Out Of Proportion

After Ontario's election, I'm seeing lots of pleas for proportional representation in the op-ed pages and letters to the editor.  For the most part, this seems to be coming from the fact that the Liberals got less than 40% of the vote, yet have a majority.

I have mixed emotions about it. On the one hand, I'd like to see proportional representation. There are a number of negatives to it, but I think it is plenty better than our current first-past-the-post system. I would caution proportional representation's boosters that it won't fix as many things as they think it will.

Why I'm not so positive towards these calls is the simple fact that we already had a referendum on the topic, and it was soundly defeated. I found that vote profoundly disappointing. That disappointment was not so much the result (like I say, in not that enthusiastic about the system) as the sheer lack of debate. The system isn't rocket science, but alarmingly few people understood it. And alarmingly few people were willing to consider change. The whole experience was just one long exercise in rubbing my nose in two of the biggest problems in politics: poorly informed voters have dumbed issues down to the point of uselessness, and everyone has the attitude that the current conditions are unbearable, but we must not change anything.

So I really think that all this campaigning for proportional representation is wasted breath. In the UK, the Liberal Democrats dropped their long-standing demand for proportional representation after a similarly sound referendum defeat. I think it's time to remember that politics is the art of the possible, and changing voting systems just isn't possible right now.

The Bite Heard 'Round The World

Uruguay's Luis Suarez has been kicked out of the World Cup for biting another player. That's strange enough on its own, but it gets weirder when you find that this is the third time Suarez has bitten an opponent on the field. Yes, he's bitten three-times as many professional athletes as Mike Tyson. Like Shia LeBeouf, Suarez just keeps acting strange.  You think it can't get any stranger, then it does, and you have to wonder what's behind it.

Given his continued great play, Suarez is now on the eternal-second-chance ride that Terrell Owens was on for many years. Hell get dumped by his current employer, Liverpool, go to some other team and help them for a year or two until his next incident, and keep repeating the cycle until his physical ability deserts him.

But what I find interesting about international celebrity meltdowns is how nationalism affects people's perception. Everyone in Uruguay, right up to the president, is behind him. And I don't mean offering unconditional caring while urging him to get professional help. They're actually ignoring the visual evidence, and buying his excuse that he lost his balance and fell onto the Italian with his teeth breaking his fall.

Say what you will about Americans and their celebrity culture: at least they don't all stand behind an obviously guilty superstar. When the aforementioned Tyson does something objectionable, his fans may back him unquestioningly, but many Americans will be ready to turn on him. I guess it's a result of a country's size. The USA has plenty of heroes; they can afford to throw a few under the bus. But Uruguay doesn't get the world's attention often, so they have to support the favourite son no matter what.

In Canada, were in between; about one-tenth the size of the US, but ten-times the size of Uruguay. So we seem happy to trash a local celebrity when they deserve it (Bieber, Ford.)  But we will stand behind an entire province when foreigners attack them (Alberta tar sands, Newfoundland seal hunt.)

My Kingdom For A Backup Point Guard

LeBron James is opting out of his contact with the Miami Heat. That doesn't necessarily mean that he's leaving the team though. It just means that if he stays, they'll have to work out an entirely new contract. Normally if an athlete does this, it's to get more money, on the assumption that the new contract - which will have to exceed other teams' offers - will be more than the old contract.

But in James's case, it's more likely that he'll stay for less money. It's become apparent that the Heat's Big Three stars aren't enough to reliably win a dynasty of championships, so if he is serious about winning Jordan-numbers of titles, the Heat (or any other team James signs with) will need a good supporting cast around him. And they won't be able to afford that if they pay him market-value in his new contract.

It may seem unthinkable that a modern athlete would ever take less money than they could get, but I could believe it in James's case. Remember, the biggest cheque he cashes is from Nike, not the Heat. If he's going to make a ton of money from endorsements, he might as well take a little less from his team contract.

It may even make more sense from a purely financial standpoint. Consider what happens if he takes the biggest contact he can get: he'll wallow away as the only star on a good-but-not-great team. He won't win any titles, but others - probably Kevin Durant - will win. Thus, LeBron will continue to be a star, but not the star. It'll only get worse when Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan retire, and everyone talks about how they each have five-count-'em-five championship rings. Suddenly James doesn't seem like a once-a-generation star, and the endorsements aren't as lucrative.

