The Voice of Computing to Come

Over on Slashdot (http://slashdot.org), they currently have a poll on whose voice would you like most to have your computer talk to you in. The choices are:

Majel Barrett 2814 / 18%
William Daniels 530 / 3%
Dan Castellaneta 2029 / 13%
John Di Maggio 577 / 3%
Douglas Rain 286 / 1%
Julie Kavner 451 / 3%
Liv Tyler 5390 / 36%
Cowboy Neal 2781 / 18%

and to explain who each is:

* Majel Barrett Roddenberry- Widow of Gene Roddenberry, the computer voice
* William Daniels - the voice of KITT on Knight Rider
* Dan Castellaneta - The voice of Homer Simpson
* John Di Maggio - The voice of Futurama's Bender
* Douglas Rain - The voice of HAL 2000
* Julie Kavner - The voice of Marge Simpson, among others (listen for 'the knish man is on the premisis' in a Walk on the Moon)
* Liv Tyler - She's an elf! (Arwen in LoTR, dummy) and daugher of Aerosmith's Steven Tyler
* Cowboy Neal - Perenial protest vote...one of the staff of Slashdot.org

I would personally prefer Majel...as I am a Star Trek fan of old...and she was such a wonderful person to meet in person...but I could also see that she is not a person you want to get mad at you! And as she did the "Voice of the Enterprise" through all of the movies and series, I think her voice is canonical for the role of a computer voice.

ttyl
Farrell

Ontario Elections

Shamelessly snarfed from: http://ottawa.cbc.ca/ottawamorning/email.html

Re: Voting for the Ontario Liberals on October 2nd.

I just got back from voting (Liberal) and thought I would pass on a little ditty about Mr. McGuinty. It goes to the tune of "Purple People Eater" by Sheb Wooley.

Well, I saw the thing a-comin' back from T.O.
It had a big plan that was so grandiose
I commenced to shakin' and I said, "help me"
It looks like a reptilian, alien, kitten-eater to me.

It was a pointy-head, reptilian, alien, liberal, kitten eater,
pointy-head, reptilian, alien, liberal, kitten eater,
A pointy-head, reptilian, alien, liberal, kitten eater,
Sure looked strange to me.

Well, he came into office and he raised my tax
I said, Mister Alien, Kitten-eater, don't do that
I heard him say in a tone so brash
I have to tax you 'cause I need the cash

It was a pointy-head, reptilian, alien, liberal, kitten eater,
pointy-head, reptilian, alien, liberal, kitten eater,
A pointy-head, reptilian, alien, liberal, kitten eater,
Sure looked strange to me.

I said, Mister Alien kitten-eater, What's the cost?"
He said, "Spending your money until it's lost.
But that's not the reason that I came to town.
I had a job to do - to take Ernie down"

When will it end? tax and spend, reptilian, alien kitten-eater,
Navy tied, crafty smiled, reptilian, alien kitten-eater,
He wears blue suits, reptilian, alien kitten-eater,
Representing me

-- Cheers, Terry Young

The Ig Nobel Award Winners for 2003!

You can see a list of all past years winners here: http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html

The 2003 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

The 2003 Ig Nobel Prize winners were announced on Thursday evening, October 2, at the 13th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre. The ceremony was telecast live on the Internet. (The winners will give free public talks on Saturday, October 4, at the Ig Informal Lectures, at MIT room 54-100.)
Click here for details.

ENGINEERING
The late John Paul Stapp, the late Edward A. Murphy, Jr., and George Nichols, for jointly giving birth in 1949 to Murphy's Law, the basic engineering principle that "If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, someone will do it" (or, in other words: "If anything can go wrong, it will").
REFERENCE: "The Fastest Man on Earth," Nick T. Spark, Annals of Improbable Research, vol. 9, no. 5, Sept/Oct 2003.]
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: (1) Author Nick T. Spark , on behalf of John Paul Stapp's widow, Lilly. (2) Edward Murphy's Edward A. Murphy III, on behalf of his late father. (3) George Nichols, via audio tape.

PHYSICS
Jack Harvey, John Culvenor, Warren Payne, Steve Cowley, Michael Lawrance, David Stuart, and Robyn Williams of Australia, for their irresistible report "An Analysis of the Forces Required to Drag Sheep over Various Surfaces."
[PUBLISHED IN: Applied Ergonomics, vol. 33, no. 6, November 2002, pp. 523-31. A copy is available at http://www.culvenor.com/]
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: John Culvenor.

MEDICINE
Eleanor Maguire, David Gadian, Ingrid Johnsrude, Catriona Good, John Ashburner, Richard Frackowiak, and Christopher Frith of University College London, for presenting evidence that the brains of London taxi drivers are more highly developed than those of their fellow citizens.
[PUBLISHED IN: "Navigation-Related Structural Change In the Hippocampi of Taxi Drivers," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 97, no. 8, April 11, 2000, pp. 4398-403. Also see their subsequent publications.]
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Eleanor Maguire.

PSYCHOLOGY
Gian Vittorio Caprara and Claudio Barbaranelli of the University of Rome, and Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University, for their discerning report "Politicians' Uniquely Simple Personalities."
[PUBLISHED IN: Nature, vol. 385, February 1997, p. 493.]
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Philip Zimbardo.

CHEMISTRY
Yukio Hirose of Kanazawa University, for his chemical investigation of a bronze statue, in the city of Kanazawa, that fails to attract pigeons.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Yukio Hirose.

LITERATURE
John Trinkaus, of the Zicklin School of Business, New York City, for meticulously collecting data and publishing more than 80 detailed academic reports about specific annoyances and anomalies of daily life, such as: What percentage of young people wear baseball caps with the peak facing to the rear rather than to the front; What percentage of pedestrians wear sport shoes that are white rather than some other color; What percentage of swimmers swim laps in the shallow end of a pool rather than the deep end; What percentage of automobile drivers almost, but not completely, come to a stop at one particular stop-sign; What percentage of commuters carry attaché cases; What percentage of shoppers exceed the number of items permitted in a supermarket's express checkout lane; and What percentage of students dislike the taste of Brussels sprouts.
REFERENCE: 86 of Professor Trinkaus's publications are listed in "Trinkaus -- An Informal Look," Annals of Improbable Research, vol. 9, no. 3, May/Jun 2003.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: John Trinkaus.

ECONOMICS
Karl Schwärzler and the nation of Liechtenstein, for making it possible to rent the entire country for corporate conventions, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other gatherings.
REFERENCE:

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