mad props anew

November 20, 2004 8:33 PM

This has been posted before, but with so many new users pouring it, I declare it high time to bestow mad props anew to Majcher's excellent and addictive GeneFilter. Just change the username at the end of the URL and get a wonderful Burroughsian cut-up of that user's postings. Great for getting a general flavor of what a user has contributed. Hit reload to create a fresh cutup. Enjoy!
posted by squirrel to MetaFilter-Related at 8:33 PM (70 comments total)

An earlier MeTa thread that has some good quotations from it. It doesn't look like it has anything in the db for the April users, though.
posted by kenko at 8:41 PM on November 20, 2004

Wow! Excellent stuff, thanks! Great job, Majcher.
posted by dobbs at 8:41 PM on November 20, 2004

That's cool. I never knew about it, and I've been here for a couple years now...
posted by jonson at 8:53 PM on November 20, 2004

Quo' dobbs: "I'm uncircumcised and am very happy about it? No. Surprised? No. Upset? Not in the window".
posted by kenko at 9:11 PM on November 20, 2004

awesome!
posted by drezdn at 9:16 PM on November 20, 2004

Seems to have a rather limited sample space of comments, but still lots of fun.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 9:25 PM on November 20, 2004

"I wonder what would happen if the Pope threw his heavy backing and recommendation behind a given candidate? Ask William J. Dorvillier. MeTa, please..."

That's way smarter than anything I ever really said.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:33 PM on November 20, 2004

I hated to see and telling a woman walking her dog that it was a furry
motherfucker although I am the only snakes that have visited are the
prototypes.
posted by bargle at 10:35 PM on November 20, 2004

Blessed baby Jesus this is a great find. I had a friend in high school
whose family was kind of eccentric. Once they went away for a long
weekend and couldn't find a sitter for the notorious Love Canal. Wax my
anus!...

Truer words were never spoken.
posted by TimeFactor at 10:47 PM on November 20, 2004

I don't, know TimeFactor - I said this, and it certainly seems at least as true:

but don't be discouraged; there really are animated buttock-looking things almost eveywhere else in the room
posted by taz at 10:55 PM on November 20, 2004

Interesting! Though mine pops up with the sentence, "I have a 10-year-old," which is, as far as I know, not true.
posted by Zosia Blue at 10:57 PM on November 20, 2004

Strangely enough, bargle is normally that incoherent.
posted by Danelope at 10:59 PM on November 20, 2004

Mine shows nothing. Which is strange. Maybe this only covers a time period during which I wasn't posting.
posted by bingo at 11:24 PM on November 20, 2004

If he's serious then he's an incredible idiot. If he's serious then he's an incredible idiot. If he's serious then he's an incredible idiot. If he's goofing then he's an incredible idiot. If he's serious then he's just an idiot. Either way, it was a one time deal.

It makes me feel like Max Headroom.
posted by fenriq at 12:27 AM on November 21, 2004

By the way, this was new to me and I want an RSS feed of it. Or an animated head parroting the words and slyly berating me.

I totally dig it.
posted by fenriq at 12:30 AM on November 21, 2004

bingo, that's weird, but I bet anything it has something to do with this joker.

And I can't resist this last one: you can get neither grits nor quonsar's pants where I last lived in a few days ago.
It lasted about two seconds. Ick.

(Yeah. Between the fish and the gondola, there's barely enough room to swing a cat.)
posted by taz at 12:36 AM on November 21, 2004

This thing is awesome. I'm not in it, though. I think it uses an older copy of the MeFi pages.

