I recently heard about a new service, called Cha Cha.
It’s pretty cool. Basically, you just call them up, ask a question, and a few minutes later, you get a text message with the answer. An answer, anyway. The way it works is, they pay people 20 cents per answer. Which is great, because humans understand natural language, whereas computers don’t.
(The example they used on NPR was, “What time is Lost on?” Since “lost” is a common word, a computer may not realize that you’re asking what time a television program airs. The answer that came back was, “Lost is on Thursdays on NBC at 10 PM.” Of course, Lost is on ABC. Thanks, wisdom of crowds.)
I tested it by asking for a cheat code in Half-Life 2 (those antlion guards are hard). After I got that, I tried a harder one: “Who writes the Anonymous Production Assistant Blog?”
Their response: “The reason it is anonymous is because they don’t want anyone to know who he/she is! Any questions?”
Hee.
On a side note, I googled myself and my anonymous counterpart, and sadly, “Anonymous Production Assistant” got way more hits.
