I'm in the middle of a market research survey that's asking me a whole bunch of questions about how much invasion of my privacy I'm willing to tolerate in order to receive more "relevant" adverts. The questions are all multiple choice, as usual, so let me spell it out for them here:
An advert is irrelevant BY DEFINITION. That's why you have to pay money to show it to me.
Are we clear now? Yes? Good.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Dispatches from Marketer World: Part 4— Tablets
Tablet PCs. Those things that are like laptops but don't have a keyboard or a proper operating system or any proper applications— just limited cut-down stuff they have to call "apps" for legal reasons. Or maybe they're mobiles you can't actually make calls on. They have some use, but you could invariably buy a laptop that does all of the same things as a tablet and more, but is also cheaper. Unless, of course, you get a knockoff tablet like the Shenzhen Haina Haipad, which barely works. I've mentioned tablets before (scroll down), and NO, I didn't sacrifice my principles at the same alter as when I bought the smartphone.
Apparently tablet PCs are all the rage among the easily swayed, to the point that they've effectively cannibalised the netbook market, although admittedly that's only because Apple doesn't make a netbook and people will rush out to buy anything Apple makes because they're mad.
Well apparently, as of the market research survey I took the other day, tablets are now something marketers simply assume that you own. In exchange for enough money to buy a tank of petrol for my three-inch-long model car, I provided my opinions on various brands (and it's always brands, innit) of electronic and whether I owned them and whether I'd consider buying them and similar drivel.
In this survey, it was simply assumed that I owned a tablet, and that I would buy another tablet when it broke or got stolen or couldn't run the latest update to "Where's the Rope's Angry Fruit" or a marketer told me it was obsolete or out of fashion or whatever.
They made a point of asking me whether I'd heard of Samsung and Motorola, in case I lived on the moon and wasn't at least familiar with the existence of major multinational corporations with advertising budgets bigger than the GDP of Namibia, but that I owned a tablet was simply assumed since even people who live on the moon own tablets because it's required by law.
Maybe it's because the names "Samsung" and "Motorola" are brands and marketers' obsession with brands makes them perpetually anxious that you won't have heard of theirs or won't emotionally connect with theirs, while the idea that you may not want their product because it's useless and expensive and the label has nothing to do with it never crosses their minds.
So yes. In marketer world, that you own an entirely redundant wad of electronics is simply assumed, but that you're at least dimly aware of the existence of Samsung and Motorola must be carefully ascertained because many people have never heard of massive multinational Japanese and Indian tech companies respectively. (That's what those are, right?)
At this point, clever people will have noticed that in the first paragraph I referred to a sacrificial location as an "alter" and, being clever, they got the joke in that I was sacrificing my principles and thus "altering" them. If you are observant but not clever, and thus noticed the "incorrect" term but didn't understand why it was used, then please refrain from commenting. It will only embarrass us both.
Apparently tablet PCs are all the rage among the easily swayed, to the point that they've effectively cannibalised the netbook market, although admittedly that's only because Apple doesn't make a netbook and people will rush out to buy anything Apple makes because they're mad.
Well apparently, as of the market research survey I took the other day, tablets are now something marketers simply assume that you own. In exchange for enough money to buy a tank of petrol for my three-inch-long model car, I provided my opinions on various brands (and it's always brands, innit) of electronic and whether I owned them and whether I'd consider buying them and similar drivel.
In this survey, it was simply assumed that I owned a tablet, and that I would buy another tablet when it broke or got stolen or couldn't run the latest update to "Where's the Rope's Angry Fruit" or a marketer told me it was obsolete or out of fashion or whatever.
They made a point of asking me whether I'd heard of Samsung and Motorola, in case I lived on the moon and wasn't at least familiar with the existence of major multinational corporations with advertising budgets bigger than the GDP of Namibia, but that I owned a tablet was simply assumed since even people who live on the moon own tablets because it's required by law.