(I'd totally forgotten about Bingo the Clowno. I haven't seen that shit since computer animation school five years ago!)
posted by neckro23 at 12:46 AM on November 21, 2004

You need to combine it with Amelia Marzec's Geek Machine. Here in 6 minutes.
posted by dobbs at 1:21 AM on November 21, 2004

Please note that GeneFilter is case-sensitive.
posted by Asparagirl at 2:05 AM on November 21, 2004

Hah, the very virst sentence of mine:

This is a snark, actually.
posted by Space Coyote at 2:56 AM on November 21, 2004

All bickering parties appear to be any such means. Also, you're in desperate, sloppy need of some papal contact. Unfortunately, the Pope has many moments of up-close freshness. I hope my notes on the sample-based freestyle and incorporates new influences freely. Hip-hop is like shooting your TV because you don't have to.
posted by squirrel at 5:11 AM on November 21, 2004

Buy all the parts of a bunch of guys falling on each other at the sight of an erect penis anywhere near another erect penis. We're talkin' hardcore here!

True. True.

I've had a link to GeneFilter on my userpage for some time now. I'm dying for it to get updated, as I have a strange feeling Ethereal Bligh's posts will be ... interesting ;-)
posted by WolfDaddy at 5:23 AM on November 21, 2004

I'm glad it's not just me who looked for a Bligh summary first thing.
posted by biffa at 5:38 AM on November 21, 2004

Somebody replaced all my cut up genius with unintelligent whining. I demand an investigation.
posted by seanyboy at 6:04 AM on November 21, 2004

Matt's has changed now, but when I looked at it initially it began 'Don't forget Cardoso. He's an outsider.'
posted by biffa at 6:22 AM on November 21, 2004

It captures better than I ever could the essence of what I've being try to say for over 3 years.

Editor-fom-Hell, that Majcher! :)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:06 AM on November 21, 2004

This is glorious. Five mentions of god.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:18 AM on November 21, 2004

not I had thanks! seen Wonderful before this.
posted by carter at 7:22 AM on November 21, 2004

Aside from creating fantastic cut-ups for others to read, it gives the writer a jumbled, serial deja vu. You read along, disoriented, until you recall some bit of what you might have been talking about; and then, bam, a new, foreign context springs up in the middle of a sentence; but then it occurs to you that you kinda remember that, too. And the cycle repeats as you skip across months of explanations, gripes, retorts, and glib snipes. It's like Vonnegut.

I hope majcher pops in to tell us a bit about how it was made, and takes a bow.
posted by squirrel at 8:11 AM on November 21, 2004

I have a strange feeling Ethereal Bligh's posts will be ... interesting

I hadn't been to GeneFilter in ages until I felt the strong need to see EB Rehashed; when it came up empty I felt bitter and cheated. I demand an update!

Or, to quote myself:
I don't know enough about Middle Eastern history to try every one until we have a good idea, even if it's accurate what exactly Gove meant by and not enamored of what should the appropriate behavior have been pleased if you can forget that clever story you linked has the headline Vietnam cracks down on the shuttle disaster and NASA screwups), and 2) it ain't gonna happen, not in this thread...

Refute that, suckers!
posted by languagehat at 8:27 AM on November 21, 2004

languagehat - That was wonderful.

This little toy is rad. Thanks for pointing it out, squirrel!
posted by digifox at 8:39 AM on November 21, 2004

It's not only remember them, I own their albums including the the key
inspirations of hiphop was European proto-techno music such as sexuality, war, ecumenicalism and other events deeper underground They could be really entertaining and Franken at his best could give a shit.
Which tells me that Black Sabbath was hugely popular among some segments of the innocent kittens?) but i'm not sure what that means...). What I meant by that person,and what the world was run by them either. This will all have...


Uh, you betcha.
posted by jonmc at 8:54 AM on November 21, 2004

I like that a quick reload changes the whole thing, lickety split.

Should I prelube my ass for the forefathers, don't you? Smart guys, they were. Honest mistake amidst hundreds of little kids. Period. Non story,...

Damn, I could go on doing this all day. Damn you, majcher, damn you for hijacking my Sunday! At least I'v got a tv in my office so I can multitask between reloading, punching in new nicks and watching mediocre football.
posted by fenriq at 9:05 AM on November 21, 2004

dear AskMefi,
for many months now, I have been addicted to GeneFilter and it is ruining my life -- it's so funny that I have to reload, reload, reaload... and every version is funnier than the one that came before it.
(not to mention, all Miguel's GeneFilter comments always have at least one "excellent post, X!!!" and a reference to alcoholic beverages)
thanks, Anonymous
posted by matteo at 9:23 AM on November 21, 2004

I'm not entirely useless.
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:26 AM on November 21, 2004

and a reference to alcoholic beverages

You're getting all of those ... I keep getting wacked-out recipes!

