Frequently Asked Questions

It is actually pretty easy to join. According to Article III, you basically have to:

• Write a membership application
• Create a research proposal
• Get it approved by the Membership Committee
• Do your research
• Do a public demonstration
• Get it approved by the whole group
• Get invested

It is easy to create a research proposal; we have never refused one. One memorable proposal consisted of one page of notebook paper, riddled with holes and scribblings.

GmPL stands for Grandmaster of Perpendicular Logic, our main degree. The other degree we offer is the honorary Associate of the Pecular Letters (APL).

D.r. stands for Demented representative. It looks like "Dr.", but we use the first period to distinguish it from people who have actually earned degrees. Members often refer to each other as "Doctor," however.

The variety of what we do is rather wide, but it tends to the hard sciences. Members have done research in High Voltage, Fermi Mathematics (for example, calculating the world's annual production of snot), sociology, computer networking, logic, and others. In general, we try to do off the wall things that causes most people to think we are a bit strange. Hence the Perpendicular Logic -- logic off the mainstream.

Why not? In reality, the Insitute has become a parody of academic institutions and think tanks in general. We have departments, heads of departments, investitures, etc. Instead of academic gowns, we use togas. Instead of the ceremonial mace, we use a 15 000 volt transformer. People are thumped on the head with Vol. 1 of Newton's Principa (in Latin) while the Director chants the monk's theme from Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail. Some people do it as resume stuffing (although I don't think this will appear on my resume...), but the majority do it just to be weird. Yes, weirdness is a running theme in the Institute.