Noise to Signal
Bumpy ride
Thanks, Uber, for giving me the chance to combine two of the issues I hold dearest to my heart: privacy, and awkward forced conversation with strangers.
Webcomics that are part of Noise to Signal
My humps
It may not look like it, but this cartoon was 16 years in the making. (Give that drawing a driver’s license!)
I first had the idea for it in 1998. I can even remember where: the NOW Communications office at 401 West Georgia. I related it to a few friends, who snickered and urged me to draw it, so I did.
And discovered I really couldn’t draw camels. I’d say they looked like hideously mutated cows, except I couldn’t draw cows, either. (Still can’t. It’s a form of lactose intolerance.)
But a decade and a half makes a difference. So here you go.
By the way, I’m pretty sure this is the first Noise to Signal cartoon ever to be not just drawn on paper (a rarity itself these days), but colored on it, too. Downright artisanal.
Just some troll
There is no shortage of hot-button issues to yell at other about on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. (Maybe less so on Pinterest. The comments seem a lot more civilized there.) And it’s really, really easy to decide the other party in a shouting match is a troll, because nobody could seriously believe the outrageous crap they’re spouting, right?
Enter Alexandra Samuel’s “How to Survive an Online Sex Scandal,” spurred by a recent Canadian controversy. (To my American friends who think that’s an oxymoron, how dare you?!)
It’s not, as the name suggests, a reputation-management handbook. Instead, it’s a survival guide for those of us who don’t want to get swept into acrimonious online disagreements over highly-charged issues. There’s a lot of wisdom in there to digest, but this passage in particular jumped out at me:
But the most powerful tool, and the most fundamental protection, is simply to recognize what’s going on when we explode online. We explode because we come to each of these debates with different ideas about the social media spaces in which our conversations unfold, with different ideas about who is in our online community, and with different levels of investment in the issues at hand.
Often, a troll isn’t a troll at all—at least, not in the classic definition of someone who’s just trying to stir up sturm und drang. Often, Alex points out, they’re just coming to the table with much different expectations and assumptions: “If you’re approaching a conversation as a citizen journalist, and I’m approaching it as a therapeutic process, you’re likely to get frustrated, and I’m likely to get hurt.”
Add to that the fact that we’re all notoriously awful at judging each others’ motives in conflicts, and it’s a recipe for degeneration into shouting.
There are genuine trolls out there, of course. There are also abusive bullies and people who’ve never learned to have a disagreement without waging total war. But I’m going to take a few breaths in my next online dust-up. And even if I can’t see things from the other person’s point of view (which, honestly, we usually can’t), I can at least try to identify the assumptions and expectations they have coming into the conversation. It might lead to a more productive discussion—or at least a shorter one.
P.S.—Longtime readers will know this already. Disclosure: I’m Alex’s husband.
Recreational misogyny
I’m starting to think we’ve reached a tipping point on the issue of misogyny in video games in particular, and a big chunk of tech culture more generally.
To get here, it’s taken a lot of courage from a lot of women. One of the most notable is Anita Sarkeesian, whose video series has done more than anything else I can think of to force a conversation on the issue. It’s also drawn a backlash: some of the ugliest, most vicious responses I’ve ever seen.
There’s a lot further to go. If you’d like to support her work, you can make a donation here.
Updated: Lloyd Dewolf added a link on the N2S Facebook Page to Sarkeesian’s talk at the XOXO Festival, where she described the range of attacks she’s received after launching Feminist Frequency. Well worth watching.
Ello isn’t Facebook. ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED.
A new social network has launc— WAIT! Don’t run away!
For quite a while, Alex and I were constantly hearing from people who wanted us to help them build “the Facebook of x“, where x was some industrial vertical, demographic or affinity group. Nearly all of those folks hadn’t taken into account the fact that, with a large and growing share of the population, Facebook was already the Facebook of x.
But now there’s Ello, which has no ambitions to be the Facebook of anything. They don’t want to be Facebook at all:
Your social network is owned by advertisers.
Every post you share, every friend you make, and every link you follow is tracked, recorded, and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold.
We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity, and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership.
We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce, and manipulate — but a place to connect, create, and celebrate life.
You are not a product.
From everything else you’ve read here, you can guess that second-last paragraph is the kind of language that sets my heart a-flutter. All they’d have needed to get me selling my worldly possessions and hitch-hiking down to light candles outside the Berger & Föhr offices in Boulder were a few references to the open web and maybe a Tux.
Right now, Ello’s a very interesting platform, and I like what I’ve seen of their publishing mechanism; it’s a lot like the Storify editor crossed with Medium’s. There aren’t a lot of folks there I know yet (although hey, the day’s still young), but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either. It’s nice to have a little space to stretch your legs before the crowd shows up.
If you’d like to have a look as well, let me know in the comments and I’ll send you an invitation. All out of invitations — but I’ll let you know if Ello coughs up some more.
Updated: Check out Alexandra Samuel’s take on all of this. Fly or flop, Ello’s sudden rise has a sobering message for brands, business and marketers: change the way you use social media, or risk losing your audience.
You mess up, we break your thumb… drive.
Corrupt cops and politicians? Bruno and me, we like ’em. Corrupt removable media? Naw, that ain’t so good. That’s the sort of thing that makes me and Bruno upset. And when we get upset, we like to hack things.
Only Bruno, here, he doesn’t hack with a computer, you get what I’m sayin’? He’s more like what you’d call a social engineer, except he beats the crap outta you.
