Oh, wow. US Secret Service wants a Twitter sarcasm-spotter The US Secret Service wants to identify sarcastic tweeters from the serious in a bid that will surely cause its software to sink and buckle. A tender issued by the security agency sought a way to determine sentiment, identify influencers and section off those exercising the lowest form of wit across the twitter sphere. In …
I can testify to the American lack of humour, at least within the passport control/immigration desk.
I flew into Seattle Airport, it had been a long flight, jet-lag, needing a smoke etc, I gave a 'sarcastic' answer to a standard question. Five hours later I was allowed into the good old US of A.
Britsh Humour does not always travell well......
You really should know better than to try to make jokes at passport, immigration, customs or miscellaneous security staff at any airport in the world.
Part of the problem is, they each deal with maybe a thousand passengers a day. If you're the first person that day to come up with that joke, you're doing well. Chances are they heard it three times yesterday, a couple on Monday, ten times last week, and all in all it's getting a bit thin now.
But the bigger problem is, they're explicitly trained and paid to not detect sarcasm or humour. If the passenger says "I'm carrying a bomb", they have a rulebook they have to follow, no matter how much he's gurning.
If you're lucky, you can get a friendly smile out of airport staff. Generally, by treating them like regular people who are just doing their jobs. But don't try for anything more than that.
Some "high up" in UK Customs told me they try to be friendly and polite at UK border points, because it helps them catch bad people.
If your "entry guards" are known to be angry, arrogant, power hungry idiots, even the innocent are nervous, sweaty and showing signs of fear. If you are friendly and polite, the person in front of you who's a bit sweaty is the one you want to talk to.
They had several knowledge exchanges with US Customs, and pointed out this simple fact, but they don't get it do they.
I had the misfortune of three hours in the airport in New York, my crime was only having a small rucksac for luggage, so they assumed I was going to not go home again, or had something nasty in my small rucksac. They scanned that rucksac so many times it still glows in the dark. They didn't understand a two day trip to New Yorks doesn't need a huge suitcase.
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With all of the data hoarding the NSA has been doing, don't they have something they can let the Secret Service use? "Look, we've got some great regular expressions posted on the wall here." "Does that work in Internut Exploder 8?"
Maybe the Secret Service should just outsource the problem to Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Oh, but you'd need people who speak English and can recognize sarcasm...
Welcome to AOL! Please help us by answering the following questions:
1. Do you want child filters turned off to get all that lovely pr0n? [YES] [NO]
2. Are you going to be sarcastic on messaging services? [YES] [NO]
3. Got any fruit on you? [YES] [NO]
3a. btw, almost forgot, are you a terrorist? [YES] [NO]
Remember, Leonard DOES hold up a sign that says "Sarcasm", when he sees it. It helps Sheldon understand.
Yes, the dividing line between the two is a fine one, and many times it is a bit difficult to tell the difference.
As for Custom agents: "Look, I'd make a joke about it, but then you would need to do lots of paperwork, and I'd get detained for hours/days, so I'll skip it" A "reasonable" agent would understand.
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