You see, we're thinking about getting one of these.
The New York Times revealed today that trade publisher Hanley Wood and sports journalism site The Big Ten Network use Narrative Science software to write computer-generated stories.
In all, 20 customers use the software–but Narrative Science would not reveal the complete client list. Hanley Wood digital media and market intelligence unit president Andrew Reid explained in the story: “The company had long collected the data, but hiring people to write trend articles would have been too costly.”
Costly and time consuming, of course. Especially for someone like the author of this blog who has other things to worry about besides coming up with new ways to say "black pants suck" or "Sean Payton kills grandmas", or "Jeremy Shockey looks like a TV chef who looks kind of like a cartoon character" every week. You can see how repetitive that can get. I mean it's just sportswriting. Get the numbers, plug in a few well-worn cliches, and crank out the copy. Not only does the shit practically write itself, now it literally writes itself. Check it out.
Here’s an excerpt from an actual Big Ten News article generated by the program: “Wisconsin jumped out to an early lead and never looked back in a 51-17 win over UNLV on Thursday at Camp Randall Stadium. The Badgers scored 20 points in the first quarter on a Russell Wilson touchdown pass, a Montee Ball touchdown run and a James White touchdown run. Wisconsin’s offense dominated the Rebels’ defense. The Badgers racked up 499 total yards in the game including 258 yards passing and 251 yards on the ground.”
Pretty convincing narrative. It's almost like that computer was there in.. um.. person to witness these statistics. If only someone could figure out a way to program these robots to tweet during the game, there'd be no need for any reporters at all. Luckily, we all know the very concept of a so-called "Twitter Bot" is plainly absurd. For one thing, how would it hold its phone? So, for the time being, we may still be sending real live reporters to cover the Saints but it's clear that there are workarounds in development.
We already know it would please Sean Payton greatly if all he had to do was type up one vague and uninformative injury report each week rather than waste time actually lying to people's faces over and over again. Plus, we understand that there is some pretty spectacular facial recognition software available that could help eliminate mishaps like this one.
The New Orleans Saints moved quickly last week to squelch a reported rumor that retired receiver Randy Moss had dropped by the club's headquarters. The Saints were presumed to be in the market for a new receiver after Marques Colston suffered a broken collarbone in the opening game against the Packers.
But Moss never was in New Orleans, so far as the Saints were concerned, and Coach Sean Payton, never one to let a media miscue slide, had some fun with it at practice Wednesday. As the reporters mingled on one sideline cross checking players at practice with the roster, Payton walked over with receiver Montez Billings, who is on the club's practice squad.
"Do any of ya'll have any questions for Randy Moss?" Payton asked.
Billings bears a passing resemblance to Moss, though he is somewhat shorter, and there was speculation inside and outside the Saints facility the erroneous report may have resulted from a case of mistaken identity.
Also we've got to believe the Times-Picayune is interested. Last month, the T-P's parent company Advance Publications announced* another round of staff buyouts to be implemented this fall. If the buyouts happen to hit the sports department hard, bringing in the machines might make the effect less obvious to the readership. Pete Finney, whose seniority would logically make him a prime candidate for the buyout, may have already been replaced with a replicant. Surely no human could sit through and then write about an entire Tulane football game. The Tulane fans, certainly don't. And now, mercifully perhaps, the reporters don't have to either.
As for us, we can't wait to have the machine take this hammer from our hand. We'll be damned if Sean Payton be the death of us, no matter how many times he stupidly passes on a crucial three points.
Saints vs Packers: (Note for those of you just joining the regular season football coverage at the Yellow Blog: Unless necessity dictates otherwise, all the game photos we use here are shamelessly stolen and in fact hot-linked directly from the Times Picayune - NOLA.com online galleries which is something we used to think made us kind of bad ass but really always just meant we were lazy douchebags.)
Well the NFL is happy with the way this went, at least. To begin with, The President didn't talk over kickoff. If the league is upset that Obama's speech managed score higher than the game did in the ratings anyway, they can probably blame David Vitter's cancelled viewing party for that. The important thing here is that the President likely saved a significant portion of the audience from having to endure Kid Rock's performance even though they've probably seen enough pickup truck commercials to know what it sounded like anyway. Also Steve Scalise lost a bet which we have to think of as a positive even if he does have to pay up to Paul Ryan. Wonder if he knows Ryan will accept $350 bottles of wine in lieu of seafood if shipping becomes an issue.
Meanwhile the game was every bit the spectacle the league hopes for when it schedules a marquee opening match-up. The two teams combined for 76 points and 876 total yards. There were five scoring plays that covered 25 yards or more including a 72 yard punt return and a ridiculous 108 yard kickoff return. Thomas Morstead punted well. The game was competitive all the way to the finish. Overall, this was one heck of a TV show. And since the Packers are the very definition of a "well, if you gotta lose to somebody it might was well be..." team, there isn't a whole lot to complain about here. Well.. maybe a few things.
