I left it here somewhere

I figured out that the one sure-fire way to ensure nobody comments on a post is to ask for opinions.

On the other hand, look at this comic: what's the joke here? What is it?

So let me get this straight: first he spouted a theory on what makes blogs successful, then he rebutted his own argument, then he had a dopey off-shot audience member say something stupid. After publishing this crap, he pats his belly contentedly, assured in the knowledge that he has made millions smile.

Look at the punchline of this. It's 'Awesome! I love content.' The only place where that would be found as a punchline would be a improvised primary school play. Explain that joke to yourself. Decompose the layers of thwarted intention and misdirected expectations.

When I think of - perhaps not the best - but the most archetypical 'good joke,' I think of a particular Family Guy skit. The set up is that one of the characters says 'Its not the worst day ever,' then it cuts to Hiroshima, 1945. A Japanese man gets splashed with water from a passing car, then his girlfriend dumps him, then he gets robbed. He exclaims in subtitled Japanese: 'This is the worst day ever.' He hears a high pitched and descending noise coming from above. He stands around for a while, as the writers milk the scene for tension. Then a monkey falls on his head. It's funny because the context is perfectly set up for a nuclear explosion - which would have been ironically funny on its own - but it turns out that it is something unexpected.

It sets up a system of logic - that this man is having an unlucky day, hehehe it's going to get worse because of the nuke - and then it rewrites it with a monkey. That is the fundament of most jokes, except that sometimes the logic is not set up, but inferred. Racist and sexist jokes work because the system of logic we work under is that those things are bad; anti-jokes use the Q & A joke framework to say something unfunny - the expectation is that there is a punchline where none is coming, an expectation thwarted, which makes it funny.

Now lets look at this comic. What is unexpected about it? First, Mr Stickman sprouts a theory. It's the kind of theory that T-Rex would say in the first two panels of Dinosaur Comics: logical on the surface, but with glaring holes on close inspection. Then Utahraptor would interject with a more logical idea, like the audience member. However, unlike this joke, that countering wouldn't be the punchline. This comic introduces an idea, refutes it, and there you go. Laughter in the aisles.

You can tell that I looked this up. Now tell me this: why didn't Randall Munroe?

(Oh wait, now I won't have comments.)

*****

Y'know how I said that Facebook's draconian settings didn't concern me because I simply assumed as a matter of course that there would always be someone waiting and willing to screw me over for a buck?

Since I said that, I went through the time consuming process of deleting all my likes and interests - all except for the pages I genuinely wanted coming up on my news feed, like the Facebook Site Governance, Barack Obama's feed etc. I did this because I realised (and this was about a week ago in any case) that while I was willing to comprehend that in the end, monetary interest will always win out, that didn't mean that I was willing to accept it.

Facebook provides an excellent service to its users in the forum of digital space it provides, and all the infrastructure they have put in place. Facebook as it stands is the Internet in microcosm: it has IM services, picture uploading, video-sharing, space for quick, sharp messages and for long and rambling posts. It is therefore an excellent site, and the capacity to communicate with friends and family - some geographically far-flung or otherwise distant - is a capacity that I will not give up lightly. Instead, I will fight what I perceive as an infringement on my privacy by not revealing what I don't want them to know. If I don't post my likes and interests, it makes it that much harder for them to use that information to sell stuff to me - I become a deficit to Facebook's profit margins.

For more information, here are some freshening and hygenic Lynx. (Have I linked to my brother before? I do believe I have not. How rude of me.)

*****

Now you see it...

Now you don't!

That's right, one of the most iconic images in the night's sky has undergone a major upgrade - without permission and without kerfuffle. These changes will affect astronomers for generations, yet there's no media storm at all - instead, all the bloggers are obsessed with Facebook privacy settings!

Now now, don't flood my inbox with how this is all beyond our control - you people say that about everything. The fact is that Jupiter has inexplicably become bland and uninteresting after centuries of vibrancy and interestingness - somewhat like xkcd. (OH SNAP.)

ALTERNATE JOKE: I don't know why everyone is so upset that Jupiter has lost its belt. I haven't had a belt since Year 8, and you don't see me complaining.

*****

I get annoyed at people who say that because there is no God, religion shouldn't exist. I could go into the benefits of hope and faith in peoples lives even when strictly speaking they're totally wrong on every count, but I don't really need to answer in that depth.

Would a secular society have built this?

I didn't think so.

Q.E.D.