From the Washington Post:
The Secret Service is looking to buy software that can spot sarcasm on social media…
But getting a computer to detect sarcasm and its linguistic complexities can be difficult — and some experts worry at the prospect of attempts to parse speech by a government agency that has the power to arrest people for posting alleged threats online…
The Secret Service request for the software, first reported by nextgov.com, was posted Monday. The agency is accepting proposals until next Monday.
The work order asks for a long list of specific tools, including the ability to identify influential figures on social media, analyze data streams in real time, access old Twitter data and use heat maps. (It also wants the software to be compatible with the five-year-old Internet Explorer 8 browser — a sign of the government’s outdated technology.)
Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said the request will allow the agency to create its own system for monitoring Twitter — both its own presence in social-media and important issues that are trending on the social network. Detecting sarcasm is just a small feature of the effort, he said…
“There is a reason why they want to do this,” Eckersley said. “There have been regular, tragically documented instances where a human being whose crime is being too funny winds up with a pile of agents pointing guns at them and arresting them because they made a joke.”…
I am reminded of a old cartoon where a saleman being lynched by a mob of engineers asks, “How hard can it be to make a copy machine that also flies?”
And when the SecServ’s snooper-software goes online, Dylan Breves will be renditioned to a Supermax. From the New Yorker :
In July of 2008, Dylan Breves, then a seventeen-year-old student from New York City, made a mundane edit to a Wikipedia entry on the coati. The coati, a member of the raccoon family, is “also known as … a Brazilian aardvark,” Breves wrote. He did not cite a source for this nickname, and with good reason: he had invented it. He and his brother had spotted several coatis while on a trip to the Iguaçu Falls, in Brazil, where they had mistaken them for actual aardvarks…
Adding a private gag to a public Wikipedia page is the kind of minor vandalism that regularly takes place on the crowdsourced Web site. When Breves made the change, he assumed that someone would catch the lack of citation and flag his edit for removal.
Over time, though, something strange happened: the nickname caught on. About a year later, Breves searched online for the phrase “Brazilian aardvark.” Not only was his edit still on Wikipedia, but his search brought up hundreds of other Web sites about coatis. References to the so-called “Brazilian aardvark” have since appeared in the Independent, the Daily Mail, and even in a book published by the University of Chicago. Breves’s role in all this seems clear: a Google search for “Brazilian aardvark” will return no mentions before Breves made the edit, in July, 2008. The claim that the coati is known as a Brazilian aardvark still remains on its Wikipedia entry, only now it cites a 2010 article in the Telegraph as evidence…
***********
Apart from reinforcing our belief that the internets are just about as weird as we imagined — and yet still weirder than we can imagine — what’s on the agenda for the evening?
PaulW
Seattle university shooting: one dead so far, three others wounded.
raven
Unreal that there is only one hooper on this whole goddamn blog.
raven
Jesus, a company called YP is using Sky Pilot as a cutesy jingle for a commercial.
MikeJ
@PaulW: That was almost three hours ago. Surely there’s been another mass shooting since.
Suffern ACE
Or maybe they could just hire people with some sense of humor.
Ben Cisco
@raven: I’m watching. Go Spurs!
raven
@Ben Cisco: YES!
SiubhanDuinne
How long until John Cole adds a Brazilian aardvark to his menagerie? And what should he name it?
WaterGirl
Looking for a break from the crazy out there. Any watching any new or especially good shows on TV? It seems like there are a lot of new ones, but I haven’t tracked what they are.
raven
@WaterGirl: NBA Championship game 1 on ABC!
mdblanche
When I saw the title of this article in Think Progress’ twitter feed just after their article on the Tienanmen Square anniversary, I thought it just had to be another on-this-day type story. But it looks like the South really is hopeless as ever.
Lyrebird
Any creative ideas on how to send goodness to that town in Idaho that Bergdahl is from? To balance out the hate calls?
( http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/bowe-bergdahl-released/officials-bergdahls-hometown-stop-hate-n121761 for example)
jeffreyw
Will someone please check the toner in the kitteh printer?!? I think it’s low.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@SiubhanDuinne: He will name it Eleazer.
