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Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Summoner Geeks
Via Haibane.info, I stumbled across this:


It's pretty funny and I got a little curious about the history of this thing. Apparently a sketch comedy troupe in Wisconsin called the Dead Alewives put together an album featuring a parody of Dungeons & Dragons. The audio skit is pretty funny by itself, and it's been making the rounds on radio and the internet ever since the mid 1990s. In 2000, a bunch of developers at a video game company, Volition (they made Descent, Red Faction, and of course, Summoner), made an animated version, and distrubuted it along with their games (it's in some promotional material and if you win the game, you see it there as well). So it went from an improvisational comedy group, to a CD they made, to the radio, to the internet, got mashed up with visuals from other video games, and has now finally made its way to me (about 12 years later).
Posted by Mark on April 02, 2008 at 10:42 PM .: Comments (0) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Sunday, March 23, 2008

Vigilantes
I recently finished watching both seasons of Dexter. The series has a fascinating premise: the titular hero, Dexter Morgan, is a forensic analyst (he's a "blood spatter expert") for the Miami police by day, but a serial killer by night. He operates by a "code," only murdering other murderers (usually ones who've beaten the system). The most interesting thing about Dexter's code is the implication that he does not follow the code out of some sort of dedication to morality or justice. He knows what he does is evil, but he follows his code because it's the most constructive way to channel his aggression. Of course, the code is not perfect, and a big part of the series is how the code shapes him and how he, in turn, shapes it. To be honest, watching the series is a little odd and disturbing when you realize that you're essentially rooting for a serial killer (an affable and charming one, to be sure, but that's part of why it's disturbing). I started to think about this a bit, and several other examples of similar characters came to mind. There's a lot more to the series, but I don't want to ruin it with a spoiler-laden discussion here. Instead, I want to talk about vigilantes.

Despite the lack of concern for justice (or perhaps because of that), Dexter is essentially a vigilante... someone who takes the law into his own hands. There is, of course, a long history of vigilantism, in both real life and art. Indeed, many classic instances happened long before the word vigilante was coined - for example, Robin Hood. He stole from the rich to give to the poor, and was immortalized as a folk hero whose tales are still told to this day. I think there is a certain cultural fascination with vigilantes, especially vigilantes in art.

Take superheroes, most of whom are technically vigilantes. Sure, many stand for all that is good in the world and often cite truth and justice as motivation, but the evolution of comic books shows something interesting. I haven't read a whole lot of comic books (especially of the superhero kind), but the impression I get is that when the craze started in the 1930s, it was all about heroics and people serving the common good. There was also a darker edge to some of them, and that edge has grown as time progressed. Batman is probably the most relevant to this discussion, as he shares a complicated relationship with the police and a certain above-the-law attitude towards solving crimes. Interestingly, the Batman of the 1930s was probably a darker, more violent superhero than he was in the 1940s, when one editor issued a decree that the character could no longer kill or use a gun. As such, the postwar Batman became more of an upstanding citizen, and the stories took on a lighter tone (definitely an understandable direction, considering what the world had been through). I'm sure I'm butchering the Batman chronology here, but the next sigificant touchstone for Batman came in 1986, with the publication of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Written and drawn by Frank Miller, the series reintroduced Batman as a dark, brooding character with complex psychological issues. A huge success, this series ushered in a new era of "grim and gritty" superheros that still holds today.

In general, our superheroes have become much more conflicted. Many (like Batman) tackle the vigilante aspect head on, and if you look at something like Watchmen (or The Incredibles, if you want a lighter version), you can see a shift in the way such stories are told. I'm sure there are literally hundreds of other examples in the comic book world, but I want to shift gears for a moment and examine another cultural icon that Dexter reminded me of: Dirty Harry.

Inspector Harry Callahan is an incredibly popular character, but apparently not with critics:
Critics have rarely cracked the whip harder than on the Dirty Harry film series, which follows the exploits of a trigger-happy San Francisco cop named Harry Callahan and his junior partners, usually not long for this world. On its release in 1971, Dirty Harry was trounced as 'fascist medievalism' by the potentate of the haut monde critic set, Pauline Kael, as well as aspiring Kaels like young Roger Ebert. Especially irksome to the criterati was a key moment in the film when Inspector Callahan, on the trail of an elusive serial sniper, is reprimanded by his superiors for not taking into account the suspect's Miranda rights. Callahan replies, through clenched teeth, "Well, I'm all broken up about that man's rights." Take that, Miranda.
I should say that critics often give the film (at least, the first one) generally good overall marks, praising its "suspense craftsmanship" or calling it "a very good example of the cops-and-killers genre." But I'm fascinated by all the talk of fascism. Despite working within the system, Dirty Harry indeed does take the law into his own hands, and in doing so he ignores many of our treasured Constitutional freedoms. And yet we all cheer him on, just as we cheer Batman and Dexter.

Why are these characters so popular? Why do we cheer such characters on even when we know what they're doing is ultimately wrong? I think it comes down to desire. We all desire justice. We want to see wrongs being made right, yet every day we can turn on the TV and watch non-stop failures of our system, whether it be rampant crime or a criminal going free or any other number of indignities. Now, I'm not an expert, but I don't think our society today is much worse off than it was, say, a hundred years ago (In fact, I think we're significantly better off, but that's another discussion). The big difference is that information is disseminated more widely and quickly, and dramatic failures of the system are attention grabbing, so that's what we get. What's more, these stories tend to focus on the most dramatic, most obscene examples. It's natural for people to feel helpless in the face of such news, and I think that's why everyone tends to embrace vigilante stories (note that people don't generally embrace actual real-life vigilantes - that's important, and we'll get to that later). Such stories serve many purposes. They allow us to cope with life's tragedies, internalize them and in some way comfort us, but as a deeper message, they also emphasize that the world is not perfect, and that we'll probably never solve the problem of crime. In some ways, they act as a critique of our system, pointing out it's imperfections and thereby making sure we don't become complacent in the ever-changing fight against crime.

Of course, there is a danger to this way of thinking, which is why critics like Pauline Kael get all huffy when they watch something like Dirty Harry. We don't want to live in a police state, and to be honest, a real cop who acted like Dirty Harry would probably be an awful cop. Films like that deal in extremes because they're trying to make a point, and it's easy to misinterpret such films. I doubt people would really accept a cop like Dirty Harry. Sure, some folks might applaud his handling of the Scorpio case that the film documents (audiences certainly did!), but police officers don't handle a single case in the course of their career, and most cases aren't that black and white either. Dirty Harry would probably be fired out here in the real world. Ultimately, while we revel in such entertainment, we don't actually want real life to imitate art in this case. However, that doesn't mean we enjoy hearing about a vicious drug dealer going free because the rules of evidence were not followed to the letter. I think deep down, people understand that concepts like the rules of evidence are important, but they can also be extremely frustrating. This is why we have conflicting emotions when we watch the last scene in Dirty Harry, in which he takes off his police badge and throws it into the river.

I think this is a large part of why vigilante stories have evolved. Comic book heroes like Batman have become more conflicted, and newer comic books often deal with the repercussions of vigilatism. The Dirty Harry sequel, Magnum Force, was apparently made as a direct answer to the critics of Dirty Harry who thought that film was openly advocating law-sanctioned vigilantism. In Magnum Force, the villains are vigilante cops. Then you have modern day vigilantes like Dexter, which pumps audiences full of conflicting emotions. I like this guy, but he's a serial killer. He's stopping other killers, but he's doing so in such a disturbing way.

Are vigilante stories fascist fantasies? Perhaps, but fantasies aren't real. They're used to illustrate something, and in the case of vigilante fantasies, they illustrate a desire for justice. The existence of a show like Dexter will repulse some people and that's certainly an understandable reaction. In fact, I think that's exactly what the show's creators want to do. They're walking the line between satisfying the desire for justice while continually noting that Dexter is not a good person. Ironically, what would repulse me more would be the complete absence of stories like Dexter, because the only way such a thing could happen would be if everyone thought our society was perfect. Perhaps someday concepts like justice and crime will be irrelevant, but that day ain't coming soon, and until it does, we'll need such stories, if only to remind us that we don't live in a perfect world.
Posted by Mark on March 23, 2008 at 07:16 PM .: Comments (2) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Sunday, December 23, 2007

The Two Days of Christmas
I suppose I could have done a 12 days of Christmas post in the vein of the 4 weeks of Halloween posts, but there's obviously no time left. So here are a few things I've watched, read, or listened to recently in preparation for Christmas. That's all for now. Mery Christmas!
Posted by Mark on December 23, 2007 at 09:25 PM .: Comments (0) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Rhetorical Strategy
Every so often, I see someone who is genuinely concerned with reaching the unreachable. Whether it be scientists who argue about how to frame their arguments, alpha-geek programmers who try to figure out how to reach typical, average programmers, or critics who try to open a dialogue with feminists. Debates tend to polarize, and when it comes to politics or religion, assumptions of bad faith on both sides tend to derail discussions pretty quickly.

