Electric Josh

Fear
Trading on Fear. Nice.

Television uses sudden, loud noises to provoke a startled response, bright colours, violence - not because these things are inherently appealing, but because they catch our attention and keep us watching. When these practices are criticised, advertisers and TV executives respond that they do this because this is what their "audience wants". In fact, however, they are appealing selectively to certain aspects of human nature - the most primitive aspects, because those are the most predictable. Fear is one of the most primitive emotions in the human psyche, and it definitely keeps us watching. If the mere ability to keep people watching were really synonymous with "giving audiences what they want", we would have to conclude that people "want" terrorism. On September 11, Osama bin Laden kept the entire world watching. As much as people hated what they were seeing, the power of their emotions kept them from turning away.

Tense
I've decided that it's totally unacceptable to relate stories that occurred in the past by using the present tense. I think sportscasters, the same crew whom we have to thank for phrases like judgement call and real good success, are the ones who started it. The joke below is an example.

Yes, we've now reached an age where we get annoyed at the way in which people (fail to) conjugate verbs. Hmmm...
[permalink | reply | tb ]

Consultant
A quick search reveals that close to 300 other people have posted this to the web, but in the interest of demonstrating that this space is just as nerdy as you'd expect a frequently updated web site to be, I'll reprint the following joke, received via email, in its entirety.

A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.  The driver, a young man in a Broni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the shepherd: "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"

The shepherd looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers: "Sure.  Why not?" The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone, surfs to a NASA page on the internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.  Then the young man opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.  Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored.  He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC-connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulas.  He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.  Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the shepherd and says: "You have exactly 1586 sheep."

"That's right.  Well, I guess you can take one of my sheep." says the shepherd.  He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.  Then the shepherd says to the young man: "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"  

"You're a consultant." says the shepherd.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the shepherd. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew; to a question I never asked; and you don't know crap about my business. Now give me back my dog."