Phil Parker here. Interesting posts. Here are some links that can clarify for some: Here is a piece about reaching underserved subjects/languages: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-jarvis/davos-2011-too-lit... Here is a current project dealing with agriculture: http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/education/campus-in-abu-dh... Here is a poetry project (graph theoric stuff): http://totopoetry.com/poetry/credits/edgepoet…
Programmer creates 800,000 books algorithmically, starts selling them on Amazon
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Re: Programmer creates 800,000 books algorithmically, starts selling them on Amazon
#92"Beginning in March 1998, he launched a private initiative (dubbed the “K to 12 +2 project”) after directing a workshop for the World Bank which considered illiteracy. One aspect of this problem is the lack of educational materials in local languages (the smaller the language in population, the less likely the publishing industry will find it profitable to serve such communities, leaving some 1000 written languages without basic textbooks). Using automated authoring processes he pioneered, his international business publications have funded a variety of multilingual educational materials including a free online multilingual dictionary, PC games, videos and ebooks. He has applied this approach to support projects sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation creating thousands of factsheets (using meta analysis) on tropical plants, and is now working on automated rural radio scripts, call center materials serving smallholder farmers, and SMS content engines working with the GSM Association, the Grameen Foundation, and Farm Radio International in Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and India, among other developing counties. As a hobby, he has applied graph theory to automatically author hundreds of thousands of didactic poems (limericks, sonnets, haiku, acrostics, etc.), and is on working fiction and academic studies."
Interesting research area. Unfortunate that such laudable motivations ended up in so much ridiculous spam... Perhaps a separate category on Amazon or hosting the content on another site would be better for everyone?
Re: Programmer creates 800,000 books algorithmically, starts selling them on Amazon
#93Phil Parker here. Interesting posts. Here are some links that can clarify for some: Here is a piece about reaching underserved subjects/languages: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-jarvis/davos-2011-too-lit... Here is a current project dealing with agriculture: http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/education/campus-in-abu-dh... Here is a poetry project (graph theoric stuff): http://totopoetry.com/poetry/credits/edgepoet…
Do you not see your texts as noise in the literary signal?
Re: Programmer creates 800,000 books algorithmically, starts selling them on Amazon
#94Re: Programmer creates 800,000 books algorithmically, starts selling them on Amazon
#95Re: Programmer creates 800,000 books algorithmically, starts selling them on Amazon
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, because giving people choices imposes a small but real cost upon them. It's science.
> Yes, because giving people choices imposes a small but real cost upon them. It's science. I'm going to charitably guess you're being sarcastic.
Re: Programmer creates 800,000 books algorithmically, starts selling them on Amazon
#97Phil Parker here. Interesting posts. Here are some links that can clarify for some: Here is a piece about reaching underserved subjects/languages: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-jarvis/davos-2011-too-lit... Here is a current project dealing with agriculture: http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/education/campus-in-abu-dh... Here is a poetry project (graph theoric stuff): http://totopoetry.com/poetry/credits/edgepoet…
Re: Programmer creates 800,000 books algorithmically, starts selling them on Amazon
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
The funniest part of "Scrotum" is that it's priced at $28.95. For an 84-page paperback, whose sole purpose is to trace the usage of the word "scrotum" throughout an oddly specific period in English linguistic history (1678 - 2007). I mean, perhaps the content farmer should also write a pricing algorithm? The review is, indeed, ball-bustingly hilarious.
So how soon before the algorithm then uses the comments as part of the next revision of the book? Its an interesting way to demonstrate the value proposition. In this case algorithmically selecting stuff from around the web generates random books, but they have little value for the most part. Books that are researched and curated on the other hand have higher values. The only difference being the curation, not the ba…
Machine generated, or guided, curation may eventually become a good thing, but as you know all too well, there are far too many uses of such tech that are harmful (e.g. poisoning search results, &c).
Re: Programmer creates 800,000 books algorithmically, starts selling them on Amazon
#99Phil Parker here. Interesting posts. Here are some links that can clarify for some: Here is a piece about reaching underserved subjects/languages: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-jarvis/davos-2011-too-lit... Here is a current project dealing with agriculture: http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/education/campus-in-abu-dh... Here is a poetry project (graph theoric stuff): http://totopoetry.com/poetry/credits/edgepoet…
Phil! Is that Phil Phil or motion-capture salamander Phil?
Re: Programmer creates 800,000 books algorithmically, starts selling them on Amazon
#100Phil Parker here. Interesting posts. Here are some links that can clarify for some: Here is a piece about reaching underserved subjects/languages: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-jarvis/davos-2011-too-lit... Here is a current project dealing with agriculture: http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/education/campus-in-abu-dh... Here is a poetry project (graph theoric stuff): http://totopoetry.com/poetry/credits/edgepoet…
could you tell us how many books have you been able to sell on amazon?