A Facebook Revelation

Watch this video

Just today I watched this video.

It turns out that Facebook has been stealing your seeing time from YouTube videos.

Because it takes three seconds for a playing video to register a view (and most of us take less than that to scan a post on Facebook) the viewing statistics of many videos have been skewed.

This may not sound horrifying to you, but to a broadcaster it is disastrous.

For a commercial TV channel, knowing which show brings in the viewers is vital when deciding how much to charge advertisers to have their ads during which show. This is why American businesses invest a lot into their commercials that are shown during the Super Bowl.

The same is true online.

Why would an advertiser waste time putting their ad on a video that gets very few views?

Although I am the few who actually doesn't care about viewing figures, many do.

But even I get  a bit excited when I see a spike in viewers on my blog's statistics page.

And that's the thing. 

We all want to be popular, and today their is no other indicator than how many views you video gets.

But if there was a a cheat that robbed you from many views, you'll be mad, right?

Exactly.

What is happening when someone posts a link to a video on YouTube on Facebook is that video gets robbed of views. Probably a high number of views that could have turned it into the next Gangnam Style. Its no surprise that video makers are considering it piracy - committed by a multi-billion dollar business. (don't blame the users, blame the high-ups for the shambles it had created.)

So the next time you see a nice video on YouTube and want to share it with others, 

think twice before posting it on Facebook. 

Is it a product from an established broadcaster its ok, 

but if its one that was made by an indie with little resources don't.

Looking back on my Facebook history I have committed this crime in the past, 

so for now on I'll stop doing it.... unless its too good not to share.

A Year on Facebook and a social media statement form me

A year ago I started to use Facebook. And so far I have made contact with a number of relatives I rarely see (due to them living in England), put my name on a number of online petitions, shared many links and been bothered by one relative by multiple offers to play Criminal Case with her (I have no time to play games. I got stuff to do here).

I have found Facebook useful (I admit, reluctantly). But I have been careful about what I post and how much time I spend on it. Although a few links I got were disturbing (nothing extreme, except a mock up of a human face without muscles (its very freaky)), the majority of them were dull usual stuff you'll get, such as pics containing quotes and things from people who want to collect likes for various reasons (I can't "like" every single thing like that, no matter how kind and charitable it is. Its not because I'm not nice (I work with NAS, remember), its because I got priorities. They have become like the plastic bags I get through the letterbox for old clothes.).

As I said a year ago, I'm not the social type, so I rarely actually say something on Facebook. Probably something at least once a week. But when I say something (personally and publicly) I make it count. Because of this, I'll say this now.....

I will never use twitter.

(despite the fact the friend that got me to use Facebook is on it.)

For future reference if I become famous enough to be the subject of people pretending to be me, I'll have a link to this post ready for anyone who wants a comment form me for whatever I supposed to have said on the service.

A small survey I made about Nintendo

A few days ago, a high school friend said this on Facebook. It was a response to the news that Netflix plans to make a live action series based on The Legend of Zelda game series....

"Here's the thing, I've always seen Nintendo as a "character company" than a games company. So having their characters venture out into other mediums wouldn't be such a terrible idea."

I responded with this...

"You are on to something there. When anyone think's of any movies or TV shows that feature video game characters, I can imagine that most people would think of an Nintendo character first."

Now, usually the average person would stop there and continue their twittering way. But, I had an attack of curiosity.  Was I right? Do most people think of a Nintendo game first when asked "name a video game that has been adapted to film or TV?"

I had to find an answer. I could have done a Google search for a survey about this, but I doubted it existed or if it did, it'll take forever to find. So, instead I decided to do my own small survey.

I E-mailed nearly everyone in my e-mail contacts the question and waited for responses. By the time of writing only nine responded. Of those nine, one-third of them said when asked name a video game that has been adapted to film or TV, the first one they thought of was .........

