From: "Kroeger, Simon (ext)" <simon.kroeger.ext@...>
Date: 2006-04-07T23:21:26+09:00
Subject: Re: [QUIZ] Markov Chains (#74)

"moby dick - but it was that inscrutable ahab said to have two 
harpoons and lances, and feel thus intolerably old? close! 
stand by for it. it is a witchery of social czarship which there 
was a wilderness of ropes and hawsers chained down to ringbolts"

*rofl* this is realy a good one James!

Do you have any preferernces for the command line parameters?

cheers

Simon

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charlie Bowman [mailto:charlie@castlebranch.com] 
> Sent: Friday, April 07, 2006 3:53 PM
> To: ruby-talk ML
> Subject: Re: [QUIZ] Markov Chains (#74)
> 
> I'm