Improbable - Tumblr Posts

Doctor, there is a horse standing on my piano.

thepiano:

What a beautiful piano…

oldhollywood:

Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy in Wrong Again (1929, dir. Leo McCarey)

Original production still caption: Laurel & Hardy discover it was famed painting “Blue Boy” they were supposed to deliver and put on the piano. They brought Blue Boy, the horse, who appears to be on top of the situation.

"The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology. Every year, in a gala ceremony in Harvard's Sanders Theatre, 1200 splendidly eccentric spectators watch the winners step forward to accept their Prizes. These are physically handed out by genuinely bemused genuine Nobel laureates."

The winners of the IgNobel prizes were announced this week during a ceremony at Harvard University. This marked the 22nd year that the world’s most improbable research was celebrated in hilarious prize form. They are even presented by actual Nobel Prize winners!

Here are some of this year’s highlights:

Psychology: “Leaning to the left makes the Eiffel Tower seem smaller”

Peace Prize: Conversion of old Russian ammunition into diamonds

Neuroscience: Demonstrations of the limitations of fMRI analysis, AKA “Brainwaves in a Dead Salmon”

Literature: The U.S. Government General Accountability Office for producing their report calling for reports on the cost of reports.

Fluid Dynamics: For study of the unique spilly-sloshing that occurs when a cup of coffee is carried while walking.

Full list here. Scicurious is digging into the awards in detail on her blog. 

The pleasure of actual play is twofold: there’s the elemental pleasure of being told a story, intertwined with the alchemy of watching that story be created in front of your eyes (or ears). It is about craft—not in the sense of the well-wrought urn, but in the ways that true chance, fueled by dice or teetering Jenga towers or cards or a coin toss, explodes ossified, clichéd narrative structures.

Who Owns Dungeons & Dragons? — Dr Emily Friedman, LA Review of Books

This chimes pretty much exactly with what we found at the Open Space on theatre and RPGs a few years ago!