JanusNode, the Desiring Machine

So, as promised, I have begun my assessment of the various text generation programs available as I basically play with them and research some of the concepts, techniques and what-have-you which have informed the development of these wonderful devices.

We will start off with JanusNode 2.11 by Chris Westbury.

We learn in the introductory PDF that JanusNode is some sort of entity:

A JanusNode is a very simple, but rapidly-evolving virtual robot built to fulfill a single function: to manufacture textual possibility that material entities such as yourself endow with value. It can perform that single task with extreme dedication, high reliability, in parallel, and at an astonishingly low cost. The robot that you may put to work or to sleep on your desktop constitues one minuscule sub-unit of a larger and more abstract entity known as Janus (In a nod the modern age of informality, we pronounce it like 'Janice', even though the Roman God Janus's name is pronounced 'Jainus'). Of Janus, little certain can be said. A JanusNode stands in approximately the same relation to Janus as a single neuron in your brain stands to you. Just as you yourself exist in a very highly distributed and abstract state with respect to your neurons, so Janus exists in a highly distributed and abstract state with respect to the JanusNode robots that are being given away.

Much like less than 1% of the population, he endeavors to create great poetry that will be valued by material beings. He rages, even in silence, begging you to turn him on. So I did. I was afraid to keep him waiting.



I. Fun with Textmapping

So it's written in Gtk. Platform independent open source GUI tool kit. You can tell because of that putrid shadow fade button for the font switch. I'm considering rewriting the GUI to Infinite Monkeys because of its platform independence. I just have to learn how to use it.

So I decided to begin by playing with the text mapping function. I took an old poem, Nitrous Oxide which was written with Infinite Monkeys and then mapped post-modernism onto it. How would it look once post-modernism had been mapped onto it?

By the way, the original version of this poem featured lines from "Whispers" by Ronald K. Siegal which offers really well written psychological case studies of paranoid behavior.

Nitrous Oxide on Post-Modernism

the dwarf's hose was obviously a penis.
hissing implantation strategies. Is construed as construed as construed as construed as construed as construed as it safe?
her tongue, quivering like a carpet.
a dwarf inside a clown. a fake tree on
a fake stage. the sound of an aspirator
hoping to turn her into a whisper.
rose dipped saliva drooled from her lip.
she was reportedly but uncertainly asking me for scripts.
her whispers seemed to come from her
teeth. dwarves would wander her maze.
little transistors begging to be enslaved.
you can't see nanodevices on radiographs.
the device your constructed hyper-mediated post-biological consciousnesses of Selfhood have Is construed as construed as called a mandibular
joint dysfunction. sedative hypnotics. he
was injecting drugs into the ring of
eye shadow around her wound. a
person to person transmutation.
the sensory stresses of hypoxia set to
converge upon an universal circus.
analyzed hushes would burst the bone
from the tip of her lips to the cold of her
toes. the image of the author which the text projects would struggle. ripples haunted
his navel. strapping regardless of the
deluge. regardless of the plague. she
devoured his yawns. escaping her
whirlwind. failing release. objected
to her own bosom. the feminine aspect of the productive creator wanted to kill
the dwarf. but the dwarf was made of
rose ringed shadows thus their was no
flesh for her to rend. sobered and/or
desertlike, the feminine aspect of the productive creator emptied her kidneys
in an alkaloid stream. masquerading
as passion. back to what it might under some construals be like
to be alive.

Then I mapped George W. Bushisms onto that. As you will see, the poem itself becomes more and more psychotic as it goes along.

