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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of wow. / Late Night Open Thread: There’s A Troll Joke Here Somewhere…

Late Night Open Thread: There’s A Troll Joke Here Somewhere…

by Anne Laurie|  April 13, 20124:05 am| 56 Comments

This post is in: Because of wow., Open Threads, Science & Technology

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Baboons learn to “pre-read”:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dan the baboon sits in front of a computer screen. The letters BRRU pop up. With a quick and almost dismissive tap, the monkey signals it’s not a word. Correct. Next comes, ITCS. Again, not a word. Finally KITE comes up.
__
He pauses and hits a green oval to show it’s a word. In the space of just a few seconds, Dan has demonstrated a mastery of what some experts say is a form of pre-reading and walks away rewarded with a treat of dried wheat.
__
Dan is part of new research that shows baboons are able to pick up the first step in reading — identifying recurring patterns and determining which four-letter combinations are words and which are just gobbledygook…
__
In 300,000 tests, the six baboons distinguished between real and fake words about three-out-of-four times, according to the study published in Thursday’s journal Science.
__
The 4-year-old Dan, the star of the bunch and about the equivalent age of a human teenager, got 80 percent of the words right and learned 308 four-letter words…
__
Key to the success of the experiment was a change in the testing technique, the researchers said. The baboons weren’t put in the computer stations and forced to take the test. Instead, they could choose when they wanted to work, going to one of the 10 computer booths at any time, even in the middle of the night.
__
The most ambitious baboons test 3,000 times a day; the laziest only 400.

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Reader Interactions

56Comments

  1. 1.

    JoyfulA

    April 13, 2012 at 4:13 am

    Not the phonics program, huh?

  2. 2.

    MikeJ

    April 13, 2012 at 4:16 am

    UNLIMITED CORPORATE BANANAS!

  3. 3.

    Wag

    April 13, 2012 at 4:26 am

    @JoyfulA:

    No, it sounds like a whole language program to me

  4. 4.

    Neil

    April 13, 2012 at 4:28 am

    Planet of the apes, people. PLANET OF THE APES.

  5. 5.

    Egg Berry

    April 13, 2012 at 4:37 am

    Dan the Baboon, code name V.E.R.I.T.A.S.

  6. 6.

    amk

    April 13, 2012 at 4:52 am

    eugenics!!!

  7. 7.

    Jebediah

    April 13, 2012 at 4:55 am

    @MikeJ:

    UNLIMITED CORPORATE BANANAS!

    You forgot to bold that.

    UNLIMITED BANANAS!

    Scared yet, humantards?

  8. 8.

    28 Percent

    April 13, 2012 at 5:06 am

    What a perfectly cromulent study!

  9. 9.

    Joseph Nobles

    April 13, 2012 at 5:07 am

    This is cool. Maybe we could get some research into the conservative ability to pre-feel as well.

  10. 10.

    bjacques

    April 13, 2012 at 5:43 am

    Bookmark it, hominid libtards!

    Feeling very much like a lazy baboon today.

  11. 11.

    amk

    April 13, 2012 at 5:53 am

    Monkeys succeed while their brethren and their computers fail.

  12. 12.

    Chris Wolf

    April 13, 2012 at 5:58 am

    Only 80%? Moran.

  13. 13.

    amk

    April 13, 2012 at 5:58 am

    83% of donations to @elizabethforma were $50 or less. scott brown wont give out that breakdown.

  14. 14.

    Egg Berry

    April 13, 2012 at 6:16 am

    308 four-letter words

    there’s a four-letter word joke in there, but i’m not caffeinated enough to make it.

  15. 15.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    April 13, 2012 at 6:24 am

    New recruits for the Red State Strike Force! And just a tad more literate …

  16. 16.

    kdaug

    April 13, 2012 at 6:32 am

    There’s A Troll Joke Here Somewhere…

    Always.

  17. 17.

    c u n d gulag

    April 13, 2012 at 6:57 am

    If the rewards are Cheeto’s and Mountain Dew, soon, we’ll have REAL baboons trolling Liberal sites on the internet.

