Naomi Harvey and colleagues at and around the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University are collecting opinions about bunny cuteness. They invite anyone who has such opinions to take their Rabbit Facial Features Survey: The aim of this study is to assess people’s preference for rabbit facial features, to help us gain an understanding […]
Tag: cute
Cuteness Engineering (2017 book)
Are you looking for a “state of the art monograph which presents a unique introduction to thinking about cuteness and its incorporation into modern, especially computer-based, products and services” ? If so, you could consult Cuteness Engineering : Designing Adorable Products and Services (Springer International Publishing, Hardback £61.99 or e-Book £48.99). Here is an example chapter […]
The Allen-Alchian (theorem) Explains Why the Internet Is Made of Cats
Dr. Jason Potts Centre Fellow and Project Leader in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Australia, explains in the special ‘cute’ issue of the M/C Journal, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2014) why the internet is made of cats (with reference to the Alchian-Allen Theorem). Supporting material here […]
Goo Labs’ search engine for Kawaii, things that are cute
Japan, arguably the world’s epicentre of cuteness, has the word ‘Kawaii’ to refer to an entity’s degree of cuteness. With this in mind, researchers at Goo Labs developed an unusual internet search engine – one which attempted to rank results according to how cute they were. Details were provided in Chapter 12 of the 2012 […]
Winningly cute animals of science
Nature magazine assembled this video of the alleged Year’s Ten Cutest Animals in Science. Number 9 was awarded the 2014 Ig Nobel Prize for biology: When you watch and listen to the video, pay special attention to the narrator’s very first sentence. It’s a not-so-subtle, friendly dig at Nature‘s rival journal, Science. (Thanks to Connie Villalba for […]
Story of a cute robot
The story of Boxie, the designed-to-be-cute, wandering, info-gathering robot at MIT: Perhaps Boxie will come to the Ig Informal Lectures at MIT, perhaps…. BONUS: A not-so-cute robot at MIT
Patent Camouflage
Imagine that you want to camouflage yourself. One way to do so might be to pick objects from your surroundings and attach them to your clothing. But how exactly? Answers are provided in a new US patent (Jan. 29th 2013) from two Utah-based inventors (both named Morgan). Their patent : entitled ‘Systems and methods for […]
Keith the Wombat
It’s time for a look at Keith the wombat. The narrator says “Keith doesn’t like to eat the way we do.” This curious statement can be taken at least two different ways. See if you can figure out which meaning was intended: (Thanks to investigator Danielle Wang for bringing this to our attention.)
A cute/acute thing in Pubmed
Certain typographical errors are especially likely to creep into medical databases. These entries in the PubMed database may demonstrate the principle. A cute poisoning. A survey of 516 cases. CUMMING G., Practitioner. 1960 Apr;184:481-7. No abstract available. PMID: 13813276 A cute pancreatitis in the upper age groups. HOFFMAN E, PEREZ E, SOMERA V., Gastroenterology. 1959 […]