Tomb Raider

I was wrong. When asked to think of a video game that has been adapted into film or TV, the first thing most people think of is an well-portioned, aristocratic "archaeologist" who was played by Angelina Jolie. A PlayStation game! I imagine this result would anger the people in Nintendo. I can easily imagine Mario crashing his kart into a verge upon hearing this news. I imagine Donkey Kong dropping a barrel on his foot upon hearing this news.  And I don't need to imagine that Pikachu will be pissed by the result (that same friend once said to me that while on a trip in America he was able to have a go of the early voice recognition game Hey You, Pikachu! and when he said "PlayStation" to the cute, yellow critter Pikachu turned Hulk on taser mode).

But, I'm not truly 100% convinced by the result. The sample size was small (nine people). Maybe if I asked more people, maybe the result would be more in my favor. But I am willing to admit I am wrong in this initial result. 

This survey was a spur of the moment thing. And it shows an important factor about how I think. I don't take words at face value. I check up on facts (including my own, such as this one). I inspect the references in Wikipedia and I look up info in fan-generated wikis when it came to stuff that has fandoms (such as bulbapedia) as I find them more informative than regular Wikipedia (fans tend to know more about the subject than even the subject's creators do, an interesting fact worth knowing if you want to research things, like cartoon world and real world comparisons). 

I got stuff to do now, so please GO AWAY.....

I'm on Facebook ... the shame

A few days ago I did something I thought I would never resort to...  I started to use Facebook.

An old friend of mine once e-mailed me back in 2009 asking me to join it. I set up the account and then after a thought about what exactly I was doing I abandoned it.

Why I abandoned it? Its because I find the idea of social network sites questionable. We all know the stories people hijacking other peoples accounts, stalkers, surprise guests at parties and many other stories of the like that usually have "Facebook" in the newspaper headline. We all know the privacy issues raised by use of such web services. We know that every image that is upload on Facebook automatically becomes the property of Mark Zuckerberg. Its all of this plus many other reasons why I don't like social network sites. Also, because I'm not naturally the social type, so I don;t see the point of me using Facebook

But last week I got an e-mail from Facebook (I do get them regularly to incise me back, like junk-mail vouchers and catalogs.) and one of the friends listed was one I really wanted to look up for years. That was how they got me. I have begun to use it and got around to load up images for the avatar.

I can hear my past self calling me a traitor.

But I'm not stupid. I'm not going to upload any of my great work on that site. I'm not giving them away to Mr Zuckerberg for free. I'm saving them for this blog. I'm just going to write the occasional comment and maybe the occasional image (nothing great, just so and so stuff). 

But all the best stuff is going up here. Nowhere else. I may post links to it on Facebook as advertising, but I want most of my visitors to stumble upon it by chance. So there you have it. 

I'm on Facebook.... the shame.

Act of Cultural Vandalism #2 - Why the colour blue keeps you awake at night

Blue is my favourite colour. When I was 12, my parents decided that my room required redecorating (the wallpaper was deteriorating (especially with me picking at the loose bits)). I decided to have the walls painted blue (kingfisher blue from the Duluxe range). A few years later I got a blue LED alarm clock for Christmas, which helped me wake up during my years in college. When I was 21 my sister’s room (which was larger than mine) became vacant and was repainted from light purple to a shade of blue similar to paper (I thought I might draw on the walls if I developed the urge (which never happened)). A year later, I moved out to my former Gran’s flat. It was redecorated completely by Christmas. However, this time I decided to have my room painted yellow (which contained light-reflecting particles to make the room brighter (I had my “office” painted in a similar bright blue paint. I might draw on the poster-covered walls).