    My guess, since they’re capable of learning things, is that they’ll evolve faster than the Conservative human trolls.

  18. 18.

    WereBear

    April 13, 2012 at 7:04 am

    As I always point out when there is compelling evidence of non-human species showing intelligence, and thought, and emotions, and preferences; where do you think ours comes from?

  19. 19.

    cmorenc

    April 13, 2012 at 7:10 am

    If a thousand baboons were given a thousand typewriters and a near-immortally long amount of time, how soon would one of them re-type Atlas Shrugged? A lot sooner than one of them would re-type Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

  20. 20.

    Linda Featheringill

    April 13, 2012 at 7:22 am

    We all continue to evolve. And after we humans have done ourselves in, the next group will have their day in the sun.

    The snow monkeys in Japan, the ones that soak in the hot springs, those guys . . .

    . . . frequently remind me of what I think primitive modern man was like.

  21. 21.

    Egg Berry

    April 13, 2012 at 7:32 am

    @Linda Featheringill:

    We all continue to evolve.

    some of us. the conservatives seem to be devolving.

  22. 22.

    kdaug

    April 13, 2012 at 7:41 am

    @Egg Berry:

    Conserve.

    Progress.

  23. 23.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 13, 2012 at 7:44 am

    Baboons groom.

  24. 24.

    El Cid

    April 13, 2012 at 7:56 am

    If they’s all this evyolushun, how come ey’s still baboons? And if ey kin read, y’all next gonna be demanding baboon marriage?

  25. 25.

    Brandon

    April 13, 2012 at 8:02 am

    Baboons with flexible work arrangements? When will my employers learn ‘face time’ is unimportant?

  26. 26.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 13, 2012 at 8:06 am

    @Brandon:

    When will my employers learn ‘face time’ is unimportant?

    When you establish dominance within the troop and mandate new policies. I advise baring your teeth in an aggressive manner to challenge those above you on the corporate ladder.

  27. 27.

    kdaug

    April 13, 2012 at 8:08 am

    @El Cid:

    And if ey kin read, y’all next gonna be demanding baboon marriage?

    Yes. Your baboon wife will arrive at your doorstep tomorrow.

    Do watch your fingers. She’s a bit “bitey”.

    But we trust you’ll be fine.

  28. 28.

    Schlemizel

    April 13, 2012 at 8:14 am

    I was going to draw a conclusion about a certain liar that named itself truth here at BJ but then I realized I would be insulting baboons the world over and they have done nothing to deserve the scorn that troll has earned.

  29. 29.

    Roger Moore

    April 13, 2012 at 8:14 am

    @The Ancient Randonneur:

    New recruits for the Red State Strike Force! And just a tad more literate

    I’m guessing they’re way too sensitive and empathetic to work for Red State.

  30. 30.

    Napoleon

    April 13, 2012 at 8:16 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    . . . and fling poo.

  31. 31.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 13, 2012 at 8:18 am

    @Napoleon: That goes without saying.

  32. 32.

    El Cid

    April 13, 2012 at 8:26 am

    From the Department of Apparent Badass, Re-Election Assistance Division:

