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Elmahdi Elbakkar
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Elmahdi Elbakkar

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About Humor, Memes, Memofacturing, and Humor Iq…

Elmahdi Elbakkar, 16 h.
3 min read.
I can’t unsee how big of a memes fan I am, I would recognize some classic memes from the first sight. I feel sorry for my friends as I flood them with many memes about almost everything. I keep quoting some famous memes. All these typical Gen Z activities made me realize something: everyone understands memes, they are universal. On top of that, they pass down messages efficiently as our average attention span is decreasing generation after generation due to the unlimited distraction sources. I can’t be the only one noticing these two essential points as marketing experts already did and are focused on leveraging the full potential of this new universal means of communication. The recent assassination attempt on Trump produced one of the most iconic pictures on the web. These pictures not only stayed in our pockets but made it to T-shirts as memes in almost no time. The memes industry paid the price of its success, the unlimited desire to monetize everything, saw us being surrounded by commercial memes based on a product, not an idea… Memes are ideas, not products. I made memes myself to express ideas on certain topics. I remember when our university decided to rebrand and change its logo. I found the design too simple for the announced duration of work compared to the old logo, it was super creative. A lot of people reacted to it and immediately grasped its meaning without me having to explain the meaning. We all agree that memes unveil a huge hidden potential. We can universally express ourselves: isn’t the dream of everyone? Isn’t that the most requested thing? Isn’t that the origin of generational conflicts? When thinking about writing this article, I did not intend to talk about memes only, but to detail mainly one notion: Humor iq. We usually see people posting memes and explaining the reference behind them, some people don’t get the idea initially but end up understanding it after the explanation, but some don’t get it at all. It’s not the case only with memes but with all humor content, making us think: Does understanding humor count as an intelligence type? We were all proud at a certain moment for making a funny joke or getting a meme, we can be prouder when googling the word “ Humor Iq” as the main idea appearing is the high correlation between the ability to produce humor and high intelligence. Humor, nowadays is audio-visual content, interfering often with more than two senses (recalling a previous taste or smell experience). Let us examine the 7 types of intelligence: - Linguistic intelligence - Logical-Mathematical intelligence - Spatial intelligence - Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence - Musical intelligence - Interpersonal intelligence - Intrapersonal intelligence Humor content has words, the choice of words matters. Brilliant humorists know how to choose the exact words that will make sense and, eventually the essence of the joke. Good speakers rule the world… Some memes are complicated and require a certain analysis to decipher their logic, as there are also other memes about complex topics, it goes both ways: the content and the structure. Complexity induces a certain logic requiring logical intelligence to decipher the structure and the content. Some humor content requires imagination as the humorist takes us into an adventure guided by his or her descriptions usually to set up a scene required for the joke being made. Spatial intelligence is essential for a better understanding. We can go all day finding relationships between Humor intelligence and the 7 types of intelligence. I am not trying to prove that humor understanding requires different types of intelligence nor prove that all types of intelligence form humor intelligence. I am speculating on the status of humor intelligence: is it a type of intelligence? Does Humor intelligence induce the other types? If what we said about humor, being a human creation, is true, then it is for all human creations like music, poems… For each type, we can define intelligence and link to the other types. Are there seven types of intelligence, is this framework valid to describe all types of intelligence? What is the case for the spiritual and natural aspects? Can we define a valid framework to reflect on intelligence? This reflection gave me headaches as I, like philosophers, seek generality in the description, a theory of everything, but like consultants, I end up realizing that within the general there is a pinch of specific. Frameworks are an effort toward englobing certain notions but personal interpretation is always necessary. Life tends to be mechanical and requires some spice, and humor is one of a good spice. Far from the intelligence and framework speeches, Humor is human before all, some things are worth being enjoyed rather than complicating them. “ Genius takes time and extraordinary effort “

The origin(s) of Solutions

Elmahdi Elbakkar, 16 h.
2 min read.
Does it ever happen to you to be hit by a very deep question while enjoying you morning coffee? Each time it happens, I am here sharing that specific thought that probably emerged following the effect of caffeine. How do we think about solutions? Before thinking about this question, I feel that it’s a must to present its context in order to understand more my perspective. The day before, I wanted to stretch my brains neurons by trying to solve a puzzle, in other words a problem, a necessary element for the existence of solutions. The puzzle, or the problem I wanted to solve was a coding problem by LeetCode, in which I need to develop a code to recognize Palindrome numbers. Palindrome numbers possess the very unique property of being symmetric, meaning that you can read them from both sides. One famous example is 121, you can think of 1111, 2222, and the list goes on. The goal is not to dive in this amazing world land of Palindromes, perhaps we can do it later, but to illustrate an important point. I thought of two solutions, each one is relative to a different approach. I noticed that this applied to other problems too. I generally think of two types of solutions: 1) A domain knowledge based solution 2) A technical based solution The first category are solutions that come as a result of a domain expertise. Let’s take the example of the Palindrome numbers problem. One first reflex I had is to assess all mathematical properties that these numbers might have before putting my hands on the keyboard to translate those thoughts into code. The domain here is Mathematics, it could be any domain. One origin of solutions is the expertise ones gather through domain knowledge. This is what Data models try to imitate by capturing the hidden patterns given a set of features that are chosen, based on statistical measures yet they make sense from a domain knowledge point of view. The second category is relative to each domain. One easy way to recognize a Palindrome number is to convert it to a string, reverse it and then compare it with the original string. This is a technical solution brought up by the world of coding. Similar solutions exist in many domains, and if they are coupled with domain knowledge they can solve numerous problems. This type of solutions require the discipline’s domain knowledge which can be different from the problem’s domain knowledge, especially for a category of disciplines that are suppliers of tools (Coding, Statistics…). These two categories tell us about the origins of solutions. In every problem, there are two layers that we need to be aware of, the domain and the tool, both can offer a solution. A lot may argue that it’s not true in all cases, but we will assume it is possible to develop a solution following both methods, as numerous discoveries shape everyday reality and change the meaning of what is impossible. Quantum physics stun the world at their emergence, Information theory, and many other so called impossible things at a certain time. From a tool perspective, it is possible to merge tools that seems different yet they share a common point, no wonder why we see some domains interfering in many other domains like Data Science. Once we define clearly the roles of each layer it is possible to craft an ingenious solution to all problems, or we might end up realizing that we need to outsource an additional layer to help craft a more sophisticated solution that finds a way around the previous limitations. When I talk about origins, I place myself from a procedural perspective. This is one way to see it and not the only one. “ Genius Takes Time and Extraordinary Effort “