How do you reach the unreachable? Naturally, the topic is much larger than a single blog entry, but I did run accross an interesting post by Jon Udell that outlines Charles Darwin's rhetorical strategy in the book, On the Origin of Species (which popularized the theory of evolution).
Darwin, says Slatkin, was like a salesman who finds lots of little ways to get you to say yes before you're asked to utter the big yes. In this case, Darwin invited people to affirm things they already knew, about a topic much more familiar in their era than in ours: domestic species. Did people observe variation in domestic species? Yes. And as Darwin piles on the examples, the reader says, yes, yes, OK, I get it, of course I see that some pigeons have longer tail feathers. Did people observe inheritance? Yes. And again, as he piles on the examples, the reader says yes, yes, OK, I get it, everyone knows that that the offspring of longer-tail-feather pigeons have longer tail feathers.

By the time Darwin gets around to asking you to say the big yes, it's a done deal. You've already affirmed every one of the key pillars of the argument. And you've done so in terms of principles that you already believe, and fully understand from your own experience.

It only took a couple of years for Darwin to formulate the idea of evolution by natural selection. It took thirty years to frame that idea in a way that would convince other scientists and the general public. Both the idea, and the rhetorical strategy that successfully communicated it, were great innovations.
I think Udell simplifies the inception and development of the idea of evolution, but I think the point generally holds. Darwin's ideas didn't come into mainstream prominence until he published his book, decades after he had begun his work. Obviously, Darwin's strategy isn't applicable in every situation, but it is an interesting place to start (I suppose we should keep in mind that evolution is still controversial amongst the mainstream)...
Posted by Mark on December 05, 2007 at 08:29 PM .: Comments (0) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Facial Expressions and the Closed Eye Syndrome
I've been reading Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink, and one of the chapters focuses on the psychology of facial expressions. Put simply, we wear our emotions on our face, and some enterprising psychologists took to mapping the distinct muscular movements that the human face can make. It's an interesting process, and it turns out that people who learn these facial expressions (of which there are many) are eerily good at recognizing what people are really thinking, even if they aren't trying to show it. It's almost like mind reading, and we all do it to some extent or another (mostly, we do it unconsciously). Body language and facial expressions are packed with information, and we'd all be pretty much lost without that kind of feedback (perhaps why misunderstandings are more common on the phone or in email). Most of the time, our expressions are voluntary, but sometimes they're not. Even if we're trying to suppress our expressions, a fleeting look may cross our faces. Often, these "micro-expressions" last only a few milliseconds and are imperceptible, but when trained psychologists watch video of, say, Harold "Kim" Philby (a notorious soviet spy) giving a press conference, they're able to read him like a book (slow motion helps).

I found this example interesting, and it highlights some of the subtle differences that can exist between expressions (in this case, between a voluntary and involuntary expression):
If I were to ask you to smile, you would flex your zygomatic major. By contrast, if you were to smile spontaneously, in the presence of genuine emotion, you would not only flex your zygomatic but also tighten the orbicularis oculi, pars orbitalis, which is the muscle that encircles the eye. It is almost impossible to tighten the orbicularis oculi, pars orbitalis on demand, and it is equally difficult to stop it from tightening when we smile at something genuinely pleasurable.
I found that interesting in light of the Closed Eye Syndrome I noticed in Anime. I wonder how that affects the way we perceive Anime. If a smiling mouth by itself means a fake expression of happiness while a smiling mouth and closed eyes means genuine emotion, does that make the animation more authentic? Animation obviously doesn't have the fidelity of video or film, but we can obviously read expressions from animated faces, so I would expect that closed eye syndrome exists more because of accuracy than anything else. In my original post on the subject, Roy noted that the reason I noticed closed eyes in anime could have something to do with the way Japan and the US read emotion. He pointed to an article that claimed Americans focus more on the mouth while the Japanese focus more on the eyes when trying to read emotions from facial expressions. One example from the article was emoticons. For happiness, Americans use a smily face :) while the Japanese tend to use ^_^ (which seems to be a face with eyes closed). That might still be part of it, but ever since I made the observation, I've noticed similar expressions in American animation (I just recently noticed it a lot in a Venture Bros. episode). Still, occurrences in American animation seem less frequent (or perhaps less obvious), so perhaps the observation still holds.

Gladwell's book is interesting, as expected, though I'm not sure yet if he has a point other than to observe that we do a lot of subconscious analysis and make lots of split decisions, and sometimes this is good (other times it's not). Still, he's good at finding examples and drilling down into the issue, and even if I'm not sure about his conclusions, it's always fun to read. There's lots more on this subject in the book (for instance, he goes over how facial expressions and our emotions are a two way phenomenon - meaning that if you intentionally contort your face in an specific way, you can induce certain emotions. The psychologists I mentioned earlier who were mapping expressions noticed that after a full day of trying to manipulate their facial muscles to show anger (even though they weren't angry) they felt horrible. Some tests have been done to confirm that, indeed, our facial expressions are linked directly to our brain) and it's probably worth a read if that's your bag.
Posted by Mark on November 28, 2007 at 08:19 PM .: Comments (2) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Sunday, November 18, 2007

The Paradise of Choice?
A while ago, I wrote a post about the Paradox of Choice based on a talk by Barry Schwartz, the author of a book by the same name. The basic argument Schwartz makes is that choice is a double-edged sword. Choice is a good thing, but too much choice can have negative consequences, usually in the form of some kind of paralysis (where there are so many choices that you simply avoid the decision) and consumer remorse (elevated expectations, anticipated regret, etc...). The observations made by Schwartz struck me as being quite astute, and I've been keenly aware of situations where I find myself confronted with a paradox of choice ever since. Indeed, just knowing and recognizing these situations seems to help deal with the negative aspects of having too many choices available.

This past summer, I read Chris Anderson's book, The Long Tail, and I was a little pleasantly surprised to see a chapter in his book titled "The Paradise of Choice." In that chapter, Anderson explicitely addresses Schwartz's book. However, while I liked Anderson's book and generally agreed with his basic points, I think his dismissal of the Paradox of Choice is off target. Part of the problem, I think, is that Anderson is much more concerned with the choices rather than the consequences of those choices (which is what Schwartz focuses on). It's a little difficult to tell though, as Anderson only dedicates 7 pages or so to the topic. As such, his arguments don't really eviscerate Schwartz's work. There are some good points though, so let's take a closer look.

Anderson starts with a summary of Schwartz's main concepts, and points to some of Schwartz's conclusions (from page 171 in my edition):
As the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.
Now, the way Anderson presents this is a bit out of context, but we'll get to that in a moment. Anderson continues and then responds to some of these points (again, page 171):
As an antidote to this poison of our modern age, Schwartz recommends that consumers "satisfice," in the jargon of social science, not "maximize". In other words, they'd be happier if they just settled for what was in front of them rather than obsessing over whether something else might be even better. ...

I'm skeptical. The alternative to letting people choose is choosing for them. The lessons of a century of retail science (along with the history of Soviet department stores) are that this is not what most consumers want.
Anderson has completely missed the point here. Later in the chapter, he spends a lot of time establishing that people do, in fact, like choice. And he's right. My problem is twofold: First, Schwartz never denies that choice is a good thing, and second, he never advocates removing choice in the first place. Yes, people love choice, the more the better. However, Schwartz found that even though people preferred more options, they weren't necessarily happier because of it. That's why it's called the paradox of choice - people obviously prefer something that ends up having negative consequences. Schwartz's book isn't some sort of crusade against choice. Indeed, it's more of a guide for how to cope with being given too many choices. Take "satisficing." As Tom Slee notes in a critique of this chapter, Anderson misstates Schwartz's definition of the term. He makes it seem like satisficing is settling for something you might not want, but Schwartz's definition is much different:
To satisfice is to settle for something that is good enough and not worry about the possibility that there might be something better. A satisficer has criteria and standards. She searches until she finds an item that meets those standards, and at that point, she stops.
Settling for something that is good enough to meet your needs is quite different than just settling for what's in front of you. Again, I'm not sure Anderson is really arguing against Schwartz. Indeed, Anderson even acknowledges part of the problem, though he again misstate's Schwartz's arguments:
Vast choice is not always an unalloyed good, of course. It too often forces us to ask, "Well, what do I want?" and introspection doesn't come naturally to all. But the solution is not to limit choice, but to order it so it isn't oppressive.
Personally, I don't think the problem is that introspection doesn't come naturally to some people (though that could be part of it), it's more that some people just don't give a crap about certain things and don't want to spend time figuring it out. In Schwartz's talk, he gave an example about going to the Gap to buy a pair of jeans. Of course, the Gap offers a wide variety of jeans (as of right now: Standard Fit, Loose Fit, Boot Fit, Easy Fit, Morrison Slim Fit, Low Rise Fit, Toland Fit, Hayes Fit, Relaxed Fit, Baggy Fit, Carpenter Fit). The clerk asked him what he wanted, and he said "I just want a pair of jeans!"

The second part of Anderson's statement is interesting though. Aside from again misstating Schwartz's argument (he does not advocate limiting choice!), the observation that the way a choice is presented is important is interesting. Yes, the Gap has a wide variety of jean styles, but look at their website again. At the top of the page is a little guide to what each of the styles means. For the most part, it's helpful, and I think that's what Anderson is getting at. Too much choice can be oppressive, but if you have the right guide, you can get the best of both worlds. The only problem is that finding the right guide is not as easy as it sounds. The jean style guide at Gap is neat and helpful, but you do have to click through a bunch of stuff and read it. This is easier than going to a store and trying all the varieties on, but it's still a pain for someone who just wants a pair of jeans dammit.

