ThinkingShift

For all the LOLCats fans I seem to have gathered (my History of LOLCats post is still going strong!) this post should bring you some fun. Just pretend for a moment that LOLCats invented the Internet and that sites and blogs are brought to you in kitty pidgin. Well, some dude has wondered about this very thing. Not sure who or why but if you enter any URL into LOLinator, you can turn your site or blog into a LOLCats site.

I promise you I did try to resist doing this, but I turned ThinkingShift into a LOLCats site. This is apparently what I’d look like having turned my photo into a LOLCats generated image:

Mmmm….the surprised look is not due to botox. I think it’s more me continually uttering “what the?” when it comes to stuff I read on threats to privacy or possibly to spotting the Google Street View camera cruising Sydney streets, which I told you about in a recent post.

And here’s how a recent post called “Will KM survive?” was kitty pidgined:

“Patrik lambe ova at green chameleon… iz not quiet as depressed as he seemed 2 b otha day wit hiz post on do knowledge managa realli want 2 share knowledge??! if i may summarise… patrik wuz bemoanin distinct possibilitee that km professionalz r grate at proddin otha 2 share… but perhap do not display selfless… collaborativ behaviour within profession itself. n wit inexperience that lot uv people in km seem 2 has… it important 2 share success storiez… failurez n lessonz learnt so that access 2 km experience iz gained“. But it’s the accompanying LOLCat photo that has me worried - this LOLCat sure doesn’t seem to think KM will be surviving!

And what would the LOLinator do to Dave Snowden’s Cognitive Edge blog I wondered? Well, go here to find out. At least Dave got a better photo than me but looks like he might have been raiding the fridge late at night in some hotel in NZ where’s he’s been lately:

And if we LOLinate ThinkingShift good friend Patrick Lambe? Seems Patrick’s talking about fat wikis singing:

it ain’t ova til fat wiki sing

here nice way (frm elliot masie learnin 2007 conference) uv extendin life (n discussionz) uv conference past it formal close. sessionz r postd in video n podcast form (would b grate if they post slideset 2)… there r poll result… link 2 delegatez’ soshl netwurkin siet… photos… n commentin abilitee. frm videos it lookz like they also designed conference 2 b human n learnin friendli 2… despiet it scale (ova 2…000 delegatez). visit learningwiki today.

And the photo the LOLinator generated for Patrick?

Aww….how cute :)-

My latest LOLCats favourite image is this one (LOLKangaroo more like it):

Sources: icanhascheezburger.com and LOLinator

Oh no….just like some posts I did on aliens (which I did largely to distract myself from fretting over the loss of personal liberties in contemporary society), I amused myself this week by delving into LOLCats. Love those kitties. A total waste of time, but there’s no doubt that LOLCats have created an online subculture. Good news is this subculture is all about cute, furry animals; bad news is LOLCats will most certainly cause an infectious case of bad grammar.

So ThinkingShift reader, Pippy H, has asked me to give a run-down of the history of LOLCats. I started this post by uttering “Oh no” because (as with the posts on aliens), I seem to have attracted a whole host of new readers who are LOLCat obsessed. Oh well, I’ll just add these new readers to all my other readers who are obsessed, like me, about privacy and surveillance issues (along with aliens).

Back to LOLCats: I am no expert on the history of these cute kitties, so I needed to do a spot of research. And I also decided to apply some knowledge management techniques to LOLCats by checking out some of the archetypes. But first to the history and if you know of any further or different historical details - leave a comment. It seems that LOLCats is a surprisingly new phenomenon starting in January 2007. And an out of work software developer from Hawaii, Eric Nakagawa, seems to be the culprit. After reading about how LOLCats reached the proverbial tipping point of popularity, I suddenly became pretty jealous of Mr Nakagawa! He found a photo of a chubby, smiling cat on the Internet. The photo had the caption “I can has cheezburger?”. He thought it pretty funny. I’ve tracked the photo he found and here it is.

And this is why Mr Nakagawa is one clever dude because I would have thought “stupid person can’t spell and cats don’t eat cheeseburgers” and I would have moved on.

Mr One Clever Dude didn’t do that. Nope, he created a website with images of cute cats with silly captions written in baby-style talk, which is now known as kitty pidgin. I guess when you’re out of work, this sort of activity keeps your mind active. He called the site I Can Has Cheezburger (the lawyer in me asks: wouldn’t the dude with the original photo and caption be ready to sue Mr Nakagawa for using the caption and idea???). Anyway, Mr Nakagawa runs the website with his partner, Tofuburger (she refuses to reveal her name), and they found that by May 2007, the site was getting 1.5 million hits during the month (I can only dream of reaching this number of visitors…mmmm where’s that cat photo I took the other day??!).

The idea is pretty simple: you snap a digital image of kitty. Add some excruciatingly bad grammar so it looks like the cat is uttering words of wisdom. Submit to the site where images are screened for originality. And hope that your image gets rated on a scale of one to five cheeseburgers (yep, really). So if like me, you’re concerned about privacy issues, you can have kitty say:

So the time between launching the site to a critical mass of users seems to be pretty quick. And just like a good community of practice, I Can Has Cheezburger is sustained and self-organised by its users who create content and add comments.

