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Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

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Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#51

Post by [deleted] »

irahul wrote: post #42
AgentConundrum wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried two different posts I wrote (in fact, the entire contents of my rebooted blog, since RSI has kept me down lately), as well as one half-written post, and apparently they all appeared to be Dan Brown works. I'm not quite sure what to think of that, but at least it was reasonably consistent for me.

It was completely inconsistent for me. I tried 4 posts and got 4 different results. I tried 2 different parts of the same post and got different results. I suspect the webapp is just suggesting random writers. Also, NLP classification is a hard problem. I don't think doing it reliably over a weekend is possible. I think that had OP done any good work on NLP, he would have discussed it. I am more inclined to think the…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#52

Post by hugh3 »

irahul wrote: post #42
AgentConundrum wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried two different posts I wrote (in fact, the entire contents of my rebooted blog, since RSI has kept me down lately), as well as one half-written post, and apparently they all appeared to be Dan Brown works. I'm not quite sure what to think of that, but at least it was reasonably consistent for me.

It was completely inconsistent for me. I tried 4 posts and got 4 different results. I tried 2 different parts of the same post and got different results. I suspect the webapp is just suggesting random writers. Also, NLP classification is a hard problem. I don't think doing it reliably over a weekend is possible. I think that had OP done any good work on NLP, he would have discussed it. I am more inclined to think the…

It's not completely random. I've just tried sticking sections of works by authors mentioned in this thread in to see if it can identify them, and it's not doing badly.

I gave it a slice of Finnegan's Wake, and it told me it sounded like James Joyce. It would be a pretty bad algorithm if it couldn't identify James Joyce.

Then I got it to correctly identify passages from Dan Brown and Mario Puzo. Quite impressive.

One possibility is that it's just matching word frequencies. To check this, I tried a few strings of my own devising:

"mafia mafia don don mafia mafia" --> Mario Puzo

"vatican conspiracy vatican conspiracy vatican conspiracy" --> Dan Brown

"oh woe is me, life sucks, everything is crap" --> Chuck Palahniuk

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#53

Post by donw »

dchest wrote: post #50
irahul wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was completely inconsistent for me. I tried 4 posts and got 4 different results. I tried 2 different parts of the same post and got different results. I suspect the webapp is just suggesting random writers. Also, NLP classification is a hard problem. I don't think doing it reliably over a weekend is possible. I think that had OP done any good work on NLP, he would have discussed it. I am more inclined to think the…

I suspect the webapp is just suggesting random writers. Nope. It's just a Bayesian classificator :)

Have you thought about using the tournament algorithm to improve accuracy?

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#54

Post by dchest »

donw wrote: post #53
dchest wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the webapp is just suggesting random writers. Nope. It's just a Bayesian classificator :)

Have you thought about using the tournament algorithm to improve accuracy?

Not yet, but thanks for the pointer.

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#55

Post by theboos »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #38

I know you said you're not discussing the algorithm, but to me, the biggest proof of silliness (I won't say "nonsense") is that when I entered 7 different blog posts of mine, I got 6 different results.

My results were actually consistent. I pasted in parts of an unfinished novel four paragraphs at a time and I got Dan Brown each time.

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#56

Post by GBKS »

dchest wrote: post #49
GBKS wrote: post #41

I'll share some experience with your from cornify.com, which had the same effect and still goes strong 1.5 years later (this year invitation to ROFLCON, SXSW people's choice award, installed in 550000 web pages...). This is my experience with a project that's different from yours, so I hope it will help with your specific situation. The main thing you need to achieve is to make your site about a bigger theme. This fe…

Thanks for sharing your experience!

Just wanted to emphasize one more time that you need to act right now. Stop sleeping if you need to. The next few days are super important.

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#57

Post by timdellinger »

dchest wrote: post #50
irahul wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was completely inconsistent for me. I tried 4 posts and got 4 different results. I tried 2 different parts of the same post and got different results. I suspect the webapp is just suggesting random writers. Also, NLP classification is a hard problem. I don't think doing it reliably over a weekend is possible. I think that had OP done any good work on NLP, he would have discussed it. I am more inclined to think the…

I suspect the webapp is just suggesting random writers. Nope. It's just a Bayesian classificator :)

You realize that there is a niche of academia that works on using computers for analysis of writing samples in order to determine probable authorship, right? Algorithms exist that have been tweaked and improved over the years that you might be interested in reading about.

You might also connect with the people who try to identify students who turn in term papers and lab reports written by other people.

You could also add a game (who wrote the following paragraph? (Multiple choice)). That would be an avenue for return visitors.

You could also have "write like Hemingway / Dickens / Neal Stephenson / etc." contests. Kinda like painters going to famous museums and copying the works of famous painters, it's a way to extend and hone the craft of writing. I recall a good version of Twas The Night Before Christmas written as if Hemingway wrote it. Also, connect with specific writers' fanbases (especially Chuck Palahniuk), and with writers workshops, and fanfic groups. Poetry, too.

There are a lot of ways you could take this. Make sure your algorithm is effective, though!

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#58

Post by paraschopra »

Bit off topic, but it will be interesting to learn how you seeded the meme. Will be good for people like me who churn out such minor projects which always fail to get >100 visitors :)

As far as monetary gain is concerned, immediately you can find some of the writers books on Amazon and link them up in the results page with your affiliate id. Long term you can capture email ids and send them offers on email.

Re: Ask HN: What to do with this meme?

#59

Post by dchest »

timdellinger wrote: post #57
dchest wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the webapp is just suggesting random writers. Nope. It's just a Bayesian classificator :)

You realize that there is a niche of academia that works on using computers for analysis of writing samples in order to determine probable authorship, right? Algorithms exist that have been tweaked and improved over the years that you might be interested in reading about. You might also connect with the people who try to identify students who turn in term papers and lab reports written by other people. You could also…

Yes, I even have been contacted by people who research this, and received a lot of pointers to interesting works. But I'm sure I wouldn't be able to integrate and figure out this in 3 days.

You suggestions are helpful. Now that I'm interested in this topic, I may release something better. Thanks.

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