Schlemizel
@Suffern ACE:
Having worked with government agencies I can assure you humor is not acceptable. Now cursing seems to be fine, I have heard more F-inhimers dropped in 4 years of meetings than in 40 years of work outside. But crack a joke & people look at you sideways. I make a point of it every chance I get.
raven
@WaterGirl: I watched an ESPN 30 on 30 about the end of Big East Basketball and it struck me that the conference and ESPN really hit it’s stride the year I left C-U. Made me feel really old but also made me recall why I love basketball.
WaterGirl
@raven: Basketball championship in June? For real? I thought that all happened earlier this spring.
TheMightyTrowel
The Brazilian Aardvark story in going in my folder of readings for teaching. Perfect.
raven
@WaterGirl: NBA always runs this late and as soon as it’s over WORLD CUP and all the commies on this blog will crawl out of the woodwork.
the Conster
@WaterGirl:
I have a had a lot of big laughs watching Silicon Valley, and Call The Midwife is so women-focused and nuanced. Jenny Agutter and the guy who plays Jared on Silicon Valley are my two favorite people on TV now.
lamh36
ICYMI, here is video of President Obama answering the question about Bergdahl posed to him by reporter at this morning’s joint press conference with Cameron.
President Obama: “We Do Not Leave Anybody Wearing the American Uniform Behind”
Transcript: “I Make No Apologies”
raven
@the Conster: Both great shows! Bletchley Circle is good too.
mdblanche
@Suffern ACE: Between the genuinely unhinged people out there who it is now acceptable to egg on, the impulse to cope with such madness through humor and snark, and the iron truth of Poe’s Law, I didn’t question for a second why the Secret Service would have such a strong interest in a sarcasm detector. It’s a real sign of the times.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
From way downtown – bang!
Sad_Dem
Two stories from the editorial realm: One, a Time editor placed a quote in a story about Madagascar about how it was an East African saying that “When the flute plays, Madagascar calls the tune.” He got caught and fired, but the “saying” developed a life of its own. Another comes from my days at a reference book company when a certain editor was double dog dared to put a 2,000-word article into a set on South America that Paraguay’s biggest holiday was September the 27th, in honor of a military victory. He chickened out.
the Conster
@raven:
Agreed, but I think that the crime solving procedural is overdone now. Call The Midwife finds the heart in all the characters – there are never just “bad” people. Silicon Valley is just fresh – the episode with the driverless car was hilarious.
SiubhanDuinne
@mdblanche:
Robert Bateman over at Pierce’s place had an article about this earlier today.
Bonus: there’s a link in Bateman’s piece to an incredible racist rant by some woman in Buffalo, NY.
Yeah, these people* are still with us.
*(Not intended to be an actual designation.)
raven
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Manu!
WaterGirl
@raven: I had no idea. I mostly gave up basketball several years ago. I would get so worked up watching the games that it was surprisingly stressful. I go to the occasional UI women’s game, but that’s about it for me. Just grit your teeth and the world cup will be over soon enough.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
He will hug it and squeeze it and love it and take it home with him….
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@lamh36: Hell yeah! GTF off the stage GOP, and take some of that with you.
Mr. Twister
Interesting, Fox news is reporting that Bergdahl went full Mujahideen while in captivity. The information was passed to them from one Duane Ramsdell “Dewey” Clarridge. Yes, the Dewey Clarridge who was indicted by Congress for lying about, wait for it …. Iran Contra. Pardoned by daddy Bush.
WaterGirl
@the Conster: I only made it through part of an episode of Silicon Valley and I had to turn it off. Did it get better after the first episode? I’m an IT person so I thought I’d like it, but it seemed so juvenile to me. But I don’t watch a lot of comedies, so maybe it’s just me?
raven
@WaterGirl: Oh, I like the World Cup! It’s not my favorite because I really don’t have a deep understanding of the game but the drama is great! I just like to tease the purists.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Bellinelli!
raven
@WaterGirl: I think that’s the point, these startup dudes are brilliant in one domain but total idiots in most.
Mike in NC
Slow TV night, so I’m popping “The Longest Day” into the DVD player.
raven
Gotta DVR this late night tilt!