Anderson spends some time fleshing out these guides to making choices, noting the differences between offline and online retailers:
In a bricks-and-mortar store, products sit on the shelf where they have been placed. If a consumer doesn't know what he or she wants, the only guide is whatever marketing material may be printed on the package, and the rough assumption that the product offered in the greatest volume is probably the most popular.

Online, however, the consumer has a lot more help. There are a nearly infinite number of techniques to tap the latent information in a marketplace and make that selection process easier. You can sort by price, by ratings, by date, and by genre. You can read customer reviews. You can compare prices across products and, if you want, head off to Google to find out as much about the product as you can imagine. Recommendations suggest products that 'people like you' have been buying, and surprisingly enough, they're often on-target. Even if you know nothing about the category, ranking best-sellers will reveal the most popular choice, which both makes selection easier and also tends to minimize post-sale regret. ...

... The paradox of choice is simply and artifact of the limitations of the physical world, where the information necessary to make an informed choice is lost.
I think it's a very good point he's making, though I think he's a bit too optimistic about how effective these guides to buying really are. For one thing, there are times when a choice isn't clear, even if you do have a guide. Also, while I think retailers that offer Recommendations based on what other customer purchases are important and helpful, who among us hasn't seen absurd recommendations? From my personal experience, a lot of people don't like the connotations of recommendations either (how do they know so much about me? etc...). Personally, I really like recommendations, but I'm a geek and I like to figure out why they're offering me what they are (Amazon actually tells you why something is recommended, which is really neat). In any case, from my own personal anecdotal observations, no one puts much faith in probablistic systems like recommendations or ratings (for a number of reasons, such as cheating or distrust). There's nothing wrong with that, and that's part of why such systems are effective. Ironically, acknowledging their imperfections allow users to better utilize the systems. Anderson knows this, but I think he's still a bit too optimistic about our tools for traversing the long tail. Personally, I think they need a lot of work.

When I was younger, one of the big problems in computing was storage. Computers are the perfect data gatering tool, but you need somewhere to store all that data. In the 1980s and early 1990s, computers and networks were significantly limited by hardware, particularly storage. By the late 1990s, Moore's law had eroded this deficiency significantly, and today, the problem of storage is largely solved. You can buy a terrabyte of storage for just a couple hundred dollars. However, as I'm fond of saying, we don't so much solve problems as trade one set of problems for another. Now that we have the ability to store all this information, how do we get at it in a meaninful way? When hardware was limited, analysis was easy enough. Now, though, you have so much data available that the simple analyses of the past don't cut it anymore. We're capturing all this new information, but are we really using it to its full potential?

I recently caught up with Malcolm Gladwell's article on the Enron collapse. The really crazy thing about Enron was that they didn't really hide what they were doing. They fully acknowledged and disclosed what they were doing... there was just so much complexity to their operations that no one really recognized the issues. They were "caught" because someone had the persistence to dig through all the public documentation that Enron had provided. Gladwell goes into a lot of detail, but here are a few excerpts:
Enron's downfall has been documented so extensively that it is easy to overlook how peculiar it was. Compare Enron, for instance, with Watergate, the prototypical scandal of the nineteen-seventies. To expose the White House coverup, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein used a source-Deep Throat-who had access to many secrets, and whose identity had to be concealed. He warned Woodward and Bernstein that their phones might be tapped. When Woodward wanted to meet with Deep Throat, he would move a flower pot with a red flag in it to the back of his apartment balcony. That evening, he would leave by the back stairs, take multiple taxis to make sure he wasn't being followed, and meet his source in an underground parking garage at 2 A.M. ...

Did Jonathan Weil have a Deep Throat? Not really. He had a friend in the investment-management business with some suspicions about energy-trading companies like Enron, but the friend wasn't an insider. Nor did Weil's source direct him to files detailing the clandestine activities of the company. He just told Weil to read a series of public documents that had been prepared and distributed by Enron itself. Woodward met with his secret source in an underground parking garage in the hours before dawn. Weil called up an accounting expert at Michigan State.

When Weil had finished his reporting, he called Enron for comment. "They had their chief accounting officer and six or seven people fly up to Dallas," Weil says. They met in a conference room at the Journal's offices. The Enron officials acknowledged that the money they said they earned was virtually all money that they hoped to earn. Weil and the Enron officials then had a long conversation about how certain Enron was about its estimates of future earnings. ...

Of all the moments in the Enron unravelling, this meeting is surely the strangest. The prosecutor in the Enron case told the jury to send Jeffrey Skilling to prison because Enron had hidden the truth: You're "entitled to be told what the financial condition of the company is," the prosecutor had said. But what truth was Enron hiding here? Everything Weil learned for his Enron expose came from Enron, and when he wanted to confirm his numbers the company's executives got on a plane and sat down with him in a conference room in Dallas.
Again, there's a lot more detail in Gladwell's article. Just how complicated was the public documentation that Enron had released? Gladwell gives some examples, including this one:
Enron's S.P.E.s were, by any measure, evidence of extraordinary recklessness and incompetence. But you can't blame Enron for covering up the existence of its side deals. It didn't; it disclosed them. The argument against the company, then, is more accurately that it didn't tell its investors enough about its S.P.E.s. But what is enough? Enron had some three thousand S.P.E.s, and the paperwork for each one probably ran in excess of a thousand pages. It scarcely would have helped investors if Enron had made all three million pages public. What about an edited version of each deal? Steven Schwarcz, a professor at Duke Law School, recently examined a random sample of twenty S.P.E. disclosure statements from various corporations-that is, summaries of the deals put together for interested parties-and found that on average they ran to forty single-spaced pages. So a summary of Enron's S.P.E.s would have come to a hundred and twenty thousand single-spaced pages. What about a summary of all those summaries? That's what the bankruptcy examiner in the Enron case put together, and it took up a thousand pages. Well, then, what about a summary of the summary of the summaries? That's what the Powers Committee put together. The committee looked only at the "substance of the most significant transactions," and its accounting still ran to two hundred numbingly complicated pages and, as Schwarcz points out, that was "with the benefit of hindsight and with the assistance of some of the finest legal talent in the nation."
Again, Gladwell's article has a lot of other details and is a fascinating read. What interested me the most, though, was the problem created by so much data. That much information is useless if you can't sift through it quickly or effectively enough. Bringing this back to the paradise of choice, the current systems we have for making such decisions are better than ever, but still require a lot of improvement. Anderson is mostly talking about simple consumer products, so none are really as complicated as the Enron case, but even then, there are still a lot of problems. If we're really going to overcome the paradox of choice, we need better information analysis tools to help guide us. That said, Anderson's general point still holds:
More choice really is better. But now we know that variety alone is not enough; we also need information about that variety and what other consumers before us have done with the same choices. ... The paradox of choice turned out to be more about the poverty of help in making that choice than a rejection of plenty. Order it wrong and choice is oppressive; order it right and it's liberating.
Personally, while the help in making choices has improved, there's still a long way to go before we can really tackle the paradox of choice (though, again, just knowing about the paradox of choice seems to do wonders in coping with it).

As a side note, I wonder if the video game playing generations are better at dealing with too much choice - video games are all about decisions, so I wonder if folks who grew up working on their decision making apparatus are more comfortable with being deluged by choice.
Posted by Mark on November 18, 2007 at 09:47 PM .: Comments (2) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The Spinning Silhouette
This Spinning Silhouette optical illusion is making the rounds on the internet this week, and it's being touted as a "right brain vs left brain test." The theory goes that if you see the silhouette spinning clockwise, you're right brained, and you're left brained if you see it spinning counterclockwise.

Everytime I looked at the damn thing, it was spinning a different direction. I closed my eyes and opened them again, and it spun a different direction. Every now and again, and it would stay the same direction twice in a row, but if I looked away and looked back, it changed direction. Now, if I focus my eyes on a point below the illusion, it doesn't seem to rotate all the way around at all, instead it seems like she's moving from one side to the other, then back (i.e. changing directions every time the one leg reaches the side of the screen - and the leg always seems to be in front of the silhouette).

Of course, this is the essense of the illusion. The silhouette isn't actually spinning at all, because it's two dimensional. However, since my brain is used to living in a three dimensional world (and thus parsing three dimensional images), it's assuming that the image is also three dimensional. We're actually making lots of assumptions about the image, and that's why we can see it going one way or the other.

Eventually, after looking at the image for a while and pondering the issues, I got curious. I downloaded the animated gif and opened it up in the GIMP to see how the frames are built. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this thing is either broken or it's cheating. Well, I shouldn't say that. I noticed something off on one of the frames, and I'd be real curious to know how that affects people's perception of the illusion (to me, it means the image is definitely moving counterclockwise). I'm almost positive that it's too subtle to really affect anything, but I did find it interesting. More on this, including images and commentary, below the fold. First thing's first, here's the actual spinning silhouette.

The Spinning Silhouette

Again, some of you will see it spinning in one direction, some in the other direction. Everyone seems to have a different trick for getting it to switch direction. Some say to focus on the shadow, some say to look at the ankles. Closing my eyes and reopening seems to do the trick for me. Now let's take a closer look at one of the frames. Here's frame 12:

In frame 12, the illusion is still intact

Looking at this frame, you should be able to switch back and forth, seeing the leg behind the person or in front of the person. Again, because it's a silhouette and a two dimensional image, our brain usually makes an assumption of depth, putting the leg in front or behind the body. Switching back and forth on this static image was actually a lot easier for me. Now the tricky part comes in the next frame, number 13 (obviously, the arrow was added by me):

In frame 13, there is a little gash in the leg

Now, if you look closely at the leg, you'll see a little imperfection in the silhouette. Maybe I'm wrong, but that little gash in the leg seems to imply that the leg is behind the body. If you try, you can still get yourself to see the image as having the leg in front, but then you've got this gash in the leg that just seems very out of place.

So what to make of this? First, the imperfection is subtle enough (it's on 1 frame out of 34) that everyone still seems to be able to see it rotate in both directions. Second, maybe I'm crazy, and the little gash doesn't imply what I think. Anyone have alternative explanations? Third, is that imperfection intentional? If so, why? It does not seem necessary, so I'd be curious to know if the creators knew about it, and what their intention was regarding it.

Finally, as far as the left brain versus right brain portion, I find that I don't really care, but I am interested in how the imperfection would affect this "test." This neuroscientist seems to be pretty adamant about the whole left/right thing being hogwash though:
...the notion that someone is "left-brained" or "right-brained" is absolute nonsense. All complex behaviours and cognitive functions require the integrated actions of multiple brain regions in both hemispheres of the brain. All types of information are probably processed in both the left and right hemispheres (perhaps in different ways, so that the processing carried out on one side of the brain complements, rather than substitutes, that being carried out on the other).
At the very least, the traditional left/right brain theory is a wildly oversimplified version of what's really happening. The post also goes into the way the brain "fill in the gaps" for confusing visual information, thus allowing the illusion.

Update: Strange - the image appears to be rotating MUCH faster in Firefox than in Opera or IE. I wonder how that affects perception.
Posted by Mark on October 17, 2007 at 10:42 PM .: Comments (1) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Groping and Probing
So a few recent installments of Shamus' new comic, Chainmail Bikini, has created a bit of controversy. The comics in question are actually a series of 3 (the fact that there are 3 is a key part of the controversy, but we'll get to that in a moment). Here they are: The controversy stems from the fact that there is a malicious groping in comic #6. Perhaps due to an ill-advised punchline ("improved stamina"), the discussion turned from one of groping and larping and into one of rape. And we all know how funny discussions of rape can get.

To be honest, I didn't find this particular arc in the comics very funny. However, I didn't find it very offensive either (though I can see why some might think so). Also, while I didn't find it especially funny, I do think it makes an interesting statement about gaming in general.

I don't tend to read web-comics the same way I read blogs. I tend to let several installments build up, and then read them all. So I didn't read this particular story arc until I knew about the controversy, and I must admit to a little bit of observer bias. Knowing there was a controversy colored my reading of the comic, and two things immediately struck me.

First is that while there is an element of one guy antagonizing his buddy, there is also an element of probing. By probing, I'm referring to exploration of the limits of a game and its possibilities. Steven Johnson's book Everything Bad is Good for You has a chapter on Video Games which covers this concept really well, and I recently wrote about it:
Probing is essentially exploration of the game and its possibilities. Much of this is simply the unconscious exploration of the controls and the interface, figuring out how the game works and how you're supposed to interact with it. However, probing also takes the more conscious form of figuring out the limitations of the game. For instance, in a racing game, it's usually interesting to see if you can turn your car around backwards, pick up a lot of speed, then crash head-on into a car going the "correct" way.
Now again, in comic #6, one character is clearly attempting to antagonize his friend for choosing to role play a woman. However, I find it interesting that he chose to do so in such a way that is consistent with his character (who is a Chaotic Neutral barbarian) and followed the rules of the game (rolling die, etc...). According to the notes that accompany this arc, this sort of thing tends to happen when a campaign is not going well. If the players aren't having fun, they're going to make fun, and in if you're in a role playing game, they're going to do so by making their characters do something a little extreme. They don't do this because they are really extreme people, but because they want to see what happens. In short, they want to knock the game off it's boring rails. In this case, one player's character player groped another player's character. And from the aftermath in comics #7 and #8, you can see that things certainly got interesting. However, you also see that there were indeed consequences for the groping (one player physically assaults the other), and the comments that accompany each comic clearly attest that this is, in fact, a bad thing. To me, it's clear that the character in the comic is engaging in probing, but the comic also makes it clear that in a game that is as open-ended as D&D, it's possible to take things so far, which is why you saw a "real-world" reprisal (scare quotes due to the fact that this is a fictional comic, after all).

The second thing that struck me also had to do with the consequences. The situation immediately reminded me of this post from my friend Roy's feminist blog. He found this german poster which has a picture accompanied by this text:
Warning! Women defend themselves! If you leer at, catcall, or touch a woman, take into account that you might be loudly ridiculed, have a glass of beer poured over you, or be slapped in the face. Therefore, we strongly advise you to refrain from such harrassment!
This is exactly what happend in comics #6 - #8. Well, not exactly. The comics actually take the consequences even further, while further abstracting the situation. Let me elaborate. The poster that Roy is pointing to is talking about real life situations. If you grope some woman at a bar, expect to be slapped in the face (or worse). What happened in the comics? An imaginary character who was role playing his own imaginary character groped another imaginary character that was being role played by yet another imaginary character. No one actually exists in this scenario, and yet there are indeed consequences for the groping. In fact, the consequences were the entire point of this character arc. So when I read comics #6-#8, I immediately saw them as a demonstration of Roy's poster. (Ironically, you could even read into this more, saying that the consequences have actually broken free of the imaginary world of Chainmail Bikini and taken root in the real world - in the form of a long comment thread and multiple blog postings like this one).

Now, if one were so inclined, I can see why this arc would be grating. Personally, it doesn't bother me, but I've never been groped (er, against my will) and I can certainly understand how that could be off-putting (I suppose an argument could be made that there are some other gender issues as well). And as an astute commenter at Shamus' site points out, a lot of why this comic doesn't work as humor is due to the structure of the story:
A lot of why this doesn't work well as humour, and why it's ended up annoying people, is to do with the structure of the comic. I think Shamus really struggled with fitting a potentially amusing gag into the three-panel format, and ultimately didn't manage it successfully.

Here's what I mean. Comic 6 Panel 1 has the line "I'm exploring gender roles within the context of a roleplaying environment". The barbarian's player throws these words back in comic 7 panel 2. It's the punchline of a five-panel gag split over two comics. Structurally, this is a mess. It leads to a lame second gag to fill the rest of comic 7, but more importantly it means some sort of not-quite-a-punchline has to be contrived for the end of comic 6. That's where "improved stamina" comes from. Whatever is said in subsequent comics, it is really hard to read comic 6 in isolation without inferring that the barbarian's player intends to have his character vigorously sexually assault the female character. Because this is the last line of the comic, the additional implication is that we are meant to find this funny in itself. No wonder some people got offended.

Now, imagine doing the same thing over a slightly longer single comic of four or five panels. You would cut the "improved stamina" line for a start - it would serve no purpose any more. Instead, the comic ends on "I prefer to think of it as exploring gender roles within the context of a roleplaying environment". The first advantage of this is that it's a lot funnier. The punchline is where it's supposed to be, not buried half-way through the next comic. The second advantage is that the potential for offending readers is greatly reduced. It no longer reads as though we're meant to find rape or sexual assault funny: the humour is in the elf's player having his pretentiousness deflated in a basically harmless, if tasteless, way.
Shamus himself has noted that this explanation is not only accurate, but a good explanation as to why people are offended by what he essentially saw as a harmless joke. This makes sense to me. He wrote a strip that touched on a controversial subject in a humorous way, but then he was forced to cut it up and insert artificial punchlines, one of which implied more than he thought. From his point of view, the comic is basically the same as before, but just split up a little. All the sudden people start talking about rape and unsubscribing to the comic. I can see why he'd be a bit perplexed by even a reasonable objection to the comic.

I've never been a particularly great writer. When I was in high school, I always excelled at math and science, but never did especially well at english or writing. By college, I was much more comfortable with writing, and part of the reason for that was that I realized that writing isn't precise. Language is inherently vague and open to interpretation, and though there are some people who can wield language astoundingly well, most of us will open ourselves up to criticism simply by the act of experessing ourselves. One of my favorite quotes summarizes this well:
"To write or to speak is almost inevitably to lie a little. It is an attempt to clothe an intangible in a tangible form; to compress an immeasurable into a mold. And in the act of compression, how the Truth is mangled and torn!"
- Anne Murrow Lindbergh
Unfortunately, this simple miscommunication seems to have gotten lost in a thread of almost 200 comments. Some people have quit reading the comic altogether because of some perceived malice or ignorance on Shamus' part, others have taken to turning this into a divisive debate about rape. I don't want to start a holy war here, but when it comes to controversial stuff like this, I tend to give the creators the benefit of the doubt.