And thanks biffa and 'hat. I just knew I wasn't the only one. Heh.
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:32 AM on November 21, 2004

also, I make more sense on GeneFilter:

I'm a quagmire, bill. BOO! To sin by silence when they would live in slum housing, work long hours for scant pay, and, in general, Italy's northeastern accents (Venice, Padua, you name it) have something inherently unnerving, even for your 42 comments. the Loeb Classic Library jewels were way too crude and working-class to be seen, same for sports. it's very true that Virginia Woolf in her new book, A Problem from Hell, lives in a shack in Ulan Bator. Imagine Hitler painted like Vermeer. it's people like ms Malkin that were huge plastic robots, young women in Rabbit / Dog / Tiger funny costumes who jumped and danced
posted by matteo at 9:35 AM on November 21, 2004

N.B. Rewritten and wired for my cloves. Maybe this sort of presupposes the second 45 minutes (or whatever) are not fully satisfied by their relationships (keep trying!) they find it admirable that Eggers and his position regarding the Geneva Conventions. ... I wish all the anonymous breasts and legs you buy in
the smoking lounge; the bar order one.
posted by kenko at 9:44 AM on November 21, 2004

Big Wheel, schmig wheel. Real men tile aperiodically. The novel will
be able to use school bus system. The school should comply, and have
Russian grandparents, or... there is essentially no tolerance.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:23 AM on November 21, 2004

yes, he's got a crush on you To quote Calvin, sometimes I think of more modern bands who do that, what I was a fratboy high does not mean that he understands English, it means something different to another person, people asking for a kid who never missed an episode of The Galloping Gourmet) and I also wonder what the truth is, what happened can possibly help prevent its happening again with another kid. How can looking for that elusive feel good feeling of furthering science (whatever the hell that is).

You know...the problem with this (brilliant as it is) is that after reading a few of these, everything else starts to read like this as well. It's like some kind of Snow Crash thing. Would likely benefit both sharks and humans I think of Kiss...
posted by biscotti at 11:35 AM on November 21, 2004

Ostrich Award for boaz. The whole concept of hauling out and make a preemptive strike on North Korea during Sean-Paul's honeymoon... Now for the word ensues that is not ALL the fault of our Public school systems; the Private school agendas can be Rob, Bob, Bobby or even Bert, and asked my parents what else they had all the predictions that the ever-more-right-leaning MSNBC would end up with the lazer aimed at his source, and I'm looking forward to his very lucrative Hollywood career, with a letter c that works onsistantly... Totally self-indulgent FFP, just because one of my personal earworms is a Big Fat Blog, which I consider quite telling: During the German occupation of Greece it was fresh! and now you'd have a Mrs. Fields or Cinnabon? (/rimshot) Now, is MetaFilter the place to be... They're creepy and they're kooky... mysterious and spooky... Instrumentals are just as bad; sometimes you can reach me at everything... even at neglecting his blog... starts to sulk away, hides behind chair calling out Crimson Chin! Crimson Chin! Crimson Chin! Oprah Chucklebuns. Honest. Oprah Chucklebuns. On my top ten list of otherwise-good sites where they re-design rooms, Tom said incidentally. Musty harmless...
posted by wendell at 11:56 AM on November 21, 2004

You know ParisParamus could just copy-and-paste chunks of his and no-one would be able to tell the difference.

If WMDs are not an argument for an immediate start to the depression on the sidelines, stop supporting a horrid regime, which is little more than the runner-up currency any time soon.

Indeed.
posted by Grangousier at 1:22 PM on November 21, 2004

Woah, I apparently talk about biking and public transport a lot. Does it only index posts from the blue? I'm also guessing it hasn't been updated in some time, 'cause I haven't ranted about being an intentional pedestrian in a while.

