Technological stupidity

Feb 042010

Time to rant a bit about a "new technological advantage" I saw the other day.

I just got my BluRay player hooked up to the internet, so I can marvel at the genius of all the technologies now available for me.
Sure it is fun to watch YouTube videos on the BluRay/TV without having to hook up a computer – but well, this isn't about that….

I popped in some disc I just bought and there was a notice for some kind of "chat" system.
Interested to see what benefits I could take advantage off now that my player was finally hooked up, I navigated over with my remote.

Well – in essence it was just a basic chat system, which would place a big chat box in the side of the screen and I could then invite my friends to "watch the movie" with me and "chat with them" while doing it ….. all from the comfort of each our own couch.
Now that is stupid enough to begin with – if I want to watch movies with friends, I – you know – visit them, and if we watch movies, I sure as heck would not want a chat box taking up the screen.

But that was not what struck me …. one method of chatting was using the remote and the keys like on phones, but the alternative was using a computer to type on, which of course also needs to be online.
But if you have a computer, hooked up to the internet, and you can use to chat on – why on earth would you then chat via a BluRay movie system?

Isn't that what you would use a – you know – chat software on your computer for? Wouldn't it be much better to just use your usual IM client and chat on the computer, if you have a computer anyway? Seriously – How irrelevant can one technology be…..

(And yes, I understand the irony in me complaining about such technology after hooking my BluRay player up to the net)

 

Google is … censoring?

Jan 082010

I noticed this blog: thenextweb.com: Google Blocking Negative Search Recommendations On Islam – Why? today (a bit late possible).
It tells about how Google possible is censoring search suggestions which could be controversial – in this case towards Islam.

Most everybody knows about Google in China so we know Google does … lets call it fiddle to be neutral … with the search results in various situations.
However this begs the question – how do we actually know that Google is acting fairly and doesn’t censor or cheat with the search results in ways we cannot know?

Their revenue comes from advertisement and being able to provide a clear picture of what people search for to provide targeted advertisement.
So it would stand to argue that they can’t really afford to suffer doubt about their objectivity and whether or not they alter or effect or even censor search results.
However how would anybody know?

Is Google now so big that it doesn’t matter if they do questionable things? Can … would … people even stop using Google if it was confirmed that they are actively censoring? Is it even possible? Or are Google now so big that they can do what they want, when they want?

One can only speculate but my trust in Google is diminishing as they keep growing bigger and spand more and more features of the web, and with situations like this and China.
I still use their services, however …for now.

Do no evil.

 

VisitDenmark, fake youtube video.

Sep 132009

Some days ago a YouTube video appeared of a Danish women looking for the father of her child – which she supposedly met some evening and didn’t remember the name or nationality of.
The video can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Seo5j_mNU
Now, many people thought it was real and it sort of vent “viral” which can be seen in the comments.

It has now been revealed that the video is a fake (oh the horrors – welcome to the Internet)  and is an advertisement from a Danish ad agency to promote “Denmark”, called “VisitDenmark“.
Well – that’s that to begin with, and I didn’t really care …. until I saw a representative for the agency in the news on a Danish TV station talking about he trick, which prompted my reaction.

The representative, sad there and kept repeating a memorized mantra that it was to promote awareness of the place called Denmark (duh)  and when asked if they had thought of the consequences and image they’d project of the Danish women, she repeated another memorized line of keywords – that they believed it promoted an image of “independent” women, taking “choices” in a “society” which allows them to take their own choice…….and other such keywords.
If I were a specialist in body language however, I’d also say she was lying about that – as she spoke those memorized keywords with erratic movements of upper body and head, and the attempts at emphasizing the keywords compared to the rest of the words, but I’m not a specialist – so….. It just looked like it wasn’t a reaction they had anticipated and needed to come up with excuses fast.

Funny though – my, and many others, impression of the messaged conveyed, was instead that they promoted Danish women as easy, willing to sleep with random tourists without knowing their names or nationality.
Visit Demark and try our easy women…. That’s the message they convey in my opinion.
The general reaction so far from people and politicians alike are also that it is distasteful attempt of promoting Denmark, and many remarks on both YouTube and elsewhere are the same interpretation as mine.

