Category Archives: Joke

Joke

Random news, oxymorons and paper generator

–Day 6 of Just Science Week–

No idea, what to write in your next scientific paper? Use the random medical news for some ideas. Here are also some expressions ready for cut & paste. Or you may want to go directly to SCIGEN (thanks to Christine for that link).

randompaper.png

This page took 0.134 seconds of computer labor to produce. No computers were harmed in the making of this page. Some browsers whose name starts with Internet may be though (from Matt s blog).

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 10.02.2007, access 23.10.2025
Joke, Software

Laptop stolen – phoning home

2 Comments

Scientists are frequent travellers – hopefully you have always your harddisk encrypted. There are many companies that offer to trace your computer like Computrace(R), zTrace(R), LapTrak(R), BoomerangIt(R), LoJack(R) and PC-Guardian(R). Save your $/€ for your next experiment, here is the trick: During the next boot your laptop will send out a http request to any server you like. You simply need to watch the server logfile if your stolen laptop is phoning home…
For installation please download LaptopService.cmd, LaptopService.reg and two small binaries from the windows ressource kit. Adjust path and server name before running LaptopService.cmd. Voilà, that’s it – for a good joke look at Slashdot.

|wj_LaptopService.cmd|

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 4.02.2007, access 23.10.2025
Allergy, Joke, Philosophy, Software

Science of course and effective too

Most people in the field search Pubmed but there is another site that I frequently visit – the European patent database that often have more concise information. Look at current allergy patents – the last one will definitely work you may also use a big plastic bag ;-)

patents.png

Be aware that being cynical is probably bad for your heart.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 29.01.2007, access 23.10.2025
Joke, Philosophy

déjà-vu

ZEIT online has an interesting article about ddéjà-vu – a rare syndrome. Some psychiatrists believe that déjà-vu episodes are the result of a faulty memory that brings up a similar episode. Others believe that there is nothing at all – just electric loops of a petite mals that can also be triggered by electric stimulation of the gyrus parahippocampus. ZEIT online also cites a study of Alan Brown that adds evidence for some kind of implantable memory.
I have frequently déjà-vus when reading the scientific literature (sometimes I even believe in groundhog days). One of my teachers in Marburg always said that “study of the scientific literature prevents from new discoveries”. Yea, yea.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 17.01.2007, access 23.10.2025
Joke, Software

Playing with your browser

Some blog authors are nuts about protecting their web site from copying files. There are many ways to protect your site – but only one really good (publish nothing). I often see small javascripts that disable the ability to right-click where javascript.about.com has a much simpler solution:

<body oncontextmenu=”return false;”>

Please try a right click now…
If you are fooled by a web author in such a way, what could you do? tech-recipes has the answer: Of course, we can use javascript to turn it back on.

When visiting the offending website, type the following into the URL bar of your browser:
javascript:void(document.oncontextmenu=null)

Happy browsing, yea, yea.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 16.01.2007, access 23.10.2025
Joke, Software

Scientific spam

I am sending here a trackback to David who asked if a new series of spam email may be

nothing more than an intricate social engineering endeavour and that I’ve been duped into responding in this way.

I found me also answering an email where a 15 year old asked (after having smoked a few cigarettes) if she will now have an increased lung cancer risk. Only 10 minutes later at the coffee machine I heard that a dozen people had just answered exactly the same email. Think of it like an April Fool’s joke, yea, yea.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 12.01.2007, access 23.10.2025
Joke

What would you choose?

At the moment I am reading the biography of Otto Warburg eloquently written by Hans Krebs. Here is a nice story about the banking house M. M. Warburg in Hamburg: Aby Warburg renounced his right to share in the banking business on the condition that his brothers would pay the bills for all the books that he deemed necessary for his library. The brothers enormously underrated the magnitude of this financial obligation – Aby Warburg (1866-1929) assembled a unique art history library which is now at London University. Would you like to have a brother who is a banker or would you like to be a banker with such a brother?

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 24.12.2006, access 23.10.2025
Joke

BMJ Christmas edition

We are already waiting for the BMJ. This year

  • Physicians in opera: Stefan Willich about Le Nozze di Figaro
  • Sword swallowing and its side effects: Brian Witcombe’ s finding that sword swallowers run a higher risk of injury
  • Daisy the Doctor, Dr Dose, Dr Grizzly, Dr Amelia Bedelia, and colleagues: Monica Lalanda works on the image of doctors in children books: kind, professional, and reassuring
  • Phenotypic differences between male physicians, surgeons, and film stars – comparative study: Antoni Trillas rating of “good looking” men – the winner, sorry, are not the surgeons
  • From a 16th century monastery to a 21st century orthopaedic hospital: P (not Alberto) Tomba, worth a visit
  • and much more

Yea, yea.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 22.12.2006, access 23.10.2025
Joke

Easter Eggs

In medieval ages messengers had tattoos under the scalp hair. Charles Dickens also described how women used to purl and to knit for hidden messages. Many software developers also insert messages or features in the code. The motivation may be to sign it or put some artistic touch on it – you will find a lot of websites out explaining the necessary keystrokes and web links.
I wonder if also other colleagues are hiding initials, words or messages in scientific papers? Unfortunately due to the online submission, publishers will now recognize faked references. What about using steganography to mark pictures or PDFs?

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 29.11.2006, access 23.10.2025