We’re lettin’ you off light, you know: muss up your hair a little, wrinkle that shirt up, give ya something to think about. But lemme tell you: if Kingston Technology gets wind of this, you’re gonna be ejectin’ body organs and unmounting bones. You hear me?
Now get lost.
We also considered “Momentary Apps in Judgement”
Google has just announced that “Google Apps for Business” are (is?) being renamed “Google Apps for Work“. And as someone who does a lot of work with the nonprofit and government sectors, I’m giving that branding a thumbs-up.
That said, it would make me happy to think that there were at least a few days when “Google Apps for Getting Shit Done” was a real contender.
[emoji cheering megaphone]
Hey, there’s this thing where you tell jokes instead of drawing them. I believe the kids call it the standing-up comedy.
And I’m going to be doing it on Wednesday, October 15th at 7:00 pm, at the La Fontana Caffe. There’s no cover charge, and the venue (on Hastings Street at Boundary) gets a lot of love on Yelp. Come on down! More details here.
Next up, my Hour-Long-Break-With-A-Caesar-And-A-Good-Book challenge
Beth Kanter gave me a kind nudge on Facebook to draw something about the Ice Bucket Challenge to support ALS research. Here it is!
Now, if you’re looking for something beyond graphic smartassery — like, say, real insight into the success of the challenge and what it means for the non-profit sector — check out Beth’s blog posts on the subject:
- Is A Downer News Cycle A Factor in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Success?
- Ice Bucket Challenge: Can Other Nonprofits Reproduce It?
- Has the Ice Bucket Challenge Spawned Charity Jacking?
And watch Alexandra Samuel in this panel on the challenge on CBC’s The National. (Alex wrote a blog post about participating on this panel, which I recommend not only for its keen analysis of the role of time zones in western alienation, but also for the phrase “Rob’s smoking-hot robot body.” And yes, she backs that assertion up with a photo.)
BA, MA, PhD, DNA
I’m a few years away from having to see one of my kids leave home for college or university for the first time. So at the moment, it’s still an abstract thing.
But it’s coming, this thing where they grow up and move out, it’s coming like a bullet train, and it’ll be here before I know it. And as proud and excited as I’ll be, I know it’ll hurt like hell.
So: parents who are saying goodbye this week to your kids for the next year… this cartoon’s for you.
By the way, it was a tossup at my end between this caption and the one below. Big thanks to the NtoS Facebook posse for helping me choose!
Feeling way too happy? Read a novel.
Many great novels, like a lot of great art, force us to confront things we’d rather avoid. I get that.
But oh my lord, literature can be a massive downer. I first encountered that in high school, when we read the short story “Paul’s Case” back to back with The Mayor of Casterbridge. Let’s be clear: astonishing works of art are astonishing. But after years of stories where plucky protagonists invariably wrested victory from the jaws of defeat, they were a shock. As an introduction to tragedy, it was like learning how to eat spicy food by eating a scotch bonnet salad.
Later in life, I read Fall On Your Knees. It’s a truly beautiful novel, one of the best I’ve ever read. It’s also like peeling an Onion of Horror: just when you think the day at the centre of the plot couldn’t possibly get any worse, holy Jesus does it ever. I recommend it strongly, with the caveat that a list of trigger warnings would be longer than the book itself.
It’s taken me years to realize that I have a limited capacity for bleakness, even in the context of immense beauty. (Maybe especially in that context.) It’s what stopped me from reading the rest of A Fine Balance: after a few chapters, you get that dawning recognition that this is not going to end with everyone enjoying a hearty laugh and a second helping of trifle.
The cost of avoiding books like that is obvious: you miss out on some transcendent experiences, and some profound insight into what it means to be human. The older I get, the keener my sense of how steep that cost really is.
Maybe it’s not too late for me. Maybe someday I’ll get to the point where I seek out novels that unflinchingly stare into the darkest crevices of the human heart.
Until then, I’m working my way through the Jasper Fforde oeuvre.
Your childhood is important to us. Please remain on the line, and a parent will be with you shortly.
I see a lot of parent-shaming going on over mobile devices. The narrative goes that we’re updating Facebook, playing Candy Crush or seeing who’s checked out our fake Tinder profiles that we created just to salve our egos, except it’s backfired horribly and confirmed every fear we ever had about our own attractiveness (no? just me, huh?) — and meanwhile our children are tugging our pantlegs and whimpering “But daddy, dinnertime was seven hours ago. I’m sooooo hungry and the guinea pig’s starting to smell really tasty.”
I have moments I’m not especially proud of. But I also have a memory of my own parents and, loving though they were, they had their own ways to lower the Cone of Silence.
See, when it comes to child-ignoring technology, digital devices are strictly the new neglected kids on the block. As a parent, I represent a proud tradition of burying your nose in whatever’s handy: crosswords, the newspaper (“But honey, I hate sports!” “Shh! And don’t look up — you’ll make eye contact, and then we’re screwed!”), television, novels, the undersides of jalopies, papal bulls or cave paintings. (“Aw, that sabre-tooth tiger wants cheezburger.”)
It’s not all self-indulgence; sanity demands some alone time, and kids do need to learn a little emotional self-reliance.
But there’s a price to pay. While I’m writing this, I can’t help but think of how much I wish I was with my kids right now – joking with them, enjoying their laughter, loving each others’ company. I forget the moments of exasperation, the stress, the need to be alone with my thoughts now and then. (That’s one reason why parent-shaming works: it’s a reminder of the opportunity cost of everything we do, and it preys on our tendency to look at that opportunity cost in only one direction.)
The issue, as with so many things, is striking a balance. And being, if not comfortable, then at least at peace with knowing that means some frustration for everyone.
