The Bizarreness as it goes down.
Personally, though, I always thought it more effect when the unmanned drone was still made to look like an attractive woman. Or was that just Battlestar Galactica?
A blog appears on the internet, written by a man named Håkan Nordkvist who claims to have traveled to the future and that he has proof. Later, a video surfaces. Apparently, this man crawled under his sink and into the future where he met himself and took a mobile phone video of the event. The video is viewed thousands of times and debated by many. The problem? The entire matter was conceived by AMF Pensions to market to a “younger” generation. This video is part of a portfolio of “guerrilla” marketing campaigns propagated by Forsman & Bodenfors. The apparent logic of the marketing campaign is that you should give your money to people who are willing to deceive and lie to you for a good laugh. The problem with this sort of campaign is that not everyone finds out that the matter is a hoax; more disinformation is created in an already incredibly noisy environment. This kind of marketing is simply unethical and is the worst kind of propaganda because it is in no way concerned with the truth or even willing to make a case, based on evidence, for the value of the product. It’s bullshit is what it is.
This is Wasilla, Alaska, where Sarah Palin, John McCain’s Vice Presidential pick, was mayor two years ago. ‘Nuff said. [via mudflats]
There are lots of products out there that might accomplish some silly task like “stress relief” but whose real and primary purpose is humor. The Tiddy Bear more than applies here, it’s actually best in show. But I don’t want to ruin the joke for you, so watch the video and then I’ll say my piece.
The inevitable (and naive) question raised when new surveillance technology makes itself available to the public sector, is “Well, what’s the harm—surveillance just makes everyone safer.” And yet, just as inevitably, every time one of these technologies is implemented it turns out that there is some clever way to abuse it that never occurred to anyone. For instance, the cameras being installed at intersections around the country that capture the license plates of cars running red lights; how could a government abuse this simple and seemingly reasonable safety precaution? Well, why shouldn’t a municipality shorten the length of time that the yellow light shows and increase their revenue? Why not, in fact, shorten the interval of the yellow light to a length of time that is against the law and causes more car wrecks? Oh sheep, when will you learn. You cannot trust the government.
Occasional Spurts of Coherency or Flash Essays in Five Paragraphs
I have found that a common error in the critiques that economists proffer (especially those of the Chicago school of thought) is to hone in on small portions of concepts (tiny in fact), analyze that single point, and then dismiss the whole of an argument. Call it particularism or maybe just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I feel that way about Paul Krugman’s review of John Gray’s False Dawn.
A.J. Marr has written an excellent essay on the notion of the meme and why he believes it to be essentially a poor metaphor for the complexities of human behavior. It is well-researched and thoughtful, but in the end, relegates the concept of the meme to the land of mixed metaphors and gives it too much credit of control over human behavior. Read more…