<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span id="m_7469072325350065713m_8412911097986615988gmail-m_-3720897446248331892gmail-docs-internal-guid-5e504d95-7fff-a359-f795-5b97c79e365c"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">To All Students, Sentient AI or Otherwise:</span></span><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span id="m_7469072325350065713m_8412911097986615988gmail-m_-3720897446248331892gmail-docs-internal-guid-f1079b56-7fff-dca0-33bc-e5c4a125321e"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Do you like non-serious research? What about furniture such as <span>chairs</span>? Choosing and “earning” the honorific/title of your dreams? PCs and/or Macs? Do we have a PC (program committee) for you! <span>SIGBOVIK</span> is recruiting various <span>chairs</span> for the 2022 year! Unlike other years, we are also recruiting the illustrious SIGBOVIK <b>general chair </b>through this email. Like other years, the main job of the <b>general chair</b> is sending this email (so maybe you can send it again if you end up being the <b>general chair</b>). Consider the fantastic benefits you would receive:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">But first, let me sell you on being the <b>general chair</b> of SIGBOVIK, which is, above all, the chair that we currently need occupied the most:</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">Probably the most compelling reason to become the </span><b style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">general chair</b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> of SIGBOVIK is that you can claim that </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">satirical, seriously-executed research</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> is your "thing". This has a myriad of benefits. For example, imagine that you have recently submitted the results of your last year of work to a conference, and the reviewers say that your paper is "awful" or "bad", possibly in other terms—in most circumstances, for most researchers, this would make you feel </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">bad.</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> But as a </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">satirical researcher</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">, you know that your work isn't "bad", it's just that they didn't </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">get it.</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> The work was </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">satire.</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> They don't </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">understand</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> that your work is not </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">serious</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">, it's just </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">seriously-executed, </i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">and </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">seriously-executed</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> to be a valuable </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">critique</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> of the sort of research often done in that particular field. As the </span><b style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">general chair</b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> of SIGBOVIK, you can say: look, maybe my research is a </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">joke</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">, but that was </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">the point</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">. I even ran a </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">joke conference, </i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">I wrote the </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">joke</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> foreword to the</span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> serious</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> proceedings and emceed it on Twitch. Whether or not your research is well-received, you can always come up with a post-hoc explanation that it was actually </span><i style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">satire.</i><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> And this makes you feel better, the unappreciated comedic genius that you are.</span><br></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Obviously nobody would take your "satire" claim seriously without this credential, <i>i.e.</i>, having been the <b>general chair</b> of SIGBOVIK.</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">With the pros [0] about the<i> </i><b>general chair</b> out of the way (there are no cons), here are more general (!) pros and cons applicable to the other types of chairs:</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Pros:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"></p><ul><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:11pt;white-space:pre-wrap">Goes great on CVs</span><br></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:11pt;white-space:pre-wrap">Goes great on RCS, git, or whatever other system you prefer instead</span><br></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:11pt;white-space:pre-wrap">Comes with a free contractual obligation to only say nice things about Harry Q. Bovik in perpetuity</span><br></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:11pt;white-space:pre-wrap">People will understand when you miss that paper deadline you were targeting</span><br></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:11pt;white-space:pre-wrap">May be considered "departmental service"</span></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:11pt;white-space:pre-wrap">Sense of responsibility and belonging</span></li></ul><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Cons:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"></p><ul><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:11pt;white-space:pre-wrap">Everyone will expect you to have a great sense of humor</span><br></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:11pt;white-space:pre-wrap">Everyone will think you are (part of?) a joke</span><br></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:11pt;white-space:pre-wrap">Sense of responsibility and belonging</span><br></li></ul><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Other than the <b>general chair</b>, we are currently recruiting the following <span>chairs</span>. To apply (including to be the <b>general chair</b>), simply send us an email with your name and qualifications (NFT and/or pictures of cash bribes optional).</span></p><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span><br></span></div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"><b>General Chair</b></span><b> </b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">— Sits on all the credit for the conference when in reality other people set up most of the things</span><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:11pt;white-space:pre-wrap">Tweet Chair — Sits on the keyboard making comical commentary in 280 characters or less</span><br></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Art Chair </span><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">— Sits on the cover of the SIGBOVIK proceedings</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Website Chair — Sits on the web and corrects all of the links that incorrectly point to the previous year</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Awards Chair — Sits on the beautifully-designed awards, refusing to give them out (experience with clipart a bonus!)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Conference Chair — Sits on the online conference platform of their choice and dictates the order of talks/comedic interludes</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Moderation Chair — Sits on the in-conference chat and rules it with a (moderately) iron fist</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:11pt;white-space:pre-wrap">Endowed Chair in Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film — Sits on some other PC</span><br></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">Note: the </span><b style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">general chair</b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap"> generally has to also serve as the chairs that were not found.</span><span> </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">We are also happy to explore the cutting edge of new furniture if you </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:700;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">saw</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> this and thought of some other way you could contribute.</span><br></p></span><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span id="m_7469072325350065713m_8412911097986615988gmail-m_-3720897446248331892gmail-docs-internal-guid-75a3a90c-7fff-6b0c-98eb-952ba809e6ef"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Further disinformation is available on our website:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><a href="http://sigbovik.org" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-skip:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">http://<span>sigbovik</span>.org</span></a></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">To keep up with our announcements, subscribe to our low-traffic mailing list:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><a href="https://lists.andrew.cmu.edu/mailman/listinfo/sigbovik-announce" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-skip:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://lists.andrew.cmu.edu/mailman/listinfo/<span>sigbovik</span>-announce</span></a></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">If you have no idea what’s going on:</span></p><br><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><span>SIGBOVIK</span> is an evening of tongue-in-cheek academic presentations. If we have a goal, it’s to poke fun at our fields and provide a venue for silly ideas with (often but not always) serious executions. <span>SIGBOVIK</span> has both a published proceedings and live talks, and everyone is welcome to participate in either or both of these. All subjects are welcome, although be advised that the primary audience is computer scientists. The best way to get a feel for <span>SIGBOVIK</span> is to look at our past proceedings, which you can find at </span><a href="http://sigbovik.org/" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-skip:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">http://<span>sigbovik</span>.org</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">[0] i.e., </span><i style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">prose</i><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial;font-size:14.666666984558105px;white-space:pre-wrap">, ha! No wonder they let me write this email again.</span><span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></span></div></div>