Category Archives: Humor

See the future. Fear the future.

Humor, Miscellaneous, , , , , , ,
Courtesy of FastCompany.
Courtesy of FastCompany.

Merrill Lynch has come up with a creative new way of getting clients to start thinking about their retirement accounts:

The bank just unveiled a digital experience called Face Retirement, which does exactly as its title promises. Much like last summer’s old-timey Mug Shot Yourself app, the site’s camera functionality records and scans your face. When it’s finished processing, Face Retirement reveals a composite photo of how your face will look in the near and far future–so you can see haw the ravages of time will affect your jawline incrementally. The tech, powered by Modiface, reveals wrinkles, spots, saggy flesh, and basically all your worst nightmares about mortality.

As Wired has pointed out, the experience is based on a study conducted in 2011, revealing that most of us are less inclined to save for retirement because our eventual, gray selves are unknowable strangers. The study, conducted by Merrill Edge (Merrill Lynch’s online discount unit) showed test subjects a computer-generated vision of themselves at retirement age and apparently scared the Dickens into them. After seeing how they would look as potential great-grandparents, test subjects were newly amenable to saving more.

The real Chris Christie

Humor, Politics, , , , ,

He’s just as funny as you might expect. But aside from the comedy, the New Jersey governor’s conversation Thursday with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show is possibly one of the best about the role of government that’s aired on American television in quite some time:

The interview kicked off with some fellow New Jerseyan and Bruce Springsteen bonding, but quickly moved into the governor’s need for federal assistance in the wake of the hurricane and whether or not that contradicts with the overall philosophical view of conservatives. To make the point, Stewart brought up Christie’s recent rejection of the bill to set up healthcare exchanges in his state, likening an individual’s healthcare crisis to a statewide catastrophe. “If you have cancer and you don’t have insurance, that’s Hurricane Sandy,” Stewart explained.

Stewart went on to assert that Republicans seem to have empathy over only those issues that affect them directly, deferring to the “free market” on everything else, but Christie disagreed. “Republicans like to have the free market, or capitalism, run things except when they believe that government is the only way to solve the problem.”

I’m unable to embed these particular videos here, so just follow the link and watch the whole thing.

Reimagining history via the selfie

Humor, Media, , , , , , , ,

kissingsailor

South Africa’s Cape Times launched a new advertising campaign with famous photos from the past, altered to look like those ubiquitous MySpace and Instagram self-portraits:

Taking a self-picture, or in the regrettable parlance of our times, selfie, removes all distance between the subject and the person capturing it. It might not be the most obvious premise for a brand promise, but that’s where we are. In the same way that cameras couldn’t possibly get any closer to the sailor kissing his best girl on V-J Day unless he was snapping the picture himself, The Cape Times couldn’t be any closer to the news unless they were making it. (Actual physical proximity may vary.)

Polling our ignorance

Humor, Politics, , , , ,

Public Policy Polling had some fun with its first national post-election poll, released today:

As much of an obsession as Bowles/Simpson can be for the DC pundit class, most Americans don’t have an opinion about it. 23% support it, 16% oppose it, and 60% say they don’t have a take one way or the other.

The 39% of Americans with an opinion about Bowles/Simpson is only slightly higher than the 25% with one about Panetta/Burns, a mythical Clinton Chief of Staff/former western Republican Senator combo we conceived of to test how many people would say they had an opinion even about something that doesn’t exist.

Bowles/Simpson does have bipartisan support from the small swath of Americans with an opinion about it. Republicans support it 26/18, Democrats favor it 21/14, and independents are for it by a 24/18 margin. Panetta/Burns doesn’t fare as well with 8% support and 17% opposition.

Some reactions:

[tweet http://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/276084099070951424] [tweet http://twitter.com/Goldfarb/status/276076751036248066]