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Google's 'Verse by Verse' AI can help you write in the style of famous poets
Quoth the Bugdroid, "Nevermore."
Google's poetry algorithm automates teen angst
Roses are red, violets are blue, poetry is hard, but now a machine will do it for you. From today, you can use Google's AI to create a unique "poem portrait," an ethereal image of your self-portrait overlaid with an exclusive poem generated from a word of your choice (so basically a recreation of every image ever from DeviantArt circa 2002).
Google's Trafalgar Square lion uses AI to generate crowdsourced poem
In London's Trafalgar Square, four lions sit at the base of Nelson's Column. But starting today, there will be a fifth. Google Arts & Culture and designer Es Devlin have created a public sculpture for the London Design Festival. It's a lion that over the course of the festival will generate a collective poem by using input from the public and artificial intelligence.
The prose at the end of the universe
For over a decade, Canadian poet Dr. Christian Bök has toiled to create living prose. Bök calls the project The Xenotext and, should he be successful in his attempts, he will have done something truly special. The idea, at its core? To encipher poetry within an immortal bacterium's genome. Poetry that will last forever. "A big concern is the protection of valuable information in the case of a nuclear catastrophe," Pak Chung Wong told the New Scientist in 2003. Wong, then an information technologist at the Pacific Northwestern Laboratory, had just enciphered some lyrics from "It's a Small World" into the genome of Deinococcus radiodurans, a bacterium that can survive in extreme conditions. Wong theorized that the DNA of bacteria, and perhaps even hardy organisms like cockroaches and types of weed, could be used to preserve our data for future generations.
Create your own 'Star Wars' crawls, sonnets and Yoda speeches
Don't relish the thought of buying a $150 robotic BB-8 toy just to have some Star Wars-related fun? Don't worry, you won't have to spend a cent. A handful of websites have posted free tools that let you have fun with the sci-fi series' iconic language. The official Crawl Creator is arguably the highlight -- its simple editor turns your writing into the famous scrolling text you've seen in front of every Star Wars flick. There's also a Sonnet Generator that crafts Shakespearean Star Wars poetry from just a few questions. And yes, everyone's favorite centuries-old Jedi gets his due: plug text into the Yoda-Speak Generator and you'll get whatever you wrote in Yoda's distinct verb-follows-subject phrasing. These will only do so much to tide you over until The Force Awakens hits theaters, but they're definitely gentler on your bank account than the endless waves of merchandise hitting stores.
TS Eliot and a tragic childhood in 'Home is Where One Starts'
You stand on the edge of a strip of asphalt, in the middle of a breezy, weedy, Southern forest. It's nearly sunset and the day's final rays sprawl over hay rolls and a small pond across the road. Behind you, a long trailer home sits in a clearing, piles of old and discarded possessions heaped haphazardly around it. More hazy structures dot the horizon, and at your feet there's a small, elephant-shaped backpack. You pick it up and turn it around. A woman's voice calmly says, "I remember missing the school bus that morning." True enough, the bus never comes and you're free to roam around the immediate area, exploring the forest, trash, houses and cemetery around you, learning more about yourself and your past. This is Home is Where One Starts..., a short exploration game inspired by TS Eliot's The Four Quartets and created by indie developer David Wehle. I spoke with Wehle about the poetic influences behind his game and the wider state of exploration-based games.
Poet explains why he spammed Twitter with every word in the English language
zealots - everyword (@everyword) June 2, 2014 Approximately 109,150 tweets. Spread across seven years. Posted automatically by a bot which, each time, simply grabbed a single word from an already published (and inevitably outdated) canon of the English language and threw it out onto the social network. The bot was the brainchild of a poet, Adam Parrish (aka @everyword), whose original intention was simply to the "satirize the brevity of Twitter," but who gradually came to see the project as a "magical writing experiment." He learned, for example, that his 95,000 followers had a penchant for words that felt like they told a story, even when they weren't expressed as part of sentence: words like "sex," "weed" and "vagina," which each got around 2,000 retweets. If you read The Guardian's interview with @everyword, you'll see that his other big discovery was about how people imputed meanings to words that were entirely personal or based purely on coincidences in their Twitter feeds -- like how a tweet of the word "zealots" apparently became tangled up in the chatter of Apple fans in the midst of WWDC.
