Transcript Document

Computers and Humor
1. Digital Photography: A Huge Part of Modern Life
2. Making Fun of Computers
3. Creativity Inspired by Computers
4. Digital-Related Humor in Ordinary Life
5. Humor-Related Challenges in Programming
by Don L. F. Nilsen
and Alleen Pace Nilsen
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Don as ISEF Judge
(Intel) International Science and Engineering Fair
First Day vs. Second Day
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Millennial Thinking
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Prairie Dog & Colbert Photobombs
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Sloth & Cat Tail Photobombs:
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Yarn Bombing:
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Evolution of the Cell Phone
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Millenials:
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What Could Be Making This Family
Watch Video Clips Instead of TV?
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Even the Kodak Company could not imagine
how digital photography would change the
world.
One grandson is talking
on his cell phone when he
should be shaking hands
at his wedding reception.
Another grandson wins a
swim meet.
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HUMANS MAKE FUN OF NEW AND FRIGHTENING
DEVELOPMENTS AS A WAY OF CALMING THEIR
FEARS, e.g.
• FRANKENSTEIN and stories about vampires, monsters,
zombies, and other “undeads” became fashionable at the
same time as did medical disection.
• In the 1800s “Tall Tales” became popular when people
moved west to lands that were indeed strange as
compared to what they knew.
• And in the 1970s, urban legends became popular when
people were faced with all kinds of new and scary
technologies, including microwave ovens, rockets to the
moon, organ transplants, and a lack of privacy.
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Humor about Computers
• Peter Steiner’s 1993 cartoon in the New Yorker showed
two dogs in front of a computer. One is remarking “On
the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
• Even Steiner was amazed at how popular it became.
• It not only reflected, but helped shape world-wide
attitudes.
What do you think? Why did it become so
famous? What complications underlie its
“truthiness”?
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An Identification-Related Experience of Kurt
Vonnegut and Mary Schmich
• In August of 1997 a piece appeared on the Internet under Kurt
Vonnegut’s name.
• Vonnegut’s wife was so pleased she forwarded it to their
children.
• As Vonnegut began getting compliments, he announced that it
was “funny and wise and charming,” but he never wrote it.
• It was in a Mary Schmich column in the Chicago Tribune.
• As long as readers thought the piece was Vonnegut’s, they
viewed the Internet as a wonderful tool to keep people in touch
with each other.
• But when they learned it was a hoax, their perception of the
internet changed. The internet was now an unreliable hotbed of
hoaxes and wild-eyed conspiracies.
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Example of a gender-based computer joke:
“No wonder you can’t write. You’re not plugged in.”
This gender-based
joke reflects the
stereotype that men
are focused on the
new technology,
while women are
more likely to be
looking at the
ordinary details of
life.
(Eschholz-Rosa-Clark [2009]: 105)
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Another Gender-Related Computer
Joke
McPherson’s cartoon “All
I did was hit the delete
button” plays with the
stereotype of older
people’s (especially
women’s) fears of new
technology.
Does such joking
reinforce fears or help
calm them?
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Fear of I T Support:
“How Shall I Torture you today? Put you on the rack? Boil
you in oil? Make you call a technical support line?”
Who is Glasbergen
targeting?
Is he making fun of
those of us who call for
technical support?
Or is it the people who
offer the support?
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HERE IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF GETTING
SATISFACTION FROM MAKING FUN OF
COMPUTERS?
I have a spelling checker.
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
Our Favorite spell-check mistakes include:
Untied States, Worth nothing that, and Fraud
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HUMOR IN CHAT GROUPS: Linguist Susan
Herring studied one of the first kinds of humor on the
Internet by comparing the frequency of the following
kinds of humor:
• Imaginary
situations: 20%
• Mock persona: 14%
• Teasing: 13%
• Irony: 6%
• Name play: 5%
•
•
•
•
Silliness: 4%
Real Situations: 3%
Riddles: 2%
Pretended misunderstandings 2%
• Puns 1%
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WHERE DID THESE COMPUTER
TERMS COME FROM?
• A huge network packet is a Godzillagram.
• Teenage techies are Munchkins.
• A mischievous program is called a Wabbit.
• A program that repeats itself indefinitely is said to be in
Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mode.
• The meaning of life, truth, and everything is 42.
• A Trojan Horse is a trick program made to infiltrate a computer
under the guise of a game.
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Science Fiction as a Source
• Droid, from Android, has been a sci-fi term since the
1920s, but was popularized in the Star War series and
used by techies almost as an insult when they talked
about marketroids, sales droids, and trendoids for people
more interested in making money than advancing
science.
• The Vulcan Nerve Pinch for pressing on the control,
alternate, and delete keys also came from Star Trek.
• What NASA calls telepresence, techies call Waldo from
the title of a 1942 Heinlein story.
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Science Fiction (continued)
• Code Police or Net Police are named after the
“Thought Police” in George Orwell’s 1984.
• When someone asks for information that they can
easily find for themselves, the Cyber Police might
say, UTSL, which stands for Use the Source, Luke!
from Starwars.
