Some think this is just great:

As CNet reported in 2014 that "the line between human and AI poets is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish, as demonstrated by the site's leaderboards, which display the most human-like human poets and the most computer-like computer poets, as well as the most human-like computer poets and vice versa."

I don't think this is particularly noteworthy. And the reason is because the type of poetry they're writing AI software to emulate is modern poetry, i.e. crap. It's easy to do crap. It's not that difficult to whip up a little javascript into, for example, postmodern jargon ans corporate jargon generators, and have the crap output look reasonably like human-generated crap. Or, if you want real crap, there's always adolescent poetry:

I am
by The Aggregate Kid

i am spoiled
brat. my mommy told me that
you could be help clean it up
it;s our earth i mean whats
sup with all
the dirt and thilth i love
you to know
who you were gone you left you
shone on me,but now you’ve left this
land. and now you
have to say. the bell rings,
everyone goes outside. they
huddle close together like
bees in a
corner and cry.

Don't you just want to just smack that kid's whiny, bratty face? Go out and get a job, slacker. You want to cry, I'll give you something to cry about. Whap, whap, whap.

So all this tells us is that our machines are now good enough to replicate degraded and degenerate forms of human communication: postmodern jargon, modern experimental poetry, and corporate bullshit, the intent of which is not to communicate but to obfuscate

What I would like to see is AI that can create crank out an honest-to-goodness Elizabethan sonnet, with iambic pentameter, complex rhyme schemes, etc. Or a Norse saga. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just really haven't seen it done yet, not enough to fool the experts.

So I'll just leave you with the real deal:

Sonnet XVIII "To His Love" by William "Bill" Shakespeare

SHALL I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:—

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Memorial Day Weekend Sale

Need something new to read for the long weekend? Looking for a new series to start or want to discover a new author? Moronette author Sabrina Chase e-mailed me on Saturday

Of possible interest to budget-minded reading Morons, some of the degenerate author types I hang out with are doing a Start of Summer Reading sale for the Memorial Day weekend. The site that has the details is http://azounding.com/ (where we post promo-type news all the time). I have two books in this sale, Jinxers and The Scent of Metal. Some of the books are even free!

To go directly to the sale, just click on this link. In addition to Sabrina's books, you'll find books by Sarah Hoyt, Peter Grant, Amanda Green, and others. Always check the price before clicking the purchase button. Some of these books are already on sale and others will go on sale over the next 24 hours.

Celebrate Diversity, Earn Big $

So Penguin Publishing is holding a writing contest.

So

...in partnership with We Need Diverse Books™, Penguin Young Readers celebrates this momentous publication by launching a debut children’s fiction contest to find talented, ethnically diverse authors writing for readers ages 8-14.

Submit your manuscript for a book about diversity for ages 8-14 and you could receive a publishing contract from Penguin Random House LLC!

The contract they're going to award is nothing to sneeze at:

PRIZE: The confirmed winner will receive a book publishing contract for the publication of a novel for ages 8-14 by Penguin Random House LLC, with an advance of $35,000, plus royalties as follows: (i) on hardcover, 10% up to 50,000 copies and 12.5% thereafter; (ii) on paperback, 6% up to 50,000 copies and 7% thereafter; (iii) on audio, 8% of net; (iv) ebook, 25% of net; (v) world rights/all subrights at a 50/50 split; and (vi) an option on their next children’s or YA novel.

Here are the eligibility requirements:

ELIGIBILITY: The Contest is open to people of color (or those who self-identify as other than white) who are residents of the fifty (50) United States, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories and possessions, 18 years of age or older at time of entry and who have not had any works of fiction published in any medium prior to entering the Contest.

Emphasis mine. So Rachael Dolezal and Elizabeth Warren are both eligible, assuming they haven't been published before. Maybe some of you morons are, too. My question is, if you're a white guy, but you self identify as, say, a Yakut tribal elder, what hoops will Penguin make you jump through to prove your assumed diverse ethnic identity?

One more thing:

The submission must be in English, between 25,000-75,000 words and must not have been previously published in any medium.

Wait, so the organizers of a writing contest celebrating diversity have put in an "English only" requirement? Really? Now that's not very diverse of them, is it? I think there should be a protest about this. I mean, if I identify as a Klingon warrior, shouldn't I should be able to submit my manuscript in Klingon? To disallow this would be racist and un-diverse.

They should be forced to live by the same rules they prescribe for everybody else.

Thanks to Anna Puma for the tip.

Books By Morons

Moronette Lisa Mathisen has released the 3rd volume in her 'Glimpse' series is of short stories. Glimpse of Summer:

Forty quintessential scenes from summer will delight you in this hilarious third volume of the Glimpse series. It’s all here: vacations, sunburn, mosquitoes, trashy beach reads and blockbuster films...You will find yourself empathizing with characters whose exaggerated traits we all recognize in ourselves.

Promotional trailer for Glimpse 3 featuring a dancing crab.

The Kindle version should be released shortly.

Moron Recommendations

Moron bensdad00 recommends the author Richard Powell, whose book Don Quixote USA was mentioned a few weeks ago. In addition to that one, he paticlarly likes Pioneer, Go Home!, which Amazon describes as

...a warm and witty tale of little man versus “Big Gummint.” Powell relates the adventures of the Kwimpers—a motley clan of New Jersey Pineys who break down on the side of a southern highway project and decide to claim squatter’s rights. Call them “hicks” or “bumpkins” if you like, but these Kwimpers are considerably more resourceful than most folks give them credit for—and ten times as stubborn! When the government orders them to vacate, Pop Kwimper gets his dander up and the die is cast. Hilarity ensues as the family defends its homestead against an onslaught of conniving bureaucrats, Mother Nature, and the mob.

bensdad00's capsule summary is "family completely dependent on government welfare is cut off cold turkey, and learns it doesn't need the dole".

This one is now on my book pile.

What I'm Reading

I picked up The Anderson Tapes by Lawrence Sanders on sale this week. Don't know if the $2.51 Kindle price still holds. This novel is noteworthy for a number of reasons:

1. It's Sanders' debut novel
2. It won an Edgar Award
3. Dude wrote it when he was 50(!) years old.
4. The novel's story is told entirely through surveillance recordings, eyewitness reports, and other “official” documents.

It's about a heist:

John Anderson is preparing for the biggest heist of his criminal career. The mark is a Manhattan luxury apartment building with the tony address of 535 East Seventy-Third Street. Enlisting a crew of scouts, con artists, and a getaway driver, Anderson orchestrates what he believes to be a foolproof plan. To pull off the big score, he needs one last thing: the permission of the local mafia, who expect a piece of the action.

I think this novel was made into a movie sometime in the 70s, wasn't it?

___________

Moronette 'votermom' is putting together a list of moron authors over on the Goodreads site which is intended to be acessible to non-members. Here is the list she has compiled so far. Let her know if there's an author she's missing.

http://www.bookhorde.org/p/aoshq-authors.html

___________

Don't forget the AoSHQ reading group on Goodreads. It's meant to support horde writers and to talk about the great books that come up on the book thread. It's called AoSHQ Moron Horde and the link to it is here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/175335-aoshq-moron-horde.

___________

So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to OregonMuse, Proprietor, AoSHQ Book Thread, at the book thread e-mail address: aoshqbookthread, followed by the 'at' sign, and then 'G' mail, and then dot cee oh emm.

What have you all been reading this week? Hopefully something good, because, as you all know, life is too short to be reading lousy books.

posted by Open Blogger at 09:03 AM

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