I think I’ve been to this talk. Hundreds of times.
Tip o’ the wattle to Blue Gal.
-
About Bad Astronomy
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
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September 30th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
The presentation barely gets into it… Check out the (totally peer-reviewed) print version at http://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf
September 30th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Thank you for this absolutely side-splitting vid! I have been in way too many of those myself….
September 30th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Holy cow (I mean chicken), that was funny.
September 30th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
what the chicken?
thats some funny chicken
September 30th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
A little slower with a little more inflection, and it would be perfect. Still funny though. The question at the end was the chicken that put me over the chicken. The chicken, chickens chicken, chick chicken?
Chicken chicken.
September 30th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
IN rebuttal:
egg
J/P=?
September 30th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Chicken = NChicken?
September 30th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
I don’t get it. What was the context of this? That might help.
September 30th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
This is even better than the “mailing list” thesis.
http://www.cs.stevens.edu/~ajain1/thesis.pdf is NOT the original link, but I couldn’t find it in the usual places…
September 30th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Thanks for the linky love hon. Chicken chicken, and yes, I do mean it in that way.
September 30th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Some people still use dial up, could you please give an abstract of the content of videos?
September 30th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
@Troy
Here’s the abstract, straight from the PDF:
Chicken
Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken
chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken
chicken. Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken
chicken. Chicken, chicken chicken chicken, chicken chicken, chicken
chicken chicken “chicken chicken†chicken “chicken chickenâ€
chicken. Chicken, chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken
(chicken chicken) chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken,
chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken
chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken. Chicken chicken chicken
chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken, chicken chicken
chicken, chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken.
CC Chickens: C.3.2 [Chickens]: Chicken Chickens—chicken/chicken chicken; C.3.4
[Chicken chicken]: Chicken chicken chicken—chickens; C.2.4 [Chicken-chicken
chickens]: Chicken/Chicken, chicken chickens
Chickens: chicken, chicken chicken, chicken, chicken
October 1st, 2007 at 12:28 am
He made a mistake at 1:38.
Did anyone else catch it?
October 1st, 2007 at 3:47 am
Wow, that REALLY reminds me of this cartoon by Jack McLaren (circa 1996):
http://plif.andkon.com/archive/wc072.gif
Check it out…
Doug
October 1st, 2007 at 5:41 am
Chicken.
October 1st, 2007 at 6:01 am
I’m with max on this one… I don’t get it. Is there some context?
October 1st, 2007 at 6:09 am
Sadly, I’ve given that talk a couple times. I think most of us have.
October 1st, 2007 at 6:58 am
Man, is the BA ever behind the times!
October 1st, 2007 at 8:08 am
Duck!
October 1st, 2007 at 8:15 am
[...] Source. [...]
October 1st, 2007 at 8:44 am
So basically, “look at this video” qualifies as a blog entry?
Sheesh…
October 1st, 2007 at 9:02 am
I don’t get it either. I kinda get it, I think, but why is it THAT funny? why “chicken” and not some other word?
October 1st, 2007 at 9:12 am
I found it kind of funny, but I don’t understand why everyone in the audience is laughing hysterically at it…
October 1st, 2007 at 9:17 am
Seminar presentations that make no more sense than this one. It’s probably a lot funnier to people who’ve been in academia a while.
A few years back, I was in a university research group, and down the hall one professor had posted a paper (not actually submitted, alas) that consisted almost entirely of the word “Blah”, including the captions to graphs and most of the references.
And yes, I couldn’t resist thinking of a certain Far Side cartoon when I saw that one…
October 1st, 2007 at 9:39 am
Chicken chicken chicken chicken, chickein chicken. Chicken chicken chicken chicken. Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken.
Chicken,
Chicken
October 1st, 2007 at 9:41 am
[...] the topic of presentations, I came across this video in the archives of Presentation Zen and then again on Bad Astronomy the same day. Coincidence or some hidden memetic [...]
October 1st, 2007 at 9:51 am
I’m really surprised at you BA, posting this veiled attack on evolution. My counter-response,
Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg. Egg, Egg Egg Egg, Egg, Egg Egg. Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg. Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg. Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg.
Egg Egg Egg. Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg Egg? Egg Egg Egg, Egg, and Egg. Egg Egg Egg Egg (e.g. Egg Egg Egg Egg).
So there!
October 1st, 2007 at 10:01 am
E(gg) = mc(chicken) 2
October 1st, 2007 at 10:09 am
Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, goose!
October 1st, 2007 at 10:23 am
@ Chip
I don’t eat fast food.
October 1st, 2007 at 10:28 am
The paper reminds me when, as an undergraduate with a few classes of mathematics that I believed were ‘advanced,’ I attempted to read a mathematical paper published in a journal. I thought, wrongly as it turned out, that because its subject was calculus that I would be able to understand its premises and outcomes. Chicken, for me, was just as good a result as the words written in the article.
My wife will love it….
October 1st, 2007 at 10:50 am
John Paradox said, “IN rebuttal: egg”
You win the thread.
October 1st, 2007 at 11:17 am
I prefer badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom mushroom!
J. D.
( http://weebls-stuff.com/toons/badgers/ if you don’t know what I’m talking about)
October 1st, 2007 at 11:58 am
It’s a bit like the old saying “It’s interesting how all interesting news fit into exactly 30 minutes of newscast, every single day” with a hint of “if you follow the specified format and present whatever you have to present in the proper form, it’s not really so important that it contains any kind of information as such”.
In terms of explanation, I feel it’s mostly about how experts (for real hard core people who know their field) are usually near incapable of holding a talk to average or so-so people because they instantly race ahead and have soon lost everyone, mostly speaking in near-tounges to an audience who mostly doodle and try to decide if it’s socially acceptable to get up and leave or if you have to fake nausea, stomach ache or a heart attack. Invariably they all sit around politely, hoping perhaps some later part will start making sense.
