Checking The Canary In The Data Mine

We're getting used to the idea that advertisers have a huge amount of information about us, and they can use it to target us with ads tailored to our needs and wants.  You may have seen the story about how Target sent pregnancy-related ads to a teen girl, shocking her father who didn't know she was pregnant.  (Yep, that how smart Target is in the U.S.)


It often works.  This ad isn't quite what I'm looking for, but it's close:

I'm not in the market for a lightsaber, but if anyone is going to buy one for personal defence or recreational purposes, it would likely be me.


Then I saw this ad:

That's awful specific.  I wonder what Big Data incantations gave them the idea I'm working on a first-generation Mustang.


But then there's this one:

That's right: Nielsen.  The people who study audiences.  Somehow, they served me up an ad in Chinese.

Welcome Hot Qatar

This week, FIFA announced that the World Cup in 2022 - already awarded to Qatar - would be in the winter.  Normally, the World Cup is in the summer, but that will be a problem in Qatar.  If you're not familiar with it, Qatar is a peninsula in the Persian Gulf, so it combines the oppressive heat of a desert with oppressive humidity too.

What's wrong with having the World Cup in December?  It's because most of the places where soccer is really popular are also places where winter is either mild or non-existent.  That means that the biggest soccer leagues, employers of the best players, are active over the winter. 

Of course, here in Canada, we're used to the National Hockey League shutting down mid-season for the Olympics, so we might not be sympathetic.  But the Olympic hockey tournament is less than two weeks, while the World cup is a whole month.  And international soccer is already full of extra tournaments, cups and international games. 

So you have to wonder what FIFA was thinking when they awarded the games to Qatar.  My suspicion is that they were thinking, "What am I going to spend all this bribe money on?" (I have no evidence for this, and am just being cynical, please don't sue me Mr. Blatter.)  The media has mostly been reporting this as just such a mystery: as though FIFA awarded the tournament without considering the obvious climate problems.

But those of us with memories will recall that at the time of the awarding, we were assured that Qatar had technology to cool their stadiums to reasonable temperatures, even open-air stadiums.   However, those promises have been quietly forgotten, and FIFA and Qatari organizers have been presenting the problem as an intractable situation that can only be solved by changing the tournament's timing.

So good on the BBC's website for actually remembering the proposed air conditioning, and bringing up the topic.  It seems it can be done, at least on a small scale, but building doing it on a huge stadium is going to be expensive and environmentally irresponsible.  That would violate some of FIFA's other commitments to sustainability.

So it looks like FIFA didn't think it all through completely.  Either that, or the cooling claims were just a smokescreen to get the tournament approved.  Or they're all distracted planning vacations with the bribe money, for which I still have no evidence.

War Sells...But Who's Buying?

It's interesting how the marketing of video games has changed.  In recent years, we've seen an explosion in casual gaming. That means the relatively quick, cheap gaming on apps or social media that has a wider audience than traditional PC or console gaming. For a while those games were either cutesy games like Angry Birds, or social games like Farmville. But the market is expanding and traditional gamers are playing on their phones, and casual gaming fans seem willing to try new things.

I've mentioned in the past how the AAA war games have settled into comfortable clichés for their TV ads. But now the Finnish company Supercell has been pushing their cartoony war game Clash Of Clans with cartoony violence in their ads, and it has lead to a new level in the evolution of game marketing.

On one hand, the ads feature the sort of lightly satirical humour that plays well in our culture. But it still seems odd to see that applied to gaming. I mentioned on Twitter that I couldn't imagine my university friends and I playing Warcraft while speculating that the wizard was having a bad hair day. Actually, no, that is something we'd probably talk about, it's just hard to believe it was on TV. It was like that time SNL did the sketch with Rob Ford: I'm used to that style of humour, I just didn't expect to see it applied to this part of my life.

Now they're doing ads for Boom Beach, which a more modern war game, and thus, a little harder to joke about.  Again, they're making the ads appealing through their humour.  What's interesting is that they are built more around satirizing the experience of playing games:

• Sometimes you do the same thing over and over hoping for a better result.
• Sometimes you find yourself going through the motions against ridiculous odds.
• You find yourself ignoring the incredible violence of the games.
• Apparently gaming has gotten big enough that they feel they can make these references in the mainstream without alienating people.

