Boffin rediscovers 1960s attempt to write fiction with computers Next time IBM tries to convince you that Watson is the latest and greatest innovation that couldn't possibly have been done any time other than now, know that Big Blue tried to get a computer writing short stories in the 1960s. The existence of IBM's old work has been re-discovered by James Ryan of the University of California …
Kinda the point of his "all the stories were boring". In general I think its not so much the plot as the writing around it that makes the thing work.
Although I can think of one author who I've given up reading because every book seemed to have so similar a plot it was getting to me. I shan't name, because if other people haven't found it irritating, but might if it were pointed out, then I'd be guilty of taking away their enjoyment .
"Although I can think of one author who I've given up reading because every book seemed to have so similar a plot it was getting to me."
Leslie Thomas's novels sometimes seemed like that. He had a set of possibly real life experiences that he wove into the plots. After a few novels he appeared to start doing location "research" to add the colour to a new novel. He also started to re-use some of the previous set pieces with slight alterations - and the pocket novels started to become large tomes.
Simon Raven also mined his life experiences for all of his novels and series. It is said that later on he produced a new novel whenever he needed to finance his continuing hedonistic lifestyle. The novels became stranger and stranger - but managed to stay entertaining. It was said that he wanted to see just how far his loyal readers could be pushed. His autobiography was criticised by a reviewer as "the filthiest cricket book ever written" - whereupon he requested the use of that comment for the back cover blurb.
When once I was but a strapping young lad; The English department at my school asked if someone in the CS class could write a poetry generator in this case Haiku's. Running on trs-80's written in basic; but I finally got the damned thing working. It was weird to see the various English classes roll through the CS 'lab' using the software I wrote; But it was the event that then shaped the rest of my career :)
Also the is a Ruby based IRC bot that generates movie plots
Summary: He's an immortal zombie househusband who dotes on his loving old ma. She's a Cosmopolitan antique-collecting socialite from a family of eight older brothers. They fight crime.
Back in 1965 I was programming (as we called it then) a KDF-8 (RCA-501?) for Schweppes in London. (This was proper coding -- octal machine code, no assembler, no compiler, no operating system.) The KDF-8 filled a large room and was less powerful than my phone.
Anyway, 1965 saw the publication of a great comic novel titled "The Tin Men" by the brilliant British author and playwright Michael Frayne. It was -- and is -- as funny as hell and, yes, the software was particularly good at pornography for all the reasons suggested in the comments above. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tin_Men.) Remarkably, it's still in print: www.amazon.co.uk/Tin-Men-Michael-Frayn/dp/0571212662.
And before you ask, 50+ years on, and in spite of a different second career, I can turn out decent apps in C# and JavaScript... 8)
About the same, but with slight changes:
IBM (LION) HAS BEEN IN TROUBLE FOR A LONG TIME. ENGINEERS (TREATED LIKE DOGS) MAKE NEW PRODUCTS BUT COST TOO MUCH. THE HERO, LION, MANIPULATES CONGRESS USING CASH, WHORES, AND BLOW TO OPTIMIZE H-1B VISA AND TAX POLICIES TO LION'S ADVANTAGE. THE HERO, LION, KILLS THE VILLAIN, DOG, WITHOUT A FIGHT. THE HERO, LION, THUS IS ABLE TO OUTSOURCE AND/OR MAKE DOG REDUNDANT. THIS MAKES WALL STREET HAPPY, AND THE HERO, LION, CASHES OUT OPTIONS. NOW THE HERO, LION, CAN AFFORD HIS OWN WHORES AND BLOW. THE VILLAIN, DOG, LIVES OUT IN THE COLD.
Such wonderful progress!!
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