Maybe it's because the names "Samsung" and "Motorola" are brands and marketers' obsession with brands makes them perpetually anxious that you won't have heard of theirs or won't emotionally connect with theirs, while the idea that you may not want their product because it's useless and expensive and the label has nothing to do with it never crosses their minds.
So yes. In marketer world, that you own an entirely redundant wad of electronics is simply assumed, but that you're at least dimly aware of the existence of Samsung and Motorola must be carefully ascertained because many people have never heard of massive multinational Japanese and Indian tech companies respectively. (That's what those are, right?)
At this point, clever people will have noticed that in the first paragraph I referred to a sacrificial location as an "alter" and, being clever, they got the joke in that I was sacrificing my principles and thus "altering" them. If you are observant but not clever, and thus noticed the "incorrect" term but didn't understand why it was used, then please refrain from commenting. It will only embarrass us both.
Friday, September 6, 2013
My Media Habits (Part 1.5): Bromine Eaking Barium D
The show "Breaking Bad" spells its name with the periodic table squares for bromine and barium, so I cannot possibly be blamed for pronouncing the full name of the two elements involved.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
"Special Offers?"
I recently learned that popular online retailer Amazon sells a version of their kindle e-reader, quote, "with special offers." Basically, what this means is for $20 cheaper, you can get a kindle with ads in it.
I am of the opinion that you can either put adverts in something or you can charge money for it, but never both (unless the money charged is clearly less than the actual value). Whether or not putting up with ads is worth USD $20 is up to you, but I suppose this qualifies as not an abuse of advertising privileges, since the ad-supported one is genuinely cheaper.
That said, referring to ads as "special offers" is a flagrant mutilation of the English language that should be punishable by three months in a prison referred to as an "enlightenment facility." It's a common euphemism that seems to be part of marketer-speak along with referring to companies as "brands," but it drives me several varieties of nuts, including, but not limited to, macadamia, wal, and almond.
Curiously, the cheaper version of the kindle with, *cough*, "special offers," is only available on the American version of Amazon. On amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk, they only have the regular ad-free kindle at $139 and £109 respectively. Apparently, America is the only country that tolerates that sort of shit. However, the British do tolerate higher prices, as their kindle costs the equivalent of CAD $178.
Also curiously, in the splash page for the kindle on American Amazon, the kindle in the picture is displaying a page from The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, while in the splash page on Canadian Amazon, the picture shows Above All Things by Tanis Rideout, and in British Amazon, the picture shows The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. My best guess was that they tried to customise each splash page with an author from that country but they had never heard of any American writers.
I am of the opinion that you can either put adverts in something or you can charge money for it, but never both (unless the money charged is clearly less than the actual value). Whether or not putting up with ads is worth USD $20 is up to you, but I suppose this qualifies as not an abuse of advertising privileges, since the ad-supported one is genuinely cheaper.
That said, referring to ads as "special offers" is a flagrant mutilation of the English language that should be punishable by three months in a prison referred to as an "enlightenment facility." It's a common euphemism that seems to be part of marketer-speak along with referring to companies as "brands," but it drives me several varieties of nuts, including, but not limited to, macadamia, wal, and almond.
Curiously, the cheaper version of the kindle with, *cough*, "special offers," is only available on the American version of Amazon. On amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk, they only have the regular ad-free kindle at $139 and £109 respectively. Apparently, America is the only country that tolerates that sort of shit. However, the British do tolerate higher prices, as their kindle costs the equivalent of CAD $178.
Also curiously, in the splash page for the kindle on American Amazon, the kindle in the picture is displaying a page from The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, while in the splash page on Canadian Amazon, the picture shows Above All Things by Tanis Rideout, and in British Amazon, the picture shows The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. My best guess was that they tried to customise each splash page with an author from that country but they had never heard of any American writers.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Can Flickr Stop Being Owned By Yahoo?
