The Logical Lizard

Yesterday I received a phone call from a most serious sounding web promotion/search engine optimization guy. He represented “the biggest company in the industry” and claimed to have hundreds of thousands of clients. Not himself, obviously, but the company. Maybe it was true; don’t know, don’t care. For many years I handled my own web promotion and now I have a local tech genius who consults for me. I like to spend my money here in town whenever possible.

Back to the phone call: The caller seemed much more like a salesman than a tech person, bandying about phrases such as “activating all your listings” and “checking your keywords for optimization,” which are semi-nonsensical anyway, and probably intended to befuddle the web novice. He then asked me to confirm that I was the owner of megaspacenews.info and went on to exclaim, very enthusiastically, how sure he was that I would be wanting to expand my site and promote it on a national, or maybe even international level.

I couldn’t help laughing, but I did try not to laugh directly at him.

“That site is an April Fool’s prank. I’m a science writer and that is a one-page site that I put up as a joke.”

“Oh. I guess you won’t be needing our services then,” he replied, and apologized for calling me. It was immediately clear that I wouldn’t be spending any money with him. Game over.

The fake graphic banner for one of my fake April Fool's websites

I have the greatest affection and respect for my colleagues in the meteorite world. Well, nearly all of them. There are a couple of extremely nasty people in my field, but we can save that story for another day. Let me rephrase my statement: I have the greatest respect and admiration for nearly all of my colleagues in the meteorite world, but I am also a career prankster, and I do so enjoy a complicated little joke at the expense of my friends and peers. I go for “the long prank” as a con artist might say, or “the overly elaborate prank.” A burning paper bag of something unpleasant on the neighbor’s porch just does not do it for me.

So, when my calendar announces it is late March I start thinking about what type of April Fool’s jape I will foist upon my usually good-natured science comrades. Since we are all such a bunch of modern Internet junkies, I usually end up with something that lives and laughs within the digital realm. The past few years I have gone to considerable trouble to construct fake websites featuring a science article that looks and feels genuine, but with content so absurd that only the most stoned readers could possibly think it real. At least, it seems that way to me. The truth is, many people still get taken in.

This spring I purchased the domain name megaspacenews.info, for the amazingly low price of $1.99. There was some kind of .info sale going on. I guess that domain suffix is not as hot as the originators hoped it might be. I came up with the tag line “BECAUSE IT’S YOUR UNIVERSE TOO,” and went on to type up a nonsensical ditty intentionally filled with misinformation, entitled “Bush to Join Panel on Meteorite Alertness, Defense and Evasion” and built the site around it. I tossed in a few genuine web ads to make the thing look real, added a nice astronomy background image, inserted a whole lot of links to fabricated stories (and one real one that sounds crazy but is actually true: “Texas dog finds rock from outer space”) and, shazam!, a fake website in no time. Actually, it takes a lot of time, and one of my ex-girlfriends used to chastise me endlessly: “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?” And of course the answer to that was: “No, I really don’t. Time spent on April Fool’s is time spent well.”

So, here is my April Fool’s joke for 2009. Don’t miss “THIS WEEK’S TOP ASTRONOMY AND SCIENCE STORIES” links at the bottom of the page; my favorite part.

The good people in meteorites and astronomy are not the only ones to be targeted by my deformed sense of humor. That just wouldn’t be right. I’ve had my fair share of fun with esteemed colleagues in biology and paleontology as well. A few years ago, my good friend Tom Caggiano—a highly skilled fossil hunter with a devilish sense of humor, and secretary of the New Jersey Paleontological Society—invited me to concoct a bogus article for the April edition of their journal, the Paleontograph.

I wrote a lengthy review of a book that never existed, entitled: Bone Idol: My Life in Time. I so amused myself devising quotes in the author’s overblown writing style, that I called up a friend, in the middle of the night, and read a few hundred words to her. I laughed myself silly; she was not amused.

I fabricated this cover for Arthur Burleigh Chaplin's non-existent autobiography, as part of an April Fool's joke on the paleontology community.

Ostensibly the autobiography of a famous paleontologist, Arthur Burleigh Chaplin, Bone Idol is a Forrest Gump-like tale in which “Burley” survives the Titantic’s fatal 1912 voyage, appears in one of the films by his cousin, Charlie Chaplin, talks his way onto Roy Chapman Andrews’ Central Asiatic Expedition of 1922, flies with Eagle Squadron during the Battle of Britain in World War II, works for Special Operations, discovers some kind of strange new dinosaur, gets involved in shenanigans during the Cold War, moves to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s and lives out the last of his 102 years in the kooky town of Jerome, Arizona. In other words, a ludicrous fantasy, but it was great fun to write. I even designed a cover for the book.

Quite recently, I received an email from the editor of a paleontology publication asking, very courteously, if she could quote from my review of Bone Idol for their newsletter. I wrote back, thanked her for her interest and said of course she could use anything she liked, but was she aware that the article was an April Fool’s prank and the book didn’t actually exist (although I so enjoyed creating it that perhaps it lives on in some alternate universe). Shortly thereafter, I received a very terse reply: “Well, I guess we won’t be needing it then.” (I think she was embarrassed, poor thing).

My regular readers will now immediately understand why I am concerned about the veracity of information presented on the web, as discussed in last week’s tale: “Ning Probably Means ‘Unisex,’ The Marginal Merits Of Wikipedia, And William Gibson Was Right Again.” If I can cook up a fake website in a few hours, then so can a lot of other people.

The enthusiastic salesman who called and tried to convince me to spend upwards of $70 a month on optimizing a one-page joke website didn’t spend much time looking at the site himself. There is just the one goofy made-up story there, along with some links that lead to “error message” pages. Yes, they are keen to sell you web optimization services, but I don’t think they are doing a whole lot of research on the sites they target.

