Choosing the Right Comedy

What's better then a joke? Watching a professional comedian performing those joke live! You can read joke from internet, watch comedy movie or even watch live comedy from youtube but nothing beat being in a comedy club where you can listen to those witty jokes and most importantly you can laugh uncontrollably without looking weird! Having a good laugh is getting increasingly important especially in this stressful world, where everyone work so hard to buy what they want, what they need just to realize that they don't really want what they want and doesn't really need what they thought they need. Weird world eh?

Types of Comedy

This is really really important especially if you're going to comedy clubs with your date. Comedy is like food, every one will have different flavor and it's hard to force someone to laugh to some joke they don't like, or worse of, couldn't understand. Although it could be fun to experiment something new but you at least look through the list of comedian to get an idea of the type of comedy they perform. Trust me it's nothing fun being the only one not getting the joke and still have to laugh with everyone else. So here's a list of comedy genre that you may come across, nicely tabulated courtesy of wikipedia!

Type	Description	Famous comedians/comedy shows
Black comedy or dark comedy	Black comedy deals with disturbing subjects such as death, drugs, terrorism, rape, and war. Some dark comedy is similar to the horror movie genre. Television examples include Brass Eye.	Chris Morris, Jim Norton, Bill Hicks, Denis Leary, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Chris Rush, Penn & Teller, Patrice Oneal, Rich Vos, Jeff Duran, The League of Gentlemen, Christopher Titus, Sacha Baron Cohen, Doug Stanhope, Brother Theodore, Tom Lehrer, Shel Silverstein, Frankie Boyle, The Chaser's War On Everything, Monkey Dust
Blue comedy	Comedy based on sexism, racism and homophobic views, often using sexual jokes and profane language words.	Eddie Murphy, Jim Davidson, Andrew Dice Clay, Bernard Manning, Jeff Duran, Martin Lawrence, Roy 'Chubby' Brown, George Lopez, Doug Stanhope, Tommy Tiernan, Redd Foxx, Bob Saget, Ron White, Dave Attell, Chris Rock, Derek and Clive, Sarah Silverman, Luis Noguera
Character comedy	Character comedy derives humor from a persona invented by a performer. Much character comedy comes from stereotypes.	Andy Kaufman, Paul Eddington, Andrew Dice Clay, Rich Hall, Tim Allen, John Gordon Sinclair, Lenny Henry, Sacha Baron Cohen, Christopher Ryan, Steve Guttenberg, Steve Coogan, Bip, Jay London, Larry the Cable Guy, Sarah Silverman, Rob Brydon, Peter Helliar, Harry Enfield, Margaret Cho, Little Britain, Stephen Colbert, Al Murray
Improvisational comedy	Improvisational (sometimes shortened to improv) comics rarely plan out their routines. Prime examples of this kind of comic can be seen on the television shows Curb Your Enthusiasm, Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Thank God You're Here.	Robin Williams, Jonathan Winters, Paula Poundstone, Paul Merton, Tony Slattery, Josie Lawrence, Jim Sweeney, Steve Steen, Wayne Brady, Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, Drew Carey, Greg Proops, John Sessions, Neil Mullarkey, Kathy Greenwood.
Observational comedy	Observational comedy pokes fun at everyday life, often by inflating the importance of trivial things or by observing the silliness of something that society accepts as normal.	Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, George Carlin, Bill Cosby, Mitch Hedberg, Billy Connolly, Ray Romano, Chris Rush, Dane Cook, Dave Hughes, Ricky Gervais, Janeane Garofalo, Chris Rock, Jeff Foxworthy, Jim Gaffigan, Kathy Greenwood, Ellen DeGeneres, Peter Kay, Daniel Tosh, Russell Peters, Demetri Martin,Tommy Tiernan, Carl Barron, Lee Evans, Michael Mcintyre, Brian Regan, Michael Mcintyre, Barry Kirkey
Alternative comedy	Differing from traditional punchline jokes which features many other forms of comedy such as Observation, Satire, Surrealism, Slapstick and Improvisation	Alexei Sayle, Mark Steel, Dave Gorman, Linda Smith, Jeremy Hardy, Ron Sparks, Alan Davies, Jo Brand, Sean Hughes, Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmonson, Malcolm Hardee
