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The Longest Poem in the World (longestpoemintheworld.com)
59 points by andreyf on Aug 26, 2009 | hide | past | favorite | 19 comments



beautiful merging of "machine" and "human." the lines themselves are quite emotive: i hadn't read 'normal/banal' tweets before and they're quite expressive. the algorithm that selects rhymes either happened to be doing great as i watched, or actually takes into account syllables and removes spam and urls.

edit: here's an example (4 consecutive lines chosen because they convey a strange meaning):

> Don't you hate it when you call someone back and they don't answer!

> RIP Dominick Dunne and Ted Kennedy. Damn you, cancer.

> Furthermore, it feeds on other animals and eggs. THIS IS MADNESS!!

> Somewhere between a lot of happiness and sadness.


It's cool. Like an ode to banality.


Banality is the root of all art. I think the idea of a poem written by the entire planet* is rather romantic myself.

*kind of


I think it falls beautifully into the romantic surrealist genre, and appauld it for doing so. I wasn't criticising banality, though I would disagree with with your commment on banality is the root of all art. What are you basing this on?


I like how it detects rhymes. I've never looked into that but it sounds non-trivial (unless you just have a map).


Ya, could someone explain how this algorithm works?


There are rhyming dictionaries, but also just parsing the pronunciation indicators of a traditional dictionary for matching end-sounds would work -- and allow matching syllable counts as well. Wiktionary includes pronunciation guides in 'IPA' symbols:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet

There's also 'soundex' encoding of names/words...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundex


Ahh... I see. I didn't even know such dictionaries existed! Thanks!


http://stevehanov.ca/blog/index.php?id=81

Excellent post on a more advanced implementation.


I assume it just looks it up in a rhyming dictionary.


I have a syllable counter, we should merge it!


That was cool, maybe if you try to add another kind of rhymes it would be cool also.


Yeah, or maybe only choose lines that are in iambic pentameter.


Hmm. Haiku version?


Go full hog - Shakespearean Sonnets!


My favorite rhyme:

"Sex and the City ruined women for me. wtching coffee prince and lovin it =D"


This was my fave:

  it's just me and the keyboard tonight...
  Then I think of you and it's alright.


two separate lines, as in you read the "dee" out loud?


Exactly.




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