In a stunning press release today, computer scientists at WoodChips Central announced that the BullChip-A-Tron 9000 has cleared beta testing and is now in production. 

The BullChip-A-Tron 9000 is a highly advanced heuristic artificial intelligence computer that can translate inane drivel told to customers and citizens by businesses and politicians throughout the world. 

WoodChips computer scientists have been working feverishly on the hardware and software in the past few weeks.  The new system was inspired in part by many recent Facebook posts of Drayton Bird, British direct marketing genius and all round great wit.  In these posts he singled out recent marketing messages he had received and translated them for his Facebook audience. 

Two of these stand out as the inspirational catalyst for the BullChip-A-Tron 9000.  The first was a subject line concerning Low Cost Employee Recognition strategies, which he translated into “Hello serf, what is your name? You can call me Lord God Almighty, you worm?” 

And the second was a marketing writer signing off with the phrase, “I’m standing for all that’s possible for you in life and business.”  Drayton’s translation: “Every penny I can possibly gouge out of you before you realise you’ve been conned”. 

Of course, no machine will ever be able to replace Drayton’s genius, but we realized there was so much of this stuff out there that an automated approach was required.  Indeed, watching recent business and political commentary (like the budget deficit) drove our urgency levels to a desperate pitch.  We knew we had to do this to save the world. 

The BullChip-A-Tron 9000 capitalizes on and amplifies a well know digital computer characteristic known as GIGO (garbage in, garbage out).  Businesses and politicians provide the garbage in, and the BullChip-A-Tron 9000 translates it into the garbage out.  This is the genius of the WoodChips computer scientists’ approach, in that they took what was considered a bug (flaw) and turned it into a feature (actually an old IT trick).  It is the digital equivalent of taking lemons and making lemonade. 

For those technically inclined, the BullChip-A-Tron 9000 employs proprietary, patented, massive quad core WoodChipMicroChip (TM) circuits and software to do these translations.  Physical features include an input typewriter console to enter the garbage as well as display units to show the input (garbage in) and output (garbage out).  There is also a BullChip Meter that rates the translation from minus 10 (total BullChip) to plus 10 (totally true), thus creating the ability to numerically rate business and political BullChip for the first time in history. 

Testing was extensive, including the classic business drivel “We value your call, please stay on the line.”  This successfully translated into “We won’t spend one extra cent talking to you, just give us your money you low life customer worm.”  This pegged the BullChip meter hard left to a minus 10 reading and almost blew out all of the heavy duty 1.5 megavolt variable truth potentiometers so breaker circuitry was installed. 

The final test used the classic metaphysical statement a=a to assure against false positives.  This read plus 10 (totally true) on the BullChip Meter and assured our computer scientist that they were ready for production. 

There is an endless list of future garbage to be translated and astute WoodChips readers have been flooding our inbox with them.  For example, Honorary WoodChip Jason recently returned from a trip to Costa Rica.  In his field report he wrote “I flew Spirit.  Very cheap tickets.  But it turns out you have to pay even for carry-on bags (the ones that go overhead).  How do they phrase it?: ’To give our customers more options regarding baggage, we now offer carry-on baggage for a fee.’” 

We’re almost afraid to run that one through the BullChip-A-Tron 9000, and our computer scientist have wisely decided to double up again on the breaker circuits before translating it. 

You’ll be hearing of more breakthroughs with the BullChip-A-Tron 9000 as the American political season gets underway. 

So what do you think Spirit’s baggage phrase will translate to?  And do you have any inane business or political statements you would like translated? 

Have a great day (but wear your hip boots, it’s mucky out there) – J. Daniel

P.S. Sites you will want to check out.  1) More of Drayton’s wit and wisdom at http://drayton-bird-droppings.blogspot.com/.  2)  Jason’s excellent investment site that I use (he’s the Executive Editor) which reads +10 A-Okay True on the meter – you might want to join – at  http://libertystreetinvestor.com/