Saw this concept taken to another step (editing of vanity plates)...I don't recall the state (was it Texas or Florida) that set out to make sure the text of the plate was not obscene when read backwards (as would occur from your review mirror from the car behind you). Regards, Ray Shahan -----Original Message----- From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Timothy Atwood Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 8:19 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Editing out "vulgar" words Reminds me of one of the first computer jobs I ever had. For the California Department of Motor Vehicles. California had just recently started issuing "vanity plates" (personalized license plates). They wanted a computer program that would prevent any "obscene, vulgar, offensive, abusive, hateful, harassing, profane, sexually oriented, and threatening" words being issued as license plates. Problem was, they did not want just regularly spelled words. They also wanted to find any misspelled words or letter/number combinations which could be pronounced or interpreted as word or phrase that might be a problem. To add insult, we were asked to make sure the program could predict future uses of words to eliminate anything which might become obscene after the plate was issued. Have fun! * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html * ======================================================================== This e-mail message has been scanned for Viruses and Content and cleared by School Specialty's email filtering solution. * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *