Dissociated press
Encyclopedia
Dissociated press is an algorithm
for generating text based on another text. It is intended for transforming any text into potentially humorous garbage. The name is a play on "Associated Press
".
An implementation of the algorithm is available in Emacs
.
:
Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied to the same source:
The Twitter
feed @CelebMash is a word-based Dissociated Press applied to recent celebrity tweets.
(1972) Item #176. The name "dissociated press" is first known to have been associated with the Emacs implementation.
An article in the November 1983 issue of Scientific American
gives this garbled William Faulkner
passage: "When he got on the table, he come in. He never come out of my own pocket as a measure of protecting the company against riot and bloodshed. And when he said. 'You tell me a bus ticket, let alone write out no case histories. Then the law come back with a knife!'"
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
for generating text based on another text. It is intended for transforming any text into potentially humorous garbage. The name is a play on "Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
".
An implementation of the algorithm is available in Emacs
Emacs
Emacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively...
.
The algorithm
The algorithm starts by printing any N consecutive words (or letters) in the text. Then at every step it searches for any random occurrence in the original text of the last N words (or letters) already printed and then prints the next word or letter.Examples
Here is a short example of word-based Dissociated Press applied to the Jargon FileJargon File
The Jargon File is a glossary of computer programmer slang. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab and others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities, including Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Carnegie Mellon...
:
- wart: n. A small, crocky feature that sticks out of an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the phrase is bent so as to be not worth paying attention to the medium in question.
Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied to the same source:
- window sysIWYG: n. A bit was named aften /bee´t@/ prefer to use the other guy's re, especially in every cast a chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem!
The Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
feed @CelebMash is a word-based Dissociated Press applied to recent celebrity tweets.
History
The dissociated press algorithm is described in HAKMEMHAKMEM
HAKMEM, alternatively known as AI Memo 239, is a February 1972 "memo" of the MIT AI Lab that describes a wide variety of hacks, primarily useful and clever algorithms for mathematical computation. There are also some schematic diagrams for hardware...
(1972) Item #176. The name "dissociated press" is first known to have been associated with the Emacs implementation.
An article in the November 1983 issue of Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
gives this garbled William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
passage: "When he got on the table, he come in. He never come out of my own pocket as a measure of protecting the company against riot and bloodshed. And when he said. 'You tell me a bus ticket, let alone write out no case histories. Then the law come back with a knife!'"