At last, a reliable joke machine!
Adam Freedman ·
Aug 4, 2010 at 11:00am
Take this to the beach -- a new report on 100 particularly egregious uses of "stimulus" money, issued by Senators Coburn and McCain. My favorite? Over $700,000 for Northwestern University researchers to develop "machine generated humor." The lead designer plans to use artificial intelligence to create a “comedic performance agent” that “will be funny no matter what it is talking about." (And here I thought there already was a joke machine -- Congress).
The report includes hilarious -- and depressing -- details on how your hard-earned money will go to fund such things as:
- The emotional response of monkeys to inequality,
- Improved methods to predict the weather on other planets,
- Brand new sidewalks, to be built by a convicted felon.
Ricocheterians: look at the report and post your favorite stimulus project!
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Comments :
Jun '10
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
Adam: I think I'll go with no. 1, spending more than $500 K to replace the windows of a visitor's center near Mount St. Helens that's been closed for years and that no one has any concrete plans to re-open or re-use anytime soon.
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
That is a doozy, Tabula. But read on, it gets worse!
Jun '10
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
There are two city employees working on the boulevard, and and an old man stops to chat.
Old Man: I notice that you are digging a row of holes in the ground, and your friend is coming along behind, filling them up again. Isn't that a waste of taxpayers money?
Worker #1: Oh no, The city is actually saving money today.
Old Man: How is that?
Worker #1: The guy that sticks trees in the hole is on unpaid leave.
Jun '10
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
These projects would be hilarious if they weren't real.
Jun '10
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
Army Corps of Engineers gives Oregon based firm $430,695 for "interactive museum exhibits" outside St. Louis.
I actually pass this exact project on my way to work every single day. I'd see the sign and think to myself, "they're probably wasting millions on some horse (poo-poo)." This is one of 4, FOUR, such projects I pass on my way to work. I know this because they are carefully marked by large, shiny signs: "putting America back to work..." Three miles down the road from the museum, there is another project where a crew of 6 workers stand outside a grain elevator. I cannot for the life of me figure out what in the hell they're doing. Maybe it will be on the second list Coburn and McCain release. Maybe they're monitoring the effects of paying workers to do nothing on taxpayer rage.
May '10
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
I vote for #10, the replacement and extension of a 5-year old sidewalk that:
"...that fronts no homes or businesses, and leads directly into a ditch.”
The visual of a pavement leading into a ditch seems a fitting metaphor for our federal policy these days. A well-paved walkway leading us over the edge.
Jun '10
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
So many to choose from, but I'll pick two:
# 18 Jamming for Dollars. Sure beats busking in the southern heat!
# 95 A Better Way to Freeze Rat DNA. Because after all, where would be today without our Rat DNA?
Jul '10
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
Apologies to Rob Long, but I was under the impression that "humor generating machines" were already writing half the sitcoms on TV.
*rimshot*
May '10
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
100. Alcohol Studies Summer School for High School and College Students (New York, NY) -
$112,437
The number of students involved... six!
May '10
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
Oh, this one is great! From Page 21:
A Georgia Tech assistant professor of music will receive $762,372 to study improvised music. The project will apparently involve the professor jamming with “world-renowned musicians” to “hopefully also create satisfying works of art."
Oh, hopefully. Well, that's all right then. The project leader claims this three-quarters of a million dollars will "[put] money into the local economy that is supporting local jobs." There is no note that says how this money going into his project will get out to the local economy. Maybe there's a booming Sitar-making industry in the works in Georgia.
Aug '10
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
Honestly, many of the geeky scientific projects sound useful (or at least interesting) to me (knowing how our cousin the chimp responds to drugs/inequity might tell us stuff about our own reactions that we couldn't legally find out through human experiments, studying weather on other planets might help us predict our own weather, advances in freezing rat DNA could come in handy for studying all DNA, etc). I only wonder why it's the government who has to fund these things, and why they count as "stimulus".
But here are some votes:
Least likely to go anywhere: Sidewalk Ending in Ditch (#10)
Most self-referential: Understanding Perceptions of the Economic Stimulus (#45)
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
Only $700,000 for machine-generated humor? That machine needs a better agent.
Aug '10
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
Wouldn't machine-generated humour kill jobs? How many comics and writers would be thrown to the unemployment lines?
It is supremely ironic that as a response to high unemployment the federal government is funding research to develop technology that will increase unemployment ... amongst a group that votes mostly Democratic to boot, comedy writers!
Aug '10
Re: At last, a reliable joke machine!
On the other hand, I'm sort of curious how a computer would tell the "The Aristocrats" joke.
"So this robot walks into a talent agent's office with it's family..."