Sense and Nonsense

What's Wrong with Yahoo!

Something is desperately wrong at Yahoo!, the internet portal. I don't know the source of the problem; I'm only aware of the symptoms.  The principal indicator of a serious malady is the growing frequency with which totally unintelligible items show up on the home page. The problem seems to be the lack of any editorial control, any adult supervision, any passing of any human eyes over the copy before it is posted. 

For example, a few days ago, this item appeared under the "Lifestyles" section on the home page: "Bodily Changes and Aging Process."   I'm interested in this topic because I'm aging like crazy and my bodily changes are, in a word, horrific.  So, imagine my surprise when, clicking on the link, I came across text even more horrific than my aging body.  I'm going to show you the first paragraph, verbatim. You'll think I've altered something, that I'm putting you on, but I'm not. This mass of gibberish appears on one of the world's biggest web portals; it has remained there for several days.

From the start of our birth, our body endures several changes. As we have a tendency to reach young adolescence, but the body experiences a series of senescence, or bodily changes abnormal, that the bodily functions begin to say no. The body makes these changes, that the general public can notice, the distinction.  The musculoskeletal system is that the 1st space that the majority diseases and diseases begin. For this reason once, someone turns thirty five years older despite their activities, athletic nature, etc. Still, one will scale back such disease by avoiding injuries to the muscles and joints. you'll try this by avoiding accidents when attainable, abuse, excessive alcohol, drugs, tobacco and thus on. you'll increase your health by exercising, eating healthy, socializing with positive individuals, and avoiding environmental toxins. Visiting your doctor is crucial to forestall disease further. after you visit your doctor, he takes the time to check your physical standing based mostly on the family history you gave to him. The doctor can contemplate family history, as well as hereditary diseases. Your doctor can take family history into thought as he studies diagnostics, cures, prevention, and treatment to assist you avoid disease. As noted earlier, our body starts to refuse by age thirty five, that our sensory organs also will begin to require a rain check.

Go to the article to see the rest of this utterly incomprehensible tripe.

So, was this typed by a team of drug-crazed monkeys?  Is this brought to us as an inept product of Google Translation, rendered into "English" from the original Hungarian or Mongolian?  Was this produced by some very early beta version of an artificial intelligence program?  Has any person at Yahoo! ever laid eyes on this stuff?  Are there no editors there?

The byline attributes the text of this piece to "Dealfigure Entertainment."  What a solid decision Yahoo! has made in turning to Dealfigure for content!!  Here's a sampling of some of their other fine writing, currently available on Yahoo!  Again, absolutely verbatim.

From "The Work Hours in Healthy Aging Days"

Healthy aging is usually risky throughout your operating days. As a younger person you go where the money is at; then later you're sorry you worked there.  Aging is difficult to have faith in once you are in your younger years. cash is that the solely issue on our minds and generally that isn't smart. generally we've got to require what's out there to require care of our family and at a similar time, we have a tendency to may well be putting ourselves in peril soon.  We all have had to figure in places that weren't smart for your health however we've got to form a living to stay a roof over our heads. Some work places aren't smart to be in attributable to chemicals, dust, and smoke.

Or, from"Super Green Food Powder Benefits Making Good Things Better":

There are several edges to taking superfood powder. the first advantage of powder is that they're made up of food. this suggests that once we take them, our bodies enjoy the total vary of nutrients offered by that food. usually|this can be} vastly completely different from taking vitamins as a result of vitamins often concentrate on one specific nutrient (such as Vitamin C or Vitamin D). we have a tendency to|once we|after we} take superfood we are taking foods that have a spread of vitamins and minerals that profit the body, thus we have a tendency to are effectively obtaining additional nutrition from the food powder than we might from one vitamin. Taking these foods in powder type could be a nice short cut to boosting health. 

Really?  Is it too much to ask of major internet portals and content providers that they edit the nonsense they throw onto the web?  This is appalling. 

"Scholars of Confusion"

Also from the Times "Education" supplement today, see this short piece by Walter Kirn, which illuminates what is wrong with so much of what passes for "scholarship" and education in contemporary universities.

Anointed with Oil

Good lord.   The world is full of lunatics.
Take a look at the blessing of the Big Three SUVs in Detroit.

Olympian Swimmer

by Patrick Moberg

Word Clouds

You've seen "word clouds," which represent visually the importance or weight given to different words or terms in a text, so that more frequently used words appear larger in the cloud.

Here's a website that creates word clouds out of text you provide. 

Write your sweetie a love letter and then attach a word cloud, proving that it's not a myth that you use the word   "earlobe" altogether too often.   

Write George Bush a letter and then attach a word cloud of the letter's text, showing him how big the word "asshole" is in the word cloud.

(Let's distort the outcome here: Bush asshole Bush asshole Bush asshole Bush asshole.)

Here's what the text above looks like as a word cloud:

Better Than You

Much.

Get your Script Now

I've got my prescription, but I haven't started taking it yet.  Duh.

Bush's EPA Throws in the Towel

This is an older news item from The Onion, but the message is timeless (or, at least, it's timely for as long as Bush is in office).

WASHINGTON, DC—Days after unveiling new power-plant pollution regulations that rely on an industry-favored market-trading approach to cutting mercury emissions, EPA Acting Administrator Stephen Johnson announced that the agency will remove the "E" and "P" from its name. "We're not really 'environmental' anymore, and we certainly aren't 'protecting' anything," Johnson said. "'The Agency' is a name that reflects our current agenda and encapsulates our new function as a government-funded body devoted to handling documents, scheduling meetings, and fielding phone calls." The change comes on the heels of the Department of Health and Human Services' January decision to shorten its name to the Department of Services.

Get Yourself a Gardener

This may not come as a news flash to you, but to me it's a revelation.  Apparently, there's just no end to the joy you can feel when you find people to do pleasurable things in your stead. For example, here's a great article that explains the enjoyment you can get from having a gardener.  Need convincing?  Well, here's a taste:

• Spending time in the garden has really changed my outlook on life. Seeing a fellow human come into such commune with the delicacies of nature, hour after hour, day after day, just to grow flowers to make the view from your window slightly prettier to look at—well, it really makes you enjoy looking out that window that much more.

Of course, there are drawbacks and difficulties.

• Getting decent help is never easy, and trying to cultivate a good gardener can be a nightmare. It never ends! And once you finally get your gardener just the way you want him, there's still all that actual gardening work left to watch being done by him.

But, ultimately, the pleasures are worth the effort.  Truly.

• There's just nothing like the feeling of working with your hands, gesturing this way and that, ordering a gardener around in the great gated outdoors. I've even grown to appreciate that clichéd summer drink, ice-cold lemonade. You can never truly realize how refreshing it is until you've spent a long, hot day watching someone get dirt under their fingernails.

Cocker at Woodstock

For those of you old enough to remember Joe Cocker, here's a very funny video that adds subtitles to his performance at Woodstock in 1969.  [Sue thinks the funniest thing about this is the way it verifies her sense that he always looked so spastic when he performed.]

Enjoy.