Blather-Adjusting Programs
am 25.12.2005 03:33:43 von vjp2.atYou folks mean to tell me there's no program out there that would
take a file of simple text and blatherise it to the level of another
"reference" file? Or Adjust the "Fog Index" of a text file up or down
from its input level. I'm totally serious. I'm tired of fighting.
I just want to "get along".
Message-ID:
I'm sure I've seen programs that generate blather but now I
can't find one. I'm stuck in a wierd situation that comes up often
enough: Some third-worlders insist you write pretentious casuistry
when a few simple words are enough. It is sad in these day of "Fog
Index" that we have people who are commitedly ideological and even
theologically dogmatic about making prose incomprehensibly obfuscated
and complicated. I want it in perl so it can be extremely portable.
However, I want something I can control. For example, when it sees
the word "customer" or "strategy" it should randomly chose one of
three flowing phrases. I can write a simple one-to-one in sed, but I
really hope some ingenious soul has already compiled a blatherisation
table that I only need to tweak. The issue is the text should require
no more than, say, ten percent editing to make it seem like it came
from a genuinely glib casuistrous bullshit artist.
I wouldn't mind if the program is ingenious enough to go both ways,
or even to be adjustable (ie, "please set the fog index"). I am
confronted with enough blathermaniacs and antiblathermaniacs to make
my life way too complicated. By the time I get used to one lunatic, I
have to instead conform to the other.
Message-ID:
I think you could broadly generalise the most common writing styles are:
1. Cryptic misappropriated connotation (demanded by "scholars")
2. Telegraphic commercial (Taught by "Communications" programs)
3. Latinate bureaucratic (demanded by 3rd world bureaucrats)
4. Literary Synonymania (demanded by "English" professors/teachers)
And these variances seem to be used to discriminate and segregate
dogmatically and unfairly. "Can't we just all get along?"
Message-ID:
I went hunting on google for "chatterbot perl knowledge base". I
"knew" Hugh Kenner back on BiX ca 1988. Foggy is a riot, but not what
I needed, though I think sometime it may prove valuable when
frustration with fools triggers my evil streak. I need foggy with a
twist - a knowledge base I can tweak like foggy, but it should take a
simple paragraph and turn it into a long blatherous paper that I can
then spend a few minutes editing and it will say pretty much the same
thing as my simple paragraph. For example I write "The customer is a
petunia" and it writes "Our customers are very important to us. One of
our multifarous customers has proven to be a petunia. Wheretofore and
heretofore, this important,vaulabel and significant datum will be
assessed strategically and applied to our models wherefrom we shall
therefore optimise our tactics, strategy and operations so that we
fully capture the economic benefits derivable from this customer."
One form would work with a knowledge base where it is triggered by
words like customer and petunia into random but reasonably meaningful
ramblings. The other would be even better if it took a file with
writing similar to the target and transformed the source using the
target as a model (for style and size). I would really wish this was
in perl so I could use it on the fly anywhere!
nyc.transit Tue, 20 Dec 2005 23:19:28 +0000 (UTC)
You remind me of how my folks got mistreated. They spoke with a
heavy accent but at the university level. A lot of academics would
love to converse endlessly with their precise and inquiring minds.
Some "customer service" types would just hang up the phone when they
heard the accent. One of my English teachers couldn't get over it how
my folks had the nerve to correct her spelling.
I was born here and once I had a boss say that the reason I
disgreed on policy issues was I needed to improve my writing since I
was Greeks and sent me to a writing class (she was Cuban and spoke
with an accent, but I don't have an accent). Once someone asked me
"You speak English so well, when did you come here" I looked at my
watch and said "Oh, about 120 yrs ago." (Technically true, though my
stowaway ancestors got sent back a month later) I once went to speak
to a dean about something and he mentioned the essence of the
conversation to a reporter and I saw in print that he described me as
a foreign student (he, too, had an accent and was foreign born). When
a previous president of my alma mater was introduced to alums, he saw
my name badge and said "Ohhhh, Greek" shaking his head knowingly as I
was seriously thinking of swatting him on the head like a fly.
- = -
Vasos-Peter John Panagiotopoulos II, Columbia'81+, Bio$trategist
BachMozart ReaganQuayle EvrytanoKastorian
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
Pataki+JebBush in 2008!