This smiley face is either a perfectly fitting typo or the world's first emoticon
It turns out that the emoticon might be a bit older than we originally thought. Literary critic Levi Stahl has found what could possibly be the first instance of a ":)" in Robert Herrick's 1648 poem "To Fortune." Stahl checked to see if it was just a typo in the edition of Hesperides that he owns, and says that he found the smiley intact in the authoritative two-volume edition of Herrick's work published last year by the Oxford University Press. Stahl explains that the poet's work was rife with humor, so this likely isn't a "punctuational oddity." If true, it'd beat the previous record-holder's age -- a transcription of an 1862 speech by Abe Lincoln -- by some 200 years. That isn't quite the final word, however. The New Atlantis (a scholarly journal about tech and society) writes that this probably isn't the case, and the only real way to tell if the emoticon was Herrick's intent would be to look up very early editions or his original manuscripts. The 19th century version it found didn't have the parentheses, however, and thus it ruled that the smiley was likely the result of a modern editor's insertion :( [Image credit: Robert Herrick]
Elegy for a Dead World turns players into poets
Dejobaan has a reputation for crafting obnoxiously titled, outrageous games such as AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! and Drop that Beat like an Ugly Baby, but Elegy for a Dead World is different. Created with Girls Like Robots developer Ziba Scott, Elegy is a soft-spoken, experimental game that has players observe the ruins of lost civilizations and write down their histories to share with the Homeworld, the Steam Workshop. There, players can compare notes and rate each other's stories, poems and thoughts, Indie Games reports. Elegy is inspired by classic English Romantic poetry, and its three worlds pull from the works of Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. Dejobaan recently entered Elegy into IGF 2014, eventually slated for PC and Mac on Steam. Sit down with some poetry in its first teaser trailer and sole screenshot below.
EVE Evolved: Four great new EVE videos
If there's one thing the EVE Online community is well known for (apart from the occasional colossal scam or game-breaking exploit), it's producing great videos. In its nine-year history, EVE has birthed some very talented video editors who have produced everything from political propaganda and instructional videos to amazing cinematic stories and machinima. The official game trailers have always turned heads, but I'd bet a significant number of current players were first introduced to EVE through player-made works of art like Kyoko Sakoda's War Has Come or Mercenary Coalition's Lacrimosa Tortuga. It's easy to fixate on only the best EVE videos ever made, but in reality, dozens of new videos are released every month. Some are cinematic story pieces or alliance propaganda videos designed to motivate the troops, but most are just compilations of good PvP fights. While PvP videos are unlikely to grab the universal acclaim of incredible films like Clear Skies or Future Proof, they arguably show the very core of EVE at its best: good fights, solid strategy, and pretty explosions. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at four great new EVE Online videos produced just in the past few months.
The Elder Scrolls Online hosts lore limerick contest
There once was a High Elf from Tamriel / whose foppishness the villagers did tell / she had many fears / about bees flying in her ears / and thus plugged them with honey so well. Think you can do better? Bethesda is hoping you can, which is why the studio is hosting a "lore limerick" contest for potential players of The Elder Scrolls Online. Fans can submit a single limerick about Elder Scrolls lore to the team by August 31st. Winning warrior poets will receive several different TESO prizes, including canvased and signed concept art, t-shirts, and a mention on the official TESO Facebook page. The contest is restricted to US and European residents who are 18 or older.
AAPL closes over $600 for the first time: We respond with poetry
For the first time in history, or at least since Apple went public on December 12, 1980, AAPL has closed at over US$600 per share. The stock closed on the NASDAQ exchange at $601.10, up a whopping $15.53 (or 2.65 percent) on the day. AAPL opened at about $598 due to off-hours trading in the wake of yesterday's announcement of the Apple cash call. This morning's news disclosing that dividends would be paid to shareholders obviously resonated with the markets. To celebrate, our very own Erica Sadun got all poetic and sent these sweet words of happiness throughout our virtual newsroom: "If in Apple's stock you invest, today it has achieved the best. Gone up past six hundred, in case you had wond'dred, now you can retire and rest." Or how about this "News in Haikus"? "AAPL Dividend. Stock is up past six hundred. Good investment, no?" And this final piece of limerick doggerel: "Up $15.53 on the day, investors all saying HOORAY! Most in after hours last night, still to their delight, dividends are soon on their way." Think you can do better with the poetry? Let's see your attempts in the comments.
Famous poetry responsible for Cataclysm item names?
The incredible Perculia (content manager over at Wowhead) has just put up one of my favorite posts about World of Warcraft ever -- Cataclysm starter epics, justice point gear, blue drops from instances, and more are all named after or refer to famous lines and fragments from poetry by T.S. Eliot and John Keats. Truth be told, I want to know the story of the moment when all of this snapped into place for Perculia and it became about finding an item for almost every stanza from these poems. It's a spectacular effort. As I read her post and clicked on items, it became abundantly clear that this is far from coincidence. For instance, from the blog, Perculia has analyzed this particular stanza from Keat's Ode to a Nightingale: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness, That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. From Perculia's finding, we see that Keats' poems are used mostly for justice point gear at ilevel 359, with most of the dungeon 346 blues owing their monikers to his work. Eliot's poems are the source of many reputation rewards. Check out the full post on the Flavor Text blog.
