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Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

nytimes.com

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Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

#101

Post by dave2000 »

arien wrote: post #98

Here's a entertaining/embarrassing story from Spain, related to this. A few years ago (2008), the Spanish organisers of the Eurovision contest thought it would be a great idea to allow the public to decide who should represent the country in the Eurovision contest. Amongst all songs entered was this silly parody from a comedian, playing a fake musician called Chikilicuatre [0]. So well... After some heavy campaigning…

Eurovision is supposed to be fun though. At least, that's the UK's perspective. Everyone else takes it more seriously and submit almost exclusively tedious rock ballads. They're been a few non-boring entries though, including a finish metal band and a pair of clowns from Ireland.

Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

#102

Post by Agentlien »

zodPod wrote: post #91
Agentlien wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Gothenburg, Sweden, which is a city known for its bad puns and where most larger buildings are usually referred to by silly nicknames. Last year, there was a competition to name the new swimming pool by the harbor which they put there to keep people from swimming in the rather filthy water of the nearby river. As expected, most of the names which received a lot of votes were silly puns and, you know what? Th…

I'm probably going to have my foot in my mouth pretty quickly about this but how bizarre is the Swedish language that "entrails" and "in-river" could be the same word? lol Is it a slang term of some kind?

No, it's no slang. Entrails are, in plural, "inälvor". You can see the "in" there and "älv" is a Swedish word for river.

edit: I do not know the etymology of the Swedish word for entrails, but I'd wager it's just coincidence that it is seemingly made up of two other words. It's not unlike the English word "searing" seemingly being composed of "sea" and "ring".

Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

#103

Post by Loughla »

awesomerobot wrote: post #88
spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for one She is a Ship not a Boat - and Maritime types get quite upset if you refer to their ship as a boat. (think Pissed off Gibbs from NCIS) I did like that "Forward Unto Dawn" (the ship in halo) was 4th at one point

RSS Pedantry

Honestly, based on my (albeit limited) experience in the UK, this would be a fitting name for any number of things. Buildings, bridges, ships, people, places. Name it.

Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

#104

Post by whybroke »

noir_lord wrote: post #3

They should run with it, the positive PR now and in the future when the RSS Boaty McBoatface docks would be worth it. It would also show a sense of humour and make it something fun.

You maybe right but they are going to have to recruit real scientist to work on the ship who are going to need to put that on their CV.

I don't know how recruiting in that field works but it could be an issue in a lot of people's minds.

Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

#105

Post by arien »

dave2000 wrote: post #101
arien wrote: post #98

Here's a entertaining/embarrassing story from Spain, related to this. A few years ago (2008), the Spanish organisers of the Eurovision contest thought it would be a great idea to allow the public to decide who should represent the country in the Eurovision contest. Amongst all songs entered was this silly parody from a comedian, playing a fake musician called Chikilicuatre [0]. So well... After some heavy campaigning…

Eurovision is supposed to be fun though. At least, that's the UK's perspective. Everyone else takes it more seriously and submit almost exclusively tedious rock ballads. They're been a few non-boring entries though, including a finish metal band and a pair of clowns from Ireland.

Well, it's fun nowadays... Before 2008 the fun entries were still novelty rather than the norm (it had pretty much been only Lordi until then - and I would consider them awesome rather than fun :)).

Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

#106

Post by Agentlien »

mpnordland wrote: post #92
Agentlien wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Gothenburg, Sweden, which is a city known for its bad puns and where most larger buildings are usually referred to by silly nicknames. Last year, there was a competition to name the new swimming pool by the harbor which they put there to keep people from swimming in the rather filthy water of the nearby river. As expected, most of the names which received a lot of votes were silly puns and, you know what? Th…

Are there any good Batman jokes involving Gothenburg Sweden? Seems like there should be.

There are some puns with the city name, but I haven't heard any Batman ones. It is probably a bit too far-fetched for a good joke. Also, in Swedish, the city is called Göteborg and I actually spent some time considering whether to give its native name or the English version of it when writing my original post.

Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

#107

Post by ksrm »

noja wrote: post #96
noir_lord wrote: post #3

They should run with it, the positive PR now and in the future when the RSS Boaty McBoatface docks would be worth it. It would also show a sense of humour and make it something fun.

(btw it's RSS, Royal Research Ship)

RRS, but one of the suggestions is "RRS Feed".

Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

#108

Post by tremon »

noja wrote: post #96
noir_lord wrote: post #3

They should run with it, the positive PR now and in the future when the RSS Boaty McBoatface docks would be worth it. It would also show a sense of humour and make it something fun.

(btw it's RSS, Royal Research Ship)

RRS, I presume?

Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

#109

Post by smcl »

epimetheus wrote: post #81
staticelf wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Stockholm and would like to denounce that Gothenburg is known for its bad puns. Gothenburg is only known as a fisherman village.

A fishing village with over half a million people, and a metro area of nearly 1 million? Around these parts, that'd make it a city.

Relax, I think it's just friendly inter-city banter :)

Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

#110

Post by rtkwe »

golemotron wrote: post #56

Although these pranks are funny they highlight a something very serious - the failure case of direct democracy. When minor issues come up for vote not everyone cares. The people who do care enough to vote can easily be trolls. As an example, imagine that a vote comes up for raising tolls from $1 to $2 on little used street. It's one of 1000 votes a month in a direct democracy. There's little chance of getting attenti…

Yeah direct democracy improves some cases but has 2 cases off the top of my head that it fails for 1) small issues few people will care to vote for and 2) large complex issues. In the case of (2) it makes the issue of in informed lawmakers making laws based on partial biased information even worse by vastly increasing the number of people who 1) have to care to get educated in the first place and 2) have to find good sources to get their education from.
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