My second calculus teacher approached this from the other direction. He’d explain, at length, everything everyone already sort of knew including details everyone knew. People would one by one simply start working quietly exchanging notes and whispers in pairs or threesomes on the matter (a slightly more useful and hands on way to get it). He would, every so often, ask obvious questions everyone knew, people were engrossed in discussion and didn’t really want to answer. He’d say “You know, if no one is listening anyway there is really no point at all in me standing here talking”. You could almost feel 30 minds internally saying “Damn straight – go talk one on one with the slower people or move on”. He’d say “Well, lets try this..” and launch into another problem or topic no more interesting then the first. Good times.
October 1st, 2007 at 12:39 pm
This reminds me of a prank my son told me about last week. He is doing post-grad work at our local Uni and he noticed that one of the Profs had written copious notes on a whiteboard to go with a biology lecture he was going to present the next morning. Nick added a note at the bottom that said something along the lines of “To see if everyone is reading these notes I would like you all to cluck like a chicken when ever I say the words …” and several key words followed that he knew were bound to come up in the lecture.
Apparently nobody clucked. The Prof noticed the addition to his notes about half way through the lecture but didn’t let on. He wasn’t sure if nobody clucked because they didn’t take it seriously or just because they didn’t look at the notes.
Maybe this is an old trick, I’d never heard of it before.
October 1st, 2007 at 12:43 pm
I suspect the audience is so hysterical because this may be an after dinner presentation, and most are already pretty tanked up.
Love the badgers, though!
October 1st, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Now that was cluckin’ funny!
October 1st, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Maybe this is an old trick, I’d never heard of it before.
It’s an old trick.
Back in 1985 my economics prof put a copy of the FINAL exam on the blackboard rack. Of 70 students, only a handful of us even noticed and took notes from it during breaks.
On the last day of class he picked it up, told everyone what it was, and put it away. Needless to say, more than a few people wished they had paid more attention to what was going on around them.
October 1st, 2007 at 1:10 pm
What? But that’s just crazy talk. He was completely wrong. Right from the word “go”!
October 1st, 2007 at 1:15 pm
And yes, when you go to a military university, you get to take economics and other arts courses in science and engineering programs
Science profs never seemed to do stuff like that, although one of the math professors was very big on “read the whole question before answering” and his exams often had long questions where, if you read the whole question would have instructions like “this is a longwinded question, so prove that 3 is an odd number”, but if you just started reading and answering you’d get some brutally hard proof (prove Fermat’s last theorem in the margin of your exam booklet).
We wore black/navy blue uniforms most of the time, so one of the solid-state physics profs found it particularly funny to whack people with dusty chalkboard brushes. it worked… nobody slept in that class – if you did you might be lint-brushing for a LONG time. But he’d never put the exam on the board or write trick questions.
October 1st, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Evolving Squid
One time a math prof got frustrate that most of the class did not show up for a certain lecture every week he gave everyone you showed a huge hint on their next assignment. Not exactly the answers to the exam but that as close as it did for me.
October 1st, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Give that my father is in academia, and I’m (I like to think) professional, I’ve very definitely been on both sides of this presentation. I HOPE that when I’m on the giving side, I’ve actually given two presentations at the same time – the one people came there to see, and the one people sat in on to get away from the others (or chalk up brownie points with their boss)
Lessee… exams…
I’ve seen this one twice. The first time I saw it, I had to re-read a couple times to make sure my dyslexia wasn’t biting me in the thinnest part of my jeans:
(pick your subject)
Name_________________
Exam preface: This exam is worth [some percentage] of your final grade in this class. There are 100 questions. Each question answered will count 1% against the exam score.
I also LOVE professors who have a habit of saying “Read all the questions first, then answer the easy ones first..” I actually saw one of them use “Don’t bother with the other questions. Simply sign your name, wait 25 minutes, and hand in the test.” as his last question. As I recall, only 4 or 5 of us in a class of 75 caught it. Even so, I never really did come to like chemistry.
In conclusion, I’ve noticed that, sadly,if you are in the chicken audience, the really funny jokes tend to go right over your head. Ergo, spam spam spam spam spam baked beans and spam.
October 1st, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Was the professor’s name Bob Loblaw by any chance? (Say it out loud).
October 1st, 2007 at 5:26 pm
I have to admit, this is one of the most chicken presentations I’ve ever seen…
Turns out that the dude in this video will be the keynote speaker at The 2007 Ig® Nobel Prize Ceremony and Lectures, held at Hahvahd this Thursday.
Details here: http://www.improbable.com/ig/2007/2007-details.html
October 1st, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Didn’t Steve Ballmer give a talk like this once? Developers, developers, developers, developers……
The only problem I have with the chicken seminar is that the audience was able to stay awake during it. Then again, he did fly through it in about 3 minutes….
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:52 am
We had an Afrikaans (a language) teacher at school, who would add to his exams, instructions such as “Don’t answer question 3.2.5″. He would then penalise anyone who does answer it…
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:46 pm
I didn’t want to laugh. I tried not to laugh. But I’ve sat through enough “death by PowerPoint” briefings that I just couldn’t stop myself. Nicely done.
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:21 am
Noodles?
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:46 am
Beautiful!
October 4th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
I forgot to comment about this yesterday because I was laughing so hard.
October 8th, 2007 at 3:03 am
I sent this to a retired science editor for Encyclopedia Britannica. He replied:
“I gave a similar but much more complex and informative presentation last year called “Chicken, Rooster, Egg, Chicken, Rooster, Egg.”
October 18th, 2007 at 8:55 am
[...] I get out of it is: "Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken…" <edited to add link> __________________ "All natural, huh? So is [...]