- Cohesion wheezin' So much for gathering the team together during the lockout to do jumping jacks and eat lemon squares or whatever in the name of developing "team cohesion." After weeks of talk about the head start the Saints were getting on their opponents, they ended up with a 0-14 first quarter deficit to show for it. The Packers, who barely did anything during the offseason other than read articles about how much trouble they'd have shaking off the "Super Bowl Hangover", were unimpressed and said so after the game.
GREEN BAY, WISC. - Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers couldn't wait to say "I told you so" Thursday night to those who criticized him and his teammates for not organizing any offseason workouts during the NFL lockout. Obviously the Packers didn't show much rust in a 42-24 victory over the New Orleans Saints.
"It was a good start for us," Rodgers said in his opening comments to the media. "I've just got to ask myself, 'What would have happened if we had offseason workouts? Could we have started any faster and scored more points tonight?'"
Packers cornerback Charles Woodson echoed that sentiment, saying that he and Rodgers talked early during the lockout and agreed that their team didn't need them.
"It's not a knock on anybody for doing it. We're certainly not saying that," Woodson said. "But we felt like we didn't need to do it. And we felt like a lot of guys did it just for show. We weren't into all that. ... If we'd done it, it'd be like [critics] pushed us into it."
"If only I had held one more raffle..." - Leave Roman Harper Alone: About midway through the second quarter of last week's game, thousands of Saints fans took to thousands of keyboards and cranked out thousands of identical NOLA.com comments expressing some concern about Harper's one on one coverage skills in certain defensive situations... only in much stronger language and in all caps.
Two things about that. First, it's a shame that these thousands of Saints fans were unaware of the labor saving miracle that is Narrative Science software at the time. Otherwise, they could have saved themselves a great deal of work and worry.
Secondly, it's obvious that, stretching back at least to last year's playoff game in Seattle, opposing coaches have figured out how to exploit Gregg Williams' defense in order to find Harper in disadvantageous match ups. This burned the Saints badly when Randall Cobb beat Harper for a 32 yard touchdown at the end of the first quarter. It also manifested itself in Jermichael Finley being open all night long although not covering the tight end is part of a larger Gregg Williams problem. But make no mistake this is much more of a Gregg Williams problem than it is a Roman Harper problem. Harper may not be the NFL's greatest cover guy but most of the time that isn't his role. When he's positioned properly, he is one of the league's better strong safeties and probably the Saints' most consistent tackler. If he ends up getting taken advantage of in single coverage for the third consecutive game this weekend, Williams should have more questions to answer than Harper does. - Patrick Robinson, on the other hand: Already we're learning that this team might not be quite as loaded as we were led to believe at certain positions and one of them is corner. The Saints were so confident in last year's number one draft pick going into the season that they felt good moving local folk hero Tracy Porter to the nickel slot in order to accommodate a bigger role for Robinson on the perimeter.
Now there are a couple of reasons why this might not be all his fault. The whole Saints team had problems with the turf last week but Robinson seemed especially prone to slipping and falling. Or at least, he had a knack for falling down most often when the ball was being thrown at him. Also the Saints, for whatever reason, had Robinson playing way way off the ball most of the night conceding chunks of yardage in underneath routes. Apart from being a curious strategy for a defense that supposedly has a lot of confidence in its defensive backs, it also just didn't work very well since Robinson was beaten badly over the top a few times anyway.
Like this here - This week's Jordan Jefferson Try Not To Kick Anybody In The Face Award: Goes to Green Bay's Charles Woodson for this gut punch delivered to Saints tight end David Thomas.
Woodson oddly wasn't ejected despite strict NFL rules regarding this sort of thing. It's not like the referee wasn't looking right at it. Woodson was penalized on the play. Yesterday he was fined $10,000 by the league office although Pro Football Talk's Michael David Smith wonders if that fine isn't a bit light compared to what has been levied out for similar offenses. - It's been fun index:
Darren Sproles vs Green Bay: 2 rushes for 7 yards, 7 receptions for 75 yards, 2 punt returns for 92 yards and 1 touchdown, 2 Kickoff returns for 76 yards. Total = 250 all purpose yards, 1 touchdown.
Reggie Bush vs New England: 11 rushes for 38 yards, 9 receptions for 56 yards and 1 touchdown. Total = 94 all purpose yards, 1 touchdown, and, of course, copious amounts of "playmaking"
Fans have long argued that Sproles is much more the weapon that Reggie Bush is sold to be than Bush actually is. This game demonstrated, in cartoonish proportions, why people make that argument. When the NFL decided to move the kickoff forward 5 yards this season, nobody thought we'd see anybody squib kick out of fear of a big return. Sproles spooked the Packers into that during the very first game. In other words, Darren Sproles changed the opponent's defensive strategy by his very presence. Isn't that what the pro-Bush faction has always unconvincingly claimed was happening when he was on the field? No, we don't miss him. - Diners, Drive-ins, and Diving to the ground index: Carolina Panthers tight end Jeremy Shockey caught 3 passes for 51 yards last week. But we have decided this year to compare Poochie's touchdowns total only with the number scored by Saints' third string tackle and situational "eligible receiver" Charles Brown to test our hypothesis that by season's end the two numbers will be remarkably similar. So far it's 0-0.
