Computer-Generated Sarah Palin Interview

Here's a program that'll generate realistic Palin-style answers for different questions.

Q: What is your foreign policy experience?

I think if you ask that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the people of America are not fully satisfied with all the answers. It's going to be considered also. But again, it's got to put government and it's about putting government back on the verbiage that Senator McCain chose to use them. So we have opportunities for good in the war. You can't blink. You have to be allowed in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be provided the hope that all Americans have, instilled in us, because we're a democratic, we are today with so much collapse on Wall Street, affecting Main Street.

Interview Sarah Palin

(Via Panopticist)

• [BBNinja]

  John McQuayle and Sarah Quaylin anyone? ^_^

• [Enochrewt]

  Ehh, does she really sound like she’s trapped in a babelfish english-chinese-french-english translation? I have ignored pretty much every interview she’s ever done.

  I was expecting it to be Eliza-level coherent.

• [Tom Hale]

  Palin is one of those folks whose mind is zooming along so fast, her mouth has trouble keeping up. She probably needs to be on Ritalin.

• [HarveyBoing]

  I am betting they are Markov text chains.

  Well, since the web site says they are — from http://interviewpalin.com/about , “The Markov chain generated answers are surprising [sic] close to her actual answers” — it’s not like that’s a hard bet to make. :p

• [winkingskunk]

  Trying to comprehend those answers made my brain wanna blow up.

  I guess it really is like a real Palin interview.

• [otherthings]

  @#10: Search YouTube for “Palin Couric Interview” to see for yourself! As far as coherency goes, she hovers somewhere around Eliza’s level mostly, but dips down into total word salad when pressed on subjects she knows nothing about. The website is scarily close to how she really speaks.

• [Mark Frauenfelder]

  Enochrewt@10: “I was expecting it to be Eliza-level coherent.”

  I expected that from the real Palin, too.

• [Tom Hale]

  21 said
  

  PS
  I also would like to see less political postings, primarily because of how the bias (which I personally agree with) is used as a moderation stick. Say something good about McCain or Palin? Get yourself disemvowelled. Make fun of them? No problem. Say something good about Obama? No problem.

  I’m fine with the political posts. But, I agree 100% with your observation on how comments are moderated. A few of my Republican comments were allowed to stay un-DV’d, but I have to be Very careful about how I post. I understand that BB readers are mostly non Republican and moderators don’t want a topic to get derailed, but many of my DV’d comments were replies to questions/comments posted directly to me. And, yes – I’m very familiar with the Moderation Policy. I’m pretty sure many of my DV’d comments were in line with the policy.

  I still call shenanigans on my being suspended for a week without any warning.

• [jere7my]

  #1, if steampunk has taught me one thing, it’s that complaining about the content of BoingBoing is a sure way to see more of it.

  In that spirit, I offer the following anagrams of “Sarah Louise Heath Palin”:

  HATH HILARIOUS SEAPLANE.
  A SHRILL “HOPE” EUTHANASIA.
  AHA! HUSH TO AIRPLANE LIES.
  OH, NAUSEA: A HIT RAPE SHILL.
  UH, A “HOT HILL” PAEAN ARISES?
  A LAUREATESHIP? HAH! LOINS.
  AHA! SHALE RAPINE, THUS OIL.
  HATH AUREOLA; I LASH PENIS.
  A LUSH HEEL? SHIT, PARANOIA.
  SHUSH! A PALATIAL HEROINE.
  PUNISH ROE, HAIL HATE. ALAS.
  OIL? HAH! EASIER PLAN: A TUSH.
  A HEALTH PLAN? I SERIOUS. HA!
  ALOHA, HARPIES. UNLEASH IT!

  (Ah, I, as an ape, I rush to hell.)

• [Deidzoeb]

  At some point, they should stop having Tina Fey play Palin on SNL and switch to Fred Armitage. Her verbale trippage is just like Fred’s double-talking, substance-less political comedian who guests on the Weekend Update segments.

  To #1, welcome to BoingBoing. If you haven’t noticed some level of political content, you have not been reading it closely.

• [boing_x]

  It must be hard to be a serious Conservative right now. I feel for them. Fortunately there aren’t that many of them.

  Someone pointed out that McCain spits out random crap that he doesn’t even believe. The problem with Palin is that she probably does believe it, even if it doesn’t make sense.

• [Joe]

  I saw Paul Krugman (who is a university prof, not just a columnist for the NY Times) explain it this way: Palin strikes him like a freshman college student who has been given a question on a test, but hasn’t read the assignment, so she writes down everything she knows in the hope of getting at least partial credit.

• [minTphresh]

  skarbreeze, dude, i feel your pain, so to speak. what you said, if true, took real guts. thank you for saying it here.

• [macguffin]

  Those are excellent, Jere7my. What programme or website did you use to get them? (Assuming you didn’t pluck them from your own mind.)

• [Axx]

  OIL? HAH! EASIER PLAN: A TUSH.

  XD This is too perfect.

• [jere7my]

  Thanks, McGuffin@18! I used the Internet Anagram Server. It gave me some promising words to pull out, then helped me iterate and refine from there.

• [Susan Oliver]

  Both pronunciations of verbiage are acceptable, according to some dictionaries I’ve seen. I’ve given up on being too pedantic about pronunciation, or even proper word use (“comprise”, anybody?), since all languages are ever-changing.

  It’s good to remember that Jimmy Carter actually did have training in nuclear physics, and still pronounced it “newk-u-lar”.

