Searching for a public domain or Creative Commons photo to use in a spoof article, I stumbled upon the collection of zombie art and photographs in Wikimedia.  I present my five favorites below.  The name of the photographer and the location of the shot is below each picture.  All are Creative Commons license photos. Infrogmation's photo links back to his Flickr page.

Alofok--Kempten, Germany

Heather Buckley--Brighton, UK

Infrogmation--New Orleans, U.S.A.

Josh Jensen--Toronto, Ontario

Yves Tennevin--Toulouse, France

Machine Translation and Article Spinning

On Triond recently I've read a number of pieces prepared with translation software and then run through a synonymizer to yield "50 percent re-written" content. The purpose of such mangling of language is either to plagiarize or to place multiple copies of the article on several websites without being detected. These articles inspired me to make the following demonstration of how the combination of translator and synonymizer software can destroy even the best prose. Notice птоломеевы (ptolomeevy) and птоломеевых (ptolomeevyh) are not even translated.

Tolstoy’s "War and Peace," Second Epilogue, Chapter 12, First Paragraph

Original Russian Text

С тех пор как найден и доказан закон Коперника, одно признание того, что движется не солнце, а земля, уничтожило всю космографию древних. Можно было, опровергнув закон, удержать старое воззрение на движения тел, но, не опровергнув его, нельзя было, казалось, продолжать изучение птоломеевых миров. Но и после открытия закона Коперника птоломеевы миры еще долго продолжали изучаться.

Machine Translation

Since discovered and proved the law of Copernicus, a recognition that the sun does not move and the earth, destroyed the entire cosmography of the ancients. It was possible, disproving the law, retain the old conception of the movement of bodies, but not denying it, it was impossible, apparently, to continue studying ptolomeevyh worlds. But after the discovery of the law of Copernicus ptolomeevy worlds for a long time continued to be studied.

Synonymized Machine Translation

For the purpose discovered and unrelieved the show of Copernicus, a affirmation go wool-gathering the sunlight does call operation and the leavings, dejected the entire cosmography of the ancients. It was anniversary card, disproving the posture, cleave to brace selection the superannuated clue of the reaction behaviour of indigent, but moan adversative it, it was futile, evidently, to suffer pensive ptolomeevyh worlds. But bill the disclosure of the deport oneself of Copernicus ptolomeevy worlds for a pine age continual to be seized.

Maude (Human) Translation

From the time the law of Copernicus was discovered and proved, the mere recognition of the fact that it was not the sun but the earth that moves sufficed to destroy the whole cosmography of the ancients. By disproving that law it might have been possible to retain the old conception of the movements of the bodies, but without disproving it, it would seem impossible to continue studying the Ptolemaic worlds. But even after the discovery of the law of Copernicus the Ptolemaic worlds were still studied for a long time

Triond Readership

Most of my Triond readership lives outside the United States, a fact that astonishes me.  I expected a much larger portion of the people reading my articles to be Americans.  I snipped the pie chart from my dashboard yesterday.  The blue sector at the bottom, in case you can't read it, is United States readership.

If you'd like to give it a try, my Triond referral link is: http://www.triond.com/rw/551035.

Puzzle is small; find larger copies at armored penguin

Blogger reduced the size of the puzzle below.  The pdf's of puzzles at www.armoredpenguin.com are U.S. letter-size.  I made my puzzles public.  The puzzles are archived by date and time and stored for two months.  Here's the  information you need to find the puzzle on Armored Penguin:

Feral Cat Glossary Words Mark Jones 8 Nov 2011 10:03:50

Kids' Word Search Puzzle

I made a word search puzzle for my younger daughter using the vocabulary words in a book she's reading about feral cats. I used the word search puzzle generator on www.armoredpenguin.com. I converted the pdf files for the puzzle and the answer into jpg files in order to post them on this blog.

Have fun!

Here's the answer.

Romney Can Win ... Does Not Compute ... Does Not Compute

Search "Romney Can Win" and Google Algorithm Asks If You Made a Typo.  

Google denies the program had human help.  I exhibit screenshots, but if you want to look at the screens close up, you might want to do the searches  yourself.

Peter Fulham of Slate reports that if you type "Romney Can Win" into Google search, the algorithm asks if you didn't mean to type "Romney can't win."  The algorithm kindly treats your search term as a spelling error.  See the screen shot below.

When you click on the link "Romney Can't Win," you go to a page where the main story is Google.

The algorithm doesn't treat Obama's election chances the same way.  It doesn't ask is you didn't mean to type something else.  It does direct you to articles that say he can win and how he can win:

CBS News in its "Political Hotsheet" section quotes a Google spokesperson: "Our spellcheck feature is automated, and while no algorithm is perfect, we're always working to improve our search quality."

Romney shouldn't feel slighted.  Although he's the only Republican candidate that the Google algorithm doesn't think can win, the smarty-pants program thinks some other guys are losers too.  I use the pseudonym marqjonz elsewhere (and did here until Google changed its rules).  Look what happens when I type in "marqjonz can win":

I've been irritated more often than helped by the Google algorithm's suggestions on spelling.  In fact, if you want to get articles in Spanish, I'd say the algorithm gets in the way.  I hope Google takes this peculiar search result as a cue to update the algorithm

I'm interested to see if Google's search algorithm is more accurate than the late octopus who correctly predicted the winner of the World Cup.

Sources

Condon, Stephanie.  "Google glitch suggests 'Romney can't win.'"  Political Hotsheet.  CBS News.  October 28, 2011.  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20127226-503544/google-glitch-suggests-romney-cant-win/

Fulham, Peter.  "Google Thinks Romney Can't Win."  Slate.  October 27, 2011. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2011/10/27/google_thinks_romney_can_t_win.html.

Castro Watch

Click on the map to hear the Cuban national anthem "La Bayamesa."


On Triond I've posted three articles about the former Cuban leader:

"Is Fidel Castro Dying?"

"Evo Morales Say Castro Making 'Speedy Recovery' as Fidel Continues to Avoid Public Appearances"

"Ukranian President Says Castro Alive"