Also, putting a good child-proof lock on the guinea pig’s cage.
My life (the release notes)
Maybe I have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. But dammit, when an app gets a dot upgrade, I think we deserve more from the release notes than just “Bug fixes and performance upgrades.”
Like maybe,
Version 1.3
What’s New:
The app uses the mic to monitor stress levels in your voice, senses when you Can’t Even, and suspends notifications for 20 minutes.
Added an experimental “Upload your consciousness to Evernote” feature. Try it out!!
All core features are now available without in-app purchases, and prior purchases have been refunded. Swipe up to see a video of the marketing genius who said “Hey, I know they’ve already paid for the app, but let’s make them pay again if they want it to be actually useful” cleaning out his desk.
Extends Location Services to actually change your physical location to any point on the map. Try it out!! (Pro tip: Use satellite imagery to avoid materializing inside walls, mountains or an American Apparel.)
We’ve listened to the estates of several users, and removed death ray functionality from the front camera.
Bug fixes and performance upgrades.
By the way: if you write release notes, and you try to make them even a little engaging and fun, then please know that I love you.
* * *
Hi, cartooning-process fans! If I was doing release notes for this cartoon, they’d include “Switching from Photoshop CS5 to Manga Studio 5 for drawing. Fewer bugs, nicer pens and OMG those perspective rulers.”
I’m disconnected. Off the grid. Totally offline. Please RT!
Last night, just after midnight, I put this up on Facebook as my little hi to any night owls (and residents outside the Americas) out there who might be listening and thinking about unplugging, disconnecting and digital fasting — or in 60s terms, tuning out, turning off and dropping Klout.
Turns out a lot of people were. Among the folks sharing it: the Zeeburg Canoe Association (do I have that translation right?) in the Netherlands! As far as my limited Dutch can tell, they aren’t saying “Egads, is that what he thinks a kayak looks like?” so I’m going to take that as an endorsement of my watercraft portraiture skills.
That limited Dutch, by the way, comes courtesy of Radio Nederland’s shortwave service. When I was a kid, I sent away for their Dutch by Radio course; they sent me a few of those floppy 45 RPM records and a workbook. My work ethic (and the City of Gloucester’s baffling refusal to adopt Dutch as their third official language) meant that I got through about three lessons before throwing in the towel.
Their English-language service closed two years ago. I can understand the decision. But it saddens me to think the friendliest English-language voice on the shortwave spectrum has fallen silent.
I loved shortwave listening, particularly because it really was conversational. So many stations would read letters online and reply to them, and they fostered a genuine community among their listeners.
Human connection comes in many forms: face-to-face conversations, handwritten missives and 140-character updates are just a few.
So this summer vacation, disconnect completely; post to Instagram once every three minutes; schedule Facebook breaks — whatever. Do what works for you. And if it does work for you, don’t let anyone tell you you’re doing it wrong. (Right: including me.)
Work-work balance
At some time or another, you’ve probably read that famous life-work balance quotation, “Nobody ever said on their deathbed, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the office.'” Or words to that effect.
It’s based on some big assumptions: that work isn’t fulfilling, while spending time with your family is; that any time taken from family and given to work is a mistake; and that it’s a zero-sum game: that time given to work must necessarily come at the expense of family.
But I derive tremendous satisfaction from my work life. I’m often more present, more engaging, more open and more joyous a parent on a day when I’ve felt effective at work, because I believe my work’s important — and that it springs from the same values that I bring to my personal relationships. (For the record, those are love, compassion, justice, kerning and proper spelling.)
So many people yearn to have a larger impact in the world, and that’s not always going to be through family. Yes, by all means, if you see your family life suffering because of long hours at an unfulfilling job, find a new balance. But maybe it’s not just a question of the hours you work. Maybe we should demand more from our work. Maybe meaning should be a bigger part of the compensation package.
That would go a long way to cutting down on a lot of other deathbed regrets.
I love Facebook. It’s better than LOLcats. I want to use it again and again.
Odd: I get this weird blinding headache whenever I even think about criticizing Facebook for conducting a psychological experiment on unsuspecting users.
Okay, so arguably it’s not that much different from A/B testing. It’s still a little unnerving to think that Facebook might be able to tweak its algorithm with affect user emotions — perhaps opening it up to FDA regulation as a mood-altering drug.
It’s probably the most disturbing for those of us who read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Empire at an impressionable age:
The Mule is a fictional character from Isaac Asimov‘s Foundation series. One of the greatest conquerors the galaxy has ever seen, he is a mentalic who has the ability to reach into the minds of others and “adjust” their emotions, individually or en masse, using this capability to conscript individuals to his cause. (From Wikipedia)
Fortunately, we’re a long ways from that. And even if we weren’t, I’m sure it would never occur to Facebook’s leadership that they could, say, subtly suppress voter motivation in a few key districts and thereby subvert entire elections. (You’re welcome, conspiracy theorists!)
Number one most-reported issue with the Amazon Fire Phone
I’m not going to pretend I’m indifferent to whatever Jeff Bezos unveils at tomorrow’s announcement. There are all sorts of rumours of cool 3-D razzamatazz and drone technology a leap forward in online search.
But market dominance, technological disruption and all that stuff aside, I’d just hate to see the Kindle — yes, proprietary platform, DRM and all — drift once and for all away from its roots as an e-reader. I like the fact that my Paperwhite lets me read and do very little else; there’s no constant temptation while I’m reading to sneak away and check Twitter or play with Draw Something. (I’m looking at you, iPad.)
Bye, bye misappropriated Pi
Honestly, trademarking pi? What an alpha-sigma-sigma-hole.