- Wither Ambush? Ever since Saints' "Dream Punter of Tomorrow" Thomas Morstead made Super Bowl history by executing history's most famous onside kick, Sean Payton has strangely tucked that weapon away in his back pocket. In several onside kick situations since the storied "Ambush" Payton has sent out Garrett Hartley do the kicking. Our memories are admittedly fuzzy but we don't think the Saints have actually recovered an onside kick since Morstead's "Ambush." After the Saints pulled to within 8 points of the Packers late in the fourth quarter of last week's game, Payton sent out fresh-off-the-street John Kasay to attempt the kick. What are we saving Morstead's magic foot for?
- Fun facts Tweeted by sports reporters we're pretty sure aren't robots: It's too far back in his stream right now for me to go find the specific tweets but the T-P's Jeff Duncan noted that 42 points is the highest point total ever allowed by a Sean Payton coached Saints team. Also 42 points are the most scored by any Packers team on opening day stretching all the way back to 1919.
- How the game was lost: By this point in the week, we're not covering any new territory to say simply that the Saints were beaten physically by the Packers at the line of scrimmage. Even in a game with as many big plays and as much scoring as this one had, the difference between the teams was one offense was able to block and push its opponent out of the way all night while the other wasn't.
The Packers outrushed the Saints 103 yards to 81. Go back and watch James Starks' 17 yard touchdown in the third quarter for the clearest illustration of how dominant the Packers' offensive line looked all night long.
Meanwhile the Saints failed in three crucial short yardage situations during the second half that ended up being the major difference in the game. These were a 3rd and 2 which stalled a great opening drive to the second half, a 4th and 1 at the Green Bay 7 which never should have happened when an easy three points were available, and, obviously, the final play of the game on the goal line. Notably, of these three short yardage plays, only one of them involved the Saints even trying to make the gain by running. What are they paying those two highly regarded guards for again?
Depsite all this, we were impressed watching both Frenchy and Ingram run. Let's hope Payton remembers to let them do it at the appropriate times this week.
In last week's season preview we tried to warn people about the folly of getting too excited about the cool weather in early September. But since the stupid nasty hot is back now, we're thinking this would be a good time to head over to Hansen's.
Photo by Flickr user Infrogmation
Why? Because that's where you get sno-balls in New Orleans and we'll be wanting those on Sunday since turnabout is fair play, after all.
It all started back in 1991 when the Saints were playing the Bears in a wild card playoff game. Saints fans were pelted by snowballs and were treated rudely. The Bears won 16-6 and Chicago fans rubbed it in with profanity.1990 was kind of a lost season for the Saints who probably missed their best opportunity to win a championship with that group because Bobby Hebert's season-long holdout forced them to play John Fourcade and later Steve Walsh at quarterback. Somehow they managed to back into the playoffs anyway. This game should have been a much more merciful death to that nightmare. But the Bears fans were having none of that.
In the Saints NFC Championship game in 2008, thousands of Saints fans traveled to Chicago and they vowed to never return. Bears fans denigrated New Orleans and one Bears fan carried a sign that read “Bears Finishing What Katrina Started."
Just as I'm finishing this post, I happen to glance over at Moosedenied to see that Wang has a photo of that sign up at the top of a post titled "Never Forget." I'll go read what he has to say after I'm done here. No doubt it will be a half frightened and half condescending appeal to all of us to be on our best behavior Sunday no doubt based on some asinine assumption that Saints fans can't really be trusted to act like decent... oh... wait wait sorry that's what Chris Rose's column says right now. Wang's will be much better than that, I'm sure. Or at least more intentionally funny anyway. Meanwhile, check out Varg's alternative signage ideas.
Chicago was always one of Kathleen Hannigan's favorite cities. She and her husband, Lawrence, made the trip to Chicago for the NFC Championship game, which changed her outlook on the city forever.
Hannigan, like many Saints fans who endured the bitterly cold weather at Soldier Field that Sunday afternoon, she and her party of four were threatened and intimidated almost the moment they walked into the stadium. One fan intentionally elbowed her husband and others tauted their friends with Kartina-related insults.
Other fans said Bears fans hurled snowballs and went out of their way to instigate confrontations.
I've never seen anything like that," Hannigan told Nola.com. "They were hurling expletives at us, and everything was Katrina-related. It was a very personal attack. We never leave a Saints game early, but we did this time because I was afraid."
The only thing we're even remotely afraid of in the Superdome, of course, is having our flask confiscated. Oh and maybe shitty cell reception which can interfere with our enjoyment of everyone's Tweeter Tube commentary. If that goes out, we'll need some way to replace or approximate the Twittering of Saints fans through artificial means. Does Narrative Science have a phone app yet? It seems only natural they would want to appeal to Android users, right?
*Correction: Obviously I don't proofread any of this stuff until long after it's published. Anyway Advance hasn't actually announced the buyouts yet. Last month Gambit reported that they are expected to do so soon, however.
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