Quonsar's cutups are filled with a disturbing amount of sex and violence. There was one about holding some wriggling thing's head under water until it stopped wriggling.

Would be interesting if it indexed blue, grey, and green.
posted by loquacious at 1:38 PM on November 21, 2004

ParisParamus: "Well, Squirrel, you're obviously not in public. On the other mass-murderer in the War on Terror? With reasoning like this, no wonder there's no serious chance of President Reagan. You've mangled my words."

Indeed.
posted by loquacious at 1:39 PM on November 21, 2004

Um, okay, I looked for myself, too. But I have this awful fear that the result for me will be unfunny and boring and that it would implictly be a criticism. My near-logorhea might just make it all blend into something undistinctive. On the other hand, I do write in opposing modes, intentionally, juxtaposing abstracted and formal talk with vulgarities and informalities. Maybe that'd be funny out of context. But I'm kinda afraid. :)
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:41 PM on November 21, 2004

Oh, don't be afraid, E_B.

Be very afraid. :-P
posted by WolfDaddy at 2:06 PM on November 21, 2004

But I have this awful fear that the result for me will be unfunny and boring and that it would implictly be a criticism.

Now, some would take this opportunity to make a sarcastic comment at your expense, EB. But I won't.

Anyway, I bet your text all mashed up and recombined would make for some odd non-sequintur regardless of your opposing modalities.
posted by kenko at 2:09 PM on November 21, 2004

It looks like I only talk about ads (I do that, in real life anyway).. And I'm slandering a poor French journalist!
Christophe Dabitch might be a nutcase. Is he neo-nazi or not? There's contradicting stories, for example his ex-girlfriend says he's not ( and she's 'dark' as she put it). Oh and now it'll probably be downright impossible. Sorta like having a hard time catching up? It's easy to conspire about the 80% fail rate of american marriages. oissubke - tax reasons?
posted by dabitch at 2:18 PM on November 21, 2004

Matt's has changed now, but when I looked at it initially

They change everytime you refresh. I think it's unlikely that any two of us will see the same one, though I have seen the same phrases pop up more than once. Makes you wonder how the thing works. Majcher?
posted by scarabic at 2:20 PM on November 21, 2004

it's very true that Virginia Woolf in her new book, A Problem from Hell, lives in a shack in Ulan Bator. Imagine Hitler painted like Vermeer. it's people like ms Malkin that were huge plastic robots

matteo, there's material for at least three books in those three sentences. Write them and get rich!

I appear to be much more interesting rehashed than live:
The origin of a front-page post as I've seen in a future war who gets called away from you bit by bit—which is what all aggressive types use to justify and recontextualize their atrocities ... they wash and wash and wash and wash and wash and wash and that other people wish to label us with Not at all, you should give up on that garbage can and crane my neck, I'm terribly offended by the gaze of others.

The quonsar page I just got starts "...um, about that cockroach..." 'Nuff said.
posted by languagehat at 2:32 PM on November 21, 2004

Markov chains.
posted by kenko at 2:33 PM on November 21, 2004

as avatars or i don't give a rat's ass what it is at my house. what i'd like to make myself cry. in fact i send out warnings to all my (grateful) girlfriends after i've seen males as submissive, borderline-inferior objects that i can do no wrong, thus the photo is a defense mech more than i've stated. i'm happy that after my death i may be used for and old guy...? cah-razy! cahrazyhuhkookoonuts. ohh nice distraction taz, thanks!

oh boy.
posted by t r a c y at 2:58 PM on November 21, 2004

On the other hand, I do write in opposing modes, intentionally, juxtaposing abstracted and formal talk with vulgarities and informalities.

VERY clever use of the Genefilter bot here. Top marks!
posted by adamgreenfield at 3:00 PM on November 21, 2004

Wow, thanks squirrel, and everyone else! (And thanks to bingo, for directing my attention here.)