In contrast, there is the Game Of War ad featuring Kate Upton.  They eschew references to gameplay itself, instead going for melodramatic narration. They also eschew mainstream appeal by going for a monsters-and-hot-women approach that seems to be aimed directly at twelve-year-old boys. I'm curious whether the ad has made more money for Game Of War or for Anita Sarkeesian.  If gaming culture continues to be displayed in the mainstream media, it could accelerate the evolution of that culture.

Things the Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #21

In an effort to turn the company around, Sony will consider getting out of the TV business, and concentrating on things that are making it money: Movies, Video Games, and Cameras.

I'll Just Go To The After Party

It's Oscar time again!  Is it just me, or does it seem like people aren't really looking forward to it this year?  Sure, they're talking about making predictions, and talking about covering the red carpet.  But it seems like they're going through the motions. 

I don't know why; many of the leading movies seem pretty accessible.  There's controversy over American Sniper.  People can get angry over Selma getting left out - they love to complain about the Academy's decisions. 

I guess it's partly the movies themselves:  I'm glad Julianne Moore will finally win an Oscar, but playing a facing Alzheimer's disease is such a clichéd way of doing it.  It's nice that Birdman is doing well, but it doesn't seem to have the hipster popularity that will lead to Pulp Fiction/Forrest Gump style anger when it doesn't win.  And I'm supposed to care whether the best actor is they guy playing Stephen Hawking or Alan Turing? 

So when I consider watching the three-plus hours of the telecast, it seems like seven or eight. I've never felt better about ignoring it and reading the winners' list in the morning.

Fixed Ideates

Sometimes business-speak leaks into ad-speak.  Here, Adobe tries to tell us that their web-design products require less programming:

I've Wanted An Apple Car Since Lowly Worm

With an interest in cars and technology, my internet news sources explode when there's a story that involves both. Normally the tech/car worlds would be talking about Nissan's crazy 1000 horsepower front-drive race car they’re taking to Le Mans. But this week that was overshadowed by the news that Apple is doing something to do with cars.

There have been rumours for a while, and now it comes out that Apple has hired a number of ex-Tesla employees. Now the Wall Street Journal claims that they are working on a self-driving electric car. Supposedly it's called Project Titan. "Titan" happens to be the name of Nissan's pickup, so that's two ways Apple has stolen their thunder.

So is this really happening? I still have my doubts. I stand by my earlier thoughts that fully self-driving cars will take longer than people are now expecting. I'd also add that for any tech companies looking to get into car technology, setting up your own company and doing it all yourself is a really bad move. For one thing, a lot of the things that make cars hard to design and build today - from suspension to safety - don’t go away just because your car is electric and self-driving. Also, you can’t just contract the construction to the lowest-bidding sweat-shop from southeast Asia.

There's some talk that Apple just wants to develop software that would go into other companies' cars. That seems more sensible to me, though others have pointed out that it's not Apple's style to put their software on other people's devices. They like to sell one complete product to the customer.

I think the most sensible thing would be for them to make an Operating System for car infotainment systems. I’m thinking more than just supplying the software for car touch screens, but actually dictating the design of the entire interface between the driver and car’s systems.

The computer interfaces built by the car manufacturers or other tech companies have been widely criticized, and it’s the sort of thing Apple could really improve on. It’s not quite building their own equipment in the sense of building the entire car, but they could be the supplier of the dash/instrumentation. This would allow them the control they want, without the massive investment in businesses they have no experience with.

Be My Instigator

Today was Valentine's Day.  It was also Hockey Day In Canada.  For those of you not familiar with the latter, it's a day when all the Canadian teams in the NHL play each other, with all the games televised, with the CBC (and now Sportsnet) hosting the whole deal at some small wholesome town, with the coverage interspersed with heart-warming stories about local hockey.

Of course, that's an odd pairing.  It says a lot about Canada that we wouldn't have a problem with celebrating hockey on the same day we celebrate love.  But it's also fitting: modern Valentine's day is often criticized as an artificial celebration motivated primarily by business.  And essentially, that's what Hockey Day In Canada is.  They're also similar in that they are celebrations of things that don't need celebrating. Valentine's day has long been seen as an odd idea, since it is trying to bring joy to people who already have joy.  And as I've said before, we in Canada just love telling ourselves how much we love hockey.

Perhaps what we should do is have Hockey Day on the feast day of the patron saint of hockey.  Unfortunately, there isn't one.  So our next task is to get Maurice Richard recognized as a saint.