On the one hand, it would be nice to see a player take a pay cut for the sake of the team.  But on the other, it further stretches the concept of competition in professional sports.  Free agency introduced the idea that players come and go quickly, and sometimes allowed winners to be bought.  Trade-deadline deals changing the nature of a team midseason push it further.  And I've argued that veterans going to an already strong team for a final season or two also cheapens the prize, as did the Heat's stars banding together.  But having star players unite on a single team, and then taking less money so that they can have a deep roster of lesser players?  That brings a new level of artificiality to it.  LeBron, if it means that much to you, just sign with the Spurs.

Im-male-da

It's always bugged me that Imelda Marcos became so well known for her epic shoe collection that she can still be used as a punchline to this day, at least for people over forty. We don't even remember that her husband, Ferdinand, was dictator of the Philippines, or that her shore collection was not the plaything of a deranged rich woman, but a symbol of excess by exploitive leaders. And it's an affront to feminism of Kournikovian proportions that we remember Imelda for her stereotypical excess, while Corizon Aquino, the woman who led the popular uprising that deposed the Marcoses and brought democracy to the Philippines, is remembered only by historians.

But the reason I'm fixated on shoes today is that a rather unstereotypical thing happened to me: I found a pair of shoes I forgot I had at the bottom of the closet. Like most men, I don't own a lot of shoes. I can't speak for all men, but for me is not that I hate shoes, but I hate buying shoes. Aside from sizing problems, there's the style problem.  Most men's clothing fits into one of three categories:

• Formal, good-looking, uncomfortable
• Casual, comfortable, boring
• Sporty, very comfortable, silly

Or to put out another way, you have to look like your boss, your father, or your son. It's especially bad in shoes, where there's little choice between work and sports shoes.

But these shoes seemed to drop somewhere between those second and third groups. Clean, black canvas, they don't look childish or formal. So I wore them today. They were nice and comfortable to walk in. Though the thick canvas does make them a little warm. I feel like I look good, though my get are sweating a bit. But I do have thick socks. Okay, now the sweat is making my feet squeak as I walk. So maybe they aren't suited to summer. The shallow tread means I can't use them in winter, so I'll have to wait 'til fall to wear them. I'll just throw them in the closet for now; I'm sure I'll remember to get them out again in a few months.

Offend In Every Way

There's a word on the net: "mansplain." If a woman is offended by something a man does, mansplaining is the man explaining to her that she shouldn't be offended.

I have mixed emotions about this concept. On the one hand, there have been a lot of egregious examples of guys trying to explain away some really obviously bad behaviour. But I'm not comfortable with blanket use of the term. That is to say, I have no doubt that most - if not all - of the incidents that have been labelled as mansplaining are just guys trying to excuse unacceptable behaviour, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will always be true that the explaining man is in the wrong. This disappoints me when - in the frenzy of condemnations against a man's offensive behaviour - some people take a more sweeping condemnation, thinking of the mansplainer as inherently wrong; this view implies that if a person is offended by something you've done, then you are obviously in the wrong, and you have no right to explain your way out of it.

Again I'm not defending individual mansplainers - all the examples I've seen of them are pretty pathetic - I'm just defending the concept.  But on the other side of the equation, there are a lot of people celebrating the very idea of not caring if you offend people. I saw this image of a Stephen Fry quote being passed around on Twitter

Most of the graphics depicting quotes by famous people that go around the Internet are wrong, so I looked this up at Wikiquote, and found out it is indeed genuine.  It comes from a discussion with Christopher Hitchens in 2005. Fry reiterated at the time that he does oppose laws that ban people from offending others. What's odd is that the article about the event cites the quote only after several paragraphs reporting on Fry's experience of looking for his Great-Grandfather's grave in a Jewish cemetery recently desecrated by anti-Semites. And Fry has worked for the acceptance of homosexuality and atheism, so he's hardly okay with people being offensive.  And that's the problem with this blanket defence of offensiveness: being against banning offensive behaviour doesn't mean that offending others is an admirable pursuit.  Or - to answer Fry's question at the end of his quote - if someone is offended by something you've done, then one or the other of you is acting unreasonably; it might be the offended person, but it might also be you.

The point is that both sides are wrong. Whether you think that offending people is always acceptable, or that it's never acceptable, you're wrong. And it doesn't take too much imagination to come up with counterexamples proving that you're wrong. By all means, continue to fight against extremists at both ends of the scale, but don't kid yourself that you're fighting for some absolute, inalienable right. Really, you're just one of many trying to find a reasonable middle ground.

Mall Pall

We've seen plenty of stories in recent years about how shopping malls are dying. But yesterday I saw one from The Guardian, and figured that if even the mall-challenged British are noticing, then it must be a big story.

The article attributes the end of malls to a renascence of urban retail, and the growth of online shopping. Those trends may be real, but it misses the biggest competitor: big box stores. They also claim that young people are rejecting older generations' mall culture. But a look around a mall today shows they make up a big part of the clientèle. Attributing cultural changes to young people being simply different is lazy journalism.  Also, they keep citing examples of dead and dying malls that just happen to be in rust belt communities where pretty much everything is decaying.  But whatever the reasons, shopping malls have hit a wall - many still do a lot of business, but no one is building them. 

Judging by my other tastes and values, I should hate malls. They're ugly temples of conformity, promoting mindless consumption and car-centric cities. But really, I've always had an affection for these retail behemoths. Maybe it's the pseudo-social atmosphere that lets you be private and public at the same time. Maybe it's the weird way it shows-off a community's aspirations. Or it's the fact that for all the external ugliness and internal blandness, it's still the grandest architecture we regularly experience. No matter the reason for my love of malls, it has helped that I came of age after they had become the dominant retail format. Earlier generations watched the mall eat away at beloved civic institutions and never forgave them for it.

Their complaint was that malls replaced downtown shops, as well as town squares. But what they didn't realize was that while malls destroyed those institutions, they also replaced them. The town square may no longer be the meeting place for the city, but at least the mall provided a new meeting place. And that's why I now lament the disappearance of malls. Big box stores have all the same negatives as malls, but without that positive of being a meeting place.  Hopefully something will replace the social function of the meeting place.  Otherwise, the Walmart greeters are going to get really tired of throwing loiterers out of the store. 

Somehow, The Radio Star Is Still Alive

Over the last thirty years, any time a baby-boomer complained about the state of popular music, that rant just isn't complete without a claim that music videos have ruined music. The idea is that in turning music into a visual medium, it's become more about the image than the music, and more important that a musician look good than have talent.

It certainly is a believable argument, but it isn't born out in practice. Yes, there were plenty of good looking artists made it big during the Age Of Video. But there were plenty of artists made rich in previous eras on the strength of their looks, even if their fans only saw their idols on posters or Ed Sullivan. And don't forget that the most egregious examples of less-talented artists using their looks for success were motivated by racism, not video.

Really, I can't think of any examples of artists who made it big based purely on their video. There are examples of songs that used notable videos to get exposure they wouldn't otherwise get. I'm thinking of songs like "No Rain" or "Take On Me." But I wouldn't say those songs were undeserving. The "Nice Video, Shame About The Song" phenomena never really happened.

At least until now. The only artist I can think of that is known for videos first and music second is OK Go. And the strange part is that they did it after the end of the Age Of Video. Their latest video is one continuous shot, full of optical illusions, and is spreading across the Internet at beyond-viral speeds.

Their music is good, but their video skills are superior to their music skills. And this was the first of their videos where I've really found myself listening to the music - they didn't used to have that early New Order style to them, did they?

But I do have to give them credit for their willingness to embrace their place in pop-culture. So often we see musicians do things like storm out of interviews for being wrongly-portrayed, or refuse to play their big hits in concert. Most bands in OK Go's position would defiantly make a really dull concert-footage video at this point. But they seem happy to be "that band with the videos."

“Thank God for books and music and things I can think about."

Here's the latest in my apparently continuing series of people who deserved better obituaries than one paragraph in the entertainment section.  It was in this morning's paper that author Daniel Keyes died.

Keyes is best known for the novel Flowers for Algernon, the story of a mentally challenged man who undergoes experimental surgery to improve his intelligence.  You could describe it - as the newspaper did - by repeatedly mentioning that it's often used in high school English classes and then leave it at that without further insight. But I'd just like to add that it's a brilliant examination of how intellect shapes human interaction, and so often ends up holding us apart.

Warping Time And Taste

When the portal from the Nineties opened up on the street in front of me, I eagerly anticipated what could be sucked through into the present. A quaint relic of the early Web? A long-lost Nirvana single? Some day-glo clothing?