Physical comedy	Somewhat similar to slapstick, this form of comedy uses physical movement and gestures. Physical comedy is often influenced by clowning.	Jim Carrey, Norman Wisdom, Jerry Lewis, Robin Williams, Chevy Chase, John Ritter, Conan O'Brien, Mr. Bean, Lee Evans, Max Wall, Matthew Perry, Kathy Greenwood, The Three Stooges, Lano & Woodley, Lucille Ball
Prop comedy	Comedy that relies on ridiculous props, casual jackets or everyday objects used in humorous ways.	Carrot Top, Jeff Dunham, Gallagher, Timmy Mallett, The Amazing Johnathan
Surreal comedy	Surreal humour is a form of humor based on bizarrejuxtapositions, absurd situations, and nonsense logic.	Spike Milligan, Eddie Izzard, Ross Noble, Bill Bailey, The Mighty Boosh, Steven Wright, Monty Python,Vic and Bob, The Goodies, Jack Handey, Harry Hill, The Kids in the Hall, Conan O'Brien, Tim and Eric,Paul Merton, Mitch Hedberg, Firesign Theatre, Shaun Micallef.
Deadpan comedy	Not strictly a style of comedy. Telling jokes without a change in face expression or change in emotion	Jack Dee, Jimmy Carr, Steven Wright, Peter Cook, Karl Pilkington, Buster Keaton, Bill Murray, Jim Gaffigan, The Office, Les Dawson, Mike Birbiglia, Mitch Hedberg, Bruce McCulloch, Demetri Martin,Elliott Goblet.
Topical comedy/Satire	Topical comedy relies on headlining/important news and current affairs. It dates quickly, but is a popular form of comedy for late night talk shows.	Bill Hicks, Chris Morris, Dennis Miller, Conan O'Brien, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Andy Hamilton, Bill Maher, Ian Hislop, Paul Merton, Chris Morris, Kathy Griffin, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Stewart Lee,Rory Bremner, Ben Elton, David Cross, Lewis Black, Dave Chappelle, The Chaser, The Late Show, Have I Got News For You, Mock The Week, Punt and Dennis, John Holmes, The news quiz, South Park.
Wit/Word play	Wit and word play are more intellectual forms of comedy based on clever, often subtle manipulation of language (though puns can be crude and farcical).	Groucho Marx, William Shakespeare, Bo Burnham, The Simpsons, Oscar Wilde, Rodney Marks, Woody Allen, George Carlin, Stephen Fry, Demetri Martin, Firesign Theatre.
Insult Comedy	Insult comedy is a form of comedy which consists mainly of offensive insults directed at the performer's audience and/or other performers.	Don Rickles, Chris Rock, Andrew Dice Clay, Frankie Boyle, Sam Kinison, Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, Roy 'Chubby' Brown, Marcus Valerius Martialis, Jeffrey Ross, Lisa Lampanelli.
Cringe comedy	A comedy of embarrassment, in which the humour comes from inappropriate actions or words. Usually popular in television shows and film, but occasionally in stand-up as well.	Ricky Gervais, Richard Herring, The Office, Alan Partridge, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Peep Show, The Proposal, The Inbetweeners.

How to Choose?

You arn't serious are you? That's like you asking your girl what does she want for dinner, she'll first say up to you, then she'll say that your suggestion is boring then you'll challenge her to suggest something smarter, which she'll again say up to you and the loop repeat until, in most cases settled for the first place you suggested. Don't put me in those shoes can you?

Of course you need to have an understanding of your date's preference, I'm pretty sure you've cracked some joke to her before, or at least tried your best to. Choose a live comedy type she like! If you din't know, you're probably not giving her the attention she deserve, you bad boy!

Always do your homework too! You can easily check out the list of comedian on the day and if they are good enough there bound to be fancam video on youtube. Ain't no rocket science right? Don't watch too much just yet though! Watch just enough to get a rough idea, well much like watching a movie trailer before deciding which movie to go to.

