Who Wrote That?

Jul 14, 2010 22:25

I have fooling fooling around with I Write Like, a site that analyzes samples of text and then tells you which famous author's style yours most resembles.

I started with the longest non-fiction piece I think I've ever done here on lj, about my first three bicycles. When I entered the first five or six paragraphs, it gave me J.D. Salinger. I suppose that makes some weird sort of sense, since I don't socialize with the outside world much anymore, but other than that it tells me nothing, since I've never read him. Just for the hell of it, I submitted the entire thing. Now I was William Gibson. Okay, I do occasionally socialize over cyberspace, but it's been more than ten years since I read Neuromancer, so that doesn't tell me much either.

Maybe fiction would work better. The first thing I submitted was the first half of a piece of Sang Sacre/Pratchett crossover fic I did a couple of years ago. It came up as James Fenimore Cooper. That can't possibly be good. Him I remember. I tried to read The Last of the Mohicans a few years back, and it was like wading through thickening concrete. I didn't get out of the introduction. All is not completely lost, though. I resubmitted the entire piece, and now I was David Foster Wallace, whoever he is.

Just to make things more confusing, I started submitting my Tureleg posts from Sang Sacre. After the first piece, I got Margaret Atwood. No help there, never read her. OTOH, after I appended the second and third pieces to the text and submitted each, I got J.R.R. Tolkein. Now him I've read. Of course I suspect the result may be more because of the dead elvish impersonator in the alley, along with the part elvish investigator and assorted orcs, trolls, and vampires of the Watch scouring the area for clues. Then, when I appended the fourth piece and submitted the whole thing, I became Dan Brown, who I haven't read, either.

It's all very confusing.

So for the hell of it, I submitted the entire first chapter of Terry Pratchett's Going Postal. Sir Terry, meet Mr. James Joyce, of all people. Similarly, Rex Stout became Stephen King. Finally, I tried one last submission, and at long last it correctly matched the first chapter of Cat's Cradle with Kurt Vonnegut. Remarkable!

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I had no idea Eureka had started it's new season until I accidentally watched the last five minutes of the repeat of the season opener last night. I was very confused, so I found a download and watched from the start. Good episode, except for the lameness of sneaking a hitherto unknown plot point into the previouslies. Not fair. I spent a good portion of the ep trying to figure out who the guy with the terrible American accent was. At first I thought it was Alexander Siddig, but then I looked it up on IMDb and discovered it was James Callis, who I'd previously mistaken for Siddig when he was on BSG. I'm not sure how I feel about the end of the ep, though. Time loops make my teeth itch, and the show has already gone that route once before.

writing, eureka

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