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A grab bag of fun links about auto-suggest/auto-complete/spell check/predictive text. Send me more!
1. “President Abraham Lincoln was buttbuttinated by an armed buttailant after a life devoted to the reform of the US consbreastution.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2667634/The-Clbuttic-Mistake-When-obscenity-filters-go-wrong.html
1. “President Abraham Lincoln was buttbuttinated by an armed buttailant after a life devoted to the reform of the US consbreastution.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2667634/The-Clbuttic-Mistake-When-obscenity-filters-go-wrong.html
3. “Bill Vaginal wasn’t the only complainant: As Thorpe recalls, Goldman Sachs was mad that Word was always turning it into Goddamn Sachs.”
The Fasinatng... Fascinating History of Autocorrect: https://www.wired.com/2014/07/history-of-autocorrect/
The Fasinatng... Fascinating History of Autocorrect: https://www.wired.com/2014/07/history-of-autocorrect/
4. A 2011 interview with @jonwiley on being a Google Autocompleter.
“On a good day, I average 34,000 words per minute. And I go through a new keyboard every eight days.”
“On a good day, I average 34,000 words per minute. And I go through a new keyboard every eight days.”
5. History of the predictive text swearing:
(A skit apparently much more grounded in reality than you might assume: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=chubi&defid=1907493)
6. Words censored on various forums because of uncouth words hiding within:
assassin
cockpit
canal
screwdriver
Saturday
hearse
basement
farther
skyscraper
grapefruit
manuscript
William Shatner
Bumblebee
Riddick
cluster
Lightwater Town
circumvent
suspicious
reputation
Japan
assassin
cockpit
canal
screwdriver
Saturday
hearse
basement
farther
skyscraper
grapefruit
manuscript
William Shatner
Bumblebee
Riddick
cluster
Lightwater Town
circumvent
suspicious
reputation
Japan
(Otherwise known as “S cunt orphe problem”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem)
Isn’t this all getting too cute and meta.
7. Google’s “did you mean” campaign in 2010.
(I feel there must be a million jokes funnier than the ones they chose?)
(I feel there must be a million jokes funnier than the ones they chose?)
8. Must be one of the earlier “Google’s algorithms reflect the sexist biases of its creators/society” articles, from 2009:
https://www.salon.com/2009/10/23/google_fail/
/cc @sara_ann_marie
https://www.salon.com/2009/10/23/google_fail/
/cc @sara_ann_marie
9. Even more funny since I was the designer on this very feature at Google.
10. A few years ago, Mashable made animations for weird, unexpected Google suggestions.
http://mashable.com/2014/07/13/google-autocomplete-funny-illustrations/
http://mashable.com/2014/07/13/google-autocomplete-funny-illustrations/
11. Google Feud! A Family Feud-like game (for one) where you guess Google suggestions: http://www.googlefeud.com/
(It’s really hard, at least for me.)
(It’s really hard, at least for me.)
12. “Google, democracy and the truth about internet search”
Just a year ago, a search for “are women” autocompleted to “are women evil?” and immediately showed a result saying “Every woman has some degree of prostitute in her.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/google-democracy-truth-internet-search-facebook
Just a year ago, a search for “are women” autocompleted to “are women evil?” and immediately showed a result saying “Every woman has some degree of prostitute in her.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/google-democracy-truth-internet-search-facebook
(This thread became such an emotional rollercoaster.)
13. Best dramatization of “Cupertino effect” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupertino_effect) I’ve seen: https://twitter.com/karanbirtinna/status/921053635554902017
14. And then there’s this: https://twitter.com/markedly/status/943188943977238528
15. “We used predictive keyboards trained on all seven books to ghostwrite this spellbinding new Harry Potter chapter.”
https://twitter.com/botnikstudios/status/940627812259696643
https://twitter.com/botnikstudios/status/940627812259696643
(Not too into Harry Potter? How about Arrested Development?) https://twitter.com/botnikstudios/status/943542693401120772
16. A nice interview with the creator of Botnik: https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/jamie-brew-predictive-text-clickhole-coding-comedy/
17. Today’s word: cacography, a “deliberate comic misspelling, a type of humour similar to malapropism.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacography
E.g. teh awesome, hueg like Xbox, and so on?
E.g. teh awesome, hueg like Xbox, and so on?
18. The very first, 1993 edition of AutoCorrect in Microsoft Word only did nine things:
(r) » ®
adn » and
don;t » don’t
i » I
incl » include
occurence » occurrence
recieve » receive
seperate » separate
teh » the
(r) » ®
adn » and
don;t » don’t
i » I
incl » include
occurence » occurrence
recieve » receive
seperate » separate
teh » the
(By next time in Word 95, the AutoCorrect list was much more vast, including support for the most haggard-looking smileys in human history.)
(And, did you know that modern Word has extra autocomplete FOR NERDS? I didn’t!)
(Funnily enough, I just watched my brain autocompleting “autocorrect” to “autocomplete.”)
19. Speaking of Word 95, this is when the (in)famous red underline appeared for the first time. In marketing Microsoft momentarily branded it as “Spell It,” but on day one the UI already simply said “Click the right mouse button on the red wavy underlined words.”
20. Heh, but also sigh. https://twitter.com/nathanaelb/status/891089433667096576
21. Google's in news for blacklistting “gun” in Shopping so sloppily it breaks searches for “guns n roses,” “shogun warriors,” “glue guns,” “burgundy wine,” and so on. http://www.businessinsider.com/google-shopping-bans-gun-searches-water-guns-guns-n-roses-2018-2
22. Just wanted to share this for posterity… the first, original Word 6.0 AutoCorrect dialog box with the glorious *nine* entries, in 100% high fidelity.
(I only saw it in a scan of a book before, so I installed Windows and Word in an emulator to get this.)
(I only saw it in a scan of a book before, so I installed Windows and Word in an emulator to get this.)
23. We might never learn this lesson / This might never cease to be hilarious: https://twitter.com/badmanbegins/status/956630644838359041
26. “Clearly this wasn’t implemented properly and we have disabled this feature for now.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-auto-reply-suggestions-live-videos
27. Deep inside my public library, I found this oldie, but goldie from 1994.
29. Sort of the inverse of some of the above, but this entire thread is too good to pass up. https://twitter.com/cabel/status/1072976837783904256?s=21
30. “Facebook started testing an auto comment feature and promptly disabled it after users called the tool’s suggested comments on news coverage of a shooting «dystopian.»” https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/facebook-tests-one-click-comments/
(I’m beginning to see this thread as obligatory reading for anyone who ever tries to do smart things with people’s typed text.)
32. https://twitter.com/nicolathorp_/status/1202366227684962304?s=21 https://twitter.com/nicolathorp_/status/1202366227684962304
33. Spotted while walking in San Francisco.
34. Spotted in San Francisco, too!
35. A fun video about the Scuntorphe problem from @tomscott:
36. Oh, this makes me happy for so many reasons. https://vole.wtf/scunthorpe-sans/
38. https://twitter.com/itskayprice/status/1269042876383670273?s=21 https://twitter.com/itsKayPrice/status/1269042876383670273
40. Somewhere at the top of this thread I said “fun,” and I am not living up to this promise. https://twitter.com/Guinz/status/1280698069932277760