I guess we’ll see if this plan creates publicity and works or not…. Because I’m not a subscriber of the “any publicity is good publicity” theory – many people deliberate avoid products when displayed in stupid adverts or when companies lies to the public. This is no difference whether it is milk bought in the supermarket or awareness of a nation.

I can’t wait to see the consequences for VisitDenmark – because I’m sure we’ll see some and this case isn’t over yet.

Edit: I’ve added a new link because it seems the original one was pulled. Long live the internet. :)

Celebrating stupidity – Game shows and Reality TV

Mar 272009

Recently I’ve grown increasingly tired of television and the fact that stupidity and mediocrity is celebrated to the degree it is. The most annoying thing is that we pay good money for the privilege to have half-assed game shows or reality programs with people whose only prerequisite is – well, what’s the opposite of talent and smarts.

Not a few days ago I was channel surfing and stumbled upon a game show where some random person had to tell answer truthfully to some (very) private questions, and they’d win money if the lie detector matched their answers. 

Of course these people are casted so the ones with most dirty laundry are accepted – nobody would reward me for sitting there revealing mundane secrets: “Are you afraid of spiders?”, “yes”, “congratulations you’ve won XXX money”.
Anyways – the questions I’ve been able to bring myself to watch before moving on in despair for the human race, was about how the person had been cheating on a significant other, or taken drugs, or stolen from friends, or been in jail for violence or…..
Okay, one thing is bringing yourself to tell these things on public television – but what struck me as most annoying, most insane, most absurd – was the audience reaction.
They applauded and cheered the person on when answering truthfully. “Have you stolen money from somebody who’ve helped you get out of drug problems?”, “Yes”, queue audience cheering and applauding.

One thing is these sad people get on TV, another is celebrating them. Who’s the culprit – the ones visiting the show, getting paid for being messed up;  Or the ones cheering them on?
As much as I dislike the stupidity of the people going on the shows – I dislike the audiences even more. The people watching and the people reading the tabloids for new exciting information about the breakfast of contestants, and what not.

Another show I saw recently was somebody who where in economical problems. Now granted that is serious problems – but the real kicker here is that they earned so much money to begin with. They were rather wealthy and still used a load more than they could afford.
What about instead of using resources on wealthy people, the networks take those money and spend on the real unfortunate ones. The ones without job, without income, actually living on the street. But I digress – that isn’t TV worthy and doesn’t pull in ratings – but somebody spending 10 grand more than the 50 they already earn each month is?
Seriously….what is up with this?

Well sure, some credit is due, some TV shows do celebrate talent and brains and what not, and reward those – however it does not seem to be what is focused on even in those instances most of the time anyway.

Take something like the “singing contests” shows which we see en mass now in all countries and in various forms. Who do people turn in to see? The people who’re awful at it, getting chewed out by the judges – how we celebrate their stupidity. Quiz shows, then we still root for them to fail, to make a fool of themselves.  Because then we’ll all feel much better about ourselves. Beauty contestants answering poorly regarding atlas and education is celebrated online.
Survival shows or Big Brother or lock somebody away in a luxury hotel where they’ll have to vote each other off – oh the human drama aspect, the conflicts which pop up – that draw people in.

Are our own lives getting to be so damn boring that we have to celebrate the stupidity for it to somehow make our own lives more bearable or is it some sort of vindictiveness. “They’re not better than me; see how awful/stupid/evil they act/are”.

And strangely enough – I just saw the movie "Live!" ….. What a view into the future of television, and when thinking about it, the movie suddenly doesn’t seem that farfetched. Is it just a picture of things to come? Most likely.

A problem with the web page

Mar 032009

Here in Denmark we received a new tax structure just recently, and one of the items was that people could cash in a sort of “forced tax savings”, which had been 1% over a number of years when the economy was moving very fast. The economical aspect of this isn’t terrible interesting (for this discussion).

