Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
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« The Effect of Spinal Cord Severing in Zebrafish | Main | Friday Cephalopod: Clingy bottletail »
Category: Weirdness
Posted on: December 21, 2007 3:34 AM, by PZ Myers
Hey, now New Scientists is cashing in on the LOL_you_name_it craze. The web is being overrun with bad grammar and cutesie pictures!
(I think this is also the first I've seen of the New Scientist blogs — I knew they were planning them a while back. They need to let more people know about these things!)
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Comments
Ha - there's also phiLOLsophy - including LOLDawkins. Though I would have said "Religjunz. Do not want."
Posted by: NC Paul | December 21, 2007 5:04 AM
And because I have far too much time on my hands: ta-da!
Posted by: NC Paul | December 21, 2007 5:16 AM
Speaking of LOL, Shelley at Retrospectacle is requesting LOL's for her birthday.
From Tangled Up in Blue Guy, whose LOLcnidarians picture wasn't in the New Scientist's entry. They did call it cool and linked to the post, though.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | December 21, 2007 6:33 AM
I'm in ur blogs
redden ur postys
Posted by: LolRedder | December 21, 2007 7:30 AM
Bad grammar? Your joking! What a bunch of loosers!
Posted by: Ian B Gibson | December 21, 2007 8:24 AM
It is discrimination I tell you!
Posted by: DouglasG | December 21, 2007 9:49 AM
Plus, NewScientist is really hammering out the online video. They have more free content than ever for us poor non-scientists--though I still miss their $51 annual subscription deal. I'd let mine lapse just long enough to sign up as a new customer at the ridiculously low rate. No more!
Posted by: Jim Anderson | December 21, 2007 9:55 AM
Now look what you made me do:
http://capacioushandbag.blogspot.com/2007/12/forgive-me.html
Posted by: MissPrism | December 21, 2007 9:56 AM
Actually, there's a whole font of LOL-inspiration in New Scientist, if you just know where to look.
IN UR MAGAZEEN, SENSASHUNALIZIN UR SCIENCE.
JOURNALISM: UR DOIN IT RONG!
Posted by: Blake Stacey | December 21, 2007 10:35 AM
This has gone way too far. It's completely unfunny now, not that it was funny in the first place. This meme is dead, you all have killed it.
Posted by: Alex | December 21, 2007 8:47 PM
All your lol are belong to us. I mean geez, Alex, did somebody set up you the bomb, or what?
Posted by: YetAnotherKevin | December 22, 2007 1:06 AM
OK, at the risk of being bopped over the head by Alex, I'm going to out myself. I'm the guilty party responsible for the Rise of the Dreaded LOLScience.
I also plead guilty to being way too amused by LOLstuff, maybe because it's so silly and idiotic.
Whatever. A couple of months ago I tagged four of my flickr posts with "LOLScience," and just for the hell of it I did a search a couple of days later for the tag and my four were the only ones that came up. So I said, "I can fix that," and set up the flickr group.
When New Scientist joined a couple of weeks later, it shocked my socks off! I figured I'd pull in a few scientists, a few scientists-by-training like myself, and a few curious LOLsters from among flickr members, but that was about all. If New Scientist has picked it up and run with it, that's fine by me!
Posted by: anomalous4 | December 22, 2007 8:03 PM
It's not just "LOLScience," I see this type of thing everywhere. This is what happens when memes that should stay on 4chan, 7chan, etc. and then die out get into the rest of the Internet. They become unfunny. This is even worse than the "O RLY?" crap. And it's freaking Caturday, not LOLCats or whatever.
I admit, I approve of this though: http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Genesis_1
Posted by: Alex | December 23, 2007 12:52 PM
=LOL= AHA! Gotcha, Alex!!!
teh lolcat bibul. iz teh kewl. i hearts it. i rited hol stori ov joseph & sum ov noah. & wikkidpedia wuz mai idea 2.
but i used difrnt nixnaem wen i did it so mai fundy mental case bro wont findz out & picth a screeming fit in mai direkshun. screeming fits is giv me teh hed axe. DO NOT WANT!!!!!!!!!!!!
so tehre lol. :-D
Different strokes for different folks. If there's any place where one size definitely doesn't fit all, it's humor. I don't think O RLY? and the gangsta macros are funny; they're just insulting. But "teh cute" makes me ROFLmeow. Your mileage may vary. But it's really not worth arguing about. Peace, OK?
As a good friend of mine says: We wish you a merry unspecified December holiday. :-)
Posted by: anomalous4 | December 23, 2007 6:44 PM
Humor is actually quite objective.
Posted by: Alex | December 24, 2007 11:35 AM
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa??????? Since when? It seems to me that the only thing that can be said objectively about humor is that it's highly subjective, situational, and experiential.
People have tried to analyze humor for years, and they're still trying. Some people have made entire careers out of it. But I've never seen a comedian or humorist who could explain why humor works or why some things are funny to some people but not to others. Most of them don't even try; they know it's a waste of energy.
When I think of objectivity and humor, I think of Cmdr. Data's ongoing futile efforts to understand humor on ST:TNG. He was hilarious precisely because no matter how hard he tried, it didn't work. He couldn't get a handle on humor until he had an emotion chip implanted and got some subjectivity into the mix.
It seems to me that "humor" is like "obscenity" in a way. Like the Supreme Court Justice, we can't define it, but we "know it when we see it."
Or maybe it's more like ice cream. Half-Baked isn't objectively "better" than Cherry Garcia, but I'll trade two scoops of Cherry Garcia for one of Half-Baked any day.
But again, it's not worth arguing about. If you want to have the last word, be my guest. I'm gonna go post some more lolz. kthxbai.
Posted by: anomalous4 | December 27, 2007 2:31 PM