For people who are living in the UK they are lucky enough to have Highlight Venue which have venues around London and other major cities in the UK! They have over 1,200 hilarious comedians at all 10 fantastic venues across the UK. You can eat, drink and laugh your heart out in Highlight Comedy Club!

Factors Affecting Value of Information

Profit margin from trading activities, regardless of commodity is largly affected by the information available on that commodity. Basically a merchant, a businessman who trades in commodities that he did not produce himself, in order to earn a profit, earn from information they have that put them in a competitive edge against their competitor. The more people know the information they have the less profit they are going to make.

Photograph courtesy of Daniel Bersak

Let's look at some example!

Example 1: The Stock Trader

A stock trader or a stock investor is an individual or firm who buys and sells stocks or bonds (and possibly other financial assets) in the financial markets.

- Wikipedia

Every piece of information would affect the stock price, by different degree, depending on the value of information. The stock trader with the more valuable information can gain more from the market. Say a stock trader found out a small player in the NASDAQ are going to be acquire by tech giant, which in usual case the target company will have an increase in share price. IF he manage to find out about that without much people knowing about the acquisition, and he manage to do it without crossing the violating the insider trading provision, he can easily profit from the market. Of course that is an extreme analogy, by providing the obvious example, however, if you take a close look. That is how the stock brokerage firm or even financial news publisher (online or offline) make money, day in day and they out, they dig (or some create) news that will affect the market and sell them for a value.

Example 2: Merchant

A merchant is a businessman who trades in commodities that he did not produce himself, in order to earn a profit.

- Wikipedia

Trust me, which ever industry you are in, information is king, when it comes to increasing your profit margin! That's the key factor that affect your bargaining power, of course sometimes with a very good bluff. Being a retailer, an agent or owner of a trading company, one benefit from their customer because they hold vital information of where to source for certain items that is valuable to their customer. Essentially, ceteris paribus, a retailer with many supplier are able to purchase an item with cheaper price compare to their competitor, which lead to higher profit margin. With the same mechanism, a trader who can source for something customers perceive to be valuable will gain an competitive edge, or in extreme cases monopoly the market.

Why do you think fortune telling is such a compelling subject? The elimination of uncertainty in a decision making process is very valuable to decision makers. Come take wild guess of what's the main factor in elimination of uncertainty. Yes, it's information! With information, one can make better decision, avoid wastage and increase their profit margin. Now that we know the power of information, so what affect the value of information? This will not be a complete list, because the variable in affecting the value of information is just too much!

Key Factor Affecting Value of Information (CARE)

Creditability

The source of information is a key factor in affecting the value of information, logically an information from a credible source will hold more value, compared to hearsay or myth passed around. However the factor affecting the credibility of the source of information is a tough call, for more information on creditability judgment check out Information Triage: Factors Affecting Credibility Judgments of Web-Based Resources by Paul Aumer-Ryan. Under logical circumstance, the information that you obtain from your professor will be more credible and more value able, because of their experience and level of respect given. On the other hand a best selling author will gain their credibility backed by the sales figure of their books, and in some cases their experience in the subject that they are writing about. For example, Paris Hilton writing about producing home made porn. A piece of information that come from a credible source will usually cost more for you to obtain the information. The main reason being the certainty the information holds, the more uncertainty your information help you to clear, the more valuable the information is.

Availability

A piece of information lose information as it passes on, with more people having that information, it loses its value. Different people have different level of access to information, the people who hold the vital information will have the choice of passing on the information or not, and also the choice of passing it to who and the volume of audience he's passing to. With that being said, basically any information that you can easily available on the internet are not as valuable as information shared among a small group of people. Which is why websites fight with each other to get higher SERP ranking, and they can be sure that if their information are valuable, the value will diminish very quickly, because they decide to share the information available with a large, uncontrollable group of people. For example if you are the only one with the leaked information of iPhone4 prototype and you share it on your blog, you will be getting insane traffic if you know how to promote your blog. This is also one of the reason why one of the most important SEO advice is to always generate contents that is valuable to your audience.

