booktwo.org

Tom pointed to this hilarious/depressing news story about the National Lottery’s ‘Cool Cash’ scratchcard:

To qualify for a prize, users had to scratch away a window to reveal a temperature lower than the figure displayed on each card. As the game had a winter theme, the temperature was usually below freezing.

But the concept of comparing negative numbers proved too difficult for some Camelot received dozens of complaints on the first day from players who could not understand how, for example, -5 is higher than -6.

The worst part is that Camelot (the company that runs the Lottery) has withdrawn the scratchcards - effectively admitting that it’s not OK to rip off fools, even in the name of charity.

But as my friend Ed pointed out, they missed a trick here: we need more difficult questions, not fewer ones. Studying should be rewarded. People who worked hard at school should have a better chance of winning a rollover.

In this spirit then, booktwo is proud to put forward its suggestions for new Lottery scratchcards, ones which we believe will do more to improve the nation than all that cash for the Olympics can possibly do. It being booktwo, we obviously had to focus on improving the literacy rates among British lottery players, so here goes:

I expect my cheque from the Department for Education Department for Children, Schools and Families any day now.

Quite possibly the best thing ever. Do not watch if offended by language, or without headphones in a busy place. Do watch if interested in increasing literacy rates. And booty.

The video is a product of BET, the ‘black interest’ US cable channel, who deserve utter praise for such a forthright and downright hilarious approach. It has, quite predictably, caused a bit of a furore across the pond due to it’s supposed negative stereotyping of black youth. It’s satire. It has a message. People will get the message. Acting on it is up to them. (Via Print Is Dead).

Booktwo.org, always up-to-date with the latest online literary microtrends, is proud to bring you a new subgenre: Google fan fic (or should that be fear fic?). Enjoy.

Google Interiors by Sandra Niehaus:

I realized with a shock that George’s hat was a dense cluster of tiny cameras, forming a rounded beehive of angled, glittering eyes. “We’re from Google Interiors, a new venture sponsored by Google to make every home interior in the world searchable on the internet.”

Robot Exclusion Protocol by Paul Ford:

“Hi! I’m from Google. I’m a Googlebot! I will not kill you.”

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Google by Bruce Sterling (!):

This is Macbeth’s world, and us teenagers just live in it. Dig this: those “Three Weird Sisters”, who mysteriously know everything? They can foretell anything, instantly, like Google? Plus, the witches make it all sound really great - only, in real life, it totally sucks?

The Nine Billion Names of God by Kathy Kachelries:

“Here’s the thing. Google has memorized who you are. It’s memorized all of us, through those little forgotten bits that we leave behind like breadcrumbs. And what’s more important, it’s memorized it’s own idea of you. Google is omniscient. It’s omniscient and omnipotent. When it cached its cache for the first time, back in 1994, that’s when Google realized what it was.”

And finally, the grandaddy of Google Fan Fic, EPIC 2014 by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson (an oldie but still a goodie):

In 2014, Googlezon unleashes EPIC, the Evolving Personalized Information Construct, which pays users to contribute any information they know into a central grid, allowing the system to automatically create news tailored to individuals, entirely without journalists. … At its best, EPIC is “a summary of the world — deeper, broader and more nuanced than anything ever available before … but at its worst, and for too many, EPIC is merely a collection of trivia, much of it untrue.”

(See also: Armando Ianucci’s Tesco vs. Denmark: from “Every Little Helps” to “We Control Every Aspect Of Your Lives”.)