Monthly Archives

November 2014

The generated book

It’s National Novel Writing Month, but for those of you less interested in human-generated works, the National Novel Generation Month might be of more interest. As The Verge shares, NaNoGenMo, a creation of Darius Kazemi, is about celebrating the best in creative narrative writing code, and there are some really compelling (if not entirely readable) works to be found in the GitHub repository. Below are a few of my favorites.

From Generated Detective #1:

a noir comic with Project Gutenberg text and magna-fied Flickr pics by Greg Borenstein

From Threnody for Abraxas:

Pro-tip from the author: The enjoyment of reading this work may possibly be enhanced if one imagines it narrated in the voice of, say, David Attenborough or James Earl Jones.

Elsewhere nearby, the amusingly European sculpture, whose perfect key is cynically surveying the transparent stick and an incredible junkie and the heart behind the classical image, is approaching the mouse-cheesecake and a homunculus under the taxicab. A partly rare escutcheon is leaping on top of an axiomatically salty disease. The tedious oyster is lauding the clementine, while a brain-flavoured après-ski is an extraneous easel.

The breeze is chasing the meaningless entrepreneur and the florid shin-bone, whose shoe is decaying smoothly on top of the spring and a rainy jug of baubles, while the fire extinguisher is curtly caressing a shaman. An iceberg is the robust servant. The shoe is surveying a gooey statue, which is forgiving an irascible ladle on top of a mannequin, inside the sword-swallower. A supersonically cynical quote is the comic book.

“a phantasmagoric Surrealist word/concept-painting” by Chris Pressey 

From Seraphs:

an automatically generated Voynich Manuscript style text by Liza Daly

From The Last Appetite:

Sun Dried Corn Grit Fettucine

Ingredients:
  • 310 milligrams of corn grit
  • 660 grams of clam
  • 20 grams of mango
  • 270 grams of mustard
  • 20 milligrams of mozzarella cheese
  • 240 grams of french toast
Method:

Stare at the corn grit and clam for 10 minutes. Broil the mango and mustard until a thick layer of mould forms. Marinate the mozzarella cheese and french toast until mushy. Contrive a fettucine. Chill overnight.

modernist cuisine recipes inspired by Nathan Myhrvold, created by Phil Lees

And so the tracking begins…

Grande Sicilia Rolls Out

I got word this morning that my Q3 has been loaded up. It will be making its Atlantic voyage via the Grande Sicilia and seems to have already left the German port of Emden. So, this whole obsessive tracking of the cargo ship thing is about to begin again.

I apologize in advance to those around me for how the next week or two is going to shape up.

A Dutch road lights the way

These gorgeous glowing lines are actually the roadway edge markers on a stretch of highway in the Netherlands. They are also a proof of concept for Dutch designer, Daan Roosegaarde – and something I desperately want to see appear here in the US. Cutting down on street lighting by employee solar-charged glow-in-the-dark paint is just the beginning of reshaping the urban streetscape. Check out the Wired article to see his bioluminescent tree as street lamp concept and continue through to his portfolio for even more smart concepts like the electricity generating dance floor.