random quotes

So I've been building a toy that tries to parse questions properly. I'm being paid for it, so I've been doing this less haphazardly than usual, with test data, unit tests and the whole nine yards. Test data in this case is a huge pile of randomly culled questions from various sources on the web. Since extracting questions is automatic, the parser sees some hilarious input. Like, for instance ...

How can my Dad be a lesy?
Where can I write to get tickets to the Late Show?
Why is there no Nobel in mathematics?
Who first seduc'd them to that fowl revolt?
What is it that has hitherto preserved Europe from this lot?
What Does a Nobel Prize for Radio Astronomy Have to Do with Your Telephone?
What if I shot your computer with my hertz (sp)?
What an awful place, why do we bother to go on?

You get the idea. Sort of like Markov Blogger, but worse.

And in slightly less confusing news, David Duchovny hasn't ruled out a sequel X-Files movie. He obviously comes from a long line of people who required specialist support to tell them that the horse they were beating was, in fact, deceased.

And in New Zealand, an artist went all woolly headed and used a picture of an ewe with horns in a postage stamp. And now New Zealanders with a fetish for anatomical details of sheep are bleating about it.

"The stamp is an absolute impossibility," she said, noting that the animal in question had a ram's horns - but lacked any trace of other vital telltale anatomy found on a male sheep.

Because ... because when I buy a postage stamp, I immediately check the sheep in the picture for telltale anatomy found on male sheep. I do. Ewww... (or did I mean, Ewe ?). However, the NZ Post is unlikely to horn in on the continued sales of the stamps.