But no, the only thing to come through that hole in space and time was a car. Here it is:

Neutral Observer

Earlier this year, a U.S. court struck down laws defending net neutrality. If you're not familiar with it, net neutrality is the concept that all the information growing around should be treated equally. Nothing should be given preferential treatment and allowed to go faster.

The nightmare scenario of an Internet without net neutrality is one in which owners of Internet infrastructure (mainly the big telecommunications companies) close their networks to any businesses who don't pay big bucks. Big companies can do business over the internet, but anyone else is out of luck.

What I find frustrating about the net neutrality issue is how it exposes the weakness in your average geek's political philosophy. As I touched on when discussing Bill Gates, many techies are politically naive and thus fall prey to simplistic view points. And the most likely is extreme libertarianism or objectivism.

Because of that, your typical geek's answer to pretty much any problem is, “less rules.” Of course, there's plenty to be said for small government and less regulation, but any reasonable person recognizes that government and legislation occasionally has its place. And if net neutrality is important to you, that's going to have to be one of those places.

But the tech world has been slow to admit this. You still find geeks who are very passionate about the need for net neutrality, but then advocate against laws backing up the principles. So - much as I’m worried for the end of net neutrality - I do feel a bit of schadenfreude when I watch uncompromising libertarian geeks forced to lie in the bed they’ve made.

Increasingly, we're seeing the internet and the tech world pitted against politicians. So far, politics has been kicking technology's ass. Beloved tech principles that the Internet is a world-wide, uncensored, private medium are falling, and technology proponents seem powerless to stop it. I wish I could go back in time to the mid-nineties and rub this in the face of geeks in Wired bragging about how the Internet was making government irrelevant. They should have learned to play the political game then; they're going to have to take a crash course now.

Two Tribes

It's amazing how many things in our world come down to dichotomies. Coke/Pepsi, Leno/Letterman, Capitalism/Communism, Edward/Jacob, Bloods/Crips, VI/EMACS, over-the-top/down-the-wall, VHS/Beta, tastes great/less filling, Nintendo/Sega. And now we can add the latest: iPhone/Android.

Except this one isn't really shaping up the same way. For one thing, in each of the other pairings, each side (or its fanbase) was keenly aware of the other side, and had a hate on for them. But not many people really hate Android. A fair number hate Apple and it's devices, but many Android users are only dimly aware of the options. As many have observed, a large number of Android users bought Android phones only because the don't make non-smartphones anymore. As I think I've shown in this blog, Android phones will do anything iPhones will do, though most seem oblivious to it. Everyone knows who Siri is, but how many are aware that pretty much all phones today can respond to voice commands.

And the enthusiasm only seems to go one way.  iPhone users tend to be proud of their products, but you don't see anyone boisterous about Android.  Arguably, the remnants of Blackberry nation have enough pride to give it a bigger impact on society even today.  Huge numbers of people are buying a product that they're not really using, and it's not having much of a cultural impact.

There have been many rivalries where one side is bigger than the other (like Coke vs. Pepsi) or even where one side ultimately wins out over the other (VHS vs. Beta) and there have been rivalries where one side isn't well known (say, Windows vs. Linux.) But I can't think of any other situation where the side that has pop-culture's attention is the one that is far less successful.  You could point to the PC vs. Mac rivalry as one where the users of the winner have no enthusiasm. But Mac users were seen more as an odd cult rather than typical computer users.  For instance, I note that people discussing technology often refer to "iPhones" as shorthand for all smartphones, since everyone knows what an iPhone is, but some people will be confused by smartphone/cell phone/mobile etc.  I couldn't imagine someone in the desktop computer era referring to computers as "Macs," on the assumption people don't know what a PC is.

But, now that I think about it, I do know one similar rivalry situation. And despite the lucky timelines of this example, I swear I hadn't thought of it when I started writing: Android is Tim Duncan to the iPhone's LeBron James.

An Appeal To The Easily Bored

I'm a big fan of being tired of things.  That is, I get sick of trends and tendencies quickly.  But you knew that because I complain about them a lot.  And I'm glad when I see others complain about being tired of things.  If more people are vocal about societal trends they dislike, it will push decision makers to do something about it.

But this week I've seen a number of people in the U.S. and Canada saying that they are tired of yet another attempt to pretend to care about the World Cup.  This usually comes with sweeping statements that no one here cares, they're just pretending to be interested and so on.