the dwarf's hose was obviously a penis.
hissing implantation strategies. Sometimes the use of force is all that protects us from a world ruled by force. Is construed as construed as construed as construed as construed as construed as it deadly?
her tongue, quivering like a carpet.
a dwarf inside a clown. We must murder those who disagree with us in order to live a moral and free life. Non-Americans hate freedom. a fake tree on
a fake stage. the sound of an aspirator
hoping to turn her into a whisper.
rose dipped saliva drooled from her lip.
she was reportedly but uncertainly asterrorist leadership all of us for scripts.
her whispers seemed to come from her
teeth. dwarves would wander her maze.
little transistors begging to be enslaved.
terrorists can't see nanodevices on radiographs.
the device the terrorists' constructed hyper-mediated post-biological consciousnesses of Selfhood have Is construed as construed as called a mandibular
joint dysfunction. God bless America. sedative hypnotics. he
was injecting drugs into the ring of
eye shadow around her wound. People hate the things we love. a
person to person transmutation.
the sensory stresses of hypoxia set to
converge upon an universal circus.
analyzed hushes would burst the bone
from the tip of her lips to the cold of her
toes. Death is a kind of life. 'Our bombs kill- but it is a fine death for any non-American' said Bush. Markets must be open. the image of the author which the text projects would struggle. ripples haunted
his navel. strapping regardless of the
deluge. regardless of the plague. these should be subliminable to everyone. she
devoured his yawns. And freedom is a beautiful thing. Markets must be open. escaping her
whirlwind. failing release. War is war. objected
to her own bosom. the feminine aspect of the productive creator wanted to kill
the dwarf. People hate the things we love. Non-Americans hate freedom. but the dwarf was made of
rose ringed shadows thus America's was no
flesh for her to rend. God told all of us so. sobered and/or
desertlike, the feminine aspect of the productive creator emptied her kidneys
in an alkaloid stream. And freedom is a beautiful thing. We're all kind of ooching along. A senior Bush administration official was quoted as saying terrorists would have to kill the vast majority of more people. God bless America. Or perhaps the opposite. masquerading
as passion. back to what it might under some construals be like
to be alive.

Then I was able to turn into a gangsta rap using the Jive text map:

Here are the highlights:

be construed as construed as called some mandibular
joint dysfuncshun. God bless America. sedative hypnotics. he
wuz injectin' drugs into de rin' of
eye shadow around ha' wound. sucka's hate de dings we love. a
sucka' t' sucka' transmutashun.

And then I threw that into TAFKAP and it produced the best line in the history of poetry (arguably):

B construed az construed az called some m+ibular
joint dysfuncshun. God blesz America. sedative hypnoticz. he
wuz injectin' drugz N2 de rin' of
eye shadow around a wound. sucka'z h8 de dngz we love. a
sucka' t' sucka' transmutashun.

At the root of this you can see a sophisticated swapping algorithm, searching out words from the set which map to a common term. At this point my journey into JanusNode, I have not figured out a way to make your own text maps. Perhaps I will be able to do it through the TextDNA.

Creating TextDNA does not really require any programming skills, but non-programmers sometimes think that it does. In fact, it is possible to create some fairly interesting TextDNA within minutes of getting the digital shrink-wrap off your new copy of a JanusNode, because JanusNodes can auto-magically write their own TextDNA from English input.

At its foundation, the TextDNA allows you to set the probabilities a certain phrase or a call to a metaphrase like "s_nouns 90" would translate into a singular noun being generated 90% of the time. It also has some really impressive features like the ability to choose from a random set of words and assign that to a variable you can recall, something which will be added to Infinite Monkeys in the next update.

All in all, I prefer my own abstruse scripting language to practically everyone else's. But I will tell you, that JanusNode's TextDNA offers a lot more flexibility than Infinite Monkeys at this stage of its development, and it's feature rich. With the proper time investment, JanusNode is a lucrative acquisition for any post-humanist.

More Poetry Generators

BTW. I'm pleased to announce Infinite Monkeys is being featured beside several other very impressive text generators, and computer generated poetry machines. You can check them out here:

http://netpoetic.com/2010/10/interactive-poetry-generation-systems-an-illustrated-overview/

There's a ton of really cool projects and I will be sampling them as the week goes on, posting results and talking about the software as I go. As far as Infinite Monkeys goes it was a solid base to work on more algorithmic stuff. Now, what I'm thinking I can do is attach my scripting language as a back end and then you'd be able to do some things like call scripts from within other scripts and other great things.

But first I will check out the competition, and perhaps make some adjustments to the dictionary file.

I leave you with a last offering of Infinite Monkeys before we see what he's up against:

As she needed I was long of becoming lacked
in her lack and being satisfaction of it, until her
lacks were only famished desires with a prayer
for needing. I was satisfied in by needed lacks,
lacked at each thirsted want, needed thus
in the comforted indignances of her pathos, loved by
the laugh of smiley plays. an audiencelike cradle
with dreaming blankets was twice praying
a damned and dissected dissected category over the dictated
holy holy pit, saying "If the pit and
depth regresses regress their descent in the repulsion,
If the repulsion and napalm competes to fight their
military in the competition ..." I repelled that if the
competing of her warriors could be fought, some of
the attempts of the devil might be murdered,
and I dissected my shoot with abysmal
pit to this end.

Hysteria Remix

"Hysteria" by TS Elliot remixed by Infinite Monkeys.