But apparently the interest for doing this have been so large that it has crashed the website of the organization which controls this forced saving, because people were interested in seeing how much money they had in their forced savings.
That is the true problem of the internet in its given form. Anything extraordinary happens – and websites can’t handle the traffic.  This has been seen multiple times throughout the years, and it is basically a distributed denial of service attack. Sites can’t handle traffic and shuts down. I tried this morning and could still not access the web site, and I tried yesterday around noon. It is a good thing it isn’t a critical service.

I remember back in 2001 when the twin towers were hit. Every news site I knew was down and where impossible to reach. Suddenly the television news channels received a significant boost, because people couldn’t get their news online and we were forced back to early 90s instead.

Imagine something important happens and you have to get access to your home bank, but the bank is down because everybody else is trying to access it as well. Not a comforting thought.

As more and more of our services and daily life starts to be accessible mainly (only) via the internet – this is a problem which will escalate.
Question is if the companies who aren’t ready will want to pay for being proactive with such things, or they’ll just ignore the problem because it is “extraordinary” events which cause it ….. well, extraordinary or just people wanting to get some money.

 

Sex in advertisement. Why does it still work?

Feb 242009

I drove past a(nother) billboard the other day of a naked woman advertising for some random drink.
It got me to thinking – why the heck does sex sell in advertisement.
Of course it must work – somehow – because otherwise, why would the advertisement agencies continue to do it.

It can’t be because of the “shock value”. I mean nudity is so common place – at least in this country – that seeing it on a billboard is strangely familiar.
Television, Internet, Tabloid newspapers, Magazines and so on almost all feature nakedness and sexual suggestive content.
Even a gadget magazine features sexual inspired content with scantily clad women posing suggestively with a few of the gadgets placed in the picture.
Sometime I wonder what the magazine is actually about when viewing the cover.

Actually though – I do understand the psychology behind it, or at least some of it.
It is because “we” (supposedly) identify with the situation and wants to experience it, and think that by buying said item – we will.
So when Barcadi features beautiful people dancing on a nightclub set and wriggling their bodies in a somewhat sexual manner – it is because the advertisement wants us to believe that by drinking Barcardi we’ll experience the same.

But come on – wouldn’t most everybody know this by now. That it is such mechanics the adverts play on?
I’ve been on many a party in my days and nothing like that ever happened …. Just because somebody started drinking a specific brand of alcohol.

It is the same for these billboards adverts – it is the same for the gadget magazines – and it is the same for the tabloid newspapers.
If they feature sexual inspired content and suggestive images, somehow people must connect the – otherwise unconnected and irrelevant – dots and fall for this. I just can’t understand it. I specifically avoid brands when their advertisements annoys me, and I know I am most likely not special in that way – so does it still work?

And what ever happened to the informative aspect of advertisements, magazines and newspapers …. well okay – the newspapers are tabloid, so they’ve never been informative to begin with.
But when I crack open a gadget magazine I want to know about gadgets.
If I view an advert about a product I want to know why on earth I should spend my money on that advert over perhaps a competitor.
And seeing a naked woman in an advertisement somehow isn’t a convincing argument (anymore).

Now I’m by no means a prude or anything, frankly I don’t care as I am not affected – I just can’t understand why sexual (more or less suggestive) content still sells in this day and age.
Or perhaps it is simply because we’ve seen it all and those slick advertisement agencies have no clue on how to move forward.

Saving that newspaper

Feb 112009

I saw the editorial in Time Magazine by Walter Isaacson about how to save newspapers.
Basically the premise is that newspapers are going under, or cancelling out “good journalism” to save money because fewer and fewer are buying the physical papers but reading the content online for free.
His solution is to get people to pay “micropayments” for reading news-material on the web, a small cost per article or something like that.
Now granted, I agree with him on a number of situations, but I question the methods.
Yes, journalists must be paid to do journalistic work. Naturally.
Yes, newspapers are currently too depending on advertisement companies then their reader because their revenue comes from advertisement. This can create a conflict of interests.
But that’s about as much in agreement as I can be.

I see many problems with starting to charge for online reading of news.
1) It only takes one of two companies to shoot down everybody else. If a few companies doesn’t charge for their content, then people will just go to the free alternatives and leave behind the ones you have to pay for. This is how most online services have worked.