Serious Sam 3 gets free Serious Santa multiplayer skin for the holidays
His eyes -- how they twinkle! His dimples -- how merry! His cheeks are adorned with phat shades from Burberry. His mouth is set hard, like grayscale concrete, And his scraggly man-beard leaves the ladies effete. For this elf isn't jolly, or chubby or plump; This Santa, he ain't putting up with no coal or no chumps. No this Santa's a free skin in Croteam's new update. So go ahead, download him -- do it now, don't be late! Yeah he's armed and he's angry and he's all out of gum, And he don't care if you're naughty or nice, smart or dumb. You might hear him exclaim, as he breaks you like glass, "Merry Christmas to all, now let's go kick some ass." %Gallery-141390%
World of Warplanes turns off the 'no forums' lights
While you can't yet throw yourself into the cockpit of a World War II-era fighter and take off for the stratosphere, at least now there's nothing stopping you from talking about it with like-minded pilots. World of Warplanes, the upcoming fighter plane MMO from Wargaming.net, has launched its official forums. The categories are quite extensive, ranging from developer feedback to a place to write poems about flying. There are even several sub-forums that cover the history of aviation if you're looking to brush up on your basics. The title is the third in the "World of" series, and is currently in closed alpha testing. By having the forums up, Wargaming.net hopes that it'll be useful for refining the testing process and to balance the title before it's ready for the masses. World of Warplanes covers combat aviation from the 1930s all the way up through the 50s. Potential pilots are encouraged to read our conversation with Wargaming.net about the game from GDC earlier this month.
Acoustic Poetry concept turns ambient noise into verse
Modern society invests a lot of time and money attempting to drown out our surroundings, but the inability to hear ambient noise can rob one of a sense of place, which can be a very real concern amongst the deaf community. The Acoustic Poetry concept device from British designer Michail Vanis won't miraculously cure the deaf, but it does promise to keep them a bit more in touch. The wooden box is used to capture sound and transmit it to an interpreter, who listens and translates it into text, coming out like something of a free form haiku. It's a communication relay not entirely unlike ones we've seen from a number of other companies, and one that doesn't really necessitate its own stand-alone device. Still, it's nice to see text messaging that can actually keep people more in-touch with their surroundings, for a change -- we still don't recommend using it while driving, however. Video after the break. [Thanks, Ro]
One Shots: Poetic
When it comes to MMOs, poetry may not immediately jump to mind -- unless, of course, you either really like poetry or are taking a poetry class. While we've gotten short stories to go with screenshots, this may well mark the first time we've gotten a poem to go along with one. That said, this particular poem isn't an original, but today's One Shots contributor, Matthew, obviously felt that it fit his mood and the mood of the Star Trek Online image that he sent in. Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly because you tread on my dreams -- W.B. Yeats If you're not poetic, no worries! We love to get screenshots from everyone -- lyrical poetry or limerick silliness are just a plus. Send in your image to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and your note. Please make sure your image is at least 1024px wide and has little to no visible UI in it. We'll post it out here and give you the credit for sending it in! %Gallery-85937%
Resident Evil 4: iPad Edition available now
There's a new version of Resident Evil 4 by Justin McElroy The sun rises. A baby issues forth its first cry. And another version of Resident Evil 4 is released. It is $12.99. It has better graphics than on iPhone. It is irrefutable proof that time is soldiering on. Tonight, the sun will set. An old man will draw his last breath. But we sleep, knowing full well that the cycle begins anew tomorrow. My money's on Droid.
Beat poet digs Macs
New York Times columnist John Markoff recently interviewed Beat-era poet Gary Snyder, who usually writes about the American wilderness. Markoff found that the 79 year-old Snyder, who confesses to writing his poetry on "whatever was at hand," is an avid and devoted Mac user. According to Markoff, Snyder wasn't aware of the upcoming announcement of an Apple book replacement, as he lives in the California back country and apparently doesn't have the interruption of broadband noise to bother him. Snyder rarely uses a mobile phone and is quoted by Markoff as considering texting "abhorrent." But he waxes poetic when he uses his Mac. Snyder noted about his Mac, "I like the storage space it has," he said, "and I like the ability to have back files accessible to me wherever I go." Those weren't the only words he had to say about the Mac. In a short, previously unpublished poem titled "Why I Take Good Care of My Macintosh," the "poet laureate of Deep Ecology" describes why he says that personal computers feel like sentient beings. Fans of poetry and Macs can read the poem by visiting the title link in the previous paragraph. It's crazy, daddy-o!
First Look: Touch Poet lets anyone be a poet
With Valentines Day right around the corner, it would seem that everyone is looking for something to get their loved ones. While most might settle on candy, or other holiday items, would you ever think of writing your special someone a poem? Even if you've never written a sentence in your life, you can easily write a poem with Touch Poet [iTunes link] for iPhone.Touch Poet grabs word snippets from works by Edgar Allen Poe, Shakespeare, and Rudyard Kipling as well as Digg headlines and other news sources. When you tap on the right-pointing arrow in the app, words will be move out from behind the arrow. When you find a word that you want to use, you can drag it up to the top portion. The snippets of paper has a really great physics engine that makes it look as though you are actually touching it. If you don't like a word, or would like to choose a better word, then you can "throw" the piece of paper in the garbage shoot by tossing it towards the bottom right of the screen. If you can't seem to find a word that you like, you can input your own words by double-tapping on the bottom of the screen -- this will allow you to input your own word. If you tap the upward facing arrow you will have several options, namely the ability to select the source of your words. From here you can also Twitter your masterpiece or e-mail it straight to your loved one. You can get your hands on Touch Poet by visiting the iTunes App Store. It is currently on sale for $.99 (US) through Valentines Day; after then, it will go up to $2.99. %Gallery-44364%
