Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Friday 20 August 2004, 6:35 PM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Microsoft's new-found interest in China may be leading to a spot of Maoist self-criticism. Tom Edwards, a geographer in charge of the company's Department Of Stuff Beyond Even Wyoming, spilled various beans at a conference. When it comes to treading on cultural toes, Microsoft has demonstrated many of the subtleties and appreciation of important differences that have characterised the American way throughout the century. It might seem somewhat shocking that the company (not lacking in staff from the subcontinent) had managed to mark Kashmir as not being part of India -- but then, the USA didn't notice that Pakistan and India were busy building nukes until they let off a couple of tests.
Then there's the Islamic prayer chanting used as the background for a videogame -- ooops, but then didn't Brian Eno and David Byrne, two impeccably culturally aware geezers, run foul of the same problem when they made My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts back in 1981? Not to mention the footwear company whose sole design just happened to resemble the Arabic for Allah. And let's not revisit the story of the maker of inflatable educational globes who tried to import their goods to the Middle East during a time of particular animosity between certain states. The censors at the border got out their scissors, and when the recipients of the globes tried to inflate them all the air leaked out through Israel.
The truth is that there is endless potential for incomprehension and unwilling insult when you're dealing across cultures, as various TV advertising campaigns have highlighted. I suspect that there's a good correlation with a culture's willingness to take insult and the level of freedom it grants its citizens -- after all, if your own people are free to be scurrilous and off-centre then you're not going to get that wound up if a bunch of Johnny Foreigners does the same. Which is why you can pop over to Washington and burn a US flag (don't try this in Alabama, mind), but the same exercise in the People's Republic Of Kalamitistan will result in board and lodging being supplied by the government for some years (unless you really do burn a US flag, in which case you'll probably get a free clip of ammo for your AK-47).
It's almost an index of enlightenment, and I congratulate Microsoft for bringing more examples to our attention. Attaboy!
PreviousComments on this post
Welcome back to the modern world. As someone who likes to keep taps on modern technology, I seem to have the worst luck when I find places to live and work. I bought my first mobile back in around '94-'95 when I was working in Birmingham. When I got back home (suburb of Southamptopn), it didn't work. Quick call to Orange: 18 months, maybe.
I switched to Vodafone, but that wasn't much better. Upstairs in the bedroom, leaning out the window got a signal. Company sent me to an office in the deepest darkest depths of West Sussex (near Petworth). No signal. 'Phone Orange (back with them again, although still not working properly at home): maybe in the next 2 years... My brother lived just outside Farnham, no signal there either when I visited.
Now I've moved to Germany and live in a little village outside of München (Munich). E-Plus to start with (again, got the phone while away on business), at home nada. Switch to O2, a bit better; if I lean out the window doing an olympic runner impression thrusting the phone like a torch in the ether to light the flame of mobile reception, I can send an SMS, and about twice a day, we get a strong enough signal to get 1-2 bars if the phone sits on the window sill. I have a Nokia phone with a battery life quoted in hundreds of hours. I've yet to see the battery last more than about 2 days - without using it for voice calls...
Television isn't much better. No terrestrial signal here at all, Radio 4? Forget it, I tune into the website for streaming excerpts... We have an aerial, but no signal. If the weather conditions are favourable, I get digital satellite...
The good news about rural Germany is that I do get broadband served up from the resident ex-monopoly here. And I get 3mbps here for around 20ukp. And I have to have ISDN, but at least that makes my friends and relatives ask me if I am still in Germany because the line is so clear it sounds like I am next door.
When it isn't too hazy, when I leave the village, I can see the Alps in the distance, I live 10 minutes from a series of beautiful lakes, 30 minutes from the centre of München and it is peaceful and quiet without mobile phones peeping away all day, but I get a decent Internet connection...
If only the local supermarket sold Marmite and HSB, it would be paradise ;-)
