.

So I guess what I'm wondering, no offense, but is there something going on in your life that causes you to be completely tuned out/under a rock most of the time?

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

I don't got out much due to a combination of anxiety, depression, and asperger's syndrome. And recently I've been having trouble sleeping with the result of me spending a lot more time posting on message boards; including some, such as this one, that I had otherwise more or less stopped posting on.

I think the topic is a little more justified than you give it credit for though. While the IgNobel Prizes themselves are pretty famous, the magazine that gives them out seems to be a lot less famous.

[rong]

I absolutely loved this:

Electron Band Structure in Germanium, My Ass

but didn't get much out of the rest of the Annals.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I absolutely loved this:

Electron Band Structure in Germanium, My Ass

but didn't get much out of the rest of the Annals.

A classic!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I don't got out much due to a combination of anxiety, depression, and asperger's syndrome. And recently I've been having trouble sleeping with the result of me spending a lot more time posting on message boards; including some, such as this one, that I had otherwise more or less stopped posting on.

I think the topic is a little more justified than you give it credit for though. While the IgNobel Prizes themselves are pretty famous, the magazine that gives them out seems to be a lot less famous.

OK. I was just wondering, because one of the gradual and ongoing developments here over the last many years here is various people getting assorted degrees in science and posting miscellaneous articles from there.

I wasn't sure if you just don't read the board, or if you have memory issues, or what the deal is. It's a little weird to have someone who seems to have been around for years to be like "HEY GUYS HAVE YOU EVER HEARD ABOUT [thing we've all talked about extensively from time to time]???" I think at least three people here have posted Electron Band Structure in Germanium, My Ass in the last year.

I guess if I were going to make one suggestion about posting here, it would be to try to learn who the other posting members are, and what their deal is. For example, who is Cain? What does he do? How about Twid? Why does LMNO seem to know a lot about quantum physics?

Knowing who the members of a board are and what they are doing with their lives can actually help save you from looking like an ass, and also may make you more socially appealing to everyone else.

[Reginald Ret]

Nigel, ignorance is not a bad trait.
So PDS hasn't got the knowledge you would expect, where's the harm?

Did you suspect PDS of a 'stupid noob' troll?

Knowing everyone here cannot be a demand we make of members of this forum, we may wish everyone gets to know eachother but that is no reason to put the social pressure on.

[Reginald Ret]

Also, this thread helped me find this:

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Kasian Bhanganada, Tu Chayavatana, Chumporn Pongnumkul, Anunt Tonmukayakul, Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn, Krit Komaratal, and Henry Wilde, for the medical techniques described in their report "Surgical Management of an Epidemic of Penile Amputations in Siam" — techniques which they recommend, except in cases where the amputated penis had been partially eaten by a duck. [THAILAND]

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nigel, ignorance is not a bad trait.
So PDS hasn't got the knowledge you would expect, where's the harm?

Did you suspect PDS of a 'stupid noob' troll?

Knowing everyone here cannot be a demand we make of members of this forum, we may wish everyone gets to know eachother but that is no reason to put the social pressure on.

Oh, well I guess I'll let him go on rubbing everyone the wrong way and stop trying to facilitate a warmer response for him, since it's working so well for him so far.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

The ironic thing is that I actually did a forum search to see if this had been discussed before, and it only turned up a single ancillary mention of the magazine.

I think I accidentally ran a search of the High Weirdness subforum only, because I ran another search today and got significantly more hits; including a similar topic that I apparently started five and a half years ago. So I do apologize for posting nearly the same topic twice, but I legitimately did check into whether this was redundant with previous discussions.

[rong]

Annal?

[Telarus]

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Annal?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The ironic thing is that I actually did a forum search to see if this had been discussed before, and it only turned up a single ancillary mention of the magazine.

I think I accidentally ran a search of the High Weirdness subforum only, because I ran another search today and got significantly more hits; including a similar topic that I apparently started five and a half years ago. So I do apologize for posting nearly the same topic twice, but I legitimately did check into whether this was redundant with previous discussions.

The ironic thing might be that the most social board on the forum is frequently purged. It might also be that it is hard to search article links by parent publisher name. But actually I think that it is most likely that you are ignoring the important part of the message, which is that there are some methods that you can use when rejoining a forum after a long absence, other than bumping many old threads and replying to them and

actually, never mind. Fuck it. I'm too tired and have too much to do this week to try to swim upstream.

[Doktor Howl]

ignorance is not a bad trait.

Did that just fall outta your face?