I am officially locked out of my flickr account. The reason for this is because, while I remember my Flickr ID, this is not sufficient to log in. This is because Flickr is owned by Yahoo, a wannabe internet service company with delusions of Google, and for reasons that probably make a lot of sense to their executives, Flickr is now "integrated" into Yahoo systems such that I require not a Flickr ID for login, but a Yahoo ID. This is a problem because I haven't the foggiest idea what my Yahoo ID is.
When I signed up for flickr, they demanded I also sign up for Yahoo mail and a bunch of other crap I don't need, so I signed up for a Yahoo address and gave them one of my spamtraps as an alternate. At some point, I deleted the Yahoo account and the alternate gmail address, assuming my Flickr account would die too, but it didn't. The next time I went to Flickr, my account was still active, and I was prompted to sign up for a new Yahoo ID to get back into it.
So I did. But I don't remember what it was. And I can't delete the old account either, because I can't get back into it.
This is why non-retarded people don't insist on "linking" shit or trying to foist unwanted crap upon people. But then, the idea of forcing me to sign up for a Yahoo account before letting me onto Flickr was probably thought up by a marketer, and marketers aren't even human.
Vital stats:
Flickr: Pants
Date: Today
Current Mood: Annoyed
Sleep Status: Yes
Word of the Day: Standard
Photos: Limbo
Yahoo: No
Google: 10100
Googol: Oh, right, see above.
Picasa: Also rubbish.
Photobucket: Copyright thieves.
My Website: Down
Host: Not invoked.
Photos: Wonderful, according to 100% of not-banned commenters.
Commenters: Umm...
...you wanna sign this petition, my bromide?
When I signed up for flickr, they demanded I also sign up for Yahoo mail and a bunch of other crap I don't need, so I signed up for a Yahoo address and gave them one of my spamtraps as an alternate. At some point, I deleted the Yahoo account and the alternate gmail address, assuming my Flickr account would die too, but it didn't. The next time I went to Flickr, my account was still active, and I was prompted to sign up for a new Yahoo ID to get back into it.
So I did. But I don't remember what it was. And I can't delete the old account either, because I can't get back into it.
This is why non-retarded people don't insist on "linking" shit or trying to foist unwanted crap upon people. But then, the idea of forcing me to sign up for a Yahoo account before letting me onto Flickr was probably thought up by a marketer, and marketers aren't even human.
Vital stats:
Flickr: Pants
Date: Today
Current Mood: Annoyed
Sleep Status: Yes
Word of the Day: Standard
Photos: Limbo
Yahoo: No
Google: 10100
Googol: Oh, right, see above.
Picasa: Also rubbish.
Photobucket: Copyright thieves.
My Website: Down
Host: Not invoked.
Photos: Wonderful, according to 100% of not-banned commenters.
Commenters: Umm...
...you wanna sign this petition, my bromide?
Friday, August 30, 2013
The Universe Is Too Big
I've been of the opinion that anyone who can look at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field and not see the need for space travel is a terminally boring person, and recently the ALMA radio telescope captured a star being born. It's wonderfully amazing stuff, but it carries with it a set of petty problems: The universe is just too big.
We're all clinging to the outer shell of a pebble floating in a void so huge it might as well be infinite. We can't see the ends of it, because light itself takes billions of years to cross such distances. We can try to understand it, incrementally, one faltering step at a time, but we will never have anything close to a complete understanding of its intricacies.
And when it comes to even contemplating the universe, we run headlong into a major obstacle. Our brains are very good at understanding other people. We can read intent and emotion from subtle gestures; figure out what a person will do from their posture; even figure out what people thousands of years ago may have intended and done from the artifacts they left behind. That's what our brains do, and that's what our brains are good at; we are society-forming by nature, and so evolution has selected for brains that are well-suited to living and coping in a society. The problem is, the universe shows no indication of being manmade, and so understanding it is firmly outside our brains' area of expertise.
