Make Them Laugh

Scott Aaronson has a great post about humor in scientific talks:

Essentials of complexity-theoretic stand-up comedy

Here's a very short excerpt:

But because I love you, my readers, so deeply, and because I feel guilty about abandoning you for so long, I shall now publicly deconstruct the main ingredients of seminar humor, insofar as I’ve been able to find them. (A few ingredients are specific to theoretical computer science, but most are more general.)

1. Make fun of people in the audience. (Of course, you have to do it in such a way that they’re flattered you’re ripping them and not someone else.)

Good stuff, if you are a geeky science type. Go read the whole thing at Shtetl-Optimized.