etbe - Russell Coker

Raw Satire Usually Fails on the Internet

etbe — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:16:20 +0000

Sarcasm and satire usually don’t work on the Internet. One cause of this is the lack of out of band signalling via facial expression or tone of voice. Another issue is the fact that in real life people usually know something about the person who they listen to while on the Internet it’s most common to read articles without knowing much about the author. So the reader can’t use “I know that the author isn’t an asshole” as a starting point to determine whether a message should be interpreted literally.

This is really nothing new. The standard in printed communication for a long time has been to use Emoticons (Wikipedia) to indicate emotion and other interpretation that might not be deduced from a direct reading of the text. The Wikipedia page cites examples of emoticon use dating back to 1857 – although the combinations of characters used for different emotions has changed significantly many times. The common uses that we now know on the Internet date back to 1982.

In my experience the symbol :-# is commonly used to note sarcasm or satire. Unfortunately it seems that none of the Internet search engines allow searching for such strings so I couldn’t find an early example of this being used. While I haven’t found a reference describing this practice, I regularly receive messages annotated with it and find that people generally understand what I mean when I use it in my own email. But that is usually applied to a sentence or two.

For a larger section of text a pseudo-HTML tag such as can be used to signal the end of satire. It seems that a matching start tag is optional as recognising the start of satire is a lot easier once the reader knows that some of the content is satirical. In spoken English a phrase such as “but seriously” may be used for the same purpose, but such a subtle signal may be missed on the Internet – particularly by readers who don’t use English as their first language.

Another way of signaling a non-literal interpretation is by using Scare Quotes – the deliberate usage of quotation symbols to indicate that the writer disagrees with the content that is written. That is common for the case of referencing a phrase or sentence that you disagree with, but doesn’t work for a larger section of text.

A final option is to make the satire or sarcasm so extreme that no-one can possibly mistake it for being literal. This is not always possible, Poe’s Law holds that “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won’t mistake for the real thing” [1]. I think that Poe was understating the case, it is impossible to create a parody of religion that most people won’t mistake for the real thing without signals or context. For an example read LandOverBaptist.org and Chick.com, of course if you know those sites then you will know whether they are satirical or serious – but I expect that most readers of my blog won’t invest enough effort into either of those religious sites to determine whether they are serious or satire.

But satire and sarcasm without signals or a reputation usually fails. One example of success is The Onion which is a long running and well known satirical news site [2]. But even The Onion it is regularly mistaken for being serious – the number of occasions when people forward me Onion articles for amusement are vastly outnumbered by the number of occasions when I see people taking it seriously.

Even when material is known to be satirical it can still fail grossly. An example is the Chaser’s satire of the Make A Wish Foundation [3]. Even material that is well known to be satirical seems to fail when it attacks bad targets or attacks in a bad way. One difficulty is in satirising bigoted people, to effectively satirise them without attacking the minority groups that they dislike can be a difficult challenge.

Finally, when you write some satire and members of your audience don’t recognise it you should consider the possibility that you failed to do it properly. If you can’t get a hit rate close to 100% for people with the same background as you then it’s probably a serious failure.

Optimising the How To Vote Process

etbe — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:08:06 +0000

I previously wrote about my experience handing out How To Vote (HTV) cards at the federal election a couple of weeks ago [1].

One comment noted that at one polling place “all the volunteers for different candidates had combined into a single team, handing out all the cards together“, which makes sense. There is some advantage in forcing cards on people, some people decide who to vote for once they are inside the polling booth based on information on the HTV cards (a couple of voters stated an intention to do so which disappointed the politically aware people who hand out the HTV cards). But for most voters there is no benefit in competing to hand them a HTV card.

Some of the comments expressed a dislike of being subjected to people handing out HTV cards. As a voter I don’t particularly like having a group of conflicting people wanting to hand me a HTV card either. Also it is obviously a waste of resources to hand out so much cardboard that goes to waste (particularly the Liberal and Labor parties that use glossy non-recycled paper).

I think that the ideal solution would be to have the officials at the polling booths hand out HTV cards on request. A voter would have to specifically request the card from a party and the poll officials would not be able to offer them a selection, “sorry I can’t tell you who is running for election, but if you express a desire to vote for a particular party I can give you a card instructing you how to do so“. The parties would be responsible for providing the HTV cards (according to strict specifications regarding the acceptable sizes), and if the supply runs out then the officials would decline requests.

This could even be made self-financing by making the parties who want their cards distributed pay for a fraction of the wages of the people who hand out the cards, if each polling place had one person handing out the HTV cards at a salary of $500 for the day and there were 5 parties cards to hand out then each party would have to pay $100. The reduced print runs for HTV cards would probably save each party more than $100.