Yet my brain is all I have to think with. I'm trying to contemplate the universe with a tool made for fitting into society. Brains are wonderfully plastic things, and so I can freely contemplate the universe with it; people can study the universe, measure the universe, learn about the universe, and share that knowledge with future generations, but fundamentally, that's just not what our brains are "meant" to do. The scientific method, with its constant tests and retests, is fundamentally a workaround for the fact that our brains are wired to make all the wrong assumptions. Double-blinding compensates for confirmation bias; repetition of results accommodates for our innate failure to guess probability; peer review compensates for our tendency to favour pet ideas and dogmas even in the face of contrary evidence.
So when I try to think about things bigger than everyday life, I find myself overwhelmed in a manner hard to replicate elsewhere. I'm trying to understand something far too big to be understood; to impose purpose for no other reason than my brain is built to read purpose. The universe defies my understanding, and what little we do know about it just makes what we don't that much more intriguing. I suppose in a sense, the universe is literally awesome.
I suppose, though, that a post on the wonder of the universe would be incomplete without mentioning religion, if only because some knob is going to comment on their pet faith so I might as well head that off as long as I'm typing. As I said before, our brains are adapted to read and understand people, but the universe shows no evidence of being manmade. Religion is the failure to recognise that fact. Religion is the assumption that because your brain is adapted to understand manmade things, the universe must be manmade, because you have a hammer so that something may not be a nail is simply inconceivable. This is why the vast multitude of religions, though they agree on very little, all seem to reach the conclusion that the universe was made by humans (for an expanded definition of "human" at any rate).
That's not to say religious people are stupid; in fact, religion is probably the perfect culmination of our brains' inherent faults. Religion assigns the entire universe to the category of "manmade things," which exploits our desire to do what we're good at, and our natural tendency to anthropomorphise, while entrenching itself with confirmation bias, and our tendency to cling to pet ideas, as well as our natural societal instincts to follow authority and follow the group. Religion is the dust that collects on the white decor inside our heads, or the fingerprints that collect on the polished black surfaces.
Religion is also an arrogant declaration that the entirety of existence is limited to what we, personally, are good at doing and a fundamental failure to understand and compensate for the inherent flaws in our brains. Religion is the dogged insistence that you are the be all and end all of existence itself; the center of the universe, whose personal flaws and foibles dictate what is possible or impossible. An infant believes an object disappears if he stops looking at it, and an infant species believes that a thing is impossible because they have trouble understanding it. Religion is a phase that we as a species are just starting to grow out of, and any comments claiming otherwise will be summarily deleted.
We're all clinging to the outer shell of a pebble floating in a void so huge it might as well be infinite. We can't see the ends of it, because light itself takes billions of years to cross such distances. We can try to understand it, incrementally, one faltering step at a time, but we will never have anything close to a complete understanding of its intricacies.
And when it comes to even contemplating the universe, we run headlong into a major obstacle. Our brains are very good at understanding other people. We can read intent and emotion from subtle gestures; figure out what a person will do from their posture; even figure out what people thousands of years ago may have intended and done from the artifacts they left behind. That's what our brains do, and that's what our brains are good at; we are society-forming by nature, and so evolution has selected for brains that are well-suited to living and coping in a society. The problem is, the universe shows no indication of being manmade, and so understanding it is firmly outside our brains' area of expertise.
Yet my brain is all I have to think with. I'm trying to contemplate the universe with a tool made for fitting into society. Brains are wonderfully plastic things, and so I can freely contemplate the universe with it; people can study the universe, measure the universe, learn about the universe, and share that knowledge with future generations, but fundamentally, that's just not what our brains are "meant" to do. The scientific method, with its constant tests and retests, is fundamentally a workaround for the fact that our brains are wired to make all the wrong assumptions. Double-blinding compensates for confirmation bias; repetition of results accommodates for our innate failure to guess probability; peer review compensates for our tendency to favour pet ideas and dogmas even in the face of contrary evidence.
