Richard's Online Journal
[21/03/09] Webjunk: Comedy Theory
Final conclusive proof that there’s nothing less amusing than trying to analyse humour.
Clarke lists the patterns that are active in humour as positive repetition, division, completion, translation, applicative and qualitative recontextualization, opposition and scale.
“Some are more intuitive than others,” he admits. “The most basic, positive repetition, simply means that the unit is repeated in a similar form with the same purpose. As with all patterns, the repeated unit can be composed of any information available to the human brain, whether an entity, action or property. Then there’s opposition, in which we take the unit and turn it against itself, such as can be seen in a mirror image or if we turn an arrow back to point in the other direction, producing a pattern of symmetry. However, while all the patterns are relatively simple in structure the activity of some forms of translation and recontextualization can seem counter-intuitive at first sight. In instances of humour these patterns may be recognized individually or in any possible combination of the eight. Most instances are founded on one or two, although theoretically there is no limit to the number of patterns a person has recognized when they find something funny. Pattern recognition remains a subjective matter, just like any other perception.”
No wonder so many writers/comedians resort to stealing their gags. Or puns.
[06/03/09] PC Plus: Kindle Guilt
[22/01/09] PC Plus Website 2.0
Finally, after no small amount of screaming at Drupal, it’s the new PC Plus (the magazine I work for) website. If you don’t get the new one - in other words, the one updated this year - try again a little later on. The DNS is still working its way round the system.
And it looks a little something like this…
This one’s a relatively simple build, mostly constrained by the platform we were using - Drupal, shared out amongst several different magazines, making it important to keep the number of modules in use to a minimum, and hacking of the source itself to roughly never, squared. That meant going with clean minimalism, and dirt simple HTML/CSS so that everything can be expanded and built on in double-quick time. Given a free hand and a copy of ExpressionEngine (oh, how I love ExpressionEngine), I’d have been able to do a hell of a lot more, but hey. It’s a chance to try out a few ideas I’ve had about how to do websites in support of magazines. That’s a good start.
The basic design is built on two pillars - a clean interface, and the promotion of the magazine. Most magazine websites are pretty terrible, shoving the product they’re meant to promote into the background in favour of trying to challenge dedicated portals with roughly 10% of their team’s time. I wanted to try something different; a straight blog structure for interesting, opinionated updates, wrapped in reminders of some of the ways that magazines still beat the web (such as design, for obvious reasons, and the fact that people are more willing to read a long article in print than a long scrolling screen, even if that infinite canvas definitely has its up-side too). With that foundation in place, the website can develop more naturally.
(Most attempts to cross the boundary end up feeling pretty weak. Even though every article starts as nothing but pure text, its destination, form and function tend to vary dramatically between page and screen. What feels like a satisfying chunk of story while sitting in the sofa can quickly read like a ramble when you put it online, to say nothing of how elements like boxouts and other entry-points on pages affect the reader’s path through a particular article/publication. This is something we’re currently dealing with via PDF downloads, but that’s a Band-Aid fix at best. I have more...)
Anyhoo, enough of that stuff. Go take a look at the site, leave a comment, download an article. There’s not a lot of content on there yet, mostly because the old site was such a nightmare, a blank slate was the only possible way to restart things. That’ll be changing pretty soon, with more full articles, columns, and regular old blogs.
[18/09/08] I Can Write Microsoft Adverts Too
“So, that weak observational comedy. What’s up with that?”
I haven’t said anything here about Microsoft’s embarassing adverts in which a one-joke comic stumbles around being paid three million dollars to pretend to be Jerry Seinfeld’s best friend, mostly because of one thing. Criticise the adverts, and the same comment comes out of the woodwork every single blessed time:
“They work because people are talking about them!”
Newsflash: Bullshit. An advert works if it changes the perception of a company for the better, if it shifts product, or better fixes the company in the viewer’s brain. All else is the marketing equivalent of ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’. Here are three other adverts that would have gotten the same amount of chatter:
1. A large piece of poo slowly spins on a potter’s wheel. Emblazoned on the back, the word ‘Vista’.
2. “I’m a Mac.” “I’m a PC.” “And I’m John Gacy.”