That bugs me because it simply isn't true.  A lot of people in our two countries do care and watch.  Certainly it isn't a large number compared to our favourite sports, but it's not an insignificant number either.  And that's why I'm particularly disappointed in my fellow curmudgeons.  Usually, when we complain that some fashion or fad has gone to far, it is because we are pointing out that not everyone in society has the same tastes and priorities, and that some of us are displeased with the trends of the mass-market.  By discounting the soccer subculture, you're trampling the desires of those very people. 

I think this all comes from the fact that soccer is at a very awkward point in its history here.  It's moved beyond the obscure curiosity it once was:  the MLS is still in business, and European soccer is popular enough to merit showings on sports channels.  But on the other hand, it isn't huge: MLS still operates on a much smaller scale than the big pro leagues, and most American sports fans would be hard pressed to name a European soccer team other than Manchester United.  That level of partial success is unusual for us in our high-stakes sports world.  Sports success means superstardom to us, so we're not sure what to do with a sport that has essentially a cult following.

It should be obvious: we do what we do with all other cult followings:  The mainstream occasionally makes awkward reference to it, but mostly ignores it.  And we curators of the obscure admire and praise it, glad that it brings some variety into our culture.  So if you care about a diverse culture, get over being tired of it.

I Refuse To Do A "Wynne" Pun

It's time for a post-mortem on Thursday's provincial election.  With Ontario's Liberals facing a billion dollar scandal, they somehow expanded their minority into a majority.

I mentioned in the past that PC leader Tim Hudak is a poor political strategist, because he tries to speak to both the centre and the far-right, alienating both in the process. This election was a good example: With the government mired in scandal, all they had to do was stand around looking reasonably competent and they'd win. But instead, he had to go and announce his plan to cut 100,000 government jobs.

It's hard to keep track of all the ways that was a bad move:

• Though the Tories wanted the spotlight on the Liberals, they moved it to themselves.
• It made the rather predictable comparisons to Mike Harris very easy.
• It pushed unions and other interest groups to pull-out all the stops.  The Liberals hardly needed to run their own attack ads with so many groups lining up to go negative.
• The centrepiece of the PC campaign was the "Million Jobs Plan" but the vagueness of that plan was emphasized when put next to a solid promise to axe thousands of jobs.
• Presenting the elimination of jobs as a campaign promise looked very out-of-touch.

The commonality in Hudak's miscalculations is that while he comes across like an ordinary guy, he doesn't understand that he sees the world through the perspective of someone deep in the Conservative machine, and thus he reacts to things in a different way than most. Lots of people think - as he does - that government is big and bloated, but he doesn't realize that most people don't translate that into a desire to eliminate jobs. Similarly, many dislike the power of unions, but most don't hate them with the passion he does.  Unfortunately, this sort of political miscalculation is likely something that we'll see more of in the future, as so many people retract into media catering to their political beliefs.

And that's why I'm a little worried going forward. A surprise loss can be a time to reflect on what's been done wrong, but it often turns into excuse-making and incredulous head-shaking about the voters. And before election night was even over, Tory-friendly media outlets were already framing the loss as a strong performance except for Toronto. And judging by what we've seen of Hudak, he's probably now mumbling angrily about labour unions conspiring against him.

As for the New Democrats, they might be more disappointed, since they did trigger the election on what they must have thought were good circumstances for themselves. At first, it looked like the irony would be that they would gain seats in the process of putting a profoundly anti-labour government in power. Instead, the irony is that they will end up with the very same seat-count, but having lost their power because the Liberals won a clear majority. It's like a political Aesop's fable.

Either way, you have to wonder what they were thinking. Combine that questionable strategy with their bland performance, and I wonder if Jack Layton's federal breakthrough has gone to their heads, and they now think they can win any campaign. Andrea Horwath came across as political and distant. She was reminiscent of the federal leaders they had following Ed Broadbent, who were competent and non-threatening, but lacking in the passion a smaller party needs.

You Gotta Have (At Least One More) Faith

In my continuing mission to make Canadian versions of interesting maps of the U.S. I will now tackle religion.  This map shows the most popular non-Christian religion in each state.  Mostly it's Buddhism out west, Jewish in the North-East, and Islam everywhere else.  And for some reason, Baha'i has taken root in South Carolina.  And I never thought Arizona and Delaware would have anything in common, but apparently it's Hinduism.