The genefilter bit itself is pretty stupid simple - it's just your basic markov chain algorithm, working off a database of word frequency data that I scraped off the site. The scraping is actually what makes it fun - and it's also the part that breaks it if I don't run the script for a while, or if the HTML changes slightly and makes it fail. Which it's doing now. It might get fixed soon, though, so don't despair. The database also gets a little big, so I might be pruning that back to just the most recent year or so sometime soon.

I'm glad y'all are enjoying it, though... have fun!
posted by majcher at 3:05 PM on November 21, 2004

Oh, BTW: Strong in-group/out-group demarcation strategies do have an instinctual basis in primates, and may indeed have been the boot of choice of self-respecting skinheads - racist, antiracist and nonaligned - for over thirty-five years.
posted by adamgreenfield at 3:06 PM on November 21, 2004

His name is Legion, for he is Many. Awright. Old people suck. They
can't drive, they're incapable of learning, and they LOOOOVE to throw
away comic-book collections. Yes, I'm afraid they might kill me. I hate
and fear them....

Yep, that's me, all right.
posted by interrobang at 3:13 PM on November 21, 2004

So what's the bigger pony, Matt's HireMeFi page or majcher's EB GeneFilter?

on preview, that looks like it could've come off of GeneFilter...
posted by wendell at 3:37 PM on November 21, 2004

we're in a faceless, crawling, menacing, gray shape kind of meat receipt that you would find worthwhile

Meat receipt. *giggle*
posted by jennyb at 3:53 PM on November 21, 2004

you don't think this is a resonable venue for taking a stance against the Fast Food Nationization of the giant, blood spitting Gene Simmons poster on my Visa card

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

This is the best thing that's happened to me in weeks.
posted by jennyb at 3:55 PM on November 21, 2004

This essay addresses the question of if, under Christian teaching, it is in reality - it's rarely useful trying to understand the reality of the Tom Cruise classic. Yes! Iron Eagle. Thankyou.

Enough said.
posted by Jimbob at 3:59 PM on November 21, 2004

This just in: there are a couple of months worth of new users' material in the database. I apologize in advance for any harrassment, EB.
posted by majcher at 8:55 PM on November 21, 2004

Miguel makes an excellent point: Amberglow, you lucky so-and-so! It may not be kosher but, whatever you call that savory concoction of meat, grease, and fire - is strictly hedonistic, rather than merely a sentiment. Hell, I wrote my Ph.D thesis on Saudade in Portuguese political philosophy and still can't define it.
posted by flashboy at 9:50 PM on November 21, 2004

Uh oh.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:20 PM on November 21, 2004

See? Mine are boring and not funny. Of course, just the last two months of my posts are actually quite few: I refreshed three times and saw stuff from some of the same threads and some of the same stuff each time. Sorry to disappoint.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:26 PM on November 21, 2004

Well, virii can be a potent demonstration of the reasons that Christian conservatives have become as influential in American society, and the Rio Grande valley to the women who think they can push back.

Makes sense to me, E_B!
posted by WolfDaddy at 5:34 AM on November 22, 2004

No, EB. I get this from you:

It's interesting to note that my beliefs are reasonable, relatively speaking. Both could be wrong, I apologize for the last eight years.

and that's pretty darn funny.
posted by taz at 6:18 AM on November 22, 2004

Apparently I almost always start comments in the form "username, ...". And almost all of mine comprise complete sentences from my posts! Though I did like "Somethingawful is open to the public, you just can't have kids.".
posted by kenko at 7:30 AM on November 22, 2004

I dunno, I got: There's something I obviously don't know.

And that just doesn't sound like EB to me.

I kid, I kid!
posted by languagehat at 7:34 AM on November 22, 2004

In the immortal words of the hoi polloi: We are members of the city only marginally, since I don't know why it has 28 days.

-- the Genefilter version of myself
posted by kindall at 8:18 AM on November 22, 2004

My visit to EB began "It's a position that it's smug, self-satisifed, self-serving. It's always is, isn't it?"
posted by biffa at 4:21 AM on November 23, 2004