2) Legality. If everybody starts charging, then I’m all but sure that several “gray” providers will pop up. It happens with everything online and it is a problem, but it is also a reality. Gaming, Music and Movie industry suffers from this. Some people spend their free time ripping off content providers and posting it up for free. That would open up for a whole can of “allofmp3” or “piratebay” problems. Charging for content opens up for those doors and the cost of keeping your content yours might prove way to high to be cost-effective.

3) By charging (more) for content, people will likely stop reading a multitude of different providers.
Personally- when I bought newspapers I read perhaps two at the most. Now when I read news online, I read about 8 different news sites. This provides me with a better chance of getting an unbiased picture of events and forming my own opinion. If I were to be charged for the content, I doubt I’d read more than a couple again.
And anybody who’ve seen Fox News for example, knows how unbiased “news” providers can be. I think it’ll hurt.
Now granted, this is also a risk under the current model cause if many providers go bankrupt, you are faced with fewer avenues through the physical medias, but that still mean there are free alternatives online.

4) By charging, you start implying that only those who can afford it, are allowed to read the news coverage. It can quickly create a divided segment where those who can’t afford to go through multiple sites either as in item 3) sticks with 1 or 2 or none at all.

5) Journalism will be much more entertainment then news. One of the arguments was to make journalists dependant on the readers and not the advertiser. Well nice and idealistic goal, but what do we usually see when a content provider becomes depending on its subscribers. Much more populism and sensationalism. It becomes content for entertainment and not enlightenment. These companies will want to attract most people, and well – unfortunately that usually means catering to the lowest common denominator. That will counter the “good journalistic principles” it was meant to promote.

6) Country barriers. If providers start charging online, then they must remember that it is global. I read occasionally US and UK news sites. If I were to pay, would I be allowed to? Or will it be like iTunes where I can only buy from my local store and not from the US or UK store?
The web is global, and the world is as well. But payments aren’t always.

7) Nationally subsidized alternatives. In this country – and many others – we have national supported, public service, channels we already pay for – either via taxes or license fee. Payment we can’t avoid. If we also were to start paying, or pay more, for other content providers, we’re back in item 4. People will leave them behind because they can get their news coverage from the public service channels. It will be a problem for competition.

Now, I do not have the answers – but I would think the way forward would be to offer a split plan. Subscription and free. Subscribe if you want to know more, more in depth articles, forums to talk to the editors and journalists and so on – but keep some content free, if nothing else to lure people into it.
Otherwise it’ll start to spell doom for the majority of content providers in a state we haven’t seen yet. Look at the music industry and how well it fares because they have problems adjusting to a global and intangible reality of the internet – and that is a more physical product which you can keep and take with you. News is much more intangible and fleeting.
Micro transactions on its own? I think it’ll be a big step in bring the industry all the way down, or weed out so we have one or two mega-corporations.

Getting a cheque in the mail

Feb 022009

So I had changed provider for unemployment insurance and then I received a cheque in the mail from my old provider because I had paid too much due to the change.
This got me a bit annoyed. No – not because I got money back (duh) but because I got in as a cheque which meant I had to go to the bank, which I do like once or twice a year … usually to deposit cheques. Banks are never open so I had to leave early from work to make it as well.

What annoys me though is that these people have my account number, and they might as well just post money directly into my bank account without ever needing me to go to the bank. Sure – no doubt they do it this way and hope people forget to deposit the money.

But the worst part is that in this day and age of electronic payments companies have started charging a handling fee if you pay money to THEM as anything but electronic payments, for example by giro payments.
So that was what made me annoying because they did NOT include a handling fee in the money they refunded to me.

It would only be fair if they gave me 20-50 DKK more as well for the inconvenience of having to handle the cheque, just as they expect me to pay them when doing it to them.
So I thought of sending a bill for them for handling of the cheque – but well – I visited the bank and deposited the cheque anyway.

But what applies for money to them, should in my view also apply for money from them

Social Networks, the new water cooler?

