Vote for the best Halloween candies, for science

I see your salmiak and raise you with horehound:
image

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Absolute genius, of course. I think I’m going to mash a bunch of candy corn together into a bar today!

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Sadly missing are the tantalizing homemade paragons of the pre-paranoia era: candied apples, Rice Krispy treats, caramel apples, popcorn balls. Even Crackerjacks don’t appear on the list anymore.

Back in the ‘golden age’, the sheer bulk of these treasures along with full size candy bars used to more than half-fill the preferred sack at the time – a pillowcase.

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Wow, that’s the coolest thing ever.

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Thanks for participating! We’ve had a great response in the first 10 hours (already >900 responses), but very biased towards folks who picked the “science” articles. Would be awesome if you could share with others just to beef up numbers of the other categories. Also, it would be AWESOME if more kids filled it out. Game on! Dave

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Come to my house and you’ll get whiskey.

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Come on, wax lips!

Oh, yes.

Either option seems inexplicable, but I suppose the first brings to mind poo with undigested corn in it, so it was a non-starter…

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So, a bunch of candy corn walk together into a bar and asked to get mashed.
The bartender says “Hmm, don’t you mean ‘smashed’?”
The candy corns say “No, we mean ‘mashed’.”
The bartender says “Oh! Well, you can get smashed here, but the mash is back at the distillery.”


Best that occurred to me on short notice, and trying to connect to the liquor aspect of other comments here…


I’m always intrigued by things like whether people say “smash” or “mash” :slight_smile:

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As my daughter once observed…

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Sadly handing out home made treats these days tends to get one a visit from “concerned” citizens and authorities.

Thanks to moral panics about razor blades in apples and poisoned candy.

The few known cases of such things tend to be parents or family members attempting to, or accidentally, harming kids. Or completely unrelated deaths and injuries.

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Last year, only 0.5 % under the age of 15 voted and only 11% went trick or treating. I suspect voter suppression.

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Hmmm… it sounds silly, but this makes me very uncomfortable because it is probably a violation of Canadian ethical human subjects use guidelines and regulations. For Dr. Ng, who is involved in science literacy, this is just sloppy, as he should know better and should recognize he is violating scientific norms and probably regulations. Some examples:

  • Although it has an informed consent statement, it doesn’t give contact information.
  • The consent form lies to you. It says that it is not intended for research purposes, but then says the data will be published (just because boingboing is not at an official ‘science journal’ doesn’t mean it doesn’t count as being published. A blog post is a publication). This probably means it IS for research purposes. The investigator usually cannot make this determination on their own–it is one that the IRB must make as part of seeking approval.
  • Asserting that the data will be posted is also troublesome, because this is also publication. Posting the data is exploiting a ‘non-research/research’ loophole that facebook and researchers at Cornell got called out for a couple years ago. That incident is in textbooks now. Essentially, I can do a study that is ethically questionable outside the university, then post the data to the public or give it to university researchers, and let my ‘collaborators’ inside the university use it because it is technically no longer human data. Plus, there are examples in public data sets where a huge proportion of individual responses are actually identifiable. What steps are being taken to insure anonymity?
  • Then there are parts of it that really seem to be for research purposes, like the dress color question, and it even says ‘This next section is for scientific purposes. Seriously.’. This is inconsistent with the consent statement.

This all would be fine if hosted via google or surveymonkey for BoingBoing, or by CAGNA, the Candy Growers of North America lobbying group, but the fact that UBC researchers are involved and are hosting it means they need to follow their policies, and this probably doesn’t. This is only mildly onerous–it would probably require some training (which would highlight the problems with this) and make a submission to the local IRB who would probably complain about the same things i am complaining about here; make them change font sizes or something, and then approve it as exempted from further review.

Signed
Prof. Jack Skellington
Institutional Review Board Chair
Christmastown Institute of Technology

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Oh, the humanity! Yet again this so-called “survey” neglects to include Peanut Butter M&Ms. Those candy encrusted, chocolate smothered pebbles of en-pasted umami-leguminous goodness. Why? WHYYYYY?

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:flushed:

Damn! Someone beat me to horehound. I ADORE horehound drops. But they’re hard to find.

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Well, kids have certainly been gerrymandered out of my public housing apartment complex for the aged…

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NiPQKZk

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Hey there, Thanks for pointing out some of the elements that are making you uncomfortable. In truth, we’re using fluid surveys because we found it just a better survey format (especially on mobile platforms), and hence the decision to switch over from google (which we’ve used in previous years). The service is available to us at UBC for a variety of purposes which do include proper research (with IRB approvals - something my lab does do for formal research purposes), but folks also use it as a general feedback tool, or even as a platform for people to apply/sign up to events, etc - especially from our students since this way all data is kept on Canadian servers (and in that sense is more secure from US access policies). I guess this means that the UBC presence can make things look a lot more formal than they might be.

In any event, I appreciate your suggestions (and I’m going to add my contact email right now), and I’ll definitely look into it more closely. I’m pretty sure we’re good to go given the context of what we do with the responses (for a satirical piece on BoingBoing), but you’re right - it’s always best to be as careful as possible!

Cheers, Dave

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Pay no attention to the naysayers… I have enjoyed taking this survey every year it has been posted. Thanks for making the world a happier place. You are a true happy mutant sir and we thank you for amusing the world a little bit.
And Welcome to BoingBoing!

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Have you…had salmiak? I like horehound but salmiak is like the Scott Walker* of candies.

*(Edit: the musician, not the horrible governor of Wisconsin)

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