The Pope and the Prez

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ne1410s · #1 Post by **ne1410s** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:22 am

stolen from the NYTIMES (humor? section):

The Pope will visit President Bush in the White House. Talk about different leaders. One speaks almost no English and thinks he’s God’s emissary. The other is the head of the Catholic Church.

PlacentiaSoccerMom · #2 Post by **PlacentiaSoccerMom** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:23 am

ne1410s wrote:stolen from the NYTIMES (humor? section):

The Pope will visit President Bush in the White House. Talk about different leaders. One speaks almost no English and thinks he’s God’s emissary. The other is the head of the Catholic Church.

PontiffPolycarpPengo · #3 Post by **PontiffPolycarpPengo** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:25 am

I'm not planning on visiting Washington D.C. today. You must be mistaken...

peacock2121 · #4 Post by **peacock2121** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:47 am

I was walking by a TV yesterday that was on mute. I looked at the words on it and thought:

"Why are they talking about PayPal, I wonder what happened."

gsabc · #5 Post by **gsabc** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:49 am

peacock2121 wrote:I was walking by a TV yesterday that was on mute. I looked at the words on it and thought:

"Why are they talking about PayPal, I wonder what happened."

LOL! Was that a captioning typo? I sometimes wonder what deaf people who depend on that think is going on. There are some really funny mis-typings that occur.

peacock2121 · #6 Post by **peacock2121** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:54 am

gsabc wrote:
peacock2121 wrote:I was walking by a TV yesterday that was on mute. I looked at the words on it and thought:

"Why are they talking about PayPal, I wonder what happened."
LOL! Was that a captioning typo? I sometimes wonder what deaf people who depend on that think is going on. There are some really funny mis-typings that occur.

Exactly!

They do sound almost alike.

Bob Juch · #7 Post by **Bob Juch** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:09 am

peacock2121 wrote:I was walking by a TV yesterday that was on mute. I looked at the words on it and thought:

"Why are they talking about PayPal, I wonder what happened."

Since I invented live closed captioning in 1976, let me explain how that happens:

The system uses a Stenotype connected to a computer which generates the characters on the screen. The Stenotypist uses a phonetic shorthand system. The computer is supposed to use some context-sensitive assistance when generating the English from the shorthand, but that fails often. The Stenotypist has the option of spelling words and is supposed to be looking at the output on the screen and make corrections if necessary.

I would have expected the opposite to have happened: That PayPal would have been displayed as papal. Someone must have made a previous entry in the translation table.

peacock2121 · #8 Post by **peacock2121** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:11 am

Bob Juch wrote:
peacock2121 wrote:I was walking by a TV yesterday that was on mute. I looked at the words on it and thought:

"Why are they talking about PayPal, I wonder what happened."
Since I invented live closed captioning in 1976, let me explain how that happens:

The system uses a Stenotype connected to a computer which generates the characters on the screen. The Stenotypist uses a phonetic shorthand system. The computer is supposed to use some context-sensitive assistance when generating the English from the shorthand, but that fails often. The Stenotypist has the option of spelling words and is supposed to be looking at the output on the screen and make corrections if necessary.

I would have expected the opposite to have happened: That PayPal would have been displayed as papal. Someone must have made a previous entry in the translation table.

That cracked me up.

silvercamaro · #9 Post by **silvercamaro** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:17 am

Bob Juch wrote: Since I invented live closed captioning in 1976....

This surprises me. I had assumed that closed captioning was invented by Al Gore, like all the other cool stuff.

PlacentiaSoccerMom · #10 Post by **PlacentiaSoccerMom** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:22 am

silvercamaro wrote:
Bob Juch wrote: Since I invented live closed captioning in 1976....
This surprises me. I had assumed that closed captioning was invented by Al Gore, like all the other cool stuff.

I assumed the same thing.

TheCalvinator24 · #11 Post by **TheCalvinator24** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:24 am

Bob Juch wrote:Since I invented live closed captioning in 1976,

Where were you working when you did that?

peacock2121 · #12 Post by **peacock2121** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:50 am

TheCalvinator24 wrote:
Bob Juch wrote:Since I invented live closed captioning in 1976,
Where were you working when you did that?

and Cal hits one out of the park!