Something like this should satisfy the real need of voters who want advice on how to support their preferred party while not annoying the voters who know how to vote without any assistance. I expect that most members of the parties would be in favor of this idea. The only reason we go to the significant amount of effort and expense to hand out the HTV cards is because everyone else is doing so.

[1] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2010/08/22/telling-people-how-to-vote/

Interesting Developments in Islamic Culture

etbe — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:24:08 +0000

Shereen El Feki gave an inspiring TED talk about Islamic youth culture [1]. She shows some interesting exerpts from the 4SHBAB TV network which is known as “Islamic MTV“, the music video from the US was of particularly high quality – while I expect high quality videos to be made in the US I don’t generally expect quality Islamic videos from the US (or anywhere else really). She also notes that the videos show a “kinder gentler face of Islam“.

She contrasts that with a clip by Haifa Wehbe [2] – a Lebanese pop star who appears to have a lot in common with Britney Spears (Shereen describes her as a “pan-Arab pinup-girl”).

She cites the comic “The 99” which has Islamic super-heros who represent the 99 attributes of Allah. One thing that I found very interesting was that the 99 character Jemi is shown using what is obviously an OLPC.

This seems to indicate some very positive trends for the interaction of Islamic culture with the European and American culture which is Christian and Atheist dominated.

Kavita Ramdas gave an interesting TED talk about radical women embracing tradition [3]. She highlights a woman who teaches girls to read in Afghanistan based on the religious edict that every Muslim should read the Koran and a Croatian Lesbian choir that sings traditional fold songs.

Naif al-Mutawa gave an interesting TED talk about the creation of “The 99″ [4]. He starts by comparing some of the characters in the Justice League of America to Christian traditions and then describes the back story behind his Islamic super-heroes. His major aim is to provide positive role models for Muslim children.

Apparently a cross-over production involving characters from The 99 and the Justice League of America is being developed at the moment – Wonder Woman wears clothing that is less revealing than usual though. It’s worth noting that Naif is a practicing psychologist who’s clients include victims of political torture, so he seems to have some insight into the problems that most people will never have.

Links August 2010

etbe — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:06:35 +0000

Urban Honking has an insightful article about the Arduino and suggests that it is one of the most important factors for the development of the computer industry in the near future [1]. It compares the Arduino to the Altair.

Wired has an interesting article about a company that provides a satellite kit and a launch into low Earth orbit for $8000 [2]. Arduino in space?

Linux Journal has an interesting article by David Rowe about the “Mesh Potato” which is a Wifi mesh router that also runs VOIP [3]. One particularly interesting aspect of this article is the explanation of the way they designed and tested it.

Susan Shaw gave an informative TED talk about the toxic effects of the attempts to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico [4]. It seems that trying to disperse the oil just makes it worse, and the chemical companies are refusing to disclose the chemicals that are being used.

The New York Times has an interesting article by David Leonhardt about the value of pre-school teachers [5]. Some research on the difference that good teachers can make in economic terms suggests that the make an economic difference to the children to the value of $320,000 per annum (IE a class of 16 children who were taught for a year would on average each receive a benefit of $20,000 over their lifetime). Also there are social benefits which aren’t counted by that study. While I can’t imagine pre-school teachers getting paid $320,000 any time soon, it does seem obvious that good teachers deserve significantly better pay. Of course one problem is how to determine which teachers are good, better test results are not a reliable indication.

Paul Krugman describes America as being “on the unlit, unpaved road to nowhere” due to the policies of saving money by cutting funding for schools, street-lights, and roads [6].

The Chive has an amusing post about how to quit a bad job [7]. It would be good if someone really did this, I’m sure that there are enough creative people who don’t like their job.

Hell Pizza in New Zealand published a zombie themed choose your own adventure on Youtube [8]. Unfortunately the options to choose the next segment don’t work on HTML5 with Chromium so if you don’t have flash you miss out.

AskThePilot.com has an informative essay about airline security written by a commercial pilot [9]. The anecdote about the pilot not being allowed to take the type of knife that is issued to first and business class passengers is rather amusing.

FredOnEverything.net has an interesting analysis of Wikileaks and why the Pentagon and Fox News hate it [10]. Fred is a very skillful writer, while he’s not the first person to say some of these things he may have said it best.

The Wikipedia page on Borosilicate glass (which is best known under the trademark Pyrex) is really interesting [11]. Borsilicate glass was formerly known as “Duran” and it’s main characteristic that makes it suitable for lab use is resistance to Thermal Shock, but it’s also harder and has a higher melting point. Apparently you can get Pyrex drinking glasses, I want some!

Eben Moglen gave an interesting talk “Freedom in the Cloud” about the development of free servers to manage personal data and replace Facebook etc (among many other things) [12]. The Debian Wiki has an articla about designing such a system [13].

