Opinion: What makes things humorous

Opinion: What makes things humorous.

In a familiar parable, a group of blind men try to discern the shape of an elephant, but each man’s perspective differs depending on whether he’s touching the trunk, tusk, or tail (Fig. 1). After 2,500 years of studying humor, scientists similarly have differing perspectives on what makes things funny (1). We present three common perspectives on humor. Although each is insightful, no one perspe...

What Makes Things Cool? How Autonomy Influences Perceived Coolness

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Polymeric Gas Separation Membranes: What Makes them Industrially more Attractive?

What Makes

What Makes a Search Engine Good for Democracy? PUBLIC OPINION POLLING AND THE EVALUATION OF SOFTWARE

We propose one possible set of criteria for evaluating software – specifically search engines – according to their usefulness for deliberative democracy. We then describe a user study of the search capabilities of three, existing, online archives (Google Groups, Omgili, or Technorati) of threaded, conversational data. Our study measures the capabilities of these search engines according to the ...