So when I try to think about things bigger than everyday life, I find myself overwhelmed in a manner hard to replicate elsewhere. I'm trying to understand something far too big to be understood; to impose purpose for no other reason than my brain is built to read purpose. The universe defies my understanding, and what little we do know about it just makes what we don't that much more intriguing. I suppose in a sense, the universe is literally awesome.
I suppose, though, that a post on the wonder of the universe would be incomplete without mentioning religion, if only because some knob is going to comment on their pet faith so I might as well head that off as long as I'm typing. As I said before, our brains are adapted to read and understand people, but the universe shows no evidence of being manmade. Religion is the failure to recognise that fact. Religion is the assumption that because your brain is adapted to understand manmade things, the universe must be manmade, because you have a hammer so that something may not be a nail is simply inconceivable. This is why the vast multitude of religions, though they agree on very little, all seem to reach the conclusion that the universe was made by humans (for an expanded definition of "human" at any rate).
That's not to say religious people are stupid; in fact, religion is probably the perfect culmination of our brains' inherent faults. Religion assigns the entire universe to the category of "manmade things," which exploits our desire to do what we're good at, and our natural tendency to anthropomorphise, while entrenching itself with confirmation bias, and our tendency to cling to pet ideas, as well as our natural societal instincts to follow authority and follow the group. Religion is the dust that collects on the white decor inside our heads, or the fingerprints that collect on the polished black surfaces.
Religion is also an arrogant declaration that the entirety of existence is limited to what we, personally, are good at doing and a fundamental failure to understand and compensate for the inherent flaws in our brains. Religion is the dogged insistence that you are the be all and end all of existence itself; the center of the universe, whose personal flaws and foibles dictate what is possible or impossible. An infant believes an object disappears if he stops looking at it, and an infant species believes that a thing is impossible because they have trouble understanding it. Religion is a phase that we as a species are just starting to grow out of, and any comments claiming otherwise will be summarily deleted.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Expanded Human
Having posted on politics and religion, it's now time to complete the trifecta of topics that inflame fanboys by posting on a trope that I feel should be on TVTropes (if it isn't already there under another name) but I'm too lazy to write out and consolidate examples of.
Specifically, the Expanded Human or expanded definition of "human."
Any character in any work of fiction that is officially declared to be non-human but who looks and acts human in all the ways that matter is an expanded human, so I guess the TVTropes-friendly definition would be any character who has non-humanness as an Informed Attribute, but unlike Human Aliens, their resemblance to humanity is never acknowledged, or its implications are buried, or the audience is ostensibly expected to file it under suspension of disbelief, along with why the alien planet resembles the lot behind the studio or a rock quarry they got permission to film in.
For visual media, any character that is portrayed by a human actor without CGI is human, expanded or otherwise.
Likewise, any character that could have been portrayed by a human actor without CGI is human, expanded or otherwise, even if they were actually created entirely with CGI.
This particular trope is pernicious because even if you accept that aliens/gods/etc just happen to look human into suspension of disbelief and decide they're "supposed to be" different (but the budget didn't allow it or something), there are subtle effects that linger. For example, the basic premise of humans locked in a struggle to preserve/defend/build their society against alien interlopers has basically been done to death at this point, but in an example used above (namely, Avatar), the formula is turned upside down with humans declared the bad guys— and the only reason it works is because the "aliens" are clearly and unambiguously human. Swap them out for the aliens from, say, Alien, or Independence Day and suddenly the human society desperate for Unobtainium (yes, they actually called it that) doesn't seem so bad.
And then of course, there's all the hot romance with Green Skinned Space Babes that would be really disgusting except for the fact that the "aliens" are clearly and unambiguously human. Seriously, this is annoying. Would you be romantically interested in this? No? That's your closest evolutionary relative. That's not even this (which is at least a placental mammal), let alone this, (which is still a mammal), let alone this, (which is still a vertebrate). An actual alien is less related to you than THIS, (at least you share common descent). Yet more works than I can name include an alien love interest (it is, after all, a trope of its own) and no matter how committed one is to suspension of disbelief this leaves no other option than that the "alien" is, in fact, a bona fide human and is supposed to be that way. (Well, you don't have to assume it, but the alternative is unpleasant.)
