And the presentation version - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL_-1d9OSdk

Wow. That is the hardest I've laughed this week.

I loved the part where he referred to the slides to help answer a question.

Holy crap! I'm not sure I've ever heard an audience react that hysterically before. That is infectious.

Good 'till the last cluck.

I'm sorry, but is this what passes for academic typesetting nowadays? I felt as if I were sitting in some farcical business presentation as my eyes scanned this typographical travesty! This thing is an affront to the eyes as much as to the mind, utter tripe. Don't the mods have any taste? Hacker News is truly in the pits now.

Really? The typesetting is the only problem you noticed with it? Did you notice any typos?

Interestingly, while Google Scholar has indexed the paper (from another site), it's actually only ranked number 2 for the query "chicken chicken chicken: chicken chicken":

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=chicken+chicken+chicken%...

More interestingly, it has been cited 9 times.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=9396708367921284731&...

I don't understand. Why is this funny? Are you all 5 year olds or am I missing something?

It's satire. Pretty good satire, IMO. If someone had simply dumped the word chicken in to a document broken in to paragraphs, it probably wouldn't get many laughs, but this document is very well executed.

When you look at a lot of academic papers, you begin to notice patterns. It's very easy to get wrapped up in what you're doing, looking past how silly some of it can be. This document takes it to the extreme, but there are plenty of papers published on mind numbingly banal topics.

That's why it's funny. It's a means of poking fun at one's self.

I don't think there is a reason to be insulting. If you are legitimately asking a question - don't be rude. If you just don't like it - use the flag.

By itself is not that funny, but when you see the video posted here in the comments then you realize the joke in the full context. :)

Yes, 43, going on 5. I laughed.

Yabba-Doo.. Yippity-Yabbity-Doo [1]

HECK YEAH, WE're 5 !

[1] - Scoobypedia

Chicken chicken, chicken chicken chicken chicken. Chicken chicken chicken[1].

Chicken chicken chicken {C(n)} chicken chicken. Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken.

____

Chicken chicken

chicken

Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken:

    #!/chicken/chick/chicken
    
    chicken Chicken(chicken, chick, c):
    	 chicken chicken >= chick:
	 	# Chicken chicken chicken
	 	chick chicken(chicken-c)
	 chick:
		chick chicken

Chicken chicken chicken-chicken chicken chicken Chicken Chicken?

  ((chicken chicken) (chicken chicken))

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" would have at least been grammatically correct.

It is grammatically correct, since nouns can be verbed -- chicken can be a noun, verb and even adjective, even though its verb form doesn't have a defined meaning -- it's just meaningless. Think of it like this:

    struct chicken chicken(struct chicken chicken) {
        return chicken.chicken;
    }

This will parse, it just won't compile, since we're missing the definition of struct chicken.

Contrast with "chicken go fly", which is grammatically incorrect, but meaningful.

It does have a defined meaning, doesn't it? "to chicken (out of something)".

I though it was grammatically incorrect anyway i.e.

(the) (adj)chicken (name)chicken (verb)chicken

misses an "s" either on the verb or the name.

But it could be an imperative form perhaps? As in "coward poultry, get out of there"

Hah, that is exactly what I thought.

It doesn't lend itself well to strings of words longer than 3 though, because you can't "chicken" someone, as far as I know - and I don't intend on visiting Urban Dictionary to find out.

This is the lecture that accompanied the paper:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL_-1d9OSdk

LISP version:

(chicken chicken (chicken chicken chicken))

Can you come up with an implementation of chicken that allows this code to run?

I think any 2 argument function will work? At least in clojure.

    > (defn chicken [x y] 1)
    #'sandbox5403/chicken
    > (chicken chicken (chicken chicken chicken))
    1

(define chicken list)

Now I really feel stupid. For the unenlightened, can someone shed some light on what this means please?

Chicken

My favourite bit is:

    Chicken, chicken chicken, chicken chicken chicken 1987.

I wonder if one of those citations is to PLIF: http://plif.courageunfettered.com/archive/wc072.gif

Yeah, that post entry gets traction when other newsworthy stuff gets canned. HN is slowly slipping into a weird dimension where Zombies are taking over ...

HN has always had room for the occasional off beat. Since this is a clever parody of a stock computer science paper, it's not even a stretch to understand why it got upvoted. I admit that I didn't get it, though, until I watched the (much funnier) video. It's really a parody of a stock computer science talk, with associated paper.

A few years ago, at work we were asked if we wanted steak or chicken for a lunch thing. I replied with this pdf as my answer.

I wonder whether there is an entire school of thought based on the principles (correctly) formulated within this paper.

James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher

I miss his Dominion client daily.

Me too. The official one feels clunky and cartoonish.

But Innovation has been a good addiction replacement:

http://innovation.isotropic.org

He could have used random kanji/hanzi and probably be even more meaningful 胡说八道

This is the best paper on Chicken scheme that I have ever been able to read.

:%s/\w\+/chicken/g

Way older than the Internet... still fun though.

Now that's what I call obfuscation.

Holy semantic satiation, HN.

...what combo you pickin?

Old, but a true classic!

always makes me laugh

chicken