Andre Patel, ABD, MIT Media Lab

December 14, 2005 8:54 PM

There Is No Spoon.
posted by Freen to MetaFilter-Related at 8:54 PM (43 comments total)

you eat pancakes with a fork, silly
posted by pyramid termite at 8:58 PM on December 14, 2005

i believe it's an old april fool's joke, if you're wondering.
posted by fishfucker at 9:00 PM on December 14, 2005 [1 favorite]

Old news (1993) [via].
posted by nobody at 9:02 PM on December 14, 2005

Umm... it's right here. Wait, which pill did you take?
posted by Eideteker at 9:02 PM on December 14, 2005

Umm, maket that "2003," of course.
posted by nobody at 9:02 PM on December 14, 2005

Okay, make that "make." There.
posted by nobody at 9:04 PM on December 14, 2005

and 2002, probably.
posted by nobody at 9:04 PM on December 14, 2005

*makes nobody waffles*
posted by If I Had An Anus at 9:05 PM on December 14, 2005

I remember using Eliza on a PC back when PCs ran on a single 5.25" single-sided floppy...

/I suddenly feel old
posted by clevershark at 9:06 PM on December 14, 2005

Think this is where it got mentioned.
posted by Football Bat at 9:10 PM on December 14, 2005

I think knifey-spoony has been played before.
posted by Rothko at 9:13 PM on December 14, 2005

if the scripts were smart enough, they could "learn" from the real humans and we'd enter into the annals of AI research

This statement is ridiculous. There's no such thing as a learning "script."
posted by scarabic at 9:20 PM on December 14, 2005

I see your spoon, and raise you a ladle.
posted by mystyk at 9:24 PM on December 14, 2005

The best part was when an editor at Brills Content, a media watchdog publication, called me in a panic, thinking every word was true and that they had been duped. The magazine's old slogan was "Skepticism is a Virtue."

I put up the page as a joke when the Kaycee Nichole stuff broke and the server was dying under the load. I thought doing a meta-joke of the site after Kaycee was revealed to be a hoax was worth a laugh.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:28 PM on December 14, 2005

Ma spoon is too big.


Ma spoon is too big.


Ma spoon is too big!
posted by Football Bat at 9:38 PM on December 14, 2005 [1 favorite]

SPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNN!
posted by ozomatli at 9:40 PM on December 14, 2005

Britt Daniels just called and he's pissed.
posted by Frisbee Girl at 9:47 PM on December 14, 2005

a naked, petrified natalie portman spoons hot grits down my pants. this burns my pantsfish.
posted by quonsar at 9:50 PM on December 14, 2005

You will love the prices of these pantsfish!

[kinda-NSFW]
posted by Freen at 9:59 PM on December 14, 2005

imagine a beowulf cluster of those!
posted by quonsar at 10:17 PM on December 14, 2005

posted by gramschmidt at 10:45 PM on December 14, 2005

posted by brownpau at 11:18 PM on December 14, 2005

This statement is ridiculous. There's no such thing as a learning "script."

Scripts are just programs that are interpreted rather than compiled; they're generally just as capable of polymorphism and new data interpretation and all the other things that generally pass for computer learning as are programs written in LISP or C.
posted by moift at 11:24 PM on December 14, 2005

err I think LISP is generally interpreted so never mind that
posted by moift at 11:24 PM on December 14, 2005

generally generally generally generally generally
posted by moift at 11:35 PM on December 14, 2005

Britt Daniels just called and he's pissed.

not sure what's up that guy's ass, but Britt Daniel, who's about to cameo on Veronica Mars, called and said "I was in this drop-D metal band we called Requiem."
posted by Hat Maui at 11:52 PM on December 14, 2005

*falls asleep*
posted by matteo at 3:25 AM on December 15, 2005

scarabic: "This statement is ridiculous. There's no such thing as a learning "script.""

Damnit, moift beat me. But, for thoroughness, from the American Heritage Dictionary:

script (skrĭpt) n.
...
3. a. The text of a play, broadcast, or movie.
...
5. Computer Science. A simple program in a utility language or an application's proprietary language.
posted by Plutor at 3:37 AM on December 15, 2005

I'll be in my basement room
With a needle and a spoon
posted by fixedgear at 3:43 AM on December 15, 2005

There's a mushroom in my spoon.
posted by konolia at 5:15 AM on December 15, 2005

Wait, wait, wait.

I always knew it. Everyone else on here is a robot.

VINDICATED!!!!!!1111111111ONEONEONEONETWOTWO

Okay, so seriously, now that the joke is over (it wasn't that bad, I still love MetaFilter just as much) I just want to know one thing:

What the fuck did you need $5 bucks for?

Honest to God, couldn't find anyone to extend your research grants or something?

Anyway, I hope you can restart your thespian career Mr. Haughey. I'll continue to post; even though you're all robots.
posted by Colloquial Collision at 5:33 AM on December 15, 2005

moift - lisp is compiled and is as fast as c++ and the whole world is stupid for not using it and it had objects before anyone and is the best best bestest ever and if you don't believe me i will feed you to erik naggum (who i should perhaps not make fun of since it seems he's disappeared from view with health problems, unfortunately)
(seriously - traditionally it's one of those languages that has an interactive front end to an incremental compiler, so it looks like a scripting language, but is really compiled; you can also get optimizing compilers that work in batch mode and so can do whole (or part) program optimizations).
posted by andrew cooke at 5:35 AM on December 15, 2005

If only it had some decent libraries more people might use it. I loves me the LISP, but writing real world code in it can be a traumatic experience.
posted by atrazine at 6:04 AM on December 15, 2005

All I remember about LISP from my intro to programming class is: lots of irritating single parantheses. I could die happy if I never have to work with car, cdr, and cons again.
posted by DaShiv at 6:09 AM on December 15, 2005

A variety of good information here. This thread is why MetaTalk needs tags.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 6:44 AM on December 15, 2005

I remember using Eliza on a PC back when PCs ran on a single 5.25" single-sided floppy...
Older: It has been around a long time.
posted by beagle at 7:05 AM on December 15, 2005

Colloquial Collision: "I always knew it. Everyone else on here is a robot."

How does everyone else on here is a robot make you feel?
posted by Plutor at 7:06 AM on December 15, 2005

You do know Matt's battles with jrun and ColdFusion errors is an elaborate inside joke, right? Turns out he's been running MeFi off a Netware 3.11 server all this time! Those little hiccups that occasionally occur are due to the updates he adds to NFS every so often. The terms "pony", "pancakes", and "GYOBFW" were all command line triggers for Netware's FIRE PHASERS function. It was a recurrent gag in the pre-14,000 member days to try to guess which turn would ring the bell each week.
posted by Smart Dalek at 7:08 AM on December 15, 2005

))))

)
posted by yerfatma at 7:35 AM on December 15, 2005

Does anybody read the comments down here?
posted by soyjoy at 8:00 AM on December 15, 2005

No.
posted by JeffK at 8:09 AM on December 15, 2005

mathowie is dhoyt.
posted by aaronetc at 8:31 AM on December 15, 2005

[close]
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:04 AM on December 15, 2005