Crank Emoticon

[ewmayer]

So far, I like Uncwilly's the best - in one single, compact image it embodies the visual image of a crank, the loony way-outside-the-box thinking^* that characterizes most crankery, as well as the gah!-where-did-this-clown-pop-up-from? reaction that is often the result. :TU:



^* - I use the term "thinking" *very* loosely here.

[Mini-Geek]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

So far, I like Uncwilly's the best - in one single, compact image it embodies the visual image of a crank, the loony way-outside-the-box thinking^* that characterizes most crankery, as well as the gah!-where-did-this-clown-pop-up-from? reaction that is often the result. :TU:



^* - I use the term "thinking" *very* loosely here.

Yeah, I agree. :TU:

[akruppa]

My pic came up in a GIS for "crank pump" so I figured it was a crank of some sort...

But yeah, Uncwilly's Jack-in-the-Box looks like a winner to me, too!

Alex

[Patrick123]

Uncwilly's is a winner. Here's an animated one.

Regards
Patrick

[Mini-Geek]

Originally Posted by Patrick123

Uncwilly's is a winner. Here's an animated one.

Regards
Patrick

Personally, I prefer Uncwilly's. It just looks...cookier, like all of our cranks.

[Patrick123]

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

Personally, I prefer Uncwilly's. It just looks...cookier, like all of our cranks.

I agree wholeheartedly, their spewing provides all the imagination/animation we need.

[Xyzzy]

[Mini-Geek]

Yay a crank emoticon!
Am I correct in thinking it is named after http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wegener?

[Xyzzy]

No, it is named after Kapitänleutnant Wegener:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baralong_Incident

[ewmayer]

Like the new emoticon, but gotta disagree with the choice of the name - Wegener may have been wrong about the mechanisms of plate tectonics and considered a crank by the stuffy static-earthists among his contemporaries, but I say, if history proves you (mostly) right, you're not a crank. Anyway, Lord Kelvin was wrong about the machanisms of solar and inner-planetary heat generation and as a result concluded that the earth was very young - do we call him a crank? He certainly deserves the appellation as far as his geological musings are concerned, as these bear all the hallmarks of classic crankery: letting one's non-scientific biases (in his case, religion) blind one to all the ninconveniently contradictory facts, speaking ex cathedra on subjects in which one is not a world expert (i.e. geology in Kelvin's case), etc. And Kelvin was the most dangerous kind of crank: because he was so well-respected for his work in other areas, he was able to use that and his official status as a highly effective (if you call stifling fruitful discussion "effective", that is) bully pulpit for his young-earth hypothesis, and as a result quite possibly set back progress in the area in question by decades.

So if you must name the emoticon after a famous scientist, :kelvin: deserves it more than poor Wegener - at least Kelvin didn't live long enough to have to endure the derision he so richly earned due to his geological/theological crankery. Wegener, on the other hand, was widely derided in the last decades of his life and never got to see his theory vindicated. Please let's have a little respect.

Also a practical suggestion by way of emoticon naming: I know it's fun to be all cute and inside-jokey, but for the purpose of making the emoticon more easily usable (especially for those amongst us who prefer working in text-only mode, i.e. no clickable emoticons), can we please just call it ?

[Xyzzy]