Today is contest day: The Science Creative Quarterly invites you to be scientifically funny (plus a bit with mathematical notation)

(The Science Creative Quarterly is a science writing webzine I run at UBC)

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The Science Creative Quarterly seeks science humour pieces for entry into our awesome new contest. Judging will be based on a number of criteria that can be annotated as follows:
SCQequation.gif

Briefly, final Score (FS) is equal to the the base score of the humour piece submitted (S), times a number (n) of modifiers (fs) which are dependant on captions provided, and their humour level. Note that captions may be submitted separately even at multiple dates after initial humour submission. Number of captions provided by author is flexible but can be no more than 1 for each image (a maximum of 17) - image sources from here.

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In other words, if we state that the maximum base score is 10, and an author is also able to present 17 "very funny" (as determined by a laugh/gag reflex) captions, the following maximum score is possible:
equation1.gif

However, 17 unfunny captions would negatively impact and result in the following possible score:
equation2.gif

Submissions and captions should be sent to tscq@interchange.ubc.ca, subject heading "MATH." Contest deadline is March 31st, 2007, and entries may be published in the interim. The winner will be announced during the first week of April, 2007 and will take home whatever happens to be the latest model in the video iPod category or a gift account of equal value at Amazon.com (winner's choice).

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I read this and all I could think of was

By Jokermage (not verified) on 29 Sep 2006 #permalink

Jokerimage: Is that a "all I could think of was" My goodness, what a stupid contest? Or is this one of those things where the math caused your brain to tighten for a few minutes?

Nuts to this trackback system, I'm submitting right here:

Being a lover of the arts and of foppish dandies, Mr. Orange can totally get behind the Mcsweeney's-esque funny-weird of Dave Ng and Benjamin Cohen over at...