By the way, π. π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π, π.
π
And you, Zazzle. Really? Yes, you eventually restored the merchandise you pulled. But this didn’t inspire confidence.
Sharing is loving
Today’s cartoon is in honour of a friend who’s about to become the CEO of Creative Commons.
Ryan Merkley’s an all-around mensch who works awfully hard on behalf of the open web. I met him in his Mozilla incarnation, and then his Sharp Political Thinker incarnation. This one’s his most exciting yet, and I can’t wait to see what he gets up to.
* * *
Let the record show that these vows are published under a more restrictive Creative Commons license than the cartoon itself.
Odd that I can’t find any guides to building your personal brand on Secret.
I’ve tried Secret, the mobile app that lets you anonymously post about polyamory.
No, wait, that’s not fair. Secrets lets you posts secrets about anything: how much you hate San Francisco, how real and down-to-earth you still are even though you cashed out big-time in that last Google acquisition, or polyamory (and specifically, how you’re engaging in it right now). In theory, you can post about anything else, too, but let’s be real.
The near-complete anonymity ought to mean you see less attention-getting clickbait, but I was seeing a lot of “Swipe right if you agree with this statement that you’d have to be an inhuman monster to disagree with.” People, there’s no need to recreate Facebook. For that matter, any time I posted something, I obsessively checked the stats to see if anyone had liked it. It’s possible I just can’t handle anything with metrics.
By the way, after thinking of this cartoon, I saw a similar joke at least once on Secret. While we thought of it independently, I’d normally give that author a respectful nod here… but I can’t. (Why not? See the first line, 10th word.)
Which may mean Secret’s greatest utility is as a trawling ground for comedians and cartoonists: “What, you already saw that joke on Secret? That was me, dude.”
If you cannot afford an IP lawyer, one will be appointed for you
The overreach in those user agreements and terms of service we all click through so blithely is just…
…well, yes, outrageous…
…uh-huh, good point, it’s terribly unfair…
…mm-hmm, I can see how they are evidence of an amoral, nay, sociopathic drive to seize as much profit and property as a skewed and corrupt judicial and legislative process will allow, but that wasn’t what I’m going for here.
I was going to say beautiful.
The human race is capable of such great leaps of invention, intuition and imagination. Yet they are all eclipsed by the sheer brilliance of this move:
General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download coupons, “join” it in online communities like Facebook, enter a company-sponsored sweepstakes or contest or interact with it in a variety of other ways.
That’s elegant, and it’s unfortunate that so many selfish people couldn’t see past the impact on their own petty little lives to the aesthetic glory of what General Mills was trying to accomplish. Like a supervillain saddened that James Bond can’t understand the majestic sweep of his vision of turning the world’s oceans into Poly Filla, the corporation has had to reluctantly back down.
But where a giant has fallen, a thousand smaller but no-less-artistically-minded companies may yet get the appreciation they truly deserve, with user agreements capable of stifling negative Yelp reviews.
Those agreements — those beautiful, glorious epic odes to avarice — are now threatened by legislation and the courts, which may take the short-sighted view that burying the wholesale surrender of legal rights in a landfill of legalese can’t constitute informed agreement.
My hope, though, is that we can take a more enlightened view. Under the precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, surely grotesquely unfair user agreements qualify as artistic expression, and a protected class of speech.
Remember, you can’t spell “consumer” without “censor”.
Siri, what… no, wait, I forgot the question.
My kids’ favourite game/staving-off-bedtime-gambit is Ask Siri Something Weird. A win can be either getting an unexpected, amazing answer — my daughter once got Siri to tell her a detailed story featuring celebrity AI ELIZA — or a hilarious speech recognition failure. (“Ha! Daddy, Siri thought I said ‘anthrax’! Oh, by the way, someone’s at the door.”)
Their biggest triumph to date has been asking “What Does the Fox Say?”
This is way above your pay grade
I don’t know why I’m as captivated as I am by the language of spy movies, books and TV shows. But whether it’s the euphemisms in a George Smiley story or the verbal tics of Elizabeth, Philip, Stan and the occupants of the Rezidentura, I eat that stuff up.
* * *
I never got this briefing. Instead, I stumbled on The Conspiracy when I was nine years old by seeing a present (the game Battleship) hidden on a shelf in early December… and then receiving it from Santa on Christmas Day. I didn’t talk to my parents about it until months later.
In retrospect, the explanation that might have worked is that Santa stows gifts above a certain size at children’s homes, because there’s only so much room in the sleigh.
Hospital sketchbook
A big hug to the staff of Vancouver General Hospital.
Those hand sanitizer stations are everywhere in the hospital… but those next to the elevators on the main level were empty. A sign nearby explained that they weren’t being refilled any more because of theft.
That is, people steal it to get drunk on it, despite the fact that it’s toxic (and tastes horrible).
So if your life isn’t so desperate that you’re stealing hand sanitizer, maybe count yourself just a little lucky.
Dammit, I said “election”
I’m seeing a growing number of errors in Facebook posts, tweets and comments that look an awful lot like speech recognition errors. That tells me both that we still have a ways to go before the technology is as good as we’d like it to be, and that a lot more people are using it.
Maybe the tech will catch up, with some combination of heuristics and better audio discrimination. But I’m not sure I want it to. Maybe if speech recognition had been around 30 years ago, Michael Stipe and REM might have produced songs with discernible lyrics. (By the way, my Mac’s voice recognition interpreted “Michael Stipe and REM” as “my goal star you and are in the am”. Which could actually have been from Automatic For the People.)