    Newark Mayor Cory Booker taken to hospital after rescuing woman from house fire
    __
    NEWARK — Newark Mayor Cory Booker was taken to a hospital Thursday night for treatment of smoke inhalation he suffered trying to rescue his next-door neighbors from their burning house.
    __
    “I just grabbed her and whipped her out of the bed,” Booker said in recounting the fire. Booker told The Star-Ledger he also suffered second-degree burns on his hand.
    __
    The fire started in a two-story building on Hawthorne Avenue in the Upper Clinton Hill neighborhood, shortly before the mayor arrived home after a television interview with News 12 New Jersey.
    __
    Five people were taken to the hospital for treatment: the mayor, a woman from the house and three members of his security detail. The woman was listed in stable condition at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston with burns to her back and neck.
    __
    Booker left his home shortly after 6 a.m. this morning to make an appearance on a television show in New York, News 12 reported. The mayor will hold a press conference at 10 a.m. at his home to discuss the incident.
    __
    Newark Fire Director Fateen Ziyad said after the mayor arrived home he saw flames and smoke from the second floor of the building next to his home, and no residents outside,
    __
    Booker rushed in and his security detail followed him, Ziyad said.
    __
    As fire and EMS arrived, they administered oxygen to Booker and his security detail and took the mayor to the hospital. Newark Fire Chief John Centanni was at the hospital with Booker and said the mayor and his detail were “banged up” but would be fine. The residents of the building also appeared to be okay.
    __
    Centanni said the mayor executed a professional rescue and possibly saved the life of one resident.
    __
    After being released from the hospital, Booker recounted his experience at the fire and said he thought he might have to jump out of a window because of the heavy flames.
    __
    “We got everybody out of the house, but their daughter’s screaming, ‘I’m upstairs!’ ” he told The Star-Ledger.
    __
    One of his security officers, Detective Alex Rodriguez, tried to stop him from going back in.
    __
    Rodriguez had been posted at Booker’s house in the mayor’s absence. The other two detectives, Duran Santos and Al-Tariq Whitley, were accompanying Booker from the television interview.
    __
    “Now we actually get into a fight because his job is to protect me,” Booker said of Rodriguez.
    __
    Booker said when he reached the second floor, he was engulfed in flames and smoke.
    __
    “I suddenly had the realization that I can’t find this woman.” Booker said. “I look behind me and see the flames and I think “I’m not going to get out of here. Suddenly I was at peace with the fact that I was going to jump out the window.”
    __
    Then he heard her cries in a back bedroom.
    __
    “I just grabbed her and whipped her out of the bed,” Booker said. The two made their way downstairs, where they both collapsed, Booker said.

    Maybe next time NJ elects a governor, instead of Loudmouth McTunnelthief, they can elect Spider-Man.

  33. 33.

    newsouthzach

    April 13, 2012 at 8:26 am

    The 4-year-old Dan, the star of the bunch and about the equivalent age of a human teenager, got 80 percent of the words right and learned 308 four-letter words…

    Christ, I only know a couple dozen of the damn things…

  34. 34.

    Ash Can

    April 13, 2012 at 8:26 am

    @cmorenc:

    If a thousand baboons were given a thousand typewriters and a near-immortally long amount of time, how soon would one of them re-type Atlas Shrugged?

    “Given a week or two” is more like it. After all, they recite the thing cover-to-cover daily, especially at feeding time.

  35. 35.

    El Cid

    April 13, 2012 at 8:27 am

    Don’t know why it’s in moderation, but I attempted to note Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker just rescued his neighbors from their burning home.

  36. 36.

    El Cid

    April 13, 2012 at 8:28 am

    Test?

  37. 37.

    El Cid

    April 13, 2012 at 8:28 am

    Fuck it.

  38. 38.

    kdaug

    April 13, 2012 at 8:35 am

    @El Cid:

    Fuck it.

    Well, yes, that was actually the point.

    At least once daily is required in the contract, but we would rather prefer twice. (There’s a built-in bonus if you can show evidence of three times or more per day)!

    Just do watch the fingers.

  39. 39.

    El Cid

    April 13, 2012 at 8:45 am

    Apparently links are forbidden, but Newark NJ Democratic mayor Cory Booker rescued a neighbor’s daughter from the flames and smoke of their home, fighting off his security detail to do so. Just Google it.

  40. 40.

    El Cid

    April 13, 2012 at 8:46 am

    Oh, that’s what it is — I can’t mention the name of the mayor of Newark because it sounds like a game involving those flat things which come in stacks of 52. Okay, so that mayor rescued people from a really hot building where there was like fire and stuff.

  41. 41.

