We’ve all come across a CAPTCHA, a challenge response test that web sites give viewers who are trying to register for an account, leave a comment, or perform some other task that might be vulnerable to spammers or bots. They are useful because they can differentiate human from machine (Completely Automated Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart… don’t ask me how “turing” became a “P” in that acronym).
They look something like this:
These things are a minor nuisance, the price we pay to protect the sites we need from bombardment by unwanted traffic or use as a launching pad for spam attacks. According to researchers at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, “about 60 million CAPTCHAs are solved by humans around the world every day. In each case, roughly ten seconds of human time are being spent. Individually, that’s not a lot of time, but in aggregate these little puzzles consume more than 150,000 hours of work each day.”
What if the time spent solving CAPTCHAs could be harnessed for productive purposes? Thanks to reCAPTCHA, it can.
Carnegie Mellon is currently working with two organizations (the Internet Archive and the New York Times) to employ humans to decipher scans of text that are unreadable by OCR software (Optical Character Recognition). If your site uses reCAPTCHA, your users can contribute to a major digitization project. For details on how the technology works, click here.
This is the latest innovative effort to maximize productivity in a focused way by taking advantage of the reach of the web to congeal a distributed knowledge network. reCAPTCHA has tapped into existing knowledge and processes to build yet more knowledge through another process. All of us together are smarter than we are added up.
Brilliant work.
(Nod to Mikhail for the heads up about this technology.)
If Barack Obama is elected President on November 4th, it will be in large part because of the sophisticated way his campaign has communicated with the American public.
I was in Michigan this past weekend, and drove past the “North Oakland County Victory Office” of the McCain Campaign, just west of Pontiac, twenty miles north of Detroit. A placard near the street read “Get your McCain-Palin lawn signs here!” The building looked like a small bait shop, set back from the road, in the middle of a big parking lot with few cars. No one seemed to be there. On a Saturday afternoon. A month before the election.
This could have been a reaction against the McCain campaign deciding to give up on Michigan late last week. But when compared to what I’m reading about Obama’s organization, the two campaigns are running entirely different ground games. A few examples of what Obama’s been doing:
Here’s an ad that the bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley made in support of Obama. It’s in heavy radio rotation in Virginia:
Here’s a report from the Fulton (MO.) Sun, about the Obama campaign’s use of TTY devices to call hard-of-hearing voters.
Here’s a link to the iPhone Obama Application (pictured at right), which sorts contacts by state (putting battlegrounds at the top), and makes it easy for individuals to find their way to campaign events, make calls on behalf of Obama, or get details on the candidate’s take on particular issues.
The Obama campaign bought a tv channel on the Dish Network. Channel 73 will be playing all-Obama programming through the election.
Here’s some reporting on the campaigns from fivethirtyeight.com; a couple of bloggers have visited both campaigns’ offices throughout Colorado and Missouri. Key section:
Let’s be clear. We’ve observed no comparison between these ground campaigns. To begin with, there’s a 4-1 ratio of offices in most states. We walk into McCain offices to find them closed, empty, one person, two people, sometimes three people making calls. Many times one person is calling while the other small clutch of volunteers are chatting amongst themselves. In one state, McCain’s state field director sat in one of these offices and, sotto voce, complained to us that only one man was making calls while the others were talking to each other about how much they didn’t like Obama, which was true. But the field director made no effort to change this. This was the state field director.
The McCain offices are also calm, sedate. Little movement. No hustle. In the Obama offices, it’s a whirlwind. People move. It’s a dynamic bustle. You can feel it in our photos.