I think this whole controversy has brought up some interesting ideas, even if most have reduced it to a debate about rape. For instance, probing in games often takes the form of doing something extreme. My seemingly innocuous example above was turning your racecar around and driving the wrong direction to see what happens when you ram into another car. In real life, such an action would be catastrophic and could result in multiple deaths. Now, does doing something like that speak ill of me (the player)? How does wanton vehicular homicide compare to imaginary groping?

In my limited D&D gaming career, I played a Chaotic Evil thief who stole from his own party (i.e. one of my friends). Why did I do that? In real life, I'd never do such a thing. Why would I be interested in doing it in a role playing game? At a later point, I certainly suffered the consequences for my actions, and I think that's the rub. Playing games is all about setting up a paradigm, and sometimes half the fun is attempting to pull it down and find the holes in the paradigm, just to see what happens. I think that's a big part of why open-ended games like Grand Theft Auto are so popular. It's not the act of stealing a car or murdering a stranger that's fun, it's the act of attempting to derail the game. (Again, I touched on this in a post on game manuals.) In a recent discussion on what people like about Role Playing Games (also at Shamus' site), one of the most prominent answers was that good RPGs "...must give the player lots of freedom to make their own choices." One of the things I really hated about God of War (an otherwise awsome game) was that the character I was playing was a real prick. At one point, he goes out of his way to kill an innocent bystander (something about kicking him down into the hydra maybe? I don't remember specifically.) and that really annoyed me. What happened didn't bother me so much as the fact that I didn't have a choice in the matter. I don't really have an answer here, but I like games that give me a lot of freedom, because once I get bored by the forced or scripted aspects of the game, I can probe for weaknesses in the paradigm, and maybe even exploit them.

Update: I just noticed that Roy has tackled this subject on his blog. He seems quite disheartened by Shamus' post, though Roy wrote his post before the comment I quoted above was posted... My perception was that Shamus just couldn't understand why people were objecting... but once someone actually pointed out, in detail, why the humor doesn't work, he seemed to be more understanding (not only of why people were complaining, but of what people were suggesting by their complaints). But that's just me. I don't want to put words in Shamus' mouth, but as I already mentioned, I tend to give creators the benefit of the doubt.
Posted by Mark on October 03, 2007 at 07:55 PM .: Comments (3) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Sunday, September 30, 2007

Halloweeny Links
Kaedrin's own monkey research squad strikes again, with a pseduo-horror/Halloween theme. Enjoy:
  • Kernunrex's Six Weeks of Halloween 2007: He of the Chronocinethon is taking a break from exhaustively exploring movies in chronological order, and watching lots of horror flicks in the six weeks leading up to Halloween. I wish I had thought of this (and had time to implement). I think the neatest thing about his schedule is that he sneaks in a bunch of shorts and trailers between his movies (for instance, he's got the classic Simpsons episode, The Shinning and the great SNL Skit: Consumer Probe: Unsafe Halloween Costumes). I might have to do something like this in the near future. Or maybe I'll just go to the 24 Hour Horrorthon in Philly.
  • Horror Movie a Day: This guy takes to watching Horror movies with a zeal unseen since, uh, Kernunrex. Crap. Still, this guy watches 1 horror movie a day and posts a quick capsule review.
  • Dungeons & Dragons: Celebrating 30 Years of Very Stupid Monsters: What can be more fearsome than the Duckbunny? I dunno, the picture of the Squark kinda looks like Cthulhu if you don't look too close. And have poor vision. Also, with respect to the Giant Beaver (actual D&D monster), this snapple cap that's been on my desk informs me that Beavers were once the size of bears! Ok, I'll stop now. Lots of stupid monsters here.
  • The Legend of FacilityFocus: Funny "Underground Guide" for how to enter repair request using UPenn's new web interface, done in the style of an adventure video game walkthrough. Is this horror? Well, as someone whose job involves usability, this is pretty horrific.
  • Plush Hellraiser: The Box. You Snuggled It. We Came. I'm mostly linking to this because of the brilliant title, but Widge has some neat suggestions for newly released plush Hellraiser toys.
Ok, so some of those are a stretch on the Halloween theme, but work with me here.
Posted by Mark on September 30, 2007 at 10:15 PM .: Comments (2) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Monday, September 24, 2007

We Could Be Heroes
Just for one day though. Apologies for the missing entry yesterday and the lame entry today. Time is still tight, so I'll just throw out a link to 5 Questions Season Two of Heroes Had Better F#@king Answer.
Unlike a certain show about people stranded on a mysterious island that we won't name, by the end of its first season NBC's hit series Heroes had managed to neatly wrap up the vast majority of its plot threads and running storylines. The cheerleader was saved; the sword was retrieved; and the exploding man was stopped. We didn't watch the finale of the mystery island show that we're not naming, but we wouldn't be surprised if Locke was left speechless by the sight of Patrick Duffy in the shower. Had it all been a dream?
Some questions I have: Will they finally just get rid of Ali Larter's dumbass subplot? Which lame, cliched plot element will they get me to fall for anyway?

Update: The answer to my second question: Amnesia.
Posted by Mark on September 24, 2007 at 11:43 PM .: Comments (3) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Sunday, September 16, 2007

Fantasy Football, 2007
As I mentioned earlier in the week, my schedule is pretty tight so my time for writing (and just about everything else) has been drastically reduced. So I'm just going to introduce my 2007 fantasy football team, the Star Wars Kids. I know most of my readers aren't big sports fans, but I can probably dash this off in a half hour, which I actually have enough time for. So I did very well last year, but my team peaked early and lost in the first round of the playoffs.

I was a little worried about this year. First, I had almost no time to prepare for the draft, which isn't usually a good sign. Second, the team I drafted seemed to be relying on a lot of "comeback" seasons (players who had a bad season or two due to injury or due to their team's performance, but who could make a comeback this year). Third, I ended up with a lackluster defense and my bench is a little weak. This is due to my position in the draft. I was last but the draft is a snake, so I had the 12th and 13th pick, but then had to wait for another 2 rounds for my next pick (36 overall). This position has its advantages, but it also meant that when a run on Defense/Special Teams happened, I ended up with scraps. Fourth, as an Eagles fan, I was frustrated by the fact that I ended up with Terrell Owens. He's a great performer, but on a personal level, I hate him. And he plays for the mortal enemy of the Eagles. I also have the Cowboys defense & special teams. Put simply, when the Eagles play the Cowboys, I'm going to be pretty conflicted.