    RossInDetroit

    April 13, 2012 at 9:05 am

    Patterning in language is interesting. I’ve been reading Gleick’s book The Information and there’s a long section about redundancy and entropy in English. About 80% of the information in written English is redundant. You don’t need ‘u’ after ‘q’ and no information is lost if you omit it so it’s redundant. Certain letter patterns appear very frequently and many appear not at all. I’m not surprised that a baboon could learn this by trial and error.

  42. 42.

    Jay C

    April 13, 2012 at 9:30 am

    The 4-year-old Dan, the star of the bunch and about the equivalent age of a human teenager, got 80 percent of the words right and learned 308 four-letter words…

    So how long do you think it will be before Dan starts his own blog?
    He’s already ahead of a LOT of right-wingers I can think of….

  43. 43.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    April 13, 2012 at 9:51 am

    Replace our government with baboons. They obviously are more interested in reading and could not possibly do a worse job.

  44. 44.

    maya

    April 13, 2012 at 9:56 am

    Yeah, but can they spell morans?

  45. 45.

    daveX99

    April 13, 2012 at 9:56 am

    The most ambitious baboons test 3,000 times a day; the laziest only 400.

    How much time do these apes spend on twitter?

  46. 46.

    Jennifer

    April 13, 2012 at 10:08 am

    Just what we need – a bunch of cursing baboons.

    Don’t we have enough of those already?

    On the bright side, since CNN has been in a bit of a panic after realizing that even the hire of Erick Erickson and Dana Loesch have not won them majority share with really dumb motherfuckers, now they’ll have another hiring option. Though it’s really unfair to the baboons for CNN to assume that they are less intelligent than Erickson or Loesch.

  47. 47.

    jprfrog

    April 13, 2012 at 10:21 am

    I second #44. I think that were some of these primates serve in state legislatures (e. g. Alabama, Arizona) things would improve there.

  48. 48.

    RossInDetroit

    April 13, 2012 at 10:21 am

    This is the conservative blogger process distilled to its essence:

    1) see words
    2) press buttons
    3) get fed

    Notice that comprehension is not required.

  49. 49.

    JGabriel

    April 13, 2012 at 10:36 am

    __
    __
    Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer:

    The most ambitious baboons test 3,000 times a day; the laziest only 400.

    I object to this biased and demeaning characterization of the the monkey who doesn’t like as “lazy”!

    Perhaps he’s the kind of monkey who would rather dig for insects and forage for bananas, while the monkey who likes tests might be the kind who would just sit around reading and surfing the internet all day!

    Elitist researcher snobs!

    .

  50. 50.

    JGabriel

    April 13, 2012 at 10:40 am

    @RossInDetroit:

    You don’t need ‘u’ after ‘q’ and no information is lost if you omit it …

    Yeah, smarty-pants? Try spelling ‘queue’ without a ‘u’ after ‘q’. You can’t have a ‘queue’ without ‘u’; all you’re left with is ‘qee’.

    And ‘quick’ without ‘u’ is just a ‘qick’.

    .

  51. 51.

    RossInDetroit

    April 13, 2012 at 10:40 am

    @JGabriel:

    I object to this biased and demeaning characterization of the the monkey who doesn’t like as “lazy”!

    Yeah, conclusion not supported by findings. Maybe the under-performing monkey has a wheat allergy and doesn’t like the treats.

  52. 52.

    RossInDetroit

    April 13, 2012 at 10:45 am

    @JGabriel:

    To be clear, when you have a letter pair doing the job of one letter, there’s redundancy. Omitting ‘u’ from ‘qu’ doesn’t work in every case. But in every case some other single letter substitution would work, and would contain the same information with less bits. It’s a theory about the information content in written English and not an exact compression algorithm.

  53. 53.

    Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey

    April 13, 2012 at 12:37 pm

    @WereBear:

    The all-powerful Great Sky Monkey, naturally.

  54. 54.

    gaz

    April 13, 2012 at 6:35 pm

    He learned 308 four-letter-words?

    He’d be the toast of my dinner parties =)

  55. 55.

    muddy

    April 13, 2012 at 8:20 pm

    Ambition or greed? That is the question. Or are they really the same thing?

Comments are closed.

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