And while this should get an entry of its own under LTTBM, it just bugs me when an EH character's non-humanness is stated, invoked, held up, or used to justify things narratively when the character never actually does anything that seems the slightest bit non-human. I suppose The Doctor from Doctor Who is one of the more prominent example of this, but Doctor Who gets a free pass on many things that bug me because it's So Bad It's Good; cheesy tropes and a budget of £10 per episode are what makes it what it is so the fact that the Time Lords are all clearly human fits right in perfectly. If Doctor Who suddenly developed a bigger budget and used CGI, however, than the humanness of approximately all the aliens with speaking parts would bug me quite a bit. Thankfully, the show was cancelled in 1989, so that'll clearly never happen.
So remember, no matter what planet he's supposed to come from, Superman is fully human, even if his weakness is krypton. (They do know krypton is a noble gas, right? Never mind.)
Specifically, the Expanded Human or expanded definition of "human."
Any character in any work of fiction that is officially declared to be non-human but who looks and acts human in all the ways that matter is an expanded human, so I guess the TVTropes-friendly definition would be any character who has non-humanness as an Informed Attribute, but unlike Human Aliens, their resemblance to humanity is never acknowledged, or its implications are buried, or the audience is ostensibly expected to file it under suspension of disbelief, along with why the alien planet resembles the lot behind the studio or a rock quarry they got permission to film in.
For visual media, any character that is portrayed by a human actor without CGI is human, expanded or otherwise.
Likewise, any character that could have been portrayed by a human actor without CGI is human, expanded or otherwise, even if they were actually created entirely with CGI.
This particular trope is pernicious because even if you accept that aliens/gods/etc just happen to look human into suspension of disbelief and decide they're "supposed to be" different (but the budget didn't allow it or something), there are subtle effects that linger. For example, the basic premise of humans locked in a struggle to preserve/defend/build their society against alien interlopers has basically been done to death at this point, but in an example used above (namely, Avatar), the formula is turned upside down with humans declared the bad guys— and the only reason it works is because the "aliens" are clearly and unambiguously human. Swap them out for the aliens from, say, Alien, or Independence Day and suddenly the human society desperate for Unobtainium (yes, they actually called it that) doesn't seem so bad.
And then of course, there's all the hot romance with Green Skinned Space Babes that would be really disgusting except for the fact that the "aliens" are clearly and unambiguously human. Seriously, this is annoying. Would you be romantically interested in this? No? That's your closest evolutionary relative. That's not even this (which is at least a placental mammal), let alone this, (which is still a mammal), let alone this, (which is still a vertebrate). An actual alien is less related to you than THIS, (at least you share common descent). Yet more works than I can name include an alien love interest (it is, after all, a trope of its own) and no matter how committed one is to suspension of disbelief this leaves no other option than that the "alien" is, in fact, a bona fide human and is supposed to be that way. (Well, you don't have to assume it, but the alternative is unpleasant.)
And while this should get an entry of its own under LTTBM, it just bugs me when an EH character's non-humanness is stated, invoked, held up, or used to justify things narratively when the character never actually does anything that seems the slightest bit non-human. I suppose The Doctor from Doctor Who is one of the more prominent example of this, but Doctor Who gets a free pass on many things that bug me because it's So Bad It's Good; cheesy tropes and a budget of £10 per episode are what makes it what it is so the fact that the Time Lords are all clearly human fits right in perfectly. If Doctor Who suddenly developed a bigger budget and used CGI, however, than the humanness of approximately all the aliens with speaking parts would bug me quite a bit. Thankfully, the show was cancelled in 1989, so that'll clearly never happen.
So remember, no matter what planet he's supposed to come from, Superman is fully human, even if his weakness is krypton. (They do know krypton is a noble gas, right? Never mind.)
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