Finally, for those who think Obama’s been too reticent to hit McCain hard: think again. Much of the more aggressive and negative stuff is happening on a subterranean level (although that’s about to change with a national ad on McCain and the Keating Five). Spanish language commercials (radio and tv) are running in New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada tying McCain to Rush Limbaugh, saying he has “dos caras,” or “two faces.” This morning I heard a report featuring a call from a Virginia Obama-supporter to an undecided voter. It began with a reminder that John McCain would be the oldest President ever elected. The caller then brought up the specter of McCain’s death, talked about Sarah Palin’s embarrassing interview with Katie Couric, and then asked the person on the other line if they really want her as their President. In national tv appearances and the debates thus far, in recognition of Obama’s campaign against “politics as usual,” the candidate and his running mate have avoided a negative or derisive tone or even challenging Palin. I think Biden probably could have field dressed Palin last week had he wanted to. Instead, he treated her and her substanceless winking — to paraphrase Garry Shandling– like how “Johnny Carson treated Charo.” (It’s only fair when acknowledging Palin’s winking to also note Biden’s botox. He did, however, answer a few of the questions). At the local level, the Obama campaign has a bit tougher.
There’s a direct correlation between the sophistication of the Obama ground game and the Democratic gains in affiliated voters. In Pennsylvania, registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 486,000 in 2000 and 580,000 in 2004. Now? 1.15 million. In Nevada, four years ago Dems trailed by nearly 5000 registrants. They currently hold an 80,000 voter edge. In Florida, the Democrats have added 130,000 more voters than the Republicans over the past four years. If you’re an Obama supporter, those numbers are very encouraging.
Other factors explain this swing, including the unpopularity of the current administration and the downturn in the economy. But it would be foolish to discount the effectiveness of the Obama machine in organizing its base, supporting voter registration (especially among the young), employing technology, and effectively tailoring its message to particular constituencies. Obama and Biden know who their audiences are, and how to speak to them.
Admittedly, I haven’t been following the McCain campaign as closely as Obama’s, but I’ve seen no evidence that there’s much innovation or energy at its core. Yes, Palin has fired up the Republican base. But has that led to more organizing or a flock of volunteers in key locations? Aside from McCain’s increasingly negative ads and his hope that the economy becomes less central to the campaign, a few yard signs are all I’ve really seen.
* Late update: Ben Smith has a piece in Politico on Obama’s “quiet efforts” to target black voters… subterranean for real.
While I sympathize with the demands of balancing both legislative and campaign issues, I cannot, in accord with historical policy, grant your request for an extension on the debate. Dean’s excuses can only be granted in the cases of health or personal emergencies, and would need to be submitted to me in writing. A physician’s note is also acceptable.
Regards,
Dana McCourt
On Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 12:00pm, John McCain wrote:
sorry to bother you and i know this request is late but i have been really busy and i want to call an emergency meeting with the president and understanding all the material is taking up a lot of my time so i find myself woefully underprepared and i am throwing myself on your mercy. can i get an extension over the weekend on the debate so i can present my best work to you? or should i get a dean’s excuse?
Several faculty have agreed to post to the blog regularly, and to lead an ongoing conversation about teaching at Baruch College. Surprisingly, there are very few blogs like this, which provide the opportunity for members of a college community to discuss pedagogy outside of their disciplines. This is a unique and exciting development for the college and for CUNY, and I look forward to much interchange between the folks who post to and follow that blog and Cacophonites.
I’m not really a big fan of the whole “John McCain is so old he can’t use a computer” line the Obama camp rolled out today. I think there are stronger, more necessary and relevant attacks that Obama should launch.
That said, the activity level on the two candidates’ Twitter pages does seem to back up the overarching thesis.
My favorite hip-hop vlogger Jay Smooth has eloquently described those nagging voices that reside inside the heads of people who do creative work as “little haters.”
When I’m writing, my “little hater” tells me I need to find a fifth or a sixth corroborating piece of evidence before I can make a claim, and even after I do, the damn thing still comes out tentative. He sometimes makes me think that the idea that I just came up with can’t be anywhere near as good as I originally thought because, well, I’m the one who came up with it. Someone else probably wrote something similar somewhere else, and I just haven’t seen it yet.
I’ve about had enough of this bastard getting in my way.
Sometimes, when I need get a post up on this blog, I start writing about interests that I don’t get to explore when I write reports, papers, proposals, or emails. It’s possible to tie almost anything into that topic taped up there across the header. “Write what you know” isn’t useful just for getting our students to break through their shells. It’s also a useful way to put your little hater on his heels, get the engine revving, and start a conversation.