Now, if you are in the sorry state of having no cat of your own, don’t despair you can still join in the fun. Mr N has thoughtfully built a tool called LOLCat Builder and you can select a photo of a cute kitty and generate an appallingly bad caption, which is then submitted and approved (at least I think this is how it works).

I decided to apply some serious KM techniques to my study of LOLCats. What are the major archetypes? I believe I can break them down into the following:

• Schrodinger’s Cat - just like the famed kitty of quantum mechanics, there seems to be a Schrodinger’s Cat archetype popping up.

• another feline archetype seems to be fat, grumpy kitty:

• then we have the theatrical archetype:

That last image has me a bit worried about cat abuse - check out the legs and tail!

• and then there seems to be something going on with computers and refrigerators - this could be a variation of the Schrodinger’s Cat archetype:

That last image is a personal favourite!

• We have the alien LOLCat archetype:

• And finally, the Something is Invisible archetype:

But some serious research uncovered a little known video that may suggest that LOLCats have been around for a very long time, perhaps since Egyptian times. Here is the video I discovered in a dusty old library - note the interview with an esteemed Egyptologist.

What I haven’t been able to work out yet is why a lot of LOLCats seem to start their sentences with “Oh Hai” - perhaps they’re Scottish cats. But I’m guessing it’s kitty pidgin for “Oh hi”. Can’t wait for the first PhD analysing kitty pidgin! It could be that Anil Dash might be busy analysing kitty pidgin already - check out his blog.

Now, if I was really technical, I’d load up some images of cats onto a newly created website called: I Can has Knowledgz? And I’d have LOLCats say things like: “I wantz to shez mai knowledgz”. Or: “Buzz awf, hai aint sharin.” Or: “Oh hai. Waz this cynefin framzwork aw about? I’z think I’z stuck in the shadoz of complexity. ” (With apologies to all LOLCat lovers - I think I just mangled kitty pidgin).

Sources: Business Week, I Can Has Cheezburger, Wall Street Journal.

In Australia, we have a saying - “only in America” - meaning it could only happen in America, the land of the free, the bizarre, the (insert whatever word you like). But I have to admit Australia is giving the US a run for its money with our first How Curious story.

Pick up a new skill! If you’re thinking of expanding your skill base, you might consider taking up an Australian company’s offer - be a real life tester for condoms. Reuters tells us that Durex Australia is advertising for condom testers with the snappy advertising line of “Got what it takes to be an official condom tester?” (Mmmm…what’s an unofficial condom tester?). No doubt with a smirk on his face, the company’s Marketing Manager says: “With this job on your CV, it really will be a chance to brag to your mates about the special skills you possess, not to mention that your new role will work wonders with the opposite sex”.

Should you be interested in this “bed-testing position”, you stand the chance to win $AU1,000. Are you up for it?

Fancy a trip to Mars? If you’re in the mood to follow up condom testing with a bit of simulation, then the European Space Agency is looking for you. You’ll need 520 spare days to take part in a simulated mission to the Red Planet. You’ll be able to munch on “astronaut food”, experience the 40 minute delays in transmissions back to Earth; and hunker down in very, very isolated conditions. Once you reach Mars, you’ll be able to check out a faux landscape and it might be handy to speak Russian as the simulation will be carried out in a facility in Moscow. No word yet on whether volunteers will also be able to try out NASA’s new Russian-built US$19 million toilet! Photo credit: NASA images. Source: Space.com.

Check what’s in your freezer before you invite guests! A story from Reuters out of Brussels is extremely curious. A Belgian man threw a dinner party but forgot to tell his guests not to look in the freezer. One guest went to put leftovers in the freezer and found….the bodies of the man’s wife and son. Apparently, the couple argued a lot.

Look carefully at your cat. I have a vicarious cat - the moggy belongs to my next door neighbour. Said cat has 18 toes; I checked it out myself at the risk of being clawed. But UK cat, Des, is very special - he has 26 toes - 7 on his front paws and 6 on the back paws. Apparently, cats with extra digits were once very common in the area around the old county of Cardiganshire and were known as “Cardi-cats”. (Did they ever think to check what was in the cats’ milk in Cardiganshire?!) Des is a bit temperamental - I would be too if I had 26 toes and rather odd-looking, glowing eyes. But maybe it’s not Des’ best photo angle.

Source: BBC News. Photo credit: BBC News.

Is Mickey Mouse a lot older than we thought? Mickey was created in 1928…but maybe not. The Discovery Channel had a wonderful piece that I couldn’t resist sharing with you. In 900AD, a French artist created a bronze brooch that looks like…well, Mickey Mouse. This amazing find was unearthed at Uppåkra in southern Sweden. Although it might remind us of the iconic mouse, archaeologists say it represents a lion. Source: Discovery Channel. Photo credit: Discovery Channel.