TaMara (BHF)
@WaterGirl: Longmire season 3 started last Sunday. Netflix streams season 1 and 2. I’m watching Whedon’s Much Ado…again.
SiubhanDuinne
@Sad_Dem:
Years ago, I was part of a three-person team charged with writing a major report on the status of Canadian Studies in the United States. We met countless times, drafted innumerable iterations, and finally left all our copious notes with one member, who took on the task of pulling everything together and writing the final draft, which would then go for review to managers and bureaucrats up and down the line, and eventually to ADMs. This guy inserted, in the middle of a long, tedious paragraph on about page 17, a line to the effect that if anyone read this far and noticed this sentence, to let the drafting committee know and we would present that person with a fifth of (very good, can’t remember the label) Scotch.
Not one person caught it. Including, I might add, either myself or my other committee member.
WaterGirl
@raven: Maybe I’ll give it another try.
Oh, and when I started to watch Bletchley Circle, I found that Tivo had not recorded the fourth episode. :-( Not sure how that happened. I guess I’ll watch the next two and then try to find the last one on line.
Eric U.
@Mr. Twister: I met Dewey a few years ago, suprised he’s still with us. I’m sure he knows all about Bergdahl, and when I say that, I mean he knows nothing at all about Bergdahl. But apparently there are people in the CIA that feed him rumors
lamh36
Any truth to this?
WaterGirl
@TaMara (BHF): I watch Longmire! I was a little cranky at first because the characters didn’t seem like they are in the books, but I got over that. Have you read any of the Craig Johnson books that Longmire is based on? He’s a good writer, and the books are especially great on tape. It’s like they were written to be read out loud.
Culture of Truth
Transcript: “I Make No Apologies”
Still on the defensive. Because, liberal media.
WaterGirl
Is anybody watching Fargo? I have been recording it but haven’t watched it yet. There’s so much dark stuff going on in the world right now, I wasn’t sure if the time was right. I did watch True Detective, though, and that was certainly dark, but very interesting.
the Conster
@WaterGirl:
I work for a law firm that represents start ups so I’m biased, but the characters are really funny, and the situations Richard, the founder, find himself in are actually really representative. I think Mike Judge has a real feel for that world, and Richard is the perfect foil for all the bullshit that happens when the VCs get wind of his killer app that will “make the world a better place” . Dinesh – one of the programmers – has the driest sense of humor, and is such a great character. Jared is my favorite though – he shows up in Ep. 2 I think, so stick with it.
WaterGirl
@Culture of Truth: I didn’t get “defensive” from that video. More like “what’s wrong with you people?”, I thought.
TaMara (BHF)
@WaterGirl: I’ve read book one and loved it. Yeah, not much like the books, but still a great show and anything with Lou Diamond Phillips, I’m there. And Robert Taylor is amazing (he’s an Aussie)…actually the whole cast is terrific.
Culture of Truth
@Mike in NC: No spoilers, but careful… it’s a long one.
Schlemizel
@Mike in NC:
Several years ago Bartcop (blessed is he among men) posted an actual account from pentagon records of the first landing crafts at Omaha. It was horrific, something like 5 men got to the beach from the first half dozen landing craft, a couple opened their doors directly into machine gun fire & nobody made it off the boats. Guys went over the side to avoid being shot & were in water over their head. The tore off their gear, dropped their weapons and crawled onto the beach with nothing. Those who made it huddled against sand dunes and waited for help. It was one of the most emotional pieces I have ever read.
I tried searching his site for it but came up dry. I think most of us have no idea what those kids went through – and we should be damn grateful we don’t. Sadly, too many who have no clue feel no need to prevent more kids from sharing these horror stories.
Mnemosyne
@WaterGirl:
Like raven said, the fact that the guys are juvenile is part of the point — did it match a little too closely to the guys you’ve worked with? ;-) But I find the interactions between the characters to be consistently funny and it took a few weeks, but Erlich (the big blonde guy with the beard) finally started to grow on me, like a fungus. To put it in the terms of another Mike Judge show, he’s the Dale Gribble of the bunch — annoying and yet somehow endearing once you get used to him.
