Rooster_Ties Posted October 28, 2003 Report Posted October 28, 2003 Link: The Postmodernism Generator Try it and see!!! Be sure to hit the refresh button a few times after the page comes up. It's all computer generated!!! The essay you have just seen is completely meaningless and was randomly generated by the Postmodernism Generator. To generate another essay, follow this link. If you like this particular essay and would like to return to it, follow this link for a bookmarkable page. The Postmodernism Generator was written by Andrew C. Bulhak using the Dada Engine, a system for generating random text from recursive grammars, and modified very slightly by Josh Larios (this version, anyway. There are others out there). This installation of the Generator has delivered 940142 essays since 25/Feb/2000 18:43:09 PST, when it became operational. It is being served from a machine in Seattle, Washington, USA. More detailed technical information may be found in Monash University Department of Computer Science Technical Report 96/264: "On the Simulation of Postmodernism and Mental Debility Using Recursive Transition Networks". An on-line copy is available from Monash University. More generated texts are linked to from the Communications From Elsewhere front page. If you enjoy this, you might also enjoy reading about the Social Text Affair, where NYU Physics Professor Alan Sokal's brilliant(ly meaningless) hoax article was accepted by a cultural criticism publication. (There are live 'links' in the above quote, which are at the bottom of the page that I provided a link to above.) Quote
danasgoodstuff Posted October 28, 2003 Report Posted October 28, 2003 My dad (Robert Ian Scott, "the Canadian linguist" according to Vanity Fair) did something kinda similar years ago when computers took up whole rooms he and someone else at the U of Sask. had one programmed to generate parodies of The Wasteland. 'Bout as good as the original as I remember. Quote
A Lark Ascending Posted October 28, 2003 Report Posted October 28, 2003 Now I know how they wrote those 'sociology of education' books a quarter of a century ago when I was doing my teacher training. Talk about zero practicality... Quote
Rooster_Ties Posted October 28, 2003 Author Report Posted October 28, 2003 You know, if you go to the site - and read about four or five verisons of the page -- it all starts to make some sense, actually. Quote
SEK Posted October 29, 2003 Report Posted October 29, 2003 You know, if you go to the site - and read about four or five verisons of the page -- it all starts to make some sense, actually. I feel sorry for you... Quote
DrJ Posted October 30, 2003 Report Posted October 30, 2003 (edited) Well, I thought about going to this Postmodernism Generator site, but then just couldn't muster the energy...what's the point anyway, nothing really matters any more, and what if it did? It's easier to just drop in an enigmatic reference to it (you know, one that's so vague it's impossible to determine whether it's sarcastic or sincere) when I manage to land my first reality TV show role... Edited October 30, 2003 by DrJ Quote
SEK Posted October 30, 2003 Report Posted October 30, 2003 Well, I thought about going to this Postmodernism Generator site, but then just couldn't muster the energy...what's the point anyway, nothing really matters any more, and what if it did? It's easier to just drop in an enigmatic reference to it (you know, one that's so vague it's impossible to determine whether it's sarcastic or sincere) when I manage to land my first reality TV show role... Quote
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