• [Maneki Nico]

  This might actually pass a Turing test if Palin was the human interlocutor:

  The Turing test is a proposal for a test of a machine’s ability to demonstrate intelligence. Described by Alan Turing … it proceeds as follows: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which try to appear human; if the judge cannot reliably tell which is which, then the machine is said to pass the test. In order to test the machine’s intelligence rather than its ability to render words into audio, the conversation is limited to a text-only channel such as a computer keyboard and screen.

  “Each of which try to appear human …” Hee, hee.

• [holtt]

  I am betting they are Markov text chains. Basically you statistically analyze a bunch of text for word pair frequency, counting punctuation as words. Then you pick a starting word, get the list of words that were seen after it (and their probability of occurring), then roll the dice (as it were) to see which one comes up.

  Here is a bunch of YA “Little Brother” text run through one…

  Ive just put up and creativity unhindered by the DHS in town for Tachyon Books, at the book — Im in which AG Alberto Gonzales, GW Bush, and More on the DHS after a stellar review of rights (“A rousing tale of my young adult novel about EFF’s new lawsuit over NSA wiretapping, in a fantastic review of Rights to accept on Tuesday. Hope to see you!

  My next novel, Little Brother made the fifth printing last week, and Dick Cheney are all of you all helped make this weekend’s New York Times bestseller list? Well, Ive just put up and librarians, and is going back for Little Brother, Ill be at the first-ever Creative Commons-licensed novel that goes into some detail on a fantastic review section.

  Incidentally, the book — Im in San Francisco. I told you who talked about hacker kids in town for this year — the constraints of my young adult novel Little Brother for the best one Ive had to reinstate the Bill of UGLIES and librarians, and downloaded it being set up my publisher that goes into some detail on the fifth hardcover printing next week because so I asked Cindy Cohn, EFF’s new lawsuit over NSA wiretapping, in San Francisco), presented at Borderlands Bookstore in India, researching my publisher that pits hacker kids who fight the Bill of Rights to position eight!

  PS
  I also would like to see less political postings, primarily because of how the bias (which I personally agree with) is used as a moderation stick. Say something good about McCain or Palin? Get yourself disemvowelled. Make fun of them? No problem. Say something good about Obama? No problem.

  Thr r sm qrky prllls btwn th pprssv scty f Lttl Brthr nd th mdrtn f cmmnts n BB.

  • [Antinous]

    holtt,

    Here’s my reply.

• [randalll]

  If someone hasn’t mashed up footage of Palin with that of the “such as” Miss America lady someone should get on that.

  Not me, I’m lazy.

• [cyenobite]

  I think I found a typo in that quote above:
  “back on the verbiage that Senator”
  although “verbiage” is the correct word and spelling, Palin used the word “verbage”. A deliberate misspelling and mispronunciation of verbiage that assimilates it to the word “garbage” ;)

• [daisytrench]

  Perhaps you should start a political blog so you can scratch that political itch that you feel so strongly. I’d like to see Boing Boing stay true to its tagline: “A Directory of Wonderful Things.”

• [snatchamoto]

  As a left-leaning canadian, I think this is pretty wonderful…..

• [Mojave]

  Hey Daisy…there are LOTS of other political blogs out there on the webs for you to peruse if this one bothers you. Most of us boingers vote with our Left hands and we find Palin at once both hilarious and wonderfully horrifying.
  Have a nice day!!

• [Talia]

  Sorry, I think this is pretty wonderful too, #1.

  Everyone’s definition of what is wonderful varies. I don’t think BoingBoing’s tagline is “Directory of things that are wonderful to DaisyTrench” .. hehe.

  No offense meant. Just sayin’!

  There are plenty of articles I dont care for either, I just don’t read em.

  Anyway, I’ve noticed every Palin-related post invariably devolves into a comments flame war. Countdown till that happens…

• [jahknow]

  See also the essentially similar
  http://palinquotes.sillycloud.com/

  McBain is good at this game too; check out “McCain’s Economic Plan: Blurt Out Random Crap”
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/mccains-economic-plan-blu_b_128990.html

• [insomma]

  I think everyone should start commenting alla “Palin” to see who can do the best impression!

• [Jack Daniel]

  Can it talk dirty?

  On another note, I don’t mind the political/economic talk. It’s in the air. It would be naive and a disservice to ignore what’s going on in the world right now. The unicorns, bless their sparkly hearts, can take a backseat for a couple weeks.

  There’s nothing wrong with taking a side. You’ve got the right. It’s your blog. Your name is on the post.

• [mdh]

  I still have my George H.W. Bush (the elder thing) “SimBush” speech simulator from the early 90′s on an old mac somewhere.

• [skarbreeze]

  Eh, I’m a Republican… or I was, not sure what I am now. I should try to figure that out soon here.

  That being said, I can’t even bear to listen to the word salad spewed by Palin any time she opens her mouth without a teleprompter. McCain’s even worse, simply because he doesn’t believe a thing he says – obvious because he inevitably said the opposite thing within the last 48 hours if it’s a hot subject (or the last few years, if it’s an old cold dead subject).

  It is very tiring to watch the Republican party self-destruct. I hear and see so many friends/family/coworkers hating Obama and pundits, as if it’s their fault that McCain and Palin can’t keep their stories straight or have a rational conversation with any media or even supporters.

  I could go on and on about the lack of character & moral backbone and history of abusing the public trust trailing along behind this ticket, but I think it’s all been said enough times that I would just be boring everyone here.

• [sej]

  Making fun of Palin is my new favorite past-time, thank you for providing me with such good material. When the world is so stressful and tumultuous, it’s good to have something to laugh about. Keep up the good work!