For now, we’re stuck with the digital equivalent of an aging uncle who’s in denial about the fact his hearing is going. And I’m going to have to run; my kids are yelling something from the living room, but I’m damned if I can make it out.
Infographobia
Adding a word like “infographic” to a spell check dictionary is the sort of unpleasant task that, like butchering animals, should probably be done out of sight of the end user.
I’m not sure why I’ve grown to dislike infographics so much. As a visual guy (hence the cartoons, right?) I wholeheartedly endorse graphic communication. But like so many other things, infographics are often conscripted into the ongoing War Against Informed Decision-Making. Not all of them: just the ones that are all graphic and no info (if that), or that use wild, unsourced statistics to back up an untenable position (which just so happens to support the need for the publisher’s product, service or policy prescription).
* * *
I haven’t drawn fan art since high school (gads – more than thirty years), but there’s something irresistible about Noelle Stevenson‘s Nimona. So in response to Tuesday’s rampaging hellbeast triggering “LOCKDOWN INITIATED IN LEVELS B1 – B3,” here’s my take on how that’s going over one floor up:
When’s the last time you doodled something fan-art-like? Was it a Snoopy? A Lisa Simpson? An X-wing fighter?
Leave the lawyers out of it
Contrary to speculation, World War III will not break out in Crimea. Or the Middle East. It’ll start over that whole one-or-two-spaces-after-a-period thing. (Robin Williams, let me know where to enlist.)
. . .
A slew of cartoons just like this one will be appearing soon in an exciting new book, TOUCH: Five Factors to Growing and Leading a Human Organization. It’s by two very smart cookies, Tod Maffin and Mark Blevis, and it suggests that businesses that abandon human-to-human interaction in the rush to technologize are missing out on the real power of connection and relationships.
More details will come as we get closer to publication date, but I’m delighted to have my cartoons appear in it.
Drumming up business
Doritos, deep-fried fish sticks, deep-fried chicken nuggets, Black Forest cake, deep-friend Black Forest cake with a Doritos crumble topping… It’s like they’re saying “We know you’re just visiting, but we’d love you to come by for a longer stay.”
KMG365
Edward Snowden at SXSW
Man tries to do the right thing against a backdrop of deadly espionage, 1959: North By Northwest.
Man tries to do the right thing against a backdrop of deadly espionage, 2014: South By Southwest.
Immunity for Edward Snowden sounds about right. Instead, he has to live under the threat of abduction, interrogation and if some especially awful U.S. politicians got their way, execution.
There’s little indication that President Obama’s administration is open to leniency, or even an alternate perspective on Mr. Snowden. But as LGBT Americans can attest, the president has changed his mind before. We can hope.
SXSW, where the “W” stands for “Wait in line to get in”
If you’re in a line right now at SXSW, you really do have my sympathy. Especially if you don’t try to wave your Klout around to bully some poor employee who’s just doing their job.
The great and glorious Kris Krüg came up with this cartoon, and his idea was relayed by Alexandra Samuel (whose panel on going beyond social media metrics actually trended America-wide yesterday: wahoo!). Big thanks to them both!
Itty-bitcoin
In the quest for a punchline about Bitcoin, it’s hard to top the way Newsweek’s statement about its reporting ends with “[Newsweek] encourages all to be respectful of the privacy and rights of the individuals involved.”
Right. Starting… now.
I’m tempted to bang out a screenplay about how a gang of 4chan types decide to frame up some poor schmuck they pick from out of the blue as a Satoshi Nakamoto-type character. As his life is shattered, the real Satoshi Nakamoto-type character secretly contacts him, and together, they conspire to bring down both the jerks who framed him, and the publication that ran the story and refuses to retract as evidence to the contrary mounts. But in the process, they trigger an international financial meltdown. As the world teeters on the brink of economic collapse, the sole credible currency is…
…no, not Bitcoin. Linden Dollars. Ha! Twist ending!
I’ll wait by the phone.
What is this “broadcasting” of which you speak?
My kids do not understand the idea of broadcast TV. The idea that you’d let someone else choose when your favourite shows will be on is utterly alien to them (to the point that when one of them saw it in a department store a few years ago, they gushed to their mom about this amazing new feature. Shows that change by themselves at the top of the hour without you having to pick a new one? What will they think of next?)
Years from now, as I enter my doddering years, I plan to go on at length about how you used to have to wait a week to find out what happened next, and what reruns were, and how you if you missed an episode of something with a long arc, boy, were you screwed. And how we couldn’t rewind or fast-forward. And how we all basically lived like bonobos, flinging feces at each other and picking fleas out of our fur while we watched Barney Miller. (Which is still one of the best effing sitcoms in history, kid — here, let me see if I can find an episode on YouFlix or whatever they’re calling it these days. Maybe the one with Dietrich and the conspiracy guy.)
Aside: If YouTube acquired Hulu, could they please call it YouHooLu?
Who are you wearing? …Okay, what version?
“Hey,” I thought a week or two ago as I typed the write-up for this cartoon about wearable technology, “that last line would make a pretty good cartoon on its own.” And now here we are. Enjoy the Oscars tonight.
I’m wearing a Fitbit Flex myself. My quantified self turns out to walk roughly half as much as Alex does, which has tempted me to secretly buy one of those paint can shakers, keep it in a closet at NOW, and duct tape my Flex to it for 20 minutes a day.
(On re-reading, “duct tape my Flex to it” sounds kinda filthy. And painful. And permanent.)
By the way, since I mentioned the Flex, the good folks at iFixit did a teardown of one
One last thing: if you’re discerning enough to know about the good folks at Adafruit Industries, then the version below is for you. (It’s also for them, because their customer service is freaking awesome.)
