[New York Observer, via Weigel]

Well, this explains the strange reply we encountered yesterday…

A software developer has created a Twitter bot that automatically discovers and responds to tweets that are skeptical of global warming.

Nigel Leck’s chatbot @AI_AGW, who goes by the name “Turing Test,” scans Twitter every five minutes in search of hundreds of terms and phrases that tend to be used by those who think global warming is not occurring or that humans are not responsible for it.

This isn’t the first “twitterbot” we’ve seen — tweets about “teabaggers” provoked automated angry responses awhile back. But at least the Teabagger Geek got one thing right: We were making fun of him.

Twitter bot argues with climate change deniers [Raw Story]

“While testing out the Kinect, two dark-skinned GameSpot employees experienced problems with the system’s facial recognition abilities. The system recognized one employee inconsistently, while it was never able to properly identify the other despite repeated calibration attempts. However, Kinect had no problems identifying a third dark-skinned GameSpot employee, recognizing his face after a single calibration. Lighter-skinned employees were also consistently picked up on the first try.” [GameSpot, via Weigel]

The Center for Public Integrity has a new report out about the incestuous ties between the incoming GOP committee chairs and Corporate America. The cynic in me is certain it would not be very hard to do a similar analysis of the current Democratic chairs.

But I was more mesmerized by the sea of Wonder Bread on the cover of the report. Check out the diversity! Some of the men even have brown eyes!

“Just now, in a rousing victory speech, Kentucky’s newest senator, Rand Paul, announced, ‘Thomas Jefferson wrote, “That government is best that governs least.”’ Except, no. He didn’t. Henry David Thoreau did.” [Time]

• “Beware of all enterprises that require a new set of clothes.”
• “Every people have gods to suit their circumstances.”
• “Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.”

Read more »

NBC counts 130 “Tea Party-backed candidates” running for House seats. Only 40 won, with eight races still undecided Wednesday afternoon.

HuffPo counts 48 conservative Blue Dog Democrats running for re-election. Only 23 won, with three races undecided Wednesday afternoon.

Daily Kos counts 72 members of the House Progressive Caucus. Only three lost.

Read more »

[AP/Yahoo]