3. Bill Gates re-enacts the opening of Barbarella.
People have been waiting for the Microsoft counter-attack against Apple for so long, ‘talk’ is pretty much irrelevant. Bill Gates is recognisable enough to mean that Microsoft doesn’t need the name boost. It doesn’t particularly matter how many boxes of Vista Microsoft can ship, not when 99.999% of the PC industry buys its product anyway. And somehow I don’t see many people rushing out to buy Vista as a result of seeing these stumbling adverts. So what’s the point?
You got me. I have no idea what marketing message they think they’re pushing with these badly written head-trips, but I doubt it’s in line with actual reality. The first one, set in a clown shoe store, literally goes nowhere. You can almost hear the money being dangled when Seinfeld stops yammering and starts up with the whole “So, Bill, as a super-endowed supergenius...” bit.
As for the second, Christ almighty. The whole concept of the joke is the two of them getting back to their roots and finding out what real people want, only for the two of them to show nothing but contempt for the ‘real people’ they’re staying with and bail. Microsoft: Out Of Step. Great slogan. Really makes them likeable.
But what would I know? Answer: Plenty.
The good thing is that according to the usual sources, the whole advert campaign’s been a miserable failure, and they’re now dropping the whole Seinfeld angle. Good. I don’t know how much they overpaid PR company for this embarassing farce of a $300 million campaign, but I like to think I have some suggestions for Phase 2.
And by Phase 2, I mean ‘starting from scratch’, of course.
The Top Five New Microsoft Campaigns
1. From Screen To Silver Screen: Microsoft develops a sense of humour and does what it’s done at COMDEX for years, doing Gates and Ballmer versions of movies in the cinema at the time. They’ve done this for The Matrix and Harry Potter and a couple of others too, I think. You won’t have seen them, because the legal attack dogs did a splendid job of pulling this slice of Microsoft’s humane side as far from the internet’s gaze as possible. These wouldn’t just glom off the big names, but do proper self-deprecating things with the stars of various movies, the actual sets, and Bill and Steve and co with proper costumes and dialogue. Hellboy having trouble with his PC? Gates shows up as Abe Sapien, only to get shot in the face as one too many UAC prompts show up. “We’re fixing that...” he groans, dying. Do one of the old ‘If The Starship Enterprise Ran On Windows’ gags, ending on “It may not clean up the Klingons, but we can certainly help with your taxes.” Have Gandalf mistake a Vista CD for the One Ring, and make Frodo go on an endless journey to deliver the warranty card. A whole year’s campaign, keeping people interested and getting them laughing with Microsoft for once.
2. Challenge Vista: Do the whole Mojave Experiment thing in reverse, by which I mean ‘not patronising and stupid’. The main character, a die-hard Vista hater character or some respectable celebrity like Stephen Fry, who delivers non-strawman reasons why people think it sucks. The hardware. The device drivers. Through the adverts, we see that those aren’t in fact a problem, not with anything particularly slick or showy, and definitely without bullshit, but with a simple, snappily cut demonstration of Vista easily deflecting viruses, running on outdated hardware, and all that other jazz. If Microsoft wants to win critics over, that’s the way to do it. And it’s not like there’s a lack of material. This would be combined with a boot-CD or other cut-down version of Vista with the slogan “Vista: See For Yourself”
3. Om Nom Nom: Spend the money on cake instead. Seriously. The Seinfeld adverts were pure Microsoft masturbation, leading the way for another inevitably doomed rebranding exercise for a product that everyone who buys a PC pays for anyway. When you own the world, you don’t need to worry about bad publicity as much as everyone else. $300 million buys a lot of cake. Yummy cake. Scrummy cake. Cake!
4. The Vista Challenge: A puzzle within a series of adverts, with the winners getting free Microsoft stuff. Why? Simple. Individual copies of Vista don’t mean a damn thing, and there’s a solid crossover with the people who play things like ARGs and the ones who buy things like Linux. In watching the adverts, you still get to worm a bit of advert into their ears, even if they spend the whole series bitching about it.
5. And Of Course... Bill Gates re-enacts the opening of Barbarella. Some things, the world just needs to see. This is one of those things.
I’ll just hold on here for that cheque and phonecall, Microsoft.