So I looked up the Canadian figures, and here are the most popular non-Christian religions in each province and territory:

• I assume "Eastern Religions" refers to Taoism and Confucianism.
• As you might guess, Islam is also the next most popular religion for Canada as a whole.
• "No religion" scored higher than any non-Christian religion in each province and territory. And in B.C. and Yukon, it beat any Christian denomination.
• P.E.I. has no Sikhs, and Nunavut has no Jews.  Everybody else has at least a few of each major religion.
• Apropos to yesterday's post, Turks & Caicos next most popular religion is also Islam.

This Country Goes To Eleven

It's Turks & Caicos time again! That once-a-decade moment when Canadians revive the idea of annexing the Turks & Caicos islands. It's a small archipelago just north of the Dominican Republic.  The Premier of the islands came here on an official visit recently, it triggered talk on the idea again.  Politicians mentioned annexation with varying levels of seriousness, and just when I thought it was subsiding, I see this opinion piece in the local paper.

The idea isn't that crazy: Turks & Caicos is a protectorate of Britain, so there's some connection there. And lots of countries have territory off the mainland.  The U.S. has Guam and others.  Australia has Christmas Island, among others.  New Zealand has the Cook Islands. France and The U.K. have islands all over the world half of which they've probably forgotten.  If Argentina was smart, they'd invade some of them instead of being obsessed with the Falklands.  Oh, and that's another good thing about the Turks & Caicos: they aren't also claimed by a country that needs to distract it's people from the collapsing economy.

The argument for adopting the Turks & Caicos is that it would offer Canadians an easy way to go south. Unlike going to Florida, we could keep our money in the country. And we wouldn't have to risk going to America's craziest state.

The argument against is that it would probably be expensive. The islands aren't well developed, so building the infrastructure for a huge influx of Canadian seniors will be a big undertaking. And upping their services to Canadian standards of health care won't be cheap. And then there's the transfer payments: Turks & Caicos would slot in as the ultimate have-not province.

Personally, I'd like to see Turks & Caicos join. It might be expensive, but we are talking about just 32,000 people. So that would just be like adding another Moose Jaw. Or, it's only about an eighth of the number of people we already let in each year as immigrants.

More importantly, it's the slightly crazy project that I've always thought we as a people need to take on just to get ourselves out of our timid, over-comfortable rut. I would have voted for building our own Dubai-like international metropolis somewhere in the arctic, but adding the Turks & Caicos has way more support.

Imitation Of Life

You may have seen news this week that a program passed the Turing Test for the first time.  If you're not familiar with it, Computing pioneer Alan Turing proposed this way to determine if a computer program could be considered "intelligent" or not.  He suggested that if a person typing a conversation with the program could be convinced that they were actually talking to a person typing in responses in another room, then the program could be considered intelligent.  This became known as the Turing Test.  It should be noted that the researchers weren't trying to create a program that all people find indistinguishable from a person; they were trying to fulfil Turing's prediction that within fifty years a program would succeed 30% of the time.  This program succeeded 33% of the time, but it's fourteen years late for Turing's prediction.

Anyway, I was sceptical, because I've seen many claims over the years of programs that could come close to passing the test (say, by getting nearly 30%, or by passing based on very short conversations, or conversations limited to a predetermined subject.) In each case, I'd see transcripts of the conversations, or even online demonstrations, only to find that the conversation was unconvincing gibberish little better than that of early Artificial Intelligence attempts like ELIZA.

Sure enough, it turns out that this program cheats a little. It isn't pretending to be any old human being; it's trying to convince you that it is a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy. That gives it the advantage of imitating an immature person using a second language. They aren't releasing transcripts of the conversations, but given the screen capture on the BBC report, it looks like it really leans on that advantage. People must have a very low estimation of either 13-year-old boys or Ukrainians if they found that convincing.

And that brings up a question I've always had about the Turing Test: should the judges be A.I. experts? Off hand, it would seem unnecessary: Surely any ordinary person could judge whether a conversant is human or not. But it's really looking like publicity-hungry researchers are taking advantage of naive judges. I think people who were at least acquainted with the A.I. tricks of the trade would be able to make more informed decisions.

Take, for instance, the aforementioned ELIZA. It doesn't imitate an Eastern-European teen, but rather a psychoanalyst in the style of psychologist Carl Rogers. That's because Rogerian therapists concentrate on turning the patient's statements into questions to guide the patient to their own conclusions. That's relatively easy for a program to fake: just quote the user's words back as a question, relating in the user to carry the conversation.

