Build Date: Tue Mar 18 23:40:13 2025 UTC
Living on beer, American Spirits and Sobe.
-- Mr. Bad
Lets Just Take A Moment...
2001-04-23 05:52:34
.... and think about this. The good folks at Bell Labs have a nice little Text-To-Speech demo page up. Nothing too fancy, just pick a voice, type in some text and click "Synthesis." But wait! What's that little checkbox in the corner? "If you plan to enter text which our system might consider to be obscene, check here to certify that you are old enough to hear the resulting output." Whaaa???
There are so many things wrong with that sentence I don't quite know where to begin. First I was just loving the contorted logic that someone might be old enough to write something that they couldn't hear repeated by a synthesized voice.
But there's just so much more being implied here. Like in the phrase "text which our system might consider to be obscene"-- so, what, they're worried that their server might be offended? Just what does their "system" consider obscene? How old is their system and what are the standards of decency in it's community?
I'm just waiting for the day when the alphabet comes with a disclaimer "If you plan to use these symbols to represent concepts which a culture on planet Earth might consider to be obscene, please sign here....".
T O P S T O R I E S
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The Once & Future King of Dust
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Another Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Drunkenness
This book won a Pulitzer Prize. Here's its famous paragraph on getting drunk... (More...)
Why I'm pretty sure JD Vance had sex with a couch
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In 2010 Dr. Cheng-Huai Ruan discovered a way to cause a patient with an abnormal heartbeat to get back into a normal rhythm by sticking a finger up the patient's ass. (More...)
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C L A S S I C P I G D O G
Things to Say When You're Losing a Technical Argument
Mr. Bad and Crackmonkey collaborate on a fine Mr. Bad's List. We put together ALL the TECHNOLOGY you ever need to know in order to STUMP your OPPONENT in a technical argument. Use these only when your back is against the wall -- they're definitely desperation tactics. (More...)
The Walken / Country Bear Conspiracy
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On the Implementation of a Grocery Bag And Overforestation Initiative
Patient Joab and his evil cohort, Patient Steve, develop a proposal for the plastic-v.-paper problem that EVERYONE can be happy with. An EXCLUSIVE from Spock Mountain Research Labs! (More...)
It's winter in Idaho, and Boise personality "Lego-Man" reports on how he celebrated Thanksgiving. "I fed my wife, mother and sister wine slurpies!" (More...)
Johnnie Royale's Guide to Wakes
Wakes can present problems for Bad People of the Future. (If you don't know what a BPotF is, you need to read more of the PDJ.) Sure, your friend is gone and you miss him and that really sucks; it does, I know. But all Bad People of the Future are gonna die, and they have all accepted that fact. They do deserve, however, to have one final kickass party to celebrate all the bad things they've done in the past, present and future. And you, as a friend, have to make sure that their desire for a final send off is well executed (sorry for the pun). That's just the way of BPotFdom. (More...)