Well, I suppose I have really let the cat out of the bag now and you all think you will be ready for me next April. Hah! Now I shall be forced to devise an April Fool’s prank of Moriarty-like complexity to perplex my dear TucsonCitizen.com readers. And really, I do it all out of affection.

A while back, when I asked my personal tech guru what new software and networking developments I should be aware of, he recommended that I take a look at Ning. I was impressed. Combining a widget-based structure reminiscent of Wordpress, with social networking (a bit like a grown-up version of Facebook), an easy-to-use blogging platform, photo and video sharing, and many other options, it’s a great choice for the savvy person looking to create an online community.

Whether it began as a kid's name, a peace off, or something else entirely, Ning is cool.

Being a devoted and near lifelong fan of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the first thing I thought of, obviously, was a ningy, which Douglas Adams described as “a triangular rubber coin 6,800 miles along each side.” The ningy was used, briefly, in one of his original radio episodes to make fun of money and galactic currencies. No, unfortunately, the Ning social networking service doesn’t have anything to with HHG, at least not that I’m aware of, but it did remind me of Neuromancer author William Gibson—another visionary science fiction writer.

Kathryn Bigelow’s Wild Palms (1993), a puzzling, intriguing, and very thinly-veiled poke at scientology and the extremely weird L. Ron Hubbard, includes a short but delightful cameo by Gibson, playing himself. At a chic party, Kim Cattrall introduces Gibson as “the man who coined the word ‘cyberspace,’” to which he sardonically replies: “And they won’t let me forget it.” And they haven’t.

In addition to his almost prescient science fiction novels, set in a future that seems to be literally around the corner, Gibson made a remarkable prediction during the early days of the Internet. He realized that when information becomes freely and readily available to anyone, at any time, the value of that information is determined by how reliable it is. In other words, can you believe what you read in Wikipedia?

I once had the pleasure of socializing with Mr. Gibson at a party in New York. Packed with beautiful and overly accomplished people, it was actually quite a bit like the party in Wild Palms. He is a very charming man, tall and perhaps slightly awkward physically, but friendly, sincere, and encouraging. I insisted on ordering a drink for him, as a “thank you” for giving the world such a great read with Neuromancer—still easily my favorite Gibson work.

I suppose once you’ve made spot-on predictions about what could be, or will be—with no mirrors attached—everyone then relentlessly asks for more and better predictions. It must get very tiresome. I hate to be predictable, so instead of asking him to reveal a glimpse of possible futures I bent Mr. Gibson’s ear with tales of my own writing and science work. He seemed relieved not to have to produce another virtual rabbit out of the hat. Or maybe I was just a little giddy on vodka and the company of a favorite science fiction writer. It matters not; it was a fine evening.

The extremely brilliant and very nice Mr. William Gibson. Photo by Fred Armitage/Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons. I guess the wicked Wiki is good for something after all.

So, I was reminded of the fascinating William Gibson today because I became interested in the meaning of the word Ning. Wikipedia claims it is Chinese for “peace,” but that comes to you from an “informational site” compiled by anyone who has an opinion and spare time on their hands. I do not consider it the most reliable of resources. WikiAnswers states with great authority that Ning means “peaceful” in Chinese. Gili’s blog at avirtualexit.com delved considerably deeper and came up with a link to, of all things, a website that helps people name babies. Do parents really need help with such tasks? I thought we all had a few favorite names tucked away in case somebody accidentally gets knocked up (mine are Rachel, Dawn, Sam, Zack, and Evelyn if anyone cares). Anyway, I digress. The baby name site—with the rather silly title of yeahbaby.com—and doubtless a repository of the most authoritative information available anywhere, has the following wisdom to dispense:

Baby names – the name Ning.
Baby names info for Ning:
• Gender: a boy or girl name
• Pronounciation: not available
We know of no common nicknames for the name Ning

What about Ningy?

Further research suggested that Ning is actually a Chinese surname. At that point I became bored and thought I might rather be re-reading Neuromancer or learning more about the real Ning and its alluring CEO, Ms. Gina Bianchini.

William Gibson was right. Our worlds are rife with cheap information. We can ferret out the most obscure and arcane details with just a few seconds of typing. But when almost anyone can put up a website on any subject, with no checks or balances, how do we acquire reliable information? I’ll take the Encyclopedia Britannica over Wikipedia any day. You get what you pay for.

In preparation for the launch of the new and improved TucsonCitizen.com site, our esteemed editors Mark Evans and Ryn Gargulinski invited the blogging contingent down to the TC.com offices for some hands-on interfacing this week. There isn’t much I enjoy more than spending time with some super-smart guys who know computer design and programming inside-out, so yesterday was a real treat for me.

Not only did I enjoyably go though the mutual friends and seen-you-before discussion with Mark, but I also had the pleasure of meeting the friendly and accomplished brainiacs who built the new TC.com site. As if that wasn’t enough entertainment for one afternoon, our tech and design experts unveiled the new site layout and gave us some helpful tips on how to make the most out of using it. I was highly impressed by the new concept and design, and after spending many years working as an art director in New York City I don’t say such things often.

Sky's the limit with the new TucsonCitizen.com. Check in with us Monday morning!

The tech team had an array of Macs set up for us, all networked and logged in to a demo version of the new site . . . and  . . . a projector displaying the entire operation on the office wall! In everyday life we usually don’t get to meet the ones who make things happen behind the scenes, and I was grateful for the opportunity.

A lot of people have worked very hard to make TucsonCitizen.com happen. Tune in on Monday morning and enjoy the fruits of their labors. From my end, I’m just thrilled to be part of it.