Metrics
Key Performance Indicator, in case you’re wondering.
Wearable but unbearable
I’m having my own wearable-computing issue these days: between my Fitbit Flex, my watch and the Rainbow Loom bracelet my daughter made me, my left wrist is getting crowded.
* * *
Quick question: how long before this happens? A red carpet interviewee who’s asked “Who are you wearing?” replies with something like “Jacques Azagury, Samsung, AMD — and the earrings are custom Adafruit.”
Because you’re never fully dressed without Bluetooth.
CAPTCHA v. 0.1
Okay, people: the question that will tell me once and for all what kind of folks you really are. Which is the definitive version of the Arthurian legend: Boorman or Python?
(Tough question, I know. I’m asking you to weigh the Knights Who Say Ni against Helen Mirren as Morgana and Nicol Williamson as Merlin. Essay answers are encouraged.)
Here’s the movie that played out in my mind as I was drawing, by the way:
EXT. FOREST GLADE
A group of KNIGHTS, including BORS, ECTOR and URYENS, are gathered around a large STONE from which protrudes a wooden sign, facing away from us (and toward them). They study it intently.
BORS
E... nine... R... G... 7...
3... 8?
A bolt of LIGHTNING vaporizes him. The other KNIGHTS step back, shaken.
URYENS
Ector?
ECTOR
No, no, I... I'll defer to you,
noble sir.
URYENS
But you have sons, a lineage.
They'd be awesome heirs to the
throne. You go.
ECTOR
(glancing at his bare wrist)
You know, thanks for reminding me.
It's time for Arthur's Ritalin.
He hurries off. URYENS, stricken, looks at the other knights. No takers. He takes a deep breath and steps forward.
URYENS
S—
He gets no further. There's a flash, and he's reduced to cinders and a wisp of smoke.
KNIGHTS
(muttering)
We could try this tomorrow. It's
getting late. We're starting to
lose light.
ARTHUR (OS)
Oh, for God's sake.
A lanky boy, ARTHUR, pushes through them and peers briefly at the sign.
ARTHUR
(impatient)
It says "ermine 927." Okay?
He walks away, just before a beam of heavenly light illuminates the glade. A crown descends from above, resting gently on a bed of moss atop the stone.
One of the KNIGHTS sidles over to the crown and picks it up nonchalantly. They all innocently shuffle away.
Something old, something new, something that will CHANGE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT MARRIAGE FOREVER
Happy Valentine’s Day! Here’s a page of cartoons about love. (I’ve tried to balance it pro and con, but I’m kind of a softie.)
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Upworthy gets a lot of grief for its headlines, but one reason they work is that they very often deliver — or come close enough that I’m okay with it.
I really did tear up at 3:12 of that video, even if I didn’t actually cry. I am thinking about poverty a little differently. And I was surprised and impressed, even if I wasn’t shocked and amazed.
It helps that I’m part of Upworthy’s target audience: politically progressive and prone to clicking on things. But as I wrote a year ago or so, a link is a promise to your audience. So far, Upworthy’s been keeping theirs.
And they’re going to try to do even better, with a new algorithm geared to measuring engagement with a lot more subtlety. (Please, please, please tell me this will help to kill slideshows-that-ought-to-be-lists-but-aren’t-because-we-want-to-pump-up-pageviews.)
Room wanted
tl;dr:
Know an online publication or news site
where Noise to Signal would fit in perfectly?
Let me know!
Here at Noise to Signal, we’re looking for a home. We’re scouring Craigslist for something like this:
ROOM AVAILABLE.
500 x 600 px. Nice up-and-coming neighbourhood. Convenient to web traffic. Bright, open standards.
For several years, Noise to Signal ran weekly at ReadWriteWeb (thanks to Marshall Kirkpatrick‘s kind introduction to Richard MacManus, for which I’ll be forever grateful). It was a terrific experience: I got to reach a wide, diverse audience who shared my interest in the social web, not to mention a great community of fellow contributors.
Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to contribute to some wonderful projects (Measuring the Networked Nonprofit and Open Community, to name just two). And I’ll keep looking for new collaborations, because damn, they make me happy.
But there’s still something I’ve missed since the RWW days. And that’s the chance to be part of an ongoing project aligned with my belief in the open web.
So I’m looking for a venue for a regular Noise to Signal cartoon. I’ll be knocking on a few doors in the coming weeks, but I’d also love your suggestions.
If you know the perfect socket for this particular chip, please let me know. It could be a tech news site, a web advocacy campaign, or something else entirely. (For example, if The Guardian, O’Reilly Media and the Mozilla Foundation are launching a new online magazine curated by danah boyd, Sir Tim Berners Lee and Baratunde Thurston, I would like very much to know about this.)
Let me know in the comments, tweet me (robcottingham) or drop me a line at rob@robcottingham.ca. Many thanks!
Correction
There’s a filter most people have in their brain. It ensures there’s a safe distance between the mouth and that part of the cerebral cortex that identifies errors in other people’s work. As news of the error makes its way mouthwards, this filter steps in and says, “Hold on. Is this really important? Will identifying this error do more harm than good? Is there any way this person can do anything about it, or will you just make them feel bad?”
You may be familiar with this filter because you have one yourself. If so, do you happen to have a spare?
– * –
This, by the way, is my reaction any time I notice even the tiniest error in my own stuff. You can imagine how I reacted to noticing the relationship between the doorknob and the hand in this cartoon.