So why am I telling you all this? It’s because of what was on TV about six months later after decorating my flat. BBC’s Horizon had showed a programme about recent research into how colours can influence our modes and one of things it showed was that the colour blue has the ability to keep people alert and awake. In other words, it’s the caffeine of colours. After watching it, something hit me. Since as far as I can remember this happening to me (sometime after having my room painted blue) I have had trouble going to sleep at night. It could be just my brain not switching off thinking mode, but is the blue I had in my sleeping quarters made it worse. Did I accidentally sabotage my sleep by having my room painted blue (and having a blue bright LED light alarm clock in my room as well)? I got to find out more.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013c8tb

To save me some bother explaining the basics of the science of colour, here's a 1984 edition of Horizon that explains everything

This observation concerns what scientist call circadian rhythms, or what everyday people call the body clock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythms

A lot of research over the years have proved that light has a big effect on this internal clock in plants and animals (including humans). The most obvious example of this observation is the experience of “Jet Lag,” where you travel across one or a few time-zones by plane and find yourself tired during the day or wide awake during the night. Inside the artificial-light-filled sealed pressurized vessel that normally called a plane, your body’s photo-sensitive cells (your eyes are not your only light-sensitive organ, your skin is too (it produces Vitamin D when exposed to UV)) are almost denied of any form of sunlight (especially at night), which helps set your internal clock. Without that sunlight accurately setting your clock, you’ll be a few hours fast or slow.

That’s enough about Jet Lag. The heart that could lie in blue’s energy was that the very first ever coloured light receptors were sensitive to blue. In the primordial soups of the early oceans been able to see blue made you able to sense where the sky is, allowing you to orientate your body and have your chloroplasts (the green organelles found in plant cells where photosynthesis takes place) facing the sun. Over time, this led to the creation of the naturally-built-in programmed response that wakes us up when we see blue, no matter what it is. Blue flies, Smurfs, the Tardis, the Blue Man Group, Viagra pills, they all keep us awake at night because of their colour (and other reasons, but I’m not going to waste my time writing them down).

And it’s getting worse. One thing I later found out (on another science programme on the BBC, Bang Goes the Theory) was that fluorescent light produced quite a lot of light in the blue visible spectrum and this light had effects on sleep. Now, I knew that fluorescent light did produce a bluish light before I watched this programme. But, the fact that the expert said it affected sleep made me think back to that Horizon program a year earlier.

Making Fluorescent light on Bang Goes the Theory (2012)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_lamps_and_health#Blue.2FUltraviolet_Sensitivity

In fact the programme also showed that similar emissions also come from computer screens. Thinking about it, I’m not surprised. Look at how much blue there is on your computer screen when you use Windows! I wonder how many sleepless nights could be contributed to people checking their Facebook status constantly.

A typical screen grab from Windows XP with an offending (but cool) wallpaper. 

Look at all that blue!

So what applications could this observation give to us? Well, through fluorescent lights and PCs using Windows, offices, convenience stores, supermarkets and night clubs already do so (unintentionally?). But, I have thought of one other application that I think no one has ever commented on… let. I don’t need to say it, I’ll just let the picture I found below do the talking….

This is a piece of fan art by someone I don’t know (because it was collected from a random search on Google Images eons ago). It was this very image that made me first think about this application of the properties of blue.

(The face has been blacked-out to protect the unknown artist (and me) from a potential lawsuit from someone who doesn’t understand the term “fair-use” when it comes to documentary.)

After seeing this image, all straight men can agree that this is a great way to use the stimulating power of blue.

As am personally obliged to address the gender balance in reporting scientific findings and possible applications, for all female readers (and gay men (I mustn’t forget)) here’s a very blue image of a quite attractive male (It’s the first person to came to my mind.).

The camel is irreverent.

If you want more ladies (and gents) just go to Google Images and search “Kai Hiwatari” and/or “Beyblade”.

So what have we learned? We have learned that light and colours have a bigger influence on you than you can possibly imagine. You can blame Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg for depriving you of sleep. And (if done properly) blue can be the most attention-grabbing colour of all.

By the way, I still have some trouble switching my brain off at night to go to sleep (despite the fact my room is now yellow). Right now (at the time of writing) my body clock is totally out of step, with me not falling asleep until after 2-3am! I end up very tired during normal waking hours (7-10am). I now mostly wake up at around noon or afterwards (which isn’t good). I haven’t got a job (at all) that requires early waking, so it isn’t a serious problem (for now). Good night.

(Sorry for the lateness of this blog. I had been mentally distracted for a while).