[extropy-chat] Blog spam

[Emlyn]

On 29/09/05, Alejandro Dubrovsky <alito at organicrobot.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-09-28 at 22:52 -0700, J. Andrew Rogers wrote:
>
> > The ones that could be among the most difficult are semi-obscure old
> > commercials, a few of which you've used above.  Some of these (like #8) are
> > also regional.  There are a couple of these would be nearly impossible to
> > Google down (like #9) without what amounts to a very transient cultural
> > experience.  I'll bet even some younger American adults would have a hard
> > time with #9.
> >
> Unlikely.  It was my first guess and I'm a young(er) non-American.
> Also, while it is hard to guess, it is relatively easy to confirm with
> google since it has to be a very popular commercial or tv program.
> "the" is a given, then just have to fill in a four letter word.
>
> > More importantly, the cost of tracking many of these down in Google would be
> > sufficient that it would not be worth the effort in most cases.  Which is
> > all that is really required.
> >
> No, you need to create enough of these so that a database is costly to
> fill, but automating the creation  of this type of quiz sounds pretty
> hard.  Even for a google-armed human, it's very hard to tell what other
> people will and won't know.
>

Cool quiz Spike.

I don't think you can use pop culture to identify americanness. All
those call center people trained in India to pass as Americans will be
able to beat it, as will all of us out here who've been at the
receiving end of US cultural exports all of our lives. Because you
exported your culture, now it is well known outside the borders.

OTOH, you could probably do this if you were testing for people coming
from other countries.

btw, I knew "Where's the beef" from years of "World's funniest
commercials" shows. I'll never get those hours of my life back :-(

--
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *