Best laugh I’ve had all week.

Excellent article in New Scientist, Spoof paper accepted by ‘peer-reviewed’ journal, about a peer-reviewed science journal that operates a pay-to-play submission policy. A graduate student in library and information science at Cornell University used a program that generates nonsensical computer science papers to submit a paper entitled Deconstructing Access Points, which got accepted. Looks like it might be worth a read, from the abstract:

The synthesis of the Ethernet is a confusing grand challenge. Given the current status of knowledgebased archetypes, statisticians particularly desire the refinement of superpages, which embodies the practical principles of software engineering. In order to address this riddle, we investigate how web browsers can be applied to the construction of the Ethernet.

Hmm, I should write a similar programme that generates nonsensical wall text labels. No, wait…

But this is nowhere near as inspired as the MIT student who objected to the unsolicited emails he was receiving asking him to submit a paper, which he did entitled, Get me off Your F*****g Mailing List. From the abstract:

Get me off your f*****g mailing list. Get me off your f*****g mailing list. Get me off your f*****g mailing list. Get me off your f*****g mailing list. Get me off your f*****g mailing list. Get me off your f*****g mailing list. Get me off your f*****g mailing list. Get me off your f*****g mailing list. Get me off your f*****g mailing list. Get me off your f*****g mailing list. Get me off your f*****g mailing list. Get me off your f*****g mailing list. Get me off your f*****g mailing list. Get me off your f*****g mailing list.

Checkout the two figures in the paper – priceless.

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