Business casual
I don’t typically go in for that whole “Like if you…” “Share if you…” thing… but if I did, I’d say “Share if you hate seeing ‘business casual’ on an invitation.”
You could probably run a pretty profitable service for people, assessing the context and translating “business casual” into, say, “newer blue jeans, not too tight, polo shirt, sports jacket, dark socks, loafers but not sneakers.” Or “dark business suit; loosen the tie three millimeters.” Or “Speedo.” (Pro tip: it’s never “Speedo.” Or so I’ve been forcefully reminded on a few occasions.)
* * *
Hey, big news from my partner Alexandra Samuel: her new Harvard Business Review Press ebook Work Smarter, Rule Your Email just launched today. It’s a short, lively read, but don’t let that (or the low price) fool you: her approach to managing email is a powerful one. It’s easy to implement (it’s an email strategy, not a way of life), and it will get you out from under your inbox.
You can get it for Kindle, iBooks and Kobo, or buy it straight from HBR Press.
Wait, what’s that? You’d like a Noise to Signal cartoon embedded in a promotional image suitable for sharing online because you love Alex and think she’s brilliant and want to help spread the word?
Friend, that’s what I’m here for:
Oh my god, she IS ours!
This cartoon took more than 10 years to make. An evening of drawing, some time to fine-tune the caption, and a decade to create the daughter who came up with the idea. I’ve tweaked it a little so I wouldn’t be a total plagiarist, but you ought to know that this cartoon is really by Little Sweetie.
She’s already far enough ahead of me in Doctor Who that she’s now explaining some of the finer plot points to me when I join her for an episode. She’s reading webcomics and science fiction books, correcting my Star Trek: The Next Generation references and suggesting graphic novels to me.
Any of you parents out there, have you had the same experience of delighting in the way your kids enjoy some of the same things you did, while being in complete awe of their unique take on it?
The hot new technology
Mere hours after I posted last week’s Internet of Things cartoon, news broke that Google had acquired Nest, maker of truly nifty smart thermostats (and now smoke alarms). I’m now wondering how I ever lived without either of them.
At least, the techno-optimist side of my brain is. The techno-grump side (which is a much smaller, wizened little stump that dangles beside my amygdala like some kind of cerebral hemorrhoid) worries that connected devices and the Internet of Things are the first step in our inexorable conversion from customers to hostages.
That techno-grump was also deeply concerned that keying “r-o-b-o-p” into Google yields the autocomplete suggestion Robopocalypse, until Ryan Merkley intervened:
@RobCottingham What else would you type starting with "Robop"?
— Ryan Merkley (@ryanmerkley) January 19, 2014
His point is well-taken, although maybe I might have been Googling “robopoop”. It’s only a matter of time before that’s a thing. (Actually, at nearly 4,000 Google hits, I’d argue it already is.)
One last mild FWIW to my inner techno-grump: Google may have taken a little time to implement Do Not Track, but it’s been supported in Chrome for quite a while now.
Meanwhile: my predictive algorithms suggest that:
- If you liked this cartoon, you’ll love Joy of Tech’s from last week. And Tom Fishburne’s latest, which suggests a more benign vision of marketing synergy.
- If you’re wondering how all of this might go horribly wrong, check out CBC’s Nora Young interviewing Ars Technica’s Peter Bright on Spark (the smartest show on radio).
- If you’re looking at a broader overview, listen to CBC’s The Current from this morning.
Things of the Internet
This could also have been a bunch of disembodied hands holding devices, but that might have felt creepy. (Not to mention spooky, mysterious and ooky.)
Updated: And speaking of the Internet of Things, here’s a great consumer-friendly article by Dan Tynan explaining the basic concept and setting out a few of the issues around it.
The blood elf flies north at midnight
So now we know that the NSA isn’t just mining mobile phone metadata. They’re mining World of Warcraft gold.
I suspect their people are a lot less clueless than my cartoonist’s heart would like to believe. Sure, I’m tickled at the thought of James Bond flailing helplessly in mid-air for hours in Second Life. But even as someone whose knowledge of the intelligence community is largely informed by Michael Westen‘s monologues (see previous cartoon), I’m pretty sure these folks are used to adapting quickly to different cultures and unfamiliar environments.
And intelligence work in a MMORPG probably isn’t much different from intelligence work anywhere else: building relationships, gaining trust, listening carefully, and doing a lot more boring sifting through data than you might think. (So online community managers, you can probably expect a call from a CIA human resources officer any day now.)
That doesn’t mean the execution went off without a hitch. According to the documents leaked by Edward Snowden, there were so many intelligence agents in the virtual field that a “deconfliction” group had to keep them from wasting time infiltrating each other. Not that there aren’t folks who use Second Life as a way of infiltrating each other, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic. And the ProPublica article on the Snowden revelations suggests strongly that terrorists weren’t actually using World of Warcraft or Second Life except for recreation and getting one’s freak on.
What the article doesn’t address, and what I suspect the biggest danger posed by MMORPG ops, is mission creep.
Anyone who has missed work to finish a quest, or looked up from an online melee to realize it’s four in the morning, knows what I’m talking about. Intelligence agencies used to have to worry about field agents “going native”; now they have to worry their loyalty could be divided between their country and their guild. Yeah, you’re pretty sure that mage is MOSSAD, but she’s awfully handy with a Frost spell, so now she’s in your questing party. And maybe you haven’t come up with a lick of actionable intel in three years, but you’ve kept Al Qaeda off the leaderboard, and isn’t that what really matters?
Incidentally, there’s also the massive violation of privacy (and community). Wouldn’t it be great if there was someone trying to do something about that?
You have been convicted of crimes against the algorithm.
