Sarcasm is a higher order brain function... really

The above article from the BBC shows a lovely infographic depicting the cognitive interaction that goes into understanding sarcasm:

So... difficult to understand...

From this awesome graphic and article, it clearly delineates that people that don't understand sarcasm are complete idiots who cannot use their brain in a holistic or interconnected manner.

Personally, I think that the areas of the brain are far less important than the actual processes (literal interpretation, physical reality and context as well as the discrepancy between the semantics and context), but the article quickly shows that multiple processes are occuring through complex social-cognitive interplay...

Categories: cognitive, sarcasm,

Breast Milk Saves Wheelchair-bound Veteran from Conflagration.

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction...

He was going to the store on the bus explicitly to purchase The Exorcist on DVD?

MPAA Suing TV Sharers

Just to make sure I have not missed anything... I can buy a VHS tape from the grocery store, Best Buy, even Wal-Mart, then I could tape a TV show and show that tape to my friends and copy it as many times as I would like... but if I download that TV show off Bittorrent I am infringing upon a copyright?

What?!? Am I missing something?

I have been turned on to numerous shows that I have missed by downloading episodes from bittorrent (24, Lost, Penn & Teller Bullshit). I have never waited for a show on bittorent that I could watch as it is fed to my home initially. So, why is the MPAA shutting down bittorrent websites? Do they want people to not have an easy and free introductory medium to their shows? Do they think that TV that is encoded in XVID or DIVX is comparable to a full-featured DVD release?

Bittorrent allows people the ability to begin watching a show at any time in the season, not just the beginning. This increases the TV Network's viewership... then increasing profits.

I must say that the MPAA is out of line. I will admit that copyright infringers of DVD releases do lessen the profit margins of MPAA properties (I will admit I have never downloaded a movie), but TV sharing is something that is over the airwaves (and realistically just a copy of something they can get in their home for free) and allows the casual viewer the ability to catch-up and become an everyday viewer of their TV program.

I imagine that a statistical analysis of this data would show that TV filesharing does nothing but increase the viewership of programs. Idiots...

Read about this here... or here... either way, you will be sickened by the MPAA. Why not throw in the unwashed's Slashdot talkback as well to see how the trolls and unthinking view this issue...

Categories: tv, censorship, mpaa, p2p

DC Comics' New Logo for New Times...

DC Comics has recently unveiled A new logotype. It is the first new logo for the company in 29 years. Here is the obligatory press release on the DC Comics webpage, and by the NYTimes.

I think that the new logo fits the editorial shift of the current DC Comics... their comics are shifting towards a new central focus, and they will be doing a relaunch, similar to 1995's Crisis on Infinite Earths, later this year (appropriately entitled, yet another Crisis... okay, not really... but it should be). This is DC Comics' 70th Anniversary... they deserve a fresh visage as a septuagenarian.

Every time I saw the flashy Marvel logo before a godawful Marvel Comics film, I wondered why DC had not created a similar animated symbol to thrust in the public's eye when it contained DC properties. Even more surprising was that it has taken so long, seeing as DC comics is owned by the multi-media conglomerate/hydra formerly known as AOL/Time-Warner.

I have seen the same 4-starred, diagonally-skewed bullet emblazoned upon my funnies of choice since I began reading comics... Coincidentally, the previous logo was created the year of my birth.

I found this lovely picture showing the progress of DC logos over the years in a very interesting (yet boring) article/forum posting on Newsarama.

I am a little sad that the visual history of DC logos does not show any of the one-shot, experimental DC logos DC has run. Realistically, the DC logo has stayed very much the same throughout the existence of the company. It was bigger, smaller and multi-colored, but it has stayed the same. It has been a static circle with the letters "DC" contained within the circle.

Perhaps the elimination of three stars and the squishing of the circle will make DC not release any more movies like Catwoman...

Categories: comics, DC, logos, marketing

A brief (visual) history of DC logos.

The New Digital Divide

As I read this posting, I thought of the social divisions of people broader than the simple digital divide.

The "digerati" is an artificial division based on knowledge, and , for the most part, these people are willing to spread their knowledge to others. It is a division that is potentially inclusive. The internet is supposed to be a place where people are able to be together for once, yet there are divisions of knowledge into the haves and have nots...

I see people homeless all the time in this city... in sleeping bags under trees, lying on benches. The information revolution helps the educated and the people with the data, but these people have no real access to the tools or information of the digerati, nor would this information help them.

I went to Whole Foods yesterday to buy some good beer... a person ahead of me bought three half-filled bags of groceries for $450. Outside... as I was leaving, I did not give my one dollar to the guy who was trying to help himself without spare changing. He was selling "Real Change" Magazine, a publication intended to support the homeless by means other than asking for money. I have never bought this magazine; I have been fascinated by its contents and want to help, but I am hesitant. I do not offer my fiscal support, but neither do the liberals, nor anyone else.... and I am sure that the person that spent $450 on their bullshit vegetables and fine meats did not as well.

We fail to make a sustainable model for those that are not the "haves." There is a divide in support for those that have nothing. It is a divide that has no model towards reintegration in society.

We should all support the vulnerable in society, but how does pro-social behavior fit into a Capitalist society? There is no reward for pro-social behavior in the US.

My support is sub-par, and all of our support doesn't help. I wish it would. Digerati or not; the internet is not the real world and this divide doesn't really matter except in the face of profit margins.

Categories: digerati, homeless, support, internet