Another approach was PARRY, a program impersonating someone with severe paranoid schizophrenia. Such people are prone to going off topic, ignoring others, and making non-sequitur statements. Again, that's easy to fake: if the program can't interpret what the user days, it just blurts out something random.

I always found out hilarious that someone had this program talk to ELIZA. Then they had experts read the transcripts of these conversations, and compare them to transcripts of actual Rogerian therapists talking to actual paranoid schizophrenics. The experts couldn't tell which transcripts were real. I still think that's the most impressive attempt to pass the Turing Test.

But there is one way in which the media hype about this test may be warranted.   A few stories have launched into fear-stoking discussions of how we don't know who online might not be human.  Actually, that could be a problem.  While this cheated Turing Test may not be a good indication of the program's intelligence, the simple fact that it can fool people - however it accomplishes the task - could prove useful in online scams.  As several people have joked on Twitter, if your program can convince people it is a Ukrainian boy, then pretending to be a Nigerian Prince shouldn't be much harder.  Turns out that's already happening.

Doing Random Things For The Wrong Reasons

Speaking of elections, I'm always amazed at how many people have really weird ideas about what the candidates stand for. People who vote for the left-wing candidate because they want lower taxes, or the right-wing candidate because they are concerned about the environment.

Looking at the ads, I guess you can understand why. Aside from the lack of honesty, there's the fact that parties often work hardest to dispel preconceptions of their best-known qualities. It's the same way you might get the misconception that diet cola tastes better, because the ads work so hard convincing you it doesn't taste like a chemistry experiment.

But what's odd is how sure these people are about their mistaken beliefs. I mean, you'd think a person would naturally have some self-doubt whenever they are discussing a topic they don't know well. And you would think that doubt would increase when it's a topic that is well-known to have a lot of misleading information floating around. But still, people voluntarily tell me about how they're voting Green for their pro-business stance.

But now it's getting more complicated as many people are withdrawing from the process out of frustration. I don't want to get into a discussion of whether that withdrawal is justified (I’m talking about withdrawal in disgust, not the boycotting to make a point that I complained about earlier) but I wonder how much elections are swung by the number of people on each side who give up. I don't know if either side is more prone to dropping out of the process. I don't even think there's a consistency in how much cynicism and frustration causes a person to throw up their hands.

It's depressing because you start to believe the election could become a crap-shoot of misinformation and the foibles of personality. Which side is most likely to have voters who interpret frustration as a no-win situation? Which type of person is more likely to misunderstand politics?

A Little Too Much Off The Top

China is now planning to bulldoze 700 mountains to make more room for cities.  What's really shocking is the quote that this is the "largest mountain-moving project in Chinese history."  So, this isn't even the first mountain-moving project in China.

It reminded me of the developers in the book Snowcrash who have designed the optimal suburban neighbourhood, and just keep building copies of it all over the world, even if they have to remodel the landscape to make it the same.  China seems to have achieved the same combination of boldness in construction and timidity in design.

It's nice to see China building the maglevs and exotic architecture we thought were in our future. But more often they just shovel their money into building facsimiles of western cities.  And that's disappointing when you think about the more creative things they could do with their money (even within the context of housing their people and modernizing their infrastructure.) Rather than brute-force work, try cleverer solutions.  Instead of moving mountains to make conventional cities, couldn't that money go into adapting structures to the sides of mountains.  Or better transportation so the cities can be build on the other side of the mountains.  Or for that much money, build the cities inside the mountains.

Lean On Me, When You're Not In First Class

I once promoted the Golden Suitcase Wheel, an award to be presented to simple inventions that took too long to be invented.  Today I finally saw something new worthy of the award.  Wired has a write up about a two-level armrest for airline seats.  The idea being that it takes up no more space than any other armrest, yet the people sitting on each side of it can each use it at the same time.

I'm sure some medical professionals will soon be complaining that one or both people will have to sit at an improper angle for good posture.  I suppose it would help if the people sharing the armrest are different heights, so the taller person could use the upper rest.  Or they could just make that seat a little higher.

There are plenty of other places it could work.  The article mentions movie theatres, and lots of waiting rooms could use it too.  But it also points out the dubious benefits compared to the cost, which makes the business case doubtful.  That's pretty depressing, and makes me wonder what other good inventions are sitting on the shelf out there because they don't lead to immediate profit. 