I Blog When No One Else Is Around

President Obama got a lot of attention for his online video/pictures detailing what he does when no one is around.  It's all a publicity stunt to get people signing up for Obamacare.  And as such, it seems to be working; it's a blatant attention getter, but it is at just the right amount strangeness: not something you've seen before, but not something that will freak people out. 

Lots of politicians do these odd sort of look-what-a-good-sport-I-am moments of entertainment.  Here in Canada, they don't seem to have a problem smiling awkwardly through an ambush interview from This Hour Has 22 Minutes.  But Obama's joking is a bit different, since it is not merely image crafting, but also advertising a government service. 

This begs the question of whether it's really something an elected leader should do.  I don't really have a problem with what Obama has done here - I doubt it would hurt anyone. (Though I'd love to see Fox News complain how unbecoming it is for the President.)  But you have to wonder where this may go in the future.  It's hard for politicians to get their message across, and it's a huge bonus if you can communicate directly to the public.  Could it be that comedic ability will come to be an important political skill? 

Yes, I know that politics has been largely theatre for a while now, but this could take it to a whole new level.  The ideal politician would be someone who can talk about politics to the public in a way that the public finds entertaining.  I wonder who that could be?

Things the Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #20

Forbes magazine will have an article titled, "Marvel Needs To Make 'Spider-Man' Cool Again."

Hey Abbott

Australia and Canada have a lot in common. British heritage, similarly sized lands and population. A peaceful nature save for what we did to our native peoples. But then there are distinct differences. They’re a long way from the rest of the English-speaking world, while we’re pressed up against the U.S. We have Quebec, and they don’t. Our climates are at different ends of the spectrum.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott might seem to be one of them. Australia’s conservative leader is an anti-intellectual populist, in contrast with ours, who’s an emotionless political strategist. But if you're thinking Abbott couldn't get elected here, I have a name for you: Rob Ford.

And like Torontonians, Australians seem to be washing up to the fact that their elected leader is not an entertainer or a statement against traditional politics, he is the actual guy in charge for the foreseeable future. One of the big stories in international politics is a leadership challenge against Abbott by his own party. I’m not sure what is up with Australian politics, since their previous government featured the two Prime Ministers being overthrown by their own party. Suddenly it’s hard to blame Stephen Harper for his controlling manner.

Stories about the (eventually unsuccessful) challenge featured a quick rundown of unpopular things he’s done that have lead to poor polling and unrest in his own party. What’s stood out to me is that the final straw was his decision to give a knighthood to Prince Philip. First of all, yes, apparently Australia has its own knighthoods; I didn’t know that either. They're the highest level of the Order of Australia, which is similar to our own Order of Canada.

I really can’t imagine that happening here. If the Prime Minister decided to bestow an Order of Canada or something on a Royal, I doubt there’d be much complaining. Sure, sarcastic intellectuals would make fun of it - I know I’d write a post on it. But I’m sure most people would applaud it. Particularly conservative Canadians, so it definitely wouldn’t lead to trouble for the Prime Minister from his own supporters.

But apparently Australians saw the silliness in giving an honour to a guy who already has all the honours, occupies a ceremonial position, doesn’t really do anything, and is essentially a walking meaningless honour himself. It’s hard to believe that we can be so different despite our similar circumstances. It also makes me think I’m in the wrong sparsely-populated former British colony.

Flipping The Board

There should be a measure of the bugginess of software. I mean, you could just count the number of problems a program has, but that would be misleading since some apps do more than some others. At the risk of driving people away with an esoteric example, I've done a lot of work with Eclipse, an application for software development. There's a lot of things I don't like about it, and I could spend all day listing the errors and poor design choices I've found. But even a hater like myself has to temper his criticism by acknowledging that Eclipse is a big and complicated piece of software that does many things, so it's inevitably going to have more bugs than your average Candy Crush ripoff app.

What I'm trying to get at is this: Flipboard for Android is the worst program ever written. It's the software equivalent of that "You Had One Job" meme. Flipboard's one job is to display news articles. There's no animation, no interaction, just text and the of photo. In other words, it's a web browser from 1994.

So what's wrong with it? Well, aside from downloading about as a web browser from 1994, there's also:

• The pages blank out randomly. Flipping them back and forth causes them to reappear for some reason. 
• It shows me the same article again and again. 
• It sometimes shows empty articles. 
• It occasionally decides to restart itself for no reason while I'm reading an article.