If you’ve used a whiteboard at work, this week’s episode may have you on the floor, once you get past exactly what it is they’re creating this elaborate whiteboard to work out.
Cassidy
During my last deployment, my MTT team was selected to be the American team in charge of a series of border checkpoints between the Iraqis and the Kurds. These 6 checkpoints would be spaced along the border and manned by a combination of US military, Peshmerga, and Iraqi Army along what was being called the “Disputed Internal Border”. At that point in the briefing I began to laugh uncontrollably, much to the annoyance of my team leader. He finally asked me what was so damn funny, and I blurted out “DIBS!, as in who has dibs on the border”. It took them a moment. Someone at CENTCOM was trying to be funny.
WaterGirl
@the Conster: Okay, I’ll try again! I thought Castle was really lame for the first 5 or 6 or 7 episodes, and now it’s one of my favorites. And I turned off Burn Notice during the first episode, then tried again because a close friend thought it was great, and I watched it for all 7 seasons. (I think it was 7.)
Ash Can
@SiubhanDuinne:
OK, I’m curious. What were your findings?
Culture of Truth
@WaterGirl: No, but the headline and media coverage is relentless that Obama should, for some reason, feel bad or apologize.
To be clear, in my opinion since 2007 Obama has been almost unique among national Democrats in taking the fight back to Republicans. (“It’s like they take pride in being ignorant!”) but it’s an uphill battle with national media.
Culture of Truth
I didn’t think I would like “Sillicon Valley” as I thought it was have to much dated, tech-insidery humor.
But it’s hiliarious and traditional — they’re not above slapstick to get a laugh.
WaterGirl
@Culture of Truth: I get the sense that Obama doesn’t regret his decision at all, that he thinks it’s the right thing and he’d do it again. He is so steady, even with all the crazy.
To pick up on your comment about the national media… they have lost the plot. They have no idea what being a journalist means and what their role should be. I”ll bet if you said “fourth estate” many of them would have no clue.
Anoniminous
Secret Service is out of luck.
Sarcasm is context dependent. Example:
Sarcasm or enthusiasm? Until computers know the context of the sentence, the placement of the utterance in all previous communications in that context, and to what, exactly, the pronoun references there’s no way of telling.
Shakezula
Since this is an open thread, does anyone know what is up with Sadly, No!? Their server swap went all right but now the link is dead.
@WaterGirl: They’d think you were referring to one of the Koch brother’s homes.
scav
@Anoniminous: The number of wet-ware highly-developed and trained snark meters that have been driven to the fritz on this site alone demonstrates how doomed they’re going to be. Still, it least it’s not an aircraft carrier. Spread the money around a bit.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ash Can:
Actually, at that time there was a strong and decently-funded grant program. A lot of interesting work was going on in A&S, Humanities, etc. Duke University at the time (which was part of my territory) graduated more Ph.D.s in CS than any other US university. The national organization ACSUS (Association for Canadian Studies in the United States) was thriving, and although there were patchy areas, all in all it was fairly robust. Strongest, of course, in colleges and universities near the border — Duke was a quirky geographic outlier. Every Canadian Consulate in the country had an academic relations officer, and it was an exciting and gratifying time. The biggest challenge was that by the early or mid-1990s (the period of our report) we were already seeing a “Greying” — the first big wave of professors and researchers were nearing retirement and there weren’t a lot of young Ph.D.s and post-docs in the pipeline. So a lot of what we did over the next 10-15 years was try to turn that around and develop programs to identify and develop new “Canadianists” across disciplines. Alas, in the last two or three years, the focus shifted to MBA programs, the grants program was essentially eliminated, and funding from the Cdn Govt pretty well dried up. One of the many reasons I wasn’t heartbroken to retire when I did.
Well, you did ask :-)
Janus Daniels
Brazilian aardvark? How Internet citogenesis works: http://xkcd.com/978/
Bruce K
Okay, it’s got to be said. Any algorithm capable of reliably detecting sarcasm in a 140-character tweet will almost certainly be capable of telling the United States Secret Service to go divide itself by zero.
FlipYrWhig
@SiubhanDuinne:
I don’t know how he could name it anything other than “Greenwald.”