The APNIC published an interesting paper on IPv4 background radiation [14]. Apparently some /24′s receive so much random traffic (from broken applications and viruses) that they can’t be delegated. IPv6 will solve this problem by making it infeasible to scan all IP addresses. Also it’s interesting to note the excessive amounts of traffic to 1.0.168.192 which is from applications too broken to correctly send data to 192.168.0.1 which have been installed by sysadmins who are too incompetent to watch what is being sent out of their network.

A Netbook for Aircraft Navigation

etbe — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:57:36 +0000

There is apparently some MS-Windows software for navigating light aircraft in Australia. It takes input from a GPS device and knows the rules for certain types of common tasks (such as which direction to use when approaching an airport). My first question when I heard of this was “so if the Windows laptop crashes does your plane crash?“. But I’ve been assured that paper maps will always be available.

The requirement is for a touch-screen device because a regular laptop in the open position won’t leave enough room for the control stick. So the question is, what is the best touch-screen Windows laptop? It must be relatively rugged spinning media for storage is unacceptable due to the risk of damage in turbulence, it should be relatively cheap (less than $1000), and can apparently have a somewhat low resolution for the screen.

The pilot who asked me for advice on this matter is currently thinking of the ASUS Eee T91 which runs Windows XP home, has 16G of solid-state storage and a 1024*600 screen. I am concerned about the reliability of that system as the rotatable screen design seems inherently weak.

The Smartbook concept sounds appealing, I don’t expect that you would want to wait for a typical OS to boot while flying a plane. But those devices mostly use ARM CPUs and thus can’t run MS-Windows. One particularly interesting device is the Always Innovating Touchbook [1] which has a detachable keyboard – which would be handy for non-airline use. Unfortunately it seems that Always Innovating aren’t doing production at the moment, they say “The current Touch Book production is in stand-by and will resume in the summer when we will release our newest and craziest innovation” – well summer is almost over in the northern hemisphere so I guess that means there won’t be anything from them for another 9 months.

A device such as an iPad would also be a good option for looking at static documents. The pilot is considering using a MS-Windows PC to generate images and then viewing them on such a device. But he’s not really enthusiastic about it.

Are there any good and cheap touch-screen devices that run MS-Windows? Are there any particularly noteworthy PDF reader devices which would be better than an iPad for viewing maps while flying a plane? Is it possible to run a MS-Windows application that uses a GPS under Wine on a Netbook?

[1] https://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/

Telling People How to Vote

etbe — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:37:04 +0000

Yesterday I handed out how to vote (HTV) cards for the Australian Greens. The experience was very different to the one I had when I handed out cards for the Greens in the Victorian state election in 2006 [1]. The Labor party (ALP) hadn’t spread any gross lies about the Greens and there were no representatives from the insane parties (Family First and Citizens Electoral Council/Commission (CEC)). So we didn’t have any arguments among the people handing out the HTV cards.

The atmosphere among the volunteers that were present was a good match for some ideals of a sporting contest. Everyone wanted their own team to win but acted in a sporting manner. When no voters were around we had some friendly conversations.

One thing that was interesting to note was the significant number of families where the parents in their 40s deliberately snubbed me while their children in the 18-22 age range took the Greens cards. It seemed that for families with adult children there were two likely voting patterns, one was children voting Green and parents not liking it, and the other was when the entire family voted informal (when someone refuses all offers of HTV cards it’s a safe bet that they will cast an informal vote). In Australia submitting a vote card is mandatory but making it legible and formal is optional.

The last report I heard suggested that about 5% of the total votes were informal. This seems to be strong evidence showing that civics lessons are needed in high school. Also there were a disturbing number of people who stated that they didn’t know which party to vote for when they were collecting the HTV cards. A HTV card has one or two sentences about the party and there are almost no requirements for truth in such statements. Anyone who votes according to such brief summaries of the parties is quiet unlikely to end up casting a vote that gives the result that they desire.

The result of the election is a significant swing to the Greens, more senators and the first Green MP! For the lower house it seems that Labor will have great difficulty in forming government even when in a coalition with the Greens and some independents. It seems unlikely that the Liberal party could ever make a deal with the Greens, the Liberal position on almost every significant issue contradicts that of the Green policy, but there is a chance of a Liberal coalition with independent MPs. In any case it seems that the Greens will have the balance of power in the senate so the excesses of the Howard government can’t be repeated.

If you like the nail-biting drama of watching several columns of figures slowly changing over the course of several days then you would love watching the analysis of this election! Whatever coalition government is created is not likely to be stable and we can probably expect another election in a year or two.

[1] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2006/11/26/supporting-an-electrion-campaign/