Relativity

Anything that is not relevant will hold small or immaterial value to the target audience, sometimes even negative value. Telling the wheelchair bound group of people how to play football (or soccer) will be deem valueless and an insult to them and cause a negative effect. The larger the impact of the information the more valuable the information will be. Say the sex tape of some beggar in a dark alley will affect no one, except maybe the audience getting disturbed by the scene, hence that short clip will barely have any value. If the hero or heroine of the act are someone of respectable status, it will tarnish their career, marriage and personal image that they build. The information will be invaluable to them, their competitor and someone who are connected to the main cast, to the rest of the world, it is but another sex act, easily downloadable from the internet. If the main cast involves a celebrity, it might be of value to more people because of curiosity and the relativity of the movie to the person who want to obtain the information. The possessor of the information can also sell the information back to the originator, asking for a fee of their non-disclosure!

Efficiency

Taking the iPhone4 example from availability of information, someone who use that information more effectively can easily gain more from the information! Method of information distribution is an important factor in determining the efficiency of the information use. Some would distribute the information to a niche group of people, charging high premium, because they know that the information is valuable to the people their customer. On the other hand, some will distribute the information to a large group of people, earning a small price for the information. For example a blog with high readership can gain from ads if they release the leaked information because of the ads revenue generated from their traffic; alternatively they can sell the information to the party who are interested and willing to pay a small fortune for the information.

Like I've said earlier, the list would be endless! There are simply too much factor that will affect the value of information, however if you smartly manipulate the CARE key factors, you can increase the value of information that you hold! Just pay close attention to decision you make in using the information! My sincere advice is to stop hurting the market by providing information that does not benefit you. Consumers now are wise in collecting information not to mention that they are getting better in bluffing! Stand firm on your ground if you think that the information that you are trading for have more value that the customer is offering! If you think that your competitor will gladly cut your profit for you if you don't cut them yourself, you are just not being innovative and constantly relying on old information to sustain your business.

P/S: In very rare occasion that I actually come up with something educational, and original! I have no intention of making this a serious topic, but it's hard to make a point across in a comical tone. Hats off to the stand up comedian that manage to incorporate serious matter in their number. Oh I've also been writing while consuming my beers so take it with a pinch of salt, and blame me not for any screw up!

PP/S: If you bother to read until here, why not leave a comment to let me know what you think? Thanks!

Organising people in the cyber and real world?

Journalism is just not my passion, I prefer to eat the data and turn them into information, or some say eat the information and turn them into bullshit, but it's fun to try new things.

On the 2nd day of Blogfest Asia, Mr Mark Aethen Agana made a little sharing of how to group the community forged online to offline community, Mark being one of the pioneer of Mindanao Bloggers Community successfully founded SoCCSKSargen Bloggers which hold the same underlying vision of the Mindanao Bloggers but on a different geographical level.

Image proudly hi-jacked from: Milniv

Here's what directly from the slideshow:

How to organize people?

• Create a Vision
• Organize a CORE GROUP
• Plan
• Invite, inspire and share
• Meet offline
• Sustain and nurture

Strategies

• Leadership
• Active communication and discussion
• Online and offline events
• Meet ups (Plurkfiesta, photo trekking, food tour, etc.)
• Foster family environment
• Create networks
• Online portal (website, Facebook, blogs)

He also mention that the main strategy to get funding is via sponsorship, bloggers with a strong community has the strength of delivering message to mass public. They can be the public relationship arm of the government or corporations. 

Why build community of bloggers?

• Strong network of support groups
• It enables us to effect change faster
• in the way local governments run things...
• in the way our communities are perceived by outsiders...
• ... in educating people on reforms needed to care for a specific subejcts

6 Areas of Opportunities

• Individual - Personal/Professional Development
• Business - Promoting a blogging generation of internet-based techno/social entrepreneurship
• Community - To become proactive citizens promoting the development of our community country and culture
• National - Partnering with other blogging organizations & knowledge sharing
• International - Share what we do and know
• Media

Sam Hui shared something very interesting, he find that competition attract less people compare to some activities with good cause! Apparently Malaysian in general are not people with high competitive spirit eh? We are so used to the warm friendly community, and not even confrontational when we face certain problem. I must say that there's a lot of good people around, even though some of them doesn't look good but hey, they are good at heart and that's what counts right?