Anyway, after one and half weeks here, it seems that the team I drafted is doing quite well for itself. Many of my gambles are paying off, and I may have underestimated some of my "sure things." So here's my team:
  • Tom Brady: (QB) Yes, I had him last year and yes, I was a little disappointed by him. He did a solid job, week in and week out, but he was no Peyton Manning (I don't want to start a holy war here, but while we could debate which is better in real life, Manning has always been the better fantasy QB. ) So if I was disappointed last year, why would I spend a second round draft pick on him this year? Put simply, he's got a real receiving corps now. Last year, he did a good job and he had no good recievers! This year, he's got Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Donte Stallworth. There was perhaps a little bit of a risk here, as Moss hasn't been stellar in Oakland... but, you know, he was playing in Oakland. Who wouldn't do poorly? Anyway, Brady put up huge numbers last week, and it was a good thing too, as my opponent had Peyton Manning (interestingly, they both put up the same amount of fantasy points). As I type, Brady has put up 165 yards and 2 TDs and we're only a couple minutes into the 2nd Quarter of tonight's game. This may be my best pick of the year, though it didn't require much thought. Brady was a sure thing.
  • Travis Henry: (RB) This one had me worried. Henry is notoriously injury prone and inconsistent, has had fumbling and substance abuse problems in the past. However, Denver coach Mike Shanahan loves to run the ball, and Henry is a workhorse when he's healthy. Then again, Shanahan is notorious for giving the ball to multiple backs, which is poison for fantasy owners. So far, so good. Henry has put up solid but not stellar numbers. This is about all I could expect, but there's always the nagging fear of injury (or, uh, being arrested or something).
  • Edgerrin James: (RB) He had a bad season last year, so this was a bit of a risk. However, everything I've seen says the problem was the team he was on and not him. The Cardinals didn't run much and were pretty awful last year, so it was difficult for James to gain any ground. However, with a new head coach and some other changes, I was betting on big things from James... and so far, things are going well. He's been my top running back in the first two weeks and shows no signs of slowing down.
  • Adrian Peterson: (RB) A rookie who was originally scheduled to share the load with Chester Taylor... but when Taylor went down with an injury early in last week's game, Peterson came up huge. Unfortunately, I had him on my bench. Peterson's going to be one of the people I put into the "Flex" position from week to week, so he may spend some time on the bench (especially if Taylor comes back), but he did a reasonable job this week.
  • Terrell Owens: (WR) As much as it pains me to admit it, TO is fantasy gold, and I got him relatively late in the draft. He's been one of my top performers and I'm sure he'll remain that way. He's good for double digit touchdowns, and as much as I dislike him on a personal level, I have to admit, I like the numbers he's putting up. I wish I had the fortitude of Bill Simmons:
    Just know that he'll never be on my team. I can't root for him. It's not in me. When TO does something good, I don't want to feel happy.
    I don't like rooting for him either. Makes me feel dirty. But he was a steal when I picked him up in the draft, and he's paid off in spades. *sigh*
  • Reggie Brown: (WR) Brown is the uncontested #1 WR in Philly, but he did nothing last week. Nothing. 1 reception for 11 yards. This is absurdly lame, and adds fuel to the "I hate having to root for TO" fire. Why can't I have a hometown player I can actually root for on my team? The last time that happend was 3 or 4 years ago when I had Brian Westbrook (who also happens to be from my alma mater). If Brown, who's riding my bench this week, doesn't do well tomorrow night, I'm not sure I'll keep him on my team.
  • Jerricho Cotchery: (WR) Put up mediocre numbers last week, but came up huge this week. Considering that I drafted him in one of the later rounds, I think this was a decent pickup, and he's earned his way to the number 2 WR slot on my team (though I'm pretty weak at WR).
  • Dallas Clark: (TE) Has had injury problems and is coming off a bad year, but he appears to be healthy and it's always nice to have one of Peyton Manning's targets on your team. He's put up some pretty solid numbers for me so far, so this late round draft pick seems worth it.
  • Cowboys: (D/ST) I hate the Cowboys, but due to a run on D/ST picks inbetween my picks, I really didn't have much of an option for D/ST. The Cowboys did crappy last week, but did a decent enough job today. That's all I can really ask for, though it would be really nice not to have to root for the Cowboys.
  • David Akers: (K) Well here's a hometown player I can root for, but the Kicker isn't exactly a premier position. Still, Akers is as solid as they come, and he should be able to put up decent numbers for me.
  • Bench: Texans QB Matt Schaub seems to be my best bench player, which would be great if he didn't have the same Bye week as Tom Brady. D'oh! Nevertheless, he might make good trade bait. Or not. We'll see. For backup running backs, I've got the Bells (Mike and Tatum), neither of which is all that great (though Mike Bell is Travis Henry's backup, which could be useful if Henry goes down with an injury). Rounding out the team are Drew Bennet (WR, crappy) and the Cardinals D/ST (also crappy).
So there you have it, the 2007 Star Wars Kids. So far, they've performed far beyond expectations, putting up a league high (tied for first, actually) 107 fantasy points last week. This week, they look even better, putting up 117 points so far, and Brady still has a half game left and Akers plays tomorrow night. There are still lots of things that could go wrong, and I could peak early like I did last season, but I'm still happy with my team's performance. I took a lot of gambles and picked several sleepers, and it looks like they're all paying off... so far.

Update: Greg's draft didn't go as well as mine, but I think he'll make due.
Posted by Mark on September 16, 2007 at 07:43 PM .: Comments (0) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Sunday, June 10, 2007

Referential
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how context matters when consuming art. As sometimes happens when writing an entry, that one got away from me and I never got around to the point I originally started with (that entry was originally entitled "Referential" but I changed it when I realized that I wasn't going to write anything about references), which was how much of our entertainment these days references its predecessors. This takes many forms, some overt (homages, parody), some a little more subtle.

I originally started thinking about this while watching an episode of Family Guy. The show is infamous for its random cutaway gags - little vignettes that have no connection to the story, but which often make some obscure reference to pop culture. For some reason, I started thinking about what it would be like to watch an episode of Family Guy with someone from, let's say, the 17th century. Let's further speculate that this person isn't a blithering idiot, but perhaps a member of the Royal Society or something (i.e. a bright fellow).

This would naturally be something of a challenge. There are some technical explanations that would be necessary. For example, we'd have to explain electricty, cable networks, signal processing and how the television works (which at least involves discussions on light and color). The concept of an animated show, at least, would probably be easy to explain (but it would involve a discussion of how the human eye works, to a degree).

There's more to it, of course, but moving past all that, once we start watching the show, we're going to have to explain why we're laughing at pretty much all of the jokes. Again, most of the jokes are simply references and parodies of other pieces of pop culture. Watching an episode of Family Guy with Isaac Newton (to pick a prominent Royal Society member) would necessitate a pause just about every minute to explain what each reference was from and why Family Guy's take on it made me laugh. Then there's the fact that Family Guy rarely has any sort of redeemable lesson and often deliberately skews towards actively encouraging evil (something along the lines of "I think the important thing to remember is that it's ok to lie, so long as you don't get caught." I don't think that exact line is in an episode, but it could be.) This works fine for us, as we're so steeped in popular culture that we get the fact that Family Guy is just lampooning of the notion that we could learn important life lessions via a half-hour sitcom. But I'm sure Isaac Newton would be appalled.

For some reason, I find this fascinating, and try to imagine how I would explain various jokes. For instance, the episode I was watching featured a joke concerning "cool side of the pillow." They cut to a scene in bed where Peter flips over the pillow and sees Billy Dee Williams' face, which proceeds to give a speech about how cool this side of the pillow is, ending with "Works every time." This joke alone would require a whole digression into Star Wars and how most of the stars of that series struggled to overcome their typecasting and couldn't find a lot of good work, so people like Billy Dee Williams ended up doing commercials for a malt liquor named Colt 45, which had these really cheesy commercials where Billy Dee talked like that. And so on. It could probably take an hour before my guest would even come close to understanding the context of the joke (I'm not even touching the tip of the iceberg with this post).

And the irony of this whole thing is that jokes that are explained simply aren't funny. To be honest, I'm not even sure why I find these simple gags funny (that, of course, is the joy of humor - you don't usually have to understand it or think about it, you just laugh). Seriously, why is it funny when Family Guy blatantly references some classic movie or show? Again, I'm not sure, but that sort of humor has been steadily growing over the past 30 years or so.

Not all comedies are that blatant about their referential humor though (indeed, Family Guy itself doesn't solely rely upon such references). A recent example of a good referential film is Shaun of the Dead, which somewhow manages to be both a parody and an example of a good zombie movie. It pays homage to all the classic zombie films and it also makes fun of other genres (notably the romantic comedy), but in doing so, the filmmakers have also made a good zombie movie in itself. The filmmakers have recently released a new film called Hot Fuzz, which attempts the same trick for action movies and buddy comedies. It is, perhaps, not as successful as Shaun, but the sheer number of references in the film is astounding. There are the obvious and explicit ones like Point Break and Bad Boys II, but there are also tons of subtle homages that I'd wager most people wouldn't get. For instance, when Simon Pegg yells in the movie, he's doing a pitch perfect impersonation of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator. And when he chases after a criminal, he imitates the way Robert Patrick's T-1000 runs from Terminator 2.

References don't need to be part of a comedy either (though comedies seem to make the easiest examples). Hop on IMDB and go to just about any recent movie, and click on the "Movie Connections" link in the left navigation. For instance, did you know that the aformentioned T2 references The Wizard of Oz and The Killing, amongst dozens of other references? Most of the time, these references are really difficult to pick out, especially when you're viewing a foreign film or show that's pulling from a different cultural background. References don't have to be story or character based - they can be the way a scene is composed or the way the lighting is set (i.e. the Venetian blinds in Noir films).

Now, this doesn't just apply to art either. A lot of common knowledge in today's world is referential. Most formal writing includes references and bibliographies, for instance, and a non-fiction book will often assume basic familiarity with a subject. When I was in school, I was always annoyed at the amount of rote memorization they made us do. Why memorize it if I could just look it up? Shouldn't you be focusing on my critical thinking skills instead of making me memorize arbitrary lists of facts? Sometimes this complaining was probably warranted, but most of it wasn't. So much of what we do in today's world requires a well-rounded familiarity with a large number of subjects (including history, science, culture, amongst many other things). There simply isn't any substitute for actual knowledge. Though it was a pain at the time, I'm glad emphasis was put on memorization during my education. A while back, David Foster noted that schools are actually moving away from this, and makes several important distinctions. He takes an example of a song:
Jakob Dylan has a song that includes the following lines:

Cupid, don't draw back your bow
Sam Cooke didn't know what I know


Think of how much you need to know in order to understand these two simple lines:

1)You need to know that, in mythology, Cupid symbolizes love
2)And that Cupid's chosen instrument is the bow and arrow
3)Also that there was a singer/songwriter named Sam Cooke
4)And that he had a song called which included the lines "Cupid, draw back your bow."

... "Progressive" educators, loudly and in large numbers, insist that students should be taught "thinking skills" as opposed to memorization. But consider: If it's not possible to understand a couple of lines from a popular song without knowing by heart the references to which it alludes--without memorizing them--what chance is there for understanding medieval history, or modern physics, without having a ready grasp of the topics which these disciplines reference?

