If technology is so great, why can't it write blog number nine for me?
Maybe it can...(seriously if you don't follow this link this post won't make any sense)
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“Vic, write my blog for me,” I told Vic this morning.
“Ok.” Vic says. “Library persecutes a subsidiary clearance. Technology shapes the initiate trace beside the accomplished noun. Will Technology speculate above the fortunate magic? A pleasing analyst stares below Library. The container collapses before the chance. The silicon barks past the bell! Library constrains Technology. Technology offers a doom over the mum. Library migrates around Technology. Library attends Technology under the socket. The wonder schools an equilibrium. Technology excepts Library against an operator. Technology splits with the inaccessible clue. Why won't a dictatorship flash outside Library? Technology views Library without a scant idea.”
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If I let Vic write this blog, this is the sort of stuff you'd be stuck reading. Vic, you may remember, represents technology. So while it may be convenient to assign Vic this writing task by plugging "Library" and "Technology" into a word and syntax generator, it ultimately makes for terrible, though occasionally interesting, prose. I actually use the Random Word (Plus) feature of this site to help me fill in blank spots on vocabulary quizzes that I give in a class of mine. I select the part of speech and vocab level, and Vic supplies me with an appropriate word. He is well-suited for such tasks.
I'd involve Gil, but he'd want to say something about how reading Vic's prose is an accurate metaphor for the struggle to wrestle meaning from our observations of the world. He could on and on about this, but that wouldn't help Joe Patron very much. On the issue of technology doing stuff for us, Joe Patron and I have a lot in common. We want technology to do it for us. We find ourselves squawking, “Isn't there a computer program that could do this?” And, “This must be on the internet somewhere.” We could go on and on about this, but the point is that the mouse has been given a cookie and now it wants its glass of milk. The bar of user expectations has been set and its up to libraries, like it or not, to follow through as well as possible.
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“Nice job actually making a direct point of application to Librarianship, Joel.”
“Thanks, Gil.”
5 comments:
I cannot decide if the post generated by Vic reminds me more of a Mad Lib or some doctoral dissertations I have tried to read. The sad thing is if you presented that paragraph to someone pretentious enough, I bet you could get them to say they understood it. I think you should try it as a social experiment.
Ha this is great I did it using the work IUN and Wiki and this is what I got:
Wiki coughs outside IUN. A liable fuller skirts the collective umbrella. Wiki arrives underneath IUN. Across IUN puzzles the swallowed detective. The coast completes a last newspaper. Why can't your physicist relax?
None of the sentences are even alike. I think I may be doing this all night now instead of my homework
Hello, Joel,
I like how you use athe persona of "Vic" to write your blogs; very creative! I think we that as humans have become very lazy over the years relying on technology. I remember when I was doing my client project last semester and had to use EndNote, and I thought: how did I make it through my English degree without this program?! So, now, I do look for programs that will assist me in anything. First it was spell check on Word; what is next?!
-Rachael
as i reread vic's contribution, i recognize that the two of us have more in common than i was willing to acknowledge previously. - gil
I guess I'm not pretentious enough because I refuse to say it's intelligible.
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