The House that Conceptnet Built

[zachwhalen]

I didn't manage to complete this last year or the year before, so this year I plan to revisit one or both of those.

New ideas for this year include:

• something something char-rnn something
• POS-tagging and substitution -- one novel's words in the syntax of another novel.
• something with Tracery

[zachwhalen]

Alright, so I've moved along with a couple of these ideas.

First, I've been playing with Conceptnet to try and build action chains following the formula of the "This the House That Jack Built" poem. I started this last year and got as far as some basic rhyme and meter. It didn't make sense, though, so this year, I'm revisiting the idea with concepnet.io to see if it comes together. So far, I can generate fairly plausible sentences like:

a bed that rested a person in the house that Jack built of brick
a cat that watched a mouse in the house that Jack located on an estate
a human that drank coffee in the house that Jack divided into several rooms

The code is a mess, but I like what it can do so far.

[zachwhalen]

I know it's December, but hey, it's always November somewhere, right?

I've been working on this little by little, and I did get the text generation part worked out before 12/1. I'm now on to the layout and illustration generation, which I really want to complete before sharing much. I'm pretty happy with the output, which can currently generate strings like this:

This is the TIGER that drank the water that stopped the fire that hurt the person that pushed the car that killed the person that ate the animal that hunted for the food that pleased the hungry person that analyzed the results of the test that placed the student that listened the teacher that listened to the student that fooled the teacher that helped to teach the student that doubted the teacher that passed the student that surprised the teacher that struck the pupil that bugged the teacher that questioned the student that sharpened the pencil that marked the piece of paper that flew in the wind that shook the tree that shaded the car that drove over the cat that ate the bird that landed on the tree that shaded the flower bed that rested the person that analyzed the color in the painting that pleased the person that skated across the field of ice that cured the headache that pained the person that relied on the computer that taught lessons to the student that proved the talents to the teacher that helped the student that questioned the teacher that taught the child that questioned the parent that dressed the child that needled the parent that feed the child that taught the adult that helped the child that received the hug from the parent that left the family that moved to the new house that Jack built.

[tra38]

I actually like how that output is itself a mini-story that elaborates how the tiger is indirectly connected to everything else.

[zachwhalen]

Much progress has been made! In fact, I've got a complete book of 49,799 words, 800 pages, but I need to get to a computer with Acrobat so I can reduce the file size down from 1.2gb to something more reasonable.

[zachwhalen]

OK I think I'm done, only two weeks late! The final sample optimized down to 23mb through whatever black magic happens inside Acrobat Pro.

All told, it was more work than I thought, but I'm quite pleased with the output. I read the shorter version to two of my kids (to whom the book is dedicated) and they actually liked it. My youngest actually requested it again a day later, so I think that's a good review.

[zachwhalen]

So @hugovk can I get that completed tag? (Or am I too late because it's December?)

[hugovk]

It looks great! Have a tag!

[tra38]

I read the shorter version to two of my kids (to whom the book is dedicated) and they actually liked it. My youngest actually requested it again a day later, so I think that's a good review.

Every year, the Neukom Institute Turing Tests in the Creative Arts hosts the Creative Turing Tests, and this year, one of the tests is "DigiKidLit" - create an computer program that can generate a short story for children. If you want, you could adapt this entry and enter it into the competition. If it is awesome for your kids, maybe it'd be awesome for other people's kids as well.