And also consider: in the Dylan case, it's not just what you need to know to appreciate the song. It's what Dylan needed to know to create it in the first place. Had he not already had the reference points--Cupid, the bow and arrow, the Sam Cooke song--in his head, there's no way he would have been able to create his own lines. The idea that he could have just "looked them up," which educators often suggest is the way to deal with factual knowledge, would be ludicrous in this context. And it would also be ludicrous in the context of creating new ideas about history or physics.
As Foster notes, this doesn't mean that "thinking skills" are unimportant, just that knowledge is important too. You need to have a quality data set in order to use those "thinking skills" effectively.

Human beings tend to leverage knowledge to create new knowledge. This has a lot of implications, one of which is intellectual property law. Giving limited copyright to intellectual property is important, because the data in that property eventually becomes available for all to built upon. It's ironic that educators are considering less of a focus on memorization, as this requirement of referential knowledge has been increasing for some time. Students need a base of knowledge to both understand and compose new works. References help you avoid reinventing the wheel everytime you need to create something, which leads to my next point.

I think part of the reason references are becoming more and more common these days is that it makes entertainment a little less passive. Watching TV or a movie is, of course, a passive activity, but if you make lots of references and homages, the viewer is required to think through those references. If the viewer has the appropriate knowledge, such a TV show or movie becomes a little more cognitively engaging. It makes you think, it calls to mind previous work, and it forces you to contextualize what you're watching based on what you know about other works. References are part of the complexity of modern Television and film, and Steven Johnson spends a significant amout of time talking about this subject in his book Everything Bad is Good for You (from page 85 of my edition):
Nearly every extended sequence in Seinfeld or The Simpsons, however, will contain a joke that makes sense only if the viewer fills in the proper supplementary information -- information that is deliberately withheld from the viewer. If you haven't seen the "Mulva" episode, or if the name "Art Vandelay" means nothing to you, then the subsequent references -- many of them arriving years after their original appearance -- will pass on by unappreciated.

At first glance, this looks like the soap opera tradition of plotlines extending past the frame of individual episodes, but in practice the device has a different effect. Knowing that George uses the alias Art Vandelay in awkward social situations doesn't help you understand the plot of the current episode; you don't draw on past narratives to understand the events in the present one. In the 180 Seinfeld episodes that aired, seven contain references to Art Vandelay: in George's actually referring to himself with that alias or invoking the name as part of some elaborate lie. He tells a potential employer at a publishing house that he likes to read the fiction of Art Vandelay, author of Venetian Blinds; in another, he tells an unemployment insurance caseworker that he's applied for a latex salesman job at Vandelay Industries. For storytelling purposes, the only thing that you need to know here is that George is lying in a formal interview; any fictitious author or latex manufacturer would suffice. But the joke arrives through the echo of all those earlier Vandelay references; it's funny because it's making a subtle nod to past events held offscreen. It's what we'd call in a real-world context an "in-joke" -- a joke that's funny only to people who get the reference.
I know some people who hate Family Guy and Seinfeld, but I realized a while ago that they don't hate those shows because of the contents of the shows or because they were offended (though some people certainly are), but rather becaues they simply don't get the references. They didn't grow up watching TV in the 80s and 90s, so many of the references are simply lost on them. Family Guy would be particularly vexing if you didn't have the pop culture knowledge of the writers of that show. These reference heavy shows are also a lot easier to watch and rewatch, over and over again. Why? Because each episode is not self-contained, you often find yourself noticing something new every time you watch. This also sometimes works in reverse. I remember the first time I saw Bill Shatner's campy rendition of Rocket Man, I suddenly understoood a bit on Family Guy which I thought was just a bit based on being random (but was really a reference).

Again, I seem to be focusing on comedy, but it's not necessarily limited to that genre. Eric S. Raymond has written a lot about how science fiction jargon has evolved into a sophisticated code that implicitely references various ideas, conventions and tropes of the genre:
In looking at an SF-jargon term like, say, "groundcar", or "warp drive" there is a spectrum of increasingly sophisticated possible decodings. The most naive is to see a meaningless, uninterpretable wordlike noise and stop there.

The next level up is to recognize that uttering the word "groundcar" or "warp drive" actually signifies something that's important for the story, but to lack the experience to know what that is. The motivated beginning reader of SF is in this position; he must, accordingly, consciously puzzle out the meaning of the term from the context provided by the individual work in which it appears.

The third level is to recognize that "ground car" and "warp drive" are signifiers shared, with a consistent and known meaning, by many works of SF -- but to treat them as isolated stereotypical signs, devoid of meaning save inasmuch as they permit the writer to ratchet forward the plot without requiring imaginative effort from the reader.

Viewed this way, these signs emphasize those respects in which the work in which they appear is merely derivative from previous works in the genre. Many critics (whether through laziness or malice) stop here. As a result they write off all SF, for all its pretensions to imaginative vigor, as a tired jumble of shopworn cliches.

The fourth level, typical of a moderately experienced SF reader, is to recognize that these signifiers function by permitting the writer to quickly establish shared imaginative territory with the reader, so that both parties can concentrate on what is unique about their communication without having to generate or process huge expository lumps. Thus these "stereotypes" actually operate in an anti-stereotypical way -- they permit both writer and reader to focus on novelty.

At this level the reader begins to develop quite analytical habits of reading; to become accustomed to searching the writer's terminology for what is implied (by reference to previous works using the same signifiers) and what kinds of exceptions and novelties convey information about the world and the likely plot twists.

It is at this level, for example, that the reader learns to rely on "groundcar" as a tip-off that the normal transport mode in the writer's world is by personal flyer. At this level, also, the reader begins to analytically compare the author's description of his world with other SFnal worlds featuring personal flyers, and to recognize that different kinds of flyers have very different implications for the rest of the world.

For example, the moderately experienced reader will know that worlds in which the personal fliers use wings or helicopter-like rotors are probably slightly less advanced in other technological ways than worlds in which they use ducted fans -- and way behind any world in which the flyers use antigravity! Once he sees "groundcar" he will be watching for these clues.

The very experienced SF reader, at the fifth level, can see entire worlds in a grain of jargon. When he sees "groundcar" he associates to not only technical questions about flyer propulsion but socio-symbolic ones but about why the culture still uses groundcars at all (and he has a reportoire of possible answers ready to check against the author's reporting). He is automatically aware of a huge range of consequences in areas as apparently far afield as (to name two at random) the architectural style of private buildings, and the ecological consequences of accelerated exploitation of wilderness areas not readily accessible by ground transport.
While comedy makes for convenient examples, I think this better illustrates the cognitive demands of referential art. References require you to be grounded in various subjects, and they'll often require you to think through the implications of those subjects in a new context. References allow writers to pack incredible amounts of information into even the smallest space. This, of course, requires the consumer to decode that information (using available knowledge and critical thinking skills), making the experience less passive and more engaging. Use references will continue to flourish and accellerate in both art and scholarship, and new forms will emerge. One could even argue that aggregation in various weblogs are simply exercises in referential work. Just look at this post, in which I reference several books and movies, in many cases assuming familiarity. Indeed, the whole structure of the internet is based on the concept of links -- essentialy a way to reference other documents. Perhaps this is part of the cause of the rising complexity and information density of modern entertainment. We can cope with it now, because we have such systems to help us out.
Posted by Mark on June 10, 2007 at 03:08 PM .: Comments (8) | link | TrackBacks (1) :.


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Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Beverage Blogging
Last week, I hastily threw together a post on Coke, including some thoughts on Coke vs. Pepsi, the advertising of both brands, and Passover Coke. I've run across several people commenting on my post or similar issues over the past week.
  • Diet Coke Zero Prime Plus: Aziz comments on the Coke/Pepsi rivalry and also talks a little about other varieties of coke (Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Coke Plus, Diet Coke with Splenda, etc...)
  • The Other Red vs. Blue: Shamus explains why he usually doesn't drink Coke and points out that Coke has the best ads, referring to the GTA parody commercial (which is brilliant).
  • Mexican Coke at the Costco: Last week, I mentioned that there is clearly a market for Coke made with real cane sugar, and apparently Costco agrees. They've taken to importing Mexican Coke, which also uses cane sugar:
    Costco has conformed to CA and U.S. rules, such as CRV (the sort-of deposit you pay for the bottle) and "nutrition" labeling, so everything appears to be nice and legal. Of course you could always get your sugar water fix at some smaller grocers or taquerias by buying surprisingly expensive "bootlegged" bottles one at a time, but Costco will let Cokeheads stock up by the case at a relatively low price.
    The Mexican Coke adds another wrinkle into the mix: they come in glass bottles, which supposedly make the coke taste better. I'm going to need to stock up on some regular Coke, Passover Coke, Mexican Coke, and sure, let's throw some Pepsi into the mix, and do a double blind test to see which cola tastes the best. Alas, this will have to wait for next year... [link via Kottke]
  • Tall Men: Australia is good at making beer ads: Alex sidesteps the issue and points to a great Aussie beer commercial featuring none other than.... Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man!!!!!!! Sorry. It's a Family Guy thing.
  • But who cares about Coke or regular beer when you can brew yourself some Skittlebrau!
  • Speaking of brewing beer, Johno over at the Ministry of Minor Perfidy has been home brewing beer. I'd really like to try his Belgian ale, which he named Trogdor The Burninator "Consummate V" Belgian Strongbad Ale. Considering the price of good Belgian beer (and Belgian style beers, see below), home brewing might be a good activity for me to try out.
And speaking of beer, I spent the previous weekend in Cooperstown. Sure, we visited the Baseball Hall of Fame Mvsevm, but the highlight of the trip for me was a visit to the Brewery Ommegang. It's a surprisingly small operation, but that makes sense when you realize that it's an expensive Belgian-style microbrew. I'm not a beer expert, but I think I've tried more varieties than your average person, and these are my absolute favorite beers of all time. Ommegang only makes 5 varieties, but they are all fantastic. Alas, you have to pay for that quality, but it's worth it. In any case, the tour ends with a beer tasting and you can buy some beer at a slight discount, which I did, giving me this:

Beer!

Awesome. Ok, I cheated a little. I already had the normal size bottles on the left, but still, that's an impressive array of beer. Looks like I've got some work to do!
Posted by Mark on May 09, 2007 at 09:54 PM .: Comments (3) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Link Dump: Coca-Cola Edition
I love Coca-Cola. I hate Pepsi. I probably wouldn't feel like that if it weren't for my parents. My brother prefers Pepsi. For reasons beyond my understanding, my parents nurtured this conflict. This is strange, since they generally just bought what was on sale (and we were growing up during the whole cola wars episode, so there were lots of sales). This manifested in various ways throughout the years, but the end result is that our preferences polarized. When I go to a restaurant and ask for a "Coke" and they ask if Pepsi is ok, I generally change my order to something else (root beer, water, etc...) Now, I'm not rude or even very confrontational about it, but this guy sure is:
"I'd like a Coca-Cola, please," I told the waiter.

"Will Pepsi be OK?" he replied.

"No, I'd like a Coke," I said.

"We serve only Pepsi products," he stammered.

"Does anyone ever ask for a Coke?" I asked.

"All the time," he said, "but we serve Pepsi."

"Could you run down to the 7-11 and get me a Coke -- they have plenty over there?" I asked with a smile.
Now, I've seen people say "No, Pepsi is not ok," but asking for the waitress to run down to the 7-11 is pure, diabolical genius. Still, most of us Coke fiends aren't rude about our preferences. Take John Scalzi, who wrote a great Essay on Coca-Cola a while ago, and delved into the advertising of Coke and Pepsi:
I think there really is something to how Coke positions itself. One hates to admit that one is influenced by corporate branding -- it means that those damned advertisers actually managed to do their job -- but what can you say. It works. Since Coke is the market leader, it doesn't spend any time as far as I can see banging on Pepsi or other brands; its ads stick to their knitting, which is making sure that people feel that Coke is part of everyday life -- and at some point during your day, you're probably going to have a Coke. It's inevitable. And hey -- that's okay. That's as it should be, in fact. I don't know that I would call Coke's ads soft sells (after all, they brand the product literally up the wazoo), but I don't find the advertising utterly annoying.

Which brings us back to Pepsi. Pepsi is eternally positioning itself as the outsider -- "Pepsi Generation," "Generation Next," so on and so forth. Always young, always fun, always mildly rebellious, yadda yadda yadda. Since one goes in knowing that Pepsi is a multibillion-dollar corporation, I've always found the rebellion angle amusing (and not just in Pepsi's case -- if you're a company that's big enough to advertise your wares every single day on national networks, you've gotten just a bit beyond being the rebel's choice, now, haven't you?). Being a rebel doesn't really work for me -- most of what is positioned as being a rebel is actually not rebellion, merely sullenness and inarticulateness. And really, I'm just too bourgeois for that at this point in my life. ... Besides, Pepsi can't seem to advertise itself without bringing up the point that Coke exists, and is the better-selling brand.
And it goes on for a bit too. Great article.

This year, I learned about the existence of Passover Coke. The current Coke formula uses corn syrup as a sweetener because it's cheaper than pure cane sugar, but since it's not Kosher to eat corn during Passover, Coke makes some special batches of cola using pure cane sugar. It's only available in limited quantities for a few weeks a year (you can tell because it's got a yellow cap and Hebrew writing on it). I didn't get a chance to do a taste test this year, but Widge did, and he says that people prefer Passover Coke to regular Coke. This, of course, leads him to make the obvious suggestion:
Look. I know it's easier to work with and cheaper and all that good stuff. But let's face it: consumers are trying to get away from the high fructose stuff. I don't pretend to even understand all the health controversy that's going on, I tried to read up on the Wikipedia article before writing this and it mentioned "plasma triacylglycerol" and my eyes sort of glazed over (mmmm, glaze). It sounds like something the crew of Star Trek Voyager would seek out while being chased by cauliflower-headed aliens. But forget all that: it just freaking tastes better. That's all I care about, because if I was really concerned about my health, why would I be drinking Coke?

No offense.

Anyway, it's obvious you can make the stuff. It's obvious there's a market. I know just what to do: make a huge deal about how you believe in consumer choice and the market deciding things and release it as Coca-Cola Prime. Hell, if it's more expensive, charge more for it. Think about it: GET PRIMED WITH COKE. See? I'm giving you a campaign for free!
I'd buy it. Good stuff.
Posted by Mark on May 02, 2007 at 10:03 PM .: Comments (3) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Link Dump: Awesome Pictures Edition
Yes, time is still short these days, so just a few links featuring lots and lots of pictures: That's all for now. Sorry for the lameness of recent bloggery, but again, time is short.
Posted by Mark on April 18, 2007 at 10:37 PM .: Comments (2) | link | TrackBacks (0) :.


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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Mental Inertia
As I waded through dozens of recommendations for Anime series (thanks again to everyone who contributed), I began to wonder about a few things. Anime seems to be a pretty vast subject and while I had touched the tip of the iceberg in the past, I really didn't have a good feel for what was available. So I asked for recommendations, and now I'm on my way. But it's not like I just realized that I wanted to watch more Anime. I've wanted to do that for a little while, but I've only recently acted on it. What took so long? Why is it so hard to get started?

This isn't something that's limited to deciding what to watch either. I find that just getting started is often the most difficult part of a task (or, at least, the part I seem to get stuck on the most). Sometimes it's difficult to deal with the novelty of a thing, other times a project seems completely overwhelming. But after I've begun, things don't seem so novel or overwhelming anymore. I occasionally find myself hesitant to start a new book or load up a new video game, but once I do, things flow pretty easily (unless the book or game is a really bad one). I have a bunch of ideas for blog posts that I never get around to attacking, but usually once I start writing, ideas flow much more readily. At work, I'll sometimes find myself struggling to get started on a task, but once I get past that initial push, I'm fine. Sure, there are excuses for all of these (interruptions, email, and meetings, for instance), but while they are sometimes true obstacles, they often strike me as rationalizations. Just getting started is the problem, but once I get into the flow, it's easy to keep going.

Joel Spolsky wrote an excellent essay on the subject called Fire and Motion:
Many of my days go like this: (1) get into work (2) check email, read the web, etc. (3) decide that I might as well have lunch before getting to work (4) get back from lunch (5) check email, read the web, etc. (6) finally decide that I've got to get started (7) check email, read the web, etc. (8) decide again that I really have to get started (9) launch the damn editor and (10) write code nonstop until I don't realize that it's already 7:30 pm.

Somewhere between step 8 and step 9 there seems to be a bug, because I can't always make it across that chasm.For me, just getting started is the only hard thing. An object at rest tends to remain at rest. There's something incredible heavy in my brain that is extremely hard to get up to speed, but once it's rolling at full speed, it takes no effort to keep it going.
It's an excellent point, and there does seem to be some sort of mental inertia at work here. But why? Why is it so difficult to get started?

When I think about this, I realize that this is a relatively new phenomenon for me. I don't remember having this sort of difficulty ten years ago. What's different? Well, I'm ten years older. The conventional wisdom is that it becomes more difficult to learn new things (i.e. to start something new) as you get older. There is some supporting evidence having to do with how the human brain becomes less malleable with time, but I'm not sure that paints the full picture. I think a big part of the problem is that as I got older, my standards rose.

Let me back up for a moment. A few years ago, a friend attempted to teach me how to drive a stick. I'd driven a automatic transmission my whole life up until that point, so the process of learning a manual transmission proved to be a challenging one. The actual mechanics of it are pretty straightforward and easily internalized. Sitting down and actually doing it, though, was another story. Intellectually, I knew what was going on, but it can be a little difficult to overcome muscle memory. I had a lot of trouble at first (and since I haven't driven a stick since then, I'd probably still have a lot of trouble today) and got extremely frustrated. My friend (who had gone through the same thing herself) laughed at it, making my lack of success even more infuriating. Eventually she explained to me that it wasn't that I was doing a bad job. It was that I was so used to being able to pick up something new and run with it, that when I had to do something extra challenging that took a little longer to pick up, I became frustrated. In short, I had higher standards for myself than I should have.

I think, perhaps, that's why it's difficult to start something new. It's not that learning has become harder, it's that I've become less tolerant of failure. My standards are higher, and that will sometimes make it hard to start something. This post, for example, has been brewing in my head for a while, but I had trouble getting started. This happens all the time, and I've actually got a bunch of ideas for posts stashed away somewhere. I've even written