Meet clocky, the clock that runs around while beeping, so you have to really wake up to stop it. Ok, I have talked about it before in an older post, so what's new? Well, did u know that the inventor of this, is a Nobel laureate?

What? Nobel prize for that? Yes (ahem)... Nobel price, but Ig Nobel.


"The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. " Every year early october this parody ceremony takes place at Harvard University's Sanders Theater (originally at MIT hall), often attended by real Nobel winners!


Here are some winners :

- Medicine, 2009 : for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years. Reference: "Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?"


- Physics, 2009: for analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over (you know, their center of mass changes during pregnancy, yet they can walk?!). Reference: Fetal Load and the Evolution of Lumbar Lordosis in Bipedal Hominins (Oh that's a name for a proper paper!)


- Peace, 2009 : whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle. Reference: "Are Full or Empty Beer Bottles Sturdier and Does Their Fracture-Threshold Suffice to Break the Human Skull?"


The ceremony itself sounds like fun. The prizes are presented by genuine Nobel laureates (!).

One of the joke during the ceremony is Miss Sweety Poo, a little girl who repeatedly cries out "Please stop. I'm bored" in a high-pitched voice if speakers go on too long.


Although due to security reason, now-a-days, the paper plane throwing thing is off, in past years, physics professor Roy Glauber has swept the stage clean of the airplanes as the official "Keeper of the Broom". However, Glauber could not attend the 2005 awards – he was traveling to Stockholm to claim a genuine Nobel Prize in Physics.


The awards ceremony is traditionally closed with the words: "If you didn't win a prize — and especially if you did — better luck next year!"

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize
http://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2010

Guess which one topped the 2010's list of best countries, Finland !!

I made an appointment over the phone, quite a few weeks back. The lady was not that fluent in English, but it was just enough to book the time. She asked me to tell her my last name, so I spelled it out..

EM--AA--ZED--EE--DEE, Mazed

Later when I went there, I almost burst out in laugh when I found my name written as
"Maxid"

Even later I realized what went wrong. Actually in Finnish alphabet, although my name is be written exactly as in latin alphabet, if I want to spell it out, i should say

AAM(as in I "am") -- A'h' (as in 'U'mbrella)-- Tseta(Almost like seta, with a stressed s) -- A ( as in Later) -- Da (as in Day)

Anyways, I kinda liked my name , Maxid :D

It was such a crazy thunder storm few days back, I felt like being in a tropical country ahead of a cyclone or something. I could not believe my eyes when flashing of the thunders became so frequent!!

We had very special visitors last week. They were special because they were from my family tree, and some who knew me from my very childhood. They were my maternal uncle (Boromama) and his family from the Netherlands.