No hurry. Whenever you’re ready.
[16/05/08] Reviewspotting
(UPDATE: Note to the legions currently looking for the Lercyi puzzle solution - it’s down here. You’re welcome.)
Pokedex #42: The Emperor’s New Review
Without knowing anything about the actual reviewer, this is the kind of review you get when a reviewer is having absolutely no fun, but is terrified it might be their fault. Key signs to look for include going phenomenally over the top in describing irrelevant bits of the game, such as how the inventory works, or how the character is controlled (hint: point and click), with all actual opinions phrased using the word ‘you’.
In short, the dreaded words: “If you like this sort of thing, you’ll like this.”
Brrr. Feel the shiver run down your spine…
“Though the sci-fi setting is different to many point-and-click adventures and the objects that you pick up and interact with are of a futuristic-design, many of the puzzles follow the same vein as other games in the genre. That means you can expect to be solving the likes of key code puzzles and numerical codes, riddles and mechanical conundrums as well as combining objects so that you can progress.”
Yes, and you interact with it using your hands! Note the word ‘many’, just in case there’s something really original later on, and the sheer lack of detail. Didn’t mention something? Didn’t want to spoil it. This is copy at its absolute emptiest, good for nothing except that in the event of the developer/publisher/PR bunny getting angry about the review, there’s nothing that can be pointed out as an actual inaccuracy. Well. With the exception of compliments like “should appeal to lovers of the genre and sci-fi fans looking for a challenging adventure and interesting story-line”, because Perry Rhodan is one of the dullest adventures to hit the market since Frogwares first spawned.
Not that anyone ever complains about that.
Reviews like this just aren’t any bloody use at all. Other fun things to look out for: all the (amusingly watermarked) screenshots come from Games Press, and all of them are from the first hour of the adventure. Now, In fairness, I used a pic from one of the starting locations for my review too, but only because I forgot to reinstall FRAPS on my computer after my last system crash and didn’t realise until the last minute.
Next time: “Capital PunIshment”, where a merely mediocre game gets sacrificed on the altar of a writer’s really, really hilarious joke. For examples, see damn near every retro game review on YouTube, except guys like these, who are pretty darn good.
“We’re totally talking about stuff.” “Yup. In the future.”
To turn all this away from being a random, entirely pointless rant, here’s an actual puzzle from the game, which says more than any review really needs. Here’s the setup: You need to get your boss’ computer password, and the only hint is that it’s the name of one of the model ships in his office. Of those ships, one is missing a piece with most of its name on it, with a giant “PUZZLE HERE!” arrow pointing to the gap.
How do you solve this tricky problem?
From the context, it’s obvious that the missing piece has been eaten by his cleaning robot, but even though you’ve already been told that they can be put into ‘blow’ mode, you can’t do that. Damn designer. You might also reasonably expect to find the information in the Hall Of Infodumps nearby, which is supposedly there to give you the information on who the hell Perry Rhodan and friends actually are, but again, no. That would be sensible, and is therefore banned from the Perry Rhodan design bible.
Instead, you have to head across to the other side of the complex, where a technician can fix up a control panel, and send all the cleaning robots outside. For no reason, the friendly guards lose their minds at the sight of these ubiquitous droids showing up, and start running around like headless chickens. You go up and the droid you’re looking for has been conveniently blown open, because Roombas are scary. Whatever. Now you have the name, right? It’s something like ‘Lerci-i-lercyi’, I can’t be bothered to dig out the disc and check, but it doesn’t matter. Puzzle solved!
Except for one problem. You type that into the computer and… no, it doesn’t do anything. Try it again. Try it without the hyphens? Try it as one word? Try the first word? Try putting spaces instead of the dashes? Try screaming abuse at your monitor?
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, and satisfying, but nope. No, what you’re meant to do is head into your own office and scan the stupid ship on your desktop scanner rather than the convenient one you’ve got round your wrist, at which point the computer politely tells you that since nobody could pronounce the ship’s name, everyone instead calls it ‘Leclerc’. And Perry Rhodan smacks his forehead and goes “Of course!”
Damn you to hell, Perry Rhodan. To hell...
But if you like this sort of thing, you’ll probably like it.
It has gameplay and everything.