TheCalvinator24 · #13 Post by **TheCalvinator24** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:55 am

peacock2121 wrote:
TheCalvinator24 wrote:
Bob Juch wrote:Since I invented live closed captioning in 1976,
Where were you working when you did that?
and Cal hits one out of the park!

Not necessarily. He could (A) be telling the truth and have the right answer because of that; (B) know the right answer even if he isn't telling the truth; or (C) Google to learn the right answer.

Appa23 · #14 Post by **Appa23** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:56 am

TheCalvinator24 wrote:
peacock2121 wrote:
TheCalvinator24 wrote: Where were you working when you did that?
and Cal hits one out of the park!
Not necessarily. He could (A) be telling the truth and have the right answer because of that; (B) know the right answer even if he isn't telling the truth; or (C) Google to learn the right answer.

Or he could Google, and discover that he has the wrong year.

TheCalvinator24 · #15 Post by **TheCalvinator24** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:58 am

Appa23 wrote:
TheCalvinator24 wrote:
peacock2121 wrote: and Cal hits one out of the park!
Not necessarily. He could (A) be telling the truth and have the right answer because of that; (B) know the right answer even if he isn't telling the truth; or (C) Google to learn the right answer.
Or he could Google, and discover that he has the wrong year.

Well, there is that. From what I found, it appears that closed-captioning technology started around 1974, but didn't come into use until 1976 (or possibly 1975). But, that was for recorded shows, not live.

Bob Juch · #16 Post by **Bob Juch** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:12 am

TheCalvinator24 wrote:
Bob Juch wrote:Since I invented live closed captioning in 1976,
Where were you working when you did that?

I was working for the U.S. Postal Service. I developed the system on my own however. I gave it to KQED, the San Francisco PBS station. Previous to that they only did closed captioning for recorded shows.

peacock2121 · #17 Post by **peacock2121** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:23 am

This whole thing cracks me up.

gsabc · #18 Post by **gsabc** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:33 am

Bob Juch wrote:
peacock2121 wrote:I was walking by a TV yesterday that was on mute. I looked at the words on it and thought:

"Why are they talking about PayPal, I wonder what happened."
The system uses a Stenotype connected to a computer which generates the characters on the screen. The Stenotypist uses a phonetic shorthand system. The computer is supposed to use some context-sensitive assistance when generating the English from the shorthand, but that fails often. The Stenotypist has the option of spelling words and is supposed to be looking at the output on the screen and make corrections if necessary.

I knew the live captioning uses a stenographic system. You'd think their context would be better than it is at this stage, but we still get errors with such common news items like names of local and national politicians and even standard weather terms. There usually isn't enough time to go back and make the corrections in a news broadcast. I have seen corrections in some of the slower sports, like golf and parts of baseball.

Tocqueville3 · #19 Post by **Tocqueville3** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:06 pm

Bob Juch wrote:
TheCalvinator24 wrote:
Bob Juch wrote:Since I invented live closed captioning in 1976,
Where were you working when you did that?
I was working for the U.S. Postal Service. I developed the system on my own however. I gave it to KQED, the San Francisco PBS station. Previous to that they only did closed captioning for recorded shows.

Yeah...sure you did.

wintergreen48 · #20 Post by **wintergreen48** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 1:20 pm

gsabc wrote: I knew the live captioning uses a stenographic system. You'd think their context would be better than it is at this stage, but we still get errors with such common news items like names of local and national politicians and even standard weather terms. There usually isn't enough time to go back and make the corrections in a news broadcast. I have seen corrections in some of the slower sports, like golf and parts of baseball.

One of the great things about being infallible is that you do not need time to go back and make corrections. Because you never need to make corrections.

Have faith in me on this.

gsabc · #21 Post by **gsabc** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 1:22 pm

wintergreen48 wrote:
gsabc wrote: I knew the live captioning uses a stenographic system. You'd think their context would be better than it is at this stage, but we still get errors with such common news items like names of local and national politicians and even standard weather terms. There usually isn't enough time to go back and make the corrections in a news broadcast. I have seen corrections in some of the slower sports, like golf and parts of baseball.

One of the great things about being infallible is that you do not need time to go back and make corrections. Because you never need to make corrections.

Have faith in me on this.

You mean the Vatican DOES take PayPal?

WWTBAM Bored

The Pope and the Prez

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