May 132008

Some time ago I was reading a magazine from a professional organization I’m a member of.
It said that in England, IT people and office workers were spending about half an hour a day on services such as YouTube, Facebook and MySpace, which equated to a huge number of lost revenue a year. The original survey was performed back in January …. yes I’m a tad out of the loop. Anyways….
Even though the piece did list a number of benefits; building relations and a fast way to information, it did focus heavily on the loss it caused.
So what striked me most about this piece was how the loss was actually made up because it looks to be half  hour used equals a half hour “lost” productivity.
There was little mention on whether people were doing this on their breaks or in the work time. That alone is the first caveat that something was ”off” with this.
I doubt most people can work a full 8 hours a day without any form for break. So what if this half hour takes place in a timeslot which otherwise would be used to …. say, take a break. Then it can’t be lost productivity, ‘cause that implies 100% productivity in a work day.

Now, I’m a programmer, and as such I spend almost my entire workday behind the computer, and yes, I do venture into Facebook once a while or look at some videos on YouTube, however I generally also work enough hours that breaks are warranted. And when taking a break, sitting behind the computer – it is easy to just alt-tab over to a browser, and do a little light surfing or “networking”.

Funnily enough, then in the same magazine two pages prior to this piece, there was another article which stated that “small talk” was important to build social relations around the office. Basically a positive form of gossip, water cooler talk, because it helped you connect with your colleagues and possible find out more personal stuff about them, or even work related information. Now I know it wasn’t the same author of both articles (I hope) and the sources for the information likewise, but I find it fun how one type of “wastefulness” can be considered beneficial and the other as loss of productivity.  Also when considering that nobody can be fully productive 100% of the time, and that “half hour” relaxation might mean that people actually work a half hour faster than they normally would do.

Personally I think – especially for people in my line of work, those social networks like Facebook for example is the new water cooler.
I rarely use facebook for many usefull things, other than as a method of keeping up with friends, but most of my colleagues – and even bosses – are on my friend list on Facebook (and LinkedIn, my other social network I visit – linkes to my profile are found under links to the right). It provides easy “openers” for small talk at work; which statements the persons have posted, quizzes taken and all such things.
So is the “loss of productivity” bad, or is it a new method with which you can connect with your colleagues on another more personal and informal level? Is it the new water cooler, or just an alternative to the “how about that weather” opener?

Well, as long as I know that these sites do not interfere with work – and of course, if usage of them becomes a problem for a person, like an addiction, then something must be done – then I’ll continue to use them because “small talk” *is* important and a remark dropped on a social network is a good opener.

The pope speak

Apr 172008

In the light of the number of scandals which have been seen in various public media involving catholic clergy over the years, I fell over the reporting of the Popes speech.
It can be seen here at the New York Times

Being atheist I’m sure there would be many passages in the speech which I would disagree with (strongly), however one snippet which I felt was ….. especially worrying, was the following:

What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today? We need to reassess urgently the values underpinning society, so that a sound moral formation can be offered to young people and adults alike.

I do not care how much pornography and violence you watch in your everyday life, but whenever you see a child only one thing should be going through your mind … it is a child and “you” are an adult.
Trying to blame “society” for people’s abuse of children is such a cup out that I can’t believe that any sentient person could even said that without some sort of hidden agenda, which obviously for this guy looks to be trying to take some heat of the catholic church in lieu of these child-abuse scandals which have been revealed. 

On top of this, what the does it matter that if somebody else is watching all that porn and violence, it have still been clergy which have abused children as well. Do they also watch all that porn and violence which warp them? Leaders of faith indeed.

I am personally atheist but I do respect people’s entitlement to their faith as long as they leave me and mine alone, but this …. I can’t believe the head of one of the largest faiths publicly tries to place responsibility for people’s abuse of children on something as society.  No matter what – it is a child.

Now sure, I do very well know the fact that (hopefully) only a small amount of clergy abuses children, and other people also abuse children – but in my view the instant we start to shift responsibilities away from the individual doing the violations onto something as vague and intangible as “society” it is a worrying step away from accountability.

 

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