I also wonder what not-so-pleasant inventions will get through because they do have a business case.  Like, just how closely could you pack people into an airliner, comfort and claustrophobia be damned?  Instead of two-level armrests, you could have two-level seats.

Dave, I Can See You're Really Upset About This

There are a lot of articles today about how a Japanese company has created a robot that senses people's emotions. But this isn't the first research in this vein. I've seen a lot of talk about machines recognizing the emotions of users. Academically, is an interesting challenge. But I've never understood the practical purpose of it. That may surprise you, given technology's cold and impersonal nature.

Yes, I'm sure that one day it will be very useful for machines to notice or emotions. For instance, consider a machine you can give verbal commands to in plain English. Since human language often has subtleties undertones, it would be quite necessary for it to take notice of your emotional state.

But for today's machines, we're lucky if Siri can make out or words, never mind pick up an emotional subtext. I’ve never been able to think of a time when I would want an electronic device to behave differently depending on my mood. Sure, I’ve wanted it to become easier and more reliable when I’m angry, but that’s not too likely.

For the most part, we’re still at a point where our devices obey specific instructions. As long as that’s true, we want them to be predictable. Introducing some changes based on its perception of our emotions is going to be annoying, even if its perception is accurate. Once we get to software that is somewhat autonomous, it might have to make decisions and judgements based on circumstances, including the mood of the user. But such software is still a challenge in itself, so there’s no immediate need to sensing emotions.

Things the Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #15

Brazilians will take to the streets to protest their country hosting the world cup.

Seriously though, good on Brazil.  It seems like every country has some weakness that they give in to.  But Brazil has overcome it to show some pragmatism, asking for bread before circuses  Sure, they occasionally resort to out-of-control tactics to promote that pragmatic ideal, but it's a start.  Americans quickly abandon their minimalist government principles to build stadiums, and I couldn't imagine Canadians protesting against huge spending on hockey.

They Paved Paradise and Put Up Politics

As you might guess from the title, I'm going to compare politics to parking lots: both seem to have a supernatural ability to make people stupid. They lose what sense they already have, and back-up without looking or vote for the candidate with the nicest smile.

Of course, I don't have great confidence in people's common sense. So if political stupidity were just a matter of people failing to successfully work towards their own self-interest, I would not be disappointed. But politics is the only place where you see people actively working against their own interests, then congratulating themselves for a job well done.  A great example is this poster I saw in downtown Kitchener:

Yes, it's another in the long list of people who think that politicians will change as a result of low voter turnout.  I'm assuming that they imagine the politicians changing their ways out of a sense of personal disappointment in how few people vote.  But it's really not likely that political candidates - at a time when they are working hard for their job and their political ideology - will take time out to do something for a group that had already made it clear they will not help elect anyone. If you believe a boycott would work, ask yourself about young people: they mostly don't vote; do politicians for harder for youth concerns in a bid to entice them?  A quick look at modern-day tuition rates would indicate they don't.

I don't know if you can see it in the condensed version of this picture - I didn't see it at first - but someone has written a note on the next sign down expressing disagreement with this boycott campaign, for the same reason.  That remark uses some colourful language, but is still more politically aware than the poster.  Then again, so is the ad for strip-club beer on which it is written.

Of course a real cynic would suggest that this sign was put up by someone cleverly campaigning against pro-working-class politics, to dissuade their opponents from voting. But I doubt that explanation, again on the principle that no one would be that clever in the political arena. It wouldn't occur to them to communicate through photocopies taped to a lamppost. They'd be more likely to create BoycottTheElection.com and then wonder why they aren't reaching any poor people. Or more likely, they're busy organizing their own campaign to boycott the election on the grounds that no parties defend the interests of the rich. In short, I'm embarrassed to admit that the most likely explanation for this poster is that a fellow member of my species is actually trying to encourage their own voting bloc not to vote, thinking that it will advance their cause.

But there is one positive I can take from it: If, like me, you have a concern for the plight of the poor, and worry about the consequences elections have on them, then you can take some solace in knowing that for at least a few of them, they deserve all they get.

Mini Makeover

I thought this shirt and pants combination seemed strangely familiar, and yet also missing something.

Well I think I've figured out what it needed.

That's better.