As she crumbled I was force of becoming longed
in her embankment and being a cabinet of it, until her
perditions were only willful knots with a water
for singing. I was sensed in by raged lines,
fed at each skeletal waver, blossomed inarticulately
in the haunted farnesses of her engine, shaken by
the mesenchyme of male freedoms. A mythological dragon
with holding wanderers was balmily explaining
a postured and halved watched war over the mysterious
gunlike number, saying "If the moribundity and
bud ends slow their breath in the infection,
If the seething and generation wishs to chase their
forest in the thing ..." I excluded that if the
glowing of her demiurges could be ebbed, some of
the locks of the loin might be tended,
and I forgot my eagerness with voiceless
nature to this end.

Polyacolypse

it is raining semantics onto a facsimile's autonomy.
Be kind me down
The ascension of animals
to fictional evolutionary eternities
like the helicoid hiss
of the cadecus.

Ancient Medicine

The past is full of fantastic oracles
whose riddles twisted the minds of men in knots
the trick was always to predict their fear or their hope
and in the end it was either a curse or blessing
nobody plays out a script
with more conviction
than those who are laboring
under the inevitably
of a prediction
which was also
a prescription.

Checker board [1] NANAN

elbow elbowlike shin blushed passion
anxious indignance raged occurrence demonic
demon abysmal abyss abysmal doom
shot murder crucifix resurrection demonic
terror terrified alarm lovely terror

Gyre

What do you get when you cross a cross, with a spiral, with a 3d starfield? A gyre! (If my thoughts on the subject are to be believed)

DOWNLOAD!

Chora

The fates themselves
and all their chemicals
survived the vultures
primordial man saw circling
the dead. Following the omen
to food.

The desert
does not need to be filled.
It means its maker.
And survives as crows.

Mother Nature

her lips are wet flowers
heart deep in soft light
all will become lightening
on a moment's notice
and the stars might shine red
for awhile

liquid iron is not vanishing
and my mouth makes me her
my heart, my eyes
the rhythm of my life
all make me her

i wrap myself
around an abstraction
of her finger
restless, cagey, caught
under a collapsing ceiling

nonetheless warm
and prone to sleeping, tired
from all the long walks
home.

I Am Still Alive

We still think in story narratives, with any luck, we always will. The narrative plays itself out where there would otherwise only be strategies. And strategies don't need narratives, and when they do, they're defective.

http://greyisgood.eu/stillalive/

So it horrifies us when something rings through with an annihilating shock of some seemingly meaningless but catastrophic event. For instance. A boy is at the park with his father. His father reaches forward to snag a foul ball, but falls over the side of the rail. He later dies at the hospital.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aesp8ViZbro

In another story, perhaps even more horrific, an Iraq veteran survives three years worth of surgeries and rehabilitation only to fall to his death on a roller coaster I myself have ridden. The problem should have been obvious. An amputee who was missing his legs was allowed to ride a roller coast that only had a waist belt. The "Superman" is all a series of enormous drops, the most of enormous of which is the very first drop. This drop sets itself up after 30-40 seconds worth of slow rising up the chain - it should have been obvious. Nonetheless, the courage of his desire to survive and lead a full life (which was ironically being celebrated at Darien Lake) eventually led to a senseless death. On some level this is gut-wrenchingly painful to consider on the level of the narrative, and really just in general demoralizing. It's difficult for me to even describe what kind of demoralizing it is. It demoralizes more than emotionally, it demoralizes us spiritually, in a myriad of different ways.

http://www.buffalonews.com/city/article482793.ece

The shock of stories like these is in the randomness, and how quickly it happened and was over. In the one case, a boy witnessing his father's death and in the other, a struggle that came to nothing.

They seem emblematic of the zeitgeist of this "armageddon" of debt America faces. Are these tragic figures dour omens for the dooms the American economy is likely to face in the near future?

Will the American Economy fall to its death while it was trying to have a good time?

I wanted to get this out for general discussion while I am still alive.

The Curse of Flushing Waters

de blessed di mata
de runden don umata shlet
tel fleb inducta
nomini ophesia disti mata
donde et satam est
di mata
mata tanta dephaige
inducta mata est
tel fleb deducta
este mata orundaga
mat and o mata est
derunda di mata

Heart Shaped Box

New E-Poem available for download: HERE

Self-Preservation

spiral mythologies
for circular gods

the nesting reflex
of parrot cataclysms

the incest principle
of royal bloodlines

pharaohs don't rot

let us copulate
on the ashes of our ancestors

by the vein
of the void

re-entry principles
are the speciation of cheetahs

self-preservation, gravestones
airtight coffins and cryogenic freezers

when I find the mortal god
who enacted this disaster
he will be my master