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Some other StackExchange/StackOverflow sites are entertained with a certain level of humor or fun. What is your favorite “data analysis” cartoon? is particularly worth mentioning (IMHO) this xkcd cartoon on causality and correlation (DSP folks know what I mean):

xkcd: causality and correlation

So Is humor allowed in answers? I hope so, see for instance:

Humor in signal processing or image processing does exist, albeit shallow, and narrow-spread. I have encountered it first (I had zero humor before) at the ICASSP 2000 DSP humor exhibition in Istanbul, Turkey. The image below comes from Humor in DSP by EURASIP:

Steepest descent in optimization

So I believe that we deserve some humor and joke tags and actual lightness. Go ahead!

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    $\begingroup$ I very much like the topic, I am wondering however if this thread is more appropriate in Meta (?). Similar to the dsp-puzzle tag, it would be nice to have a dsp-humour (?) tag. It will be challenging to formulate it as a question though ("Why are you dragging this chain?", "Have you tried pushing it?") $\endgroup$
    – A_A
    Jan 23, 2017 at 9:37
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    $\begingroup$ This is an appropriate comment. I will go on digging how it is handled on other SE sites. One suggestion: turn the joke into a genuine post on the underlying DSP theory, and move it to a community wiki? $\endgroup$
    – Laurent Duval
    Jan 23, 2017 at 9:49

15 Answers 15

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An airplane is leaving Warsaw (the capital of Poland), and gets caught in a terrible winter storm. The plane rolls, pitches and yaws. The crew is expecting the plane to crash or break up at any time. But one DSP student suddenly stands up and asks some passengers on the right aisle to move across the plane. Passengers are reluctant but the student insists. “Hurry, our fate depends on your move.” Most passengers quickly leap to the other side, and suddenly the plane stops shaking. The pilot, who had a DSP degree too, enjoys calming everybody:

"Thank you for the Poles who have moved to the left-half of the plane for stability."

Filter stability: poles in left plane

Additional references:

Another visual pun (dedicated to @MarcusMuller) is this chocolet decomposition:

wavelet chocolet decomposition

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    $\begingroup$ Duplicate? Delete one or the other. :-) $\endgroup$
    – Peter K. ♦
    Jan 22, 2017 at 16:42
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    $\begingroup$ Double pole clicked at the origin I guess :) $\endgroup$
    – Laurent Duval
    Jan 22, 2017 at 16:49
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    $\begingroup$ Love that chocolate decomposition! $\endgroup$
    – Marcus Müller
    Jun 10, 2017 at 20:17
  • $\begingroup$ I had two cakes, one primal and one dual $\endgroup$
    – Laurent Duval
    Jun 10, 2017 at 20:30
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In high school math class I finally got the courage up to ask the cute and brainy girl at the front row out on a date. She just looked at me with a discouraging face and as she waved her hand face down horizontally from side to side. I asked her "What's that mean?", and she said "It's the Fourier Transform of this!" as she raised up her middle finger to me. After joining DSP.SE, I finally figured out what she was talking about.

important FT

no luck

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Crazy Audio Fx ilustration lol

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more:

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    $\begingroup$ Most 1D signals concepts illustrated in 2D. Nice $\endgroup$
    – Laurent Duval
    Jan 23, 2017 at 15:32
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More of a terrible visual pun:

enter image description here

The FFTiramisu.

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    $\begingroup$ I cannot accept it for ethical purposes, but let Cookey and Turkey algorithmics gods bless you $\endgroup$
    – Laurent Duval
    Jan 22, 2017 at 19:06
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    $\begingroup$ It was, indeed, blessed with deliciousness :) $\endgroup$
    – Marcus Müller
    Jan 22, 2017 at 19:08
  • $\begingroup$ I have added a terrible culinary pun similar to yours $\endgroup$
    – Laurent Duval
    Feb 12, 2017 at 17:31
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    $\begingroup$ @LaurentDuval awesome! Sadly, I can't double-upvote $\endgroup$
    – Marcus Müller
    Feb 13, 2017 at 14:28
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    $\begingroup$ I had two cakes with a different chocolate flavor, and obtained a dual-tree chocolet transform. Unfortunately, parts of my belly became redundant $\endgroup$
    – Laurent Duval
    Feb 13, 2017 at 15:36
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I personally also consider this very early XKCD to be a signal processing joke:

[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/fourier.jpg

EDIT: While were doing early xkcd:

poisson

(both, of course, by Randall Munroe, CC-SA-Noncommercial)

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  • $\begingroup$ The "Meouw" part is TOO "time-based" to get credit for:) $\endgroup$
    – Laurent Duval
    Jan 22, 2017 at 19:20
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    $\begingroup$ Upvote the cat joke! The meouw-law compels you! (especially since the dynamic range for giving or not giving credit is pretty limited) $\endgroup$
    – Marcus Müller
    Jan 22, 2017 at 19:26
  • $\begingroup$ Upvoted is already done. Credits are in a different dimension $\endgroup$
    – Laurent Duval
    Jan 22, 2017 at 19:31
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    $\begingroup$ Ohhh! There's a whole class of jokes to be made about distributing fish! $\endgroup$
    – Marcus Müller
    Jan 22, 2017 at 19:41
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    $\begingroup$ And in the category of bilingual jokes, there's a lot of (rather lewd) potential in leakage translating to the same German word as licking. $\endgroup$
    – Marcus Müller
    Jan 22, 2017 at 19:42
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Sent to me by my friend Jerry Doty:

enter image description here

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I met up with RBJ at a bar this weekend and he immediately wanted to get into deeper details of the Fourier Transform. I refused--- it's just too dangerous to drink an derive.

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    $\begingroup$ Especially when you are sliding $\endgroup$
    – Laurent Duval
    Jan 30, 2022 at 14:27
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    $\begingroup$ I worry about rectal leakage using a rectangular window. $\endgroup$
    – robert bristow-johnson
    Feb 4, 2022 at 16:27
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Ever wondered why there's "Live Aloha" bumper stickers? Aloha is a remarkably unhealthy approach to vehicular traffic.

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$\begingroup$ 
  ___       __                           _      _   _   _   __
   |  |  | |       _|__|_ |\  /| |    | / \ |  / ` | \ / \ |  \
   |  |--| |-      _|__|_ | \/ | |    | `-. | |    |  |`-. |__/
   |  |  | |__      |  |  |    |  \__/  \_/ |  \_, |_/ \_/ |
             _          __       ___         __   __  _
       ,´\  | \ \    / |   |\  |  |  |    | |  \ |   / \
       |__| |  | \  /  |-  | \ |  |  |    | |__/ |-  `-.
       |  | |_/   \/   |__ |  \|  |   \__/  |  \ |__ \_/
               _________________________________
               EPISODE XI - FIXED POINT L33TNESS
               Guest script & sketch artist: mrl
                      INTRODUCING: ZEPHOD
               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|(_)   o  ..Hi bram!                o ..Hi Phixedpoint zePh0d!
|     <&>                          <#>
|     /·\                          /P\ 

|(_)   o  ..Oh goodie!              o ..Cum here and i'll tell
|     <&\                          \#\  j00 all about my *HOT*
|     /·\                          /P\  adventures with mrl..

|(_)               crap.. o       __o ..Ha ha! You and your
|                        /&>        #> "fixed-point l33tness"!
|      ·                 / \       /P\          *END OF EP.11*
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    $\begingroup$ It misspells 1337N355! ;-) My VW Beetle has the license place F34TUR3. :-) $\endgroup$
    – Peter K. ♦
    Jan 22, 2017 at 16:42
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I wrote a paper with Brian Lovell and Boualem Boashash about the Wigner-Ville time-frequency representation. I'm not a fan of the Wigner-Ville for signal processing as I believe there are many better approaches to problems that it might solve.

To make this displeasure known but not obviously, I chose to encode it in the notation used in the paper.

The Wigner-Ville is a wank.

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    $\begingroup$ Well, this definitely had $\frac{\mathrm d\, F_u(n)}{\mathrm d\,n} >0 $ for me $\endgroup$
    – Marcus Müller
    Dec 30, 2023 at 21:44
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At the GNU Radio Conference:

I'll skirt over scalloping losses here

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I was going to tell a joke about the appendages of an absolutely normal cat, but it has a really fat tail.

Source

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    $\begingroup$ I was going to retweet your joke, but I now prefer to signal it $\endgroup$
    – Laurent Duval
    Jul 26, 2020 at 15:12
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Superheterodyne Receivers:

Compared to direct conversion, not that complex.

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I made this terrible visible pun for a shirt for myself, but then made it available for the benefit of a favorite software project of mine as merchandise

Drawing Titled "Famous Constellations", showing text "Orion" next to the stellar constellation of Orion, Ursa Major (next to the constellation), Cassiopeia, but also terrble punny things like PSK Qudripartitus next to a constellation diagram of a QPSK, PSK Bipartitus Asynchronous next to a phase-unstable BPSK constellation, QAM Magnus…

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  • $\begingroup$ Since "stern" means star, isn't consternation? $\endgroup$
    – Laurent Duval
    Mar 24, 2022 at 21:17
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    $\begingroup$ bad synchronization is always cause for conSTERNation :) $\endgroup$
    – Marcus Müller
    Mar 25, 2022 at 9:33
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    $\begingroup$ (on a serious note: Constellation (as in "star pattern") is "Sternbild" (star image), but I'm having an incredibly hard time coming up with a pun that involves Phasenumtastung (tasten = to key -> Tastung = (noun) keying -> +um prefix -> "re-keying"; Phasen = phases), but that's the hardship of compounding languages: even while reading, the receiver does a lot that kind of seems to approximate a BCJR on the compound's meaning, so that puns on compound words quickly become awkward) $\endgroup$
    – Marcus Müller
    Mar 25, 2022 at 9:53
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I'm not ashamed I've decorated an institute hallway with this.

An image with superimposed text. Image shows Ernie and Bert, from Sesame Street. Top: Ernie, could your illustrate source coding? Bottom: Sure, Bert: KRRKRKRKRKRKK…, a sound reminescent of noise you get when you just put an unfiltered On-of-keying data stream to a speaker. Hence, a pun. A terrible pun.

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