Unpredictably Predictive

/ Diane Henders

This week I was delighted to discover that computers are now capable of writing stories for us using predictive text. I had already suspected as much, since these days my iPhone can pretty much compose text messages all by itself. If I type “Are…”, it will automatically fill in “…you still coming today?”

This is an unavoidable result of dealing with contractors who are genetically incapable of showing up as promised; and it also proves that my iPhone is at least as smart as they are.

Um… no, I’m not bitter; why do you ask?

Anyhow, back to predictive-text stories: Botnik Studios fed all seven volumes of Harry Potter to their computer, and then turned it loose to write the next great Harry Potter saga.

Amazingly, the computer did create a story that has taken the internet by storm. Not because it’s so good, but because it’s so hilariously bad. Check out “Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash”.

Better still, talented artist Megan Nicole Dong couldn’t resist the challenge of illustrating the particularly bizarre bits.

Inspired, I turned to my iPhone. Surely it had the world’s next bestseller locked away in its little electronic brain!

Here is its magnum opus:

I don’t know what to tell you about the other day but we’re not going to get any more time. Officially the best thing to do is to get a new job. Jobless claims are still coming up in a couple of months but I haven’t been able to make any changes to the company.

I forgot to ask you about the foundation of your job and how to make it work. The next time we have to make sure you get the house. The beams are not going to make it any better than the last time I had a chance to look at it and I haven’t done anything for the last week. I want to see what we can do to get the job done.

I admit I was disappointed in its painfully dry prose; but at least the whole composition was more coherent than a lot of business memos I’ve seen.

Moving on from ‘predictive’ to ‘predictable’… Christmas holidays are here again!

And that means I’m going to skip next week’s blog post so I have time to remove a few pounds of dust from Every. Single. Surface. In the house.  Including the Christmas tree, all the Christmas decorations, and the (formerly nicely) wrapped gifts, because the contractors (who were supposed to finish a month ago) exploded Dustpocalypse in our house the day before our houseguests were due to arrive.  GRRR!!!

*breathes deeply through a dust mask for a few minutes*

Okay, I’m all better now.  Ish.

I’ll also be taking time to prepare some festive calorie-laden goodies for my guests.  With any luck I’ll be able to keep the dusting separate from the cooking; but if not, at least I’ll be serving high fibre (if oddly-flavoured) meals.

Merry Christmas to those who observe it; and whatever your December traditions may be, I wish you joy, comfort, peace, and prosperity.

‘See’ you on January 3, 2018!

 

21 thoughts on “Unpredictably Predictive”

  1. Well, crap! Where did it go? I posted my usual lengthy and witty bit of prose last week just before I hit the sack to get some sleep before we headed to Orlando to see our older son and daughter-in-law. Now, we’re back, and I discover that my post is missing!

    I hate when that happens.

    Anyway, my heartfelt condolences for the endless wretchedness you and Hubby have had to put up with of late. Gad, what a nightmare y’all have had to deal with! Thoon, thithter, thoon.

    Further, I note that your progress chart is showing significant and consistent gains! If nobody’s told you today that you rock, please allow me to be the first! Rock on…

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    • Aw, thankth! And I’m sorry your comment got eaten – how annoying! I discovered it in the spam folder (who knows why – WordPress is nuts) and restored it to its rightful position on this post. Now I wonder how many other comments I’ve lost. *sigh*

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  3. Well, even if “the beams are not going to make it any better” I know the baking will! Predictive text usually just makes me frustrated but yours was quite entertaining (maybe not to you, but to the rest of us!).

    Have a wonderful holiday, Diane! See you on the other side 🙂

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    • Thank you, @jenny_o – the same to you! And you’re right, baking makes everything better – already I’m pigging out on Christmas goodies. I’ll give myself free rein until the new year, and then it’s back to normal life and a healthy(ish) diet!

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  4. I just love to run spell check on things that I have written. Sometimes they fit better than what I was trying to write, but more times than not they are so far off base you would think I was “writing in code”.
    I love Christmas but I am always glad to get the house back to normal before Jan. 1st. Hope you and yours have a very happy and Merry Christmas and New Year’s. Looking forward to the new book.

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    • Thanks, Donna! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, too. And I’m looking forward to a bit of extra time to work on Book 13 over the holidays! (Hopefully it’ll be more exciting reading than my iPhone’s ‘story’.) 🙂

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  5. I wonder if a computer could start doing Trump’s tweets for him and make more sense? What’s the worst that could happen? WW3?
    Christmas is coming? I better start thinking about shopping. Is that the right holiday for that? See what happens when i take a day off work to let my mind wander?

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  7. Reading it without the setup, I’d take it for either side of a conversation with one of your contractors. And after the setup, I’d swear it was! 😁

    And BOOK THIRTEEN is coming right along! You’ve made more progress in the last two weeks than you did in a span of two or three months last time. I know you must be banging your head against the garage floor at times in frustration. But doing that prolly has less severe long term consequences…even though it is certainly less satisfactory than doing it to any random contractor. Less effective, too, most likely.

    Then again, maybe it’s time to end all this PC bull, er, poop. Make examples, not excuses.

    “No, officer. Leave the corpse tied to the front gate for another week or so. Two other contractors are due tomorrow. Maybe they’ll get the message.”

    “Oh, sure, ma’am. And by the way, I’ve been looking for this one for nearly seven years. Week after next he’d have been legally dead anyway. Good job with running him over with your snow blower. And holler if you need the meat wagon after the others show up.”

    Hey, an idea whose time has come.

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  8. Well, didn’t want to say this publicly yet, but I’ve been working on a “Machine intelligence” program to write comments to blog posts. I am thinking of becoming famous for just writing comments to blogs.

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