 So that does it; I'm looking for a new personalized news aggregator. I see there are lots of alternatives.  But I think I'll try Mosaic; I've heard good things about it.

Back To The Dystopia

Information Superhighway. Bet that phrase takes you back. It's now old enough that it's become "retro-futurism," a past vision of the future, akin to Airstream trailers or The Jetsons.

Buy what a lot of people forget (or never knew) is that the phrase "Information Superhighway" didn't originally refer to the Internet. When the Internet was first entering the public consciousness, causing people to consider the civilian application of multipurpose information transmission, they assumed that some new version of the Internet would be built with the public's needs (and size) in mind.

Of course, the public internet never got built. More ordinary people started using the actual Internet, entrepreneurs started seeing up shop there, and it would have taken years to get government and corporations to agree on the format for the new system.

But I wonder what that consumer Internet would have been like. I'm sure it would have been a nightmare. Consider who would have made it:

• Media corporations that were just waking up to the power of intellectual property and the threat of piracy.
• The Clinton administration, which was desperately trying to look business-friendly, and ham-handedly trying to deal with the inconvenience of modern encryption.
• The Gingrich Republicans, who had adopted business-is-good-government-is-bad as their new philosophy.
• Technophiles, whose libertarian ideals were even less pragmatic than today.
• A public that was far less technically savvy, including youth that were much less reliant on modern technology and communication.

So we would have ended up with an internet with copyright protection and surveillance built in, no opportunity for public participation, not even a hint of net neutrality.  I'm betting a lot of what we now see on the net would be different: Startups would be difficult on a net built for large-scale broadcasting.  Innovations that started off with legally-questionable origins (like digital music) never would have happened.

Even though I believe this purposely-designed Information Superhighway would have been much worse than the haphazardly-evolved one we ended up with, I still wonder how we could have designed it better. The fact is, the Internet and its basic services were designed under the assumption they'd be used by a few thousand people in academic and corporate settings in the western world. For instance, if you knew e-mail would be available to everyone on earth, you would have designed it to discourage the sending of millions of messages at once. Perhaps you could also have made a better balance between anonymity and anarchy in online discussion.

This is purely an academic exercise of course; if we were to overhaul the internet today, it would, once again, end up as a corporate and surveillance-state wonderland. I suppose there was a moment in there, say around 1991, when netizens might have realized the Internet was going mainstream, and rebuilt things in preparation.

Why am I thinking about this? I saw a recent story about people implanting microchips in their bodies for identification or information storage. A promoter of this technology made a similar point: we can either initiate this technology now, on our terms, or get forced into it by rules dictated by government or business.

Great Owls, So-So Hawks

A few final thoughts about today's Super Bowl:

• I, like most people familiar with the basic concepts of football, would have just given the ball to Marshawn Lynch to gain that last yard at the end of the game.  However, I would also have taken the field goal at the end of the first half, rather than the risky play to get a touchdown.  Again, I'm sure I'm with the majority of the football-aware world on that one.  That would have left us eight points shy at the end, needing not just that easy rushing touchdown, but also a two-point conversion and luck in overtime to win.  So cut Pete Carroll a little (but only a little) slack.
• I'm genuinely surprised there wasn't a big questionable call to give Seattle an advantage at any point in the game.  A Seahawks victory would have given the NFL a get-out-of-jail-free card on the deflated football controversy. Now they'll always have it hanging over this season.
• Speaking of which, the justification and reframing of the scandal has already begun, with pundits that rely on football for a living using everybody-cheats-a-little and it-wouldn't-have-made-much-difference as their way of dismissing the problem. It's becoming another example of how we accept small-scale cheating, then act surprised when more severe cheating becomes rampant.
• I see the non-sports fans among my hipster brethren are continuing to push the joke of referring to the game as the "Superb Owl."  But even that is getting old.  Yes, that is the power of Super Bowl hype: even attempts to ridicule it get overplayed.  So I demand that by next year, you make up some backstory for the Superb Owl.  Say, that owls defend us from particularly aggressive sports fans who insist on forcing their interest on all others.  And one day a special owl - the superb owl will come to rescue those with the most complete and total disinterest in football, much as the Great Pumpkin will appear for Linus.