The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

Shutdown Day: March 24th, 2007

“It is obvious that people would find life extremely difficult without computers, maybe even impossible,” reads the site for Shutdown Day, “If they disappeared for just one day, would we be able to cope?

Shutdown Day takes place on Saturday, March 24th, 2007 and challenges everyone to see if they can survive for 24 hours without their computer. The site contains more information about this one-day exercise, a survey where you can indicate whether or not you’ll take part and a link to this video with people abusing hundreds, if not thousands of dollars worth of laptops in some kind of posturing that’s meant to approximate rebellion:

Speaking as a programmer, a technophile and an Asian, I would like to formally denounce Shutdown Day. It’s obviously some kind of wacko protest thing created by Neo-Luddites. I probably will spend the day away from my computer, but only to round up these techno-peasants so that they can be put to work in the Coltan mines.

A Modest Proposal

You want a day I can get behind? No Poetry Day. Modern poetry is self-indulgent crap written by NEMS (non-essential members of society), and many of us go for months without poetry with no ill effects. We could take turns standing in front of a group of our peers and even say how long we’ve gone without poetry, AA-style. It would rock.

As for those who would counter me with Audre Lourde’s line, “Poetry is not a luxury!”, I would gladly agree: luxuries are things people want and will pay big money for. Poetry is neither.

Think fast: what’s wrong with the pie chart titled Should we let US troops land at Shannon on route to Iraq? taken from the Irish Times, shown below?

Look closely: although the graph’s text correctly reports that 67% of the respondents said “no”, the graph’s graphics make it appear as though the “no” votes are in the minority. Pictured below is a proper rendition of the data, which took me mere seconds to do using Excel:

Not being familiar with the editorial slant of the Irish Times, I cannot say for certain whether it’s a FOX News-like selective view of the truth or mathematical illiteracy (a.k.a. innumeracy) on the part of the graphics editor. Indymedia Ireland thinks it’s the former.