Yeah, I’m on the Facebook. I resisted for some time, but being able to play Scrabble (or, more accurately, “Scrabulous”) with friends ultimately got me. I’ve developed a bond with the husband of a college friend of my sister-in-law, forged initially through comments on the baby blogosphere, but secured ultimately through online word games played on Facebook. We’ve met only twice. The first time was before our online friendship blossomed. The second was at a party a few weeks ago. We were both a little nervous, but happy to see each other. I joked that we met on “Bromatch.com.” We haven’t played a game in a while, and I just heard from my sister in-law last week that he misses me. Scrabulous challenge forthcoming….
Apart from Facebook’s support for connectedness and competitive word twisting, the site allows users to issue “status” updates whenever they want. This is a delicate but powerful art form. I’ve encountered the following kinds of updates:
Literal: “Luke is working on a blog post” Self-promoting: “Luke just published this: http://cac.ophony.org/2008/07/24/status-anxiety/” Philosophical: “Luke is” Frustrated: “Luke is, but perhaps not according to Human Resources” Resigned: “Luke isn’t”
Ironic: “Luke’s productivity is unaffected by the distractions of Facebook” Literary (direct quote): “Luke is under the brown fog of a winter dawn”
Literary (reference): “Luke thinks the only thing keeping him visible is his whiteness” Historical: “Luke thinks the run on Indymac echoes the Panic of 1893″ Informed: “Luke just got run over by Bob Novak”
Uninformed: “Luke thinks McCain is being too heavily scrutinized by the press” Anticipatory: “Luke is looking forward to the new season of Mad Men” Anguished: “Luke keeps writing the same &%#(*&@ sentence over and over again!” Confessional: “Luke watched Steel Magnolias last night, and is still crying”
Curious: “Luke wonders how many kinds of status updates there are” Evangelical: “Luke thinks there will never, ever, ever be anything like The Wire on TV again”
Nerdy: “Luke is a csstud and a phpimp” Political: “Luke is chanting No Justice, No Peace” Supportive: “Luke thinks that no matter what (redacted)’s dissertation adviser says, the work is top-notch” Onomatopoeic: “Luke thump thump thumped three miles at the track” (that one is also alliterative)
Swinging: “Luke is be-bop-be-dee-bop” Sporting: “Luke is yelling ‘Go Green’” Stumped, Disinterested, or Over Forty: ” ”
Of course, there are other ways to announce your status, or lack thereof, to the world. There’s Twitter, which gives you 140 characters to say what you’re up to (”microblogging,” they call it). There’s the status menu feature of an instant messaging client. There’s all sorts of ways to unify these statuses, to change them on the fly; or you can choose to keep them separate.
Yet, I imagine the following uttered in the border-state twang of a dear BLSCI comrade: “who cares? I don’t want to know what you’re doing, and I don’t want you to know what I’m doing.” Of course not. A status update is not really a status update, but rather a chance to blast your friends with a small dose of personality to break up the monotony of the day. It’s fun, it’s a challenge to be creative, and it’s a chance to stay connected with a community.
My feeling is that this would make a fine satirical cartoon inside the New Yorker. But to give it the cover? Not so sure about that.
Understandably, the Obamas ain’t pleased, finding it tasteless and degrading. The fear is that this image, widely distributed, may give credence to the misinformation going around about the couple. As someone put it to me, “this plays into the suspicions of the morons who ‘don’t do nuance.’” To which I replied: “Since when has the New Yorker cared about those folks?”
People will be talking about this cover, and though it may not reach the level attained by Saul Steinberg’s “New Yorker’s View of the World” or Maira Kalman’s “New Yorkistan,” it will be getting the magazine some attention. So, perhaps as far as the magazine is concerned, it’s effective communication… but it’s also requiring the reader/listener to bring a lot of context to the table.
I love how O’Toole takes her question and turns it into a narrative, reveling in the details, painting a picture, and ending with a bang. As is often the case, Gross asks a follow-up question that leads to a coda by O’Toole that sums up not only the moment and the story, but also his entire approach to life.
My feeling is that this would make a fine satirical cartoon inside the New Yorker. But to give it the cover? Not so sure about that.