• Another word from Starwars is an Obi-Wan Error. It
comes from the name Obi-Wan Kenobi and refers to
an off-by-one code” as in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• The computer was named HAL, which comes from
IBM, but is the three letters before I, B, and M.
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J. R. R. Tolkien as a Popular Source
• Computer techies referred to archaic systems, which printed
only upper-case letters as Great Runes.
• The pre-1980s were Elder days.
• Hobbit described the high-order bit of a byte.
•
• An infamous 1988 bugging of the Internet was called The Great
Worm, after two of Tolkien’s dragons.
• Tree-Killers, named after what Treebeard the Ent called Orcs in
The Lord of the Rings print unnecessary paper copies.
• Elvish refers to any odd or unreadable typeface.
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CREATIVE SPELLING ON LICENSE
PLATES CAME BEFORE TEXTING
In the ‘70s, truck drivers
used creative spelling for
their “handles” on CB
(Citizen’s Band) radios.
Personalized license plates
soon followed. But the
custom of leaving out
vowels started centuries
ago. Even today in Arabic it
is the custom to skip most
of the vowels when writing.
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Text Messaging Has Expanded into a
New Kind of Humor
We Make Our Own Meanings
Efficiency vs. Accuracy
Last spring, a New York Times
columnist wrote about sending
consolation notes to his sister,
who was getting a divorce, and
to his mother, who was nursing
his dad through a serious
illness. He signed them LOL
for “Lots of Love.” Then his
teenage son stepped in and
said, “Dad, LOL means “Lots of
Laughs!” and so the poor man
started all over with his notes.
DID HE NEED TO DO THAT?
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Humor-Related Challenges for Computer
Programmers
Human headline writers
missed these ambiguities,
So what can we expect
from a computer?
Christian Hempelmann has
illustrated how it took seven
pages of rigorous and
systematic programming
details to get a computer to
generate this joke.
• Q: What did the egg
say in the monastery?
• A: Out of the frying
pan, into the friar.
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The Importance of Real World Knowledge
Explain why the following sentences are
ambiguous to a computer but not to you.
• A cheesecake was on the table. It was delicious
and was soon eaten.
• SIGN IN A CHURCH: For those of you who have
children and don’t know it, we have a nursery
downstairs.
• NEWSPAPER AD: Our bikinis are exciting; they
are simply the tops.
• It’s time to make smoking history! (Fromkin, Rodman,
Hyames, p. 403)
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A Joke Generated by
Apple’s Joke Teller
• Given the command, “Computer, tell me a joke,” this
is one of many responses you might get:
• COMPUTER: Knock, knock.
• YOU: Who’s there.
• COMPUTER: Thistle.
• YOU: Thistle who?
• COMPUTER: “Thistle be my last knock-knock joke.
(Hemplemann, 333)
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Identify the Trouble Spots in These
Translation Errors
• BUCHAREST HOTEL: The lift is being fixed for the next
day. During that time we regret that you will be
unbearable.
• SWISS NUNNERY HOSPITAL: The nuns harbor all
diseases and have no respect for religion.
• GERMAN HOTEL: All the water has been passed by the
manager.
• ZURICH HOTEL: Because of the impropriety of
entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it
is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.
• TURKEY: The government bans the smoking of children.
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Facebook Humor:
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Cell Phone Humor:
Standing Behind You!
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Cell Phone Humor:
Damn Auto-Correct!
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Lazy College Student Meme
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Lincoln Meme
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Philosophoraptor Meme
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Success Kid Meme
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NOW YOU TELL US ABOUT:
•
•
•
•
•
HUMOR ON SOCIAL MEDIA
HUMOR IN GAMES
HUMOR ON U TUBE
HUMOR ON BLOGS
AND WHATEVER OTHER KIND
OF HUMOR YOU HAVE FOUND.
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Digital Humor Website
*ANIMATOR VS. ANIMATION II:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/689540/animator_vs_animation_2/
*CLEVERBOT:
http://cleverbot.com/
*DAMN YOU AUTOCORRECT (JAY LENO SHOW):
http://damnyouautocorrect.com/7264/video-damn-you-autocorrect-featured-on-thetonight-show-with-jay-leno/
*THE THE IMPOTENCE OF PROOFREADING (TAYLOR MALI):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_rwB5_3PQc
*INTERNET SHOWS: “EQUALS THREE”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EwSAzHj8VM
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*INTERNET SHOWS: “JAKE AND AMIR”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHIWsvfwcRw
*LOLSPEAK:
http://www.speaklolspeak.com
http://www.lolcatbible.com
*MONTY PYTHON “SPAM”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE
*MY BLACKBERRY’S NOT WORKING:
http://www.flixxy.com/my-blackberry-is-not-working.htm
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*PHOTOBOMBS:
http://www.photobomb.com/
http://thefw.com/animal-photobombs/
*REDDIT:
http://www.reddit.com/
*RELATABLE POSTS:
http://pinterest.com/sorelatable/relatable-posts/
http://www.facebook.com/DailyRelatablePosts
*TOP 50 POPULAR TEXT & CHAT ACRONYMS (NETLINGO):
http://www.netlingo.com/top50/popular-text-terms.php
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