Can you read this?

I am sick as a dog today,  so working from home in my pajamas. My brain isn't working well for deep thoughts, but I feel compelled to write. Maybe it is the drugs my doctor gave me for this.

I got an amusing emal from a friend that contained the text below. Even in my diminished mental state I could actually read this. Can your computer read it?

Olny srmat poelpe can raed.

Cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrgide Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a word are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Ok, you probably did well with that paragraph, but can you read the paragraph below? I can not, but Japanese readers can probably read it with no problem. I used AltaVista Babelfish to translate it into Japanese.

パラグラフを次に読んでもいいか。私はできない、日本の読者はおそらく問題無しのそれを読むことができる。日本語にそれを翻訳するのに私はAltaVista Babelfish を使用した。

My point is that brilliant software engineers have written amazingly powerful spell checking and translation software that can "think" as well as humans in some cases, and totally exceed them in others.

Just for kicks I ran the first jumbled, mis-spelled paragraph  through Microsoft's spell checker. It recognized about 95% of the words and offered the correct spelling. Where it didn't know the correct spelling it at least alerted me to the fact that something was mis-spelled. Pretty amazing. Spell checker saves lots of time.

I don't speak or read Japanese but AltaVista BabelFish translated that paragraph for me. I have no clue how accurate it is, but my guess is that it is pretty close.

I have spent over 20 years in the software business and it still amazes me. Software rules!! Ok, I am going back to sleep...and probably dream about software. When I wake up I hope to be feeling better and back to my old self again. If not, I will take some more of those drugs...but try to refrain from writing anything :-)

Comments

[Vincent]

You might be interested in checking out this entry related to your jumbled-paragraph:

http://blogs.msdn.com/fontblog/archive/2005/11/16/493452.aspx