[mini-AIR] mini-AIR: Bacon and Boredom Boredom

Tue Apr 27 15:21:23 EDT 2021

mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
April 2020, issue number 2021-04. ISSN 1076-500X.
	<https://www.improbable.com/airchives/miniair/>
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  Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
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01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Chocolate Now, Forensics Later
03 Flitch of Bacon Custom History
04 Ig Nobel Ceremony Early Gossip
05 Limerick Challenge: Boredom Boredom Question
06 Creativity-Fame Winner
07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Doctor I.C. Notting
08 Crackers Boredom Dynamics
20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS
30 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)
31 — How to start or stop receiving this little newsletter (*)
32 — Contact Info (*)
33 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

	Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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02 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Chocolate Now, Forensics Later

	WHAT YOU ARE READING AT THIS MOMENT
	is just our monthly newsletter, (mini-AIR).

	This is overflow bits-and-pieces overflow detritus from
	the magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR). 

The special CHOCOLATE issue (vol. 27, no. 1) of the magazine is available:
https://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume27/v27i1/v27i1.php

The Special FORENSICS issue is in prep.

	SUBSCRIBE to the MAGAZINE, 
	or get BACK ISSUES (there are more than 150 of them!):
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	Tables of Contents: <http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>

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03 Flitch of Bacon Custom History

History of the Dunmow Flitch of Bacon Custom, William Andrews, Tegg, 1877.
<https://www.google.com/books/edition/History_of_the_Dunmow_Flitch_of_Bacon_Cu/vkNIAQAAMAAJ> The author explains:

"In the days of yore was established at the Priory of Dunmow, Essex, the custom of presenting a flitch of Bacon to any married couple who could swear that neither of them in twelvemonth and a day from their marriage had ever repented of his or her union…."

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04 Ig Nobel Ceremony Early Gossip

The 31st First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, will happen on THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021. Ten new Ig Nobel Prizes will be awarded, for achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK.

Because of the Covid-19 epidemic, it will happen entirely online. 

The theme of this year's ceremony is: ENGINEERING.
(The theme pertains to the new mini-opera, and to other parts of the ceremony, though not necessarily to the year's new Ig Nobel Prize winners.)

Attending the Ceremony—This year we have figured out a way that you (an individual, or a tight-knit group) can choose to be visibly part of the audience, if you do choose to, and if we are not knackered by an overwhelming number of people wanting to be. Details will be announced soon.

<https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/>

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05 Limerick Challenge: Boredom Boredom Question

This month's RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge — Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:

"Is Profound Boredom Boredom?" Andreas Elpidorou and Lauren Freeman, in Heidegger on Affect, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham., 2019, pp. 177-203.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-24639-6_8 The authors explain:

"Within the context of his discussion of one of these types of boredom, profound boredom (tiefe Langeweile), Heidegger opposes much of the philosophical and literary tradition on boredom insofar as he articulates how the experience of boredom can be existentially beneficial to us. In this chapter, we undertake a study of the nature of profound boredom with the aim of investigating its place within contemporary psychological and philosophical research on boredom."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

	BOREDOM BOREDOM LIMERICK COMPETITION
	c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

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06 Creativity-Fame Winner

The judges have chosen a winner in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this study:

"Fame as an Illusion of Creativity: Evidence from the Pioneers of Abstract Art," Banerjee Mitali and Paul L. Ingram, Columbia Business School Research Paper No. 18-74, 2020. 
<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3258318>

Winning LIMERICIST ALLISON BROWN writes:

Yo! Art sales depend on the buzz.
Stop tooting your own horn b'cuz
  Skill is unheeded.
  Links are what's needed.
Cuz buzz comes from networks, it duz!

This month's take from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:

Connections, the authors have shown,
Are how reputations are grown.
  That's the name of the game
  If you want to claim fame,
Which is why these two guys are unknown.

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07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Doctor I.C. Notting

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

BLOG: <http://www.improbable.com/>:
* Doctor I.C. Notting—A Classic Case of Nominative Determinism
* The Apostrophe’s Greatest Champion Has Died
* Study Hints that Low Viagra Price Enlivens Men in Sweden
*…and much more

LUXURIANT FLOWING HAIR CLUB FOR SCIENTISTS (LFHCfS) 
<https://www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/> 
Newest member: Eduardo Rodriguez

PODCAST: 
<https://www.improbable.com/category/the-weekly-improbable-research-podcast/>:
* Episode #1061: "Jean Berko Gleason’s Disgusting Word List"
* Episode #1062: "Happiness from Painful Insect Stings"
* Episode #1063: "And Now, a Needle in the Rectum"
* Episode #1064: "The Best Life Opera (Act 3)"
* Episode #1065: "The Physics of Skulking and Falling Cats"

FACEBOOK: <http://www.facebook.com/improbableresearch>

TWITTER: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel

INSTAGRAM: <https://www.instagram.com/improbable_research/>

PATREON: <www.patreon.com/ImprobableResearch>

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08 Crackers Boredom Dynamics

"Dynamics of Liking for Flavoured Crackers: Test of Predictive Value of a Boredom Test," Christelle Porcherot and Sylvie Issanchou, Food Quality and Preference, vol. 9, no. 1-2, 1998, pp. 21-29.
<https://doi.org/10.1016/S0950-3293(97)00023-2> The authors explain:

"The principal aim of this study was to compare two experimental conditions for measuring the effect of repeated consumption on liking: a laboratory boredom test and a home use test…. The laboratory condition did not show any difference in the dynamics of liking among the flavours. The home condition revealed a significant increase in liking for only one flavour…. However, for both conditions, familiarity and appropriateness had a strong effect: the most familiar and appropriate flavours were always the most preferred."

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	TREAT YOURSELF TO (MUCH) MORE IMPROBABLE STUFF.

	SUBCRIBE TO THE (PDF) MAGAZINE!
	<www.improbable.com/magazine/>

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20 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS

Readercon				—Jul 10, 2021
2021 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony	—Sep 9, 2021
2021 Ig Informal Lectures		—TBA 2021
Ig Nobel EuroTour (we hope)		—TBA 2021
Japan					—TBA 2021

[All live events in 2021 are subject to pandemical constraints and adventures.] 

For details and additional events, see
<http://www.improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule/>

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30 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)

The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year magazine, 
in PDF form. 
It's packed with research that makes people laugh, then think.

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	SUBSCRIPTIONS	($25, for six issues) 
	BACK ISSUES 	($5 each)

(mini-AIR, the thing you are reading at this moment, is but a tiny, free-floating appendix to the actual magazine.)

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31 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)

This newsletter, Mini-AIR, is just a (free!) tiny monthly *supplement* to the big, bold six-times-a-year magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

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32 — CONTACT INFO (*)

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
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EDITORIAL: <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS: <subscriptions AT improbable.com>
Cambridge, MA, USA
Twitter: @ImprobResearch

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33 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

EDITOR: Marc Abrahams
CO-CONSPIRATORS: Kees Moeliker, Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Gary Dryfoos, Nan Swift, Stephen Drew
PROOFREADER: Ambient Happenstance
AUTHORITY FIGURES: Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach, Sheldon Glashow, Richard Roberts

Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the
(c) copyright 2021, Annals of Improbable Research

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