Three of my colleagues are currently witnessing my full-on panic attack at discovering I’ve been locked out of #Facebook.
— AlexandraSamuel.com (@awsamuel) November 29, 2013
And cue the Burn Notice theme music:
When you’re locked out, you’ve got nothing. No friends, no third-party apps, no timeline. You’re stuck on whatever social network you get dumped in. You rely on anyone who’s still connected to you. Your mouse-happy ex-boyfriends. An old friend who’s informing on you to the NSA. Google+…if you’re desperate.
Bottom line is, until you figure out who locked you out, your Klout isn’t going anywhere.
Until Michael Alex is reinstated, you can find her on Twitter and Google+.
(Yes, cheap shot on Google+. But it fits in so well there…)
Updated: She’s back!
Updated again: I just had to.
But everything needs SEO
How long before someone has a viable business helping parents choose names for their kids based on low-competition, high-value search terms?
Set vibrate to ON
GTD, baby. GTD.
—
After drawing this, my inner Beavis and Butthead have reared their heads, and everything I say about my iPhone suddenly seems filled with innuendo. “Multi-touch.” “Pinch to zoom.” “Mind if I… plug in to charge?” “71:40 aspect ratio.” Uh, huh huh. Huh huh huh.
—
In barely related news, I finished reading Daniel H. Wilson’s Robopocalypse a little while ago. I recommend it: it’s highly entertaining, and for days after reading it, you’ll be acutely aware of just how many microprocessor-controlled gizmos surround you… and the damage they could do if the silicon chips inside their head got set to overload.
I have to think Siri in particular could cause some havoc. Enough misunderstood phrases and mistranscribed messages (“‘Have socks tonight?’ What the hell?”) and humanity could probably be pushed over the brink.
Oh — once you’ve read Robopocalypse, watch this video. Maybe just before bed. Good luck sleeping.
—
While I’m recommending things, the kids and I have been hugely enjoying Noelle Stevenson’s webcomic Nimona. The eponymous 14-year-old shapeshifting girl with anger management issues signs on as a sidekick to supervillain Ballister Blackheart. In a medieval world where dragons, magic and plasma rifles coexist, Nimona and Ballister plot to thwart the evil Institution — pitting them against Blackheart’s nemesis and one-time bestie Ambrosius Goldenloin.
That description can’t begin to do the comic justice. It’s all tongue-in-cheek, except for Nimona’s anger and pain. That, Stevenson treats with great care and respect. Her cartooning, humour and storytelling chops started strong and have been growing by leaps and bounds since the cartoon debuted in the summer of last year. If anything in that description triggered even a tiny endorphin surge, go check it out — I hope you enjoy it.
I think we finally have a good connec-… (click!)
I just had another one of those Skype conference calls: the ones where some people can’t get video, others can’t hear, and still others inexplicably lose their sense of smell. For my part, I lost all feeling below my waist. (I think that’s because of how I was sitting, with one leg tucked up under my bum, like a stork who happens to have been given an office chair.)
I gather this happens to everyone now and then (the Skype issues, not the loss of sensation in their legs). So here’s a quick troubleshooting guide to ensuring a crystal-clear Skype call:
- Make sure you aren’t using your Internet connection for anything demanding, like downloading large video files or sending a three-line email message.
- Don’t run your microwave oven during your call if you’re on WiFi. Maybe you should unplug it. You know what? Give it to someone who lives at least three kilometres away.
- Are you wearing anything metal? Take it off. Surgical implants? Dental fillings? A pacemaker? Lose ’em.
- Write up a transcript of your side of the call beforehand, and send it to the other participants. Ask them to do the same. Hey! Now you don’t need to call. So easy!
I’m happy to share my other Skype tips any time. Just find me on Google+; we’ll do a Hangout.
And what the hell does this function “Arrrrggghhh-ulk!!()” do?
I will consider it a personal failing if I can’t get a Ouija board with a pipe character, angle brackets and shebang up on Etsy by the end of the year.
By the way, the Ouija board was one of three options I was considering for this caption. I’d sketched up a corpse being reanimated…
…and a seance…
…but landed on the Ouija board. That was partly on Alex’s recommendation, and partly so I could draw it while the kids were falling asleep without scaring them into a night’s insomnia if they happened to catch a glimpse.
Pictures of pretty people in office settings they actually wouldn’t be caught dead in (AKA “stock photography”)
A disclaimer: there’s some good stock imagery out there. Some really lovely stuff.
But there’s just so much derivative crap: flat, uninspired knockoffs of other flat uninspired knockoffs. Oh, look! It’s a smiling person with a phone headset! It’s three people gathered around a laptop, one pointing, the others listening attentively, and all of them smiling! It’s a meeting of half a dozen ethnically diverse people, smiling! (Don’t want smiles? There’s a dramatic variation where they look determined! Although they could break out in smiles at any moment.)
I wish iStockphoto would label all of that stuff so people who want the old standbys could find them quickly and easily, and people who want anything but that style could filter it out of their search results.
Meanwhile, an offhand tweet of mine last week griping about all of this got a response from David Sherry:
@RobCottingham We're working on it! http://t.co/ovRAZHCEnx
— David Sherry (@DavidSherry36) September 4, 2013
And so he and collaborator Allie Lehman are. Death to the Stock Photo is a project that drops a tidy pile of lovely photos in your inbox every month for your enjoyment and use, at no charge.
Free high-res lifestyle photography sent to you monthly, to do whatever you please. For your website, social channels, mockups or even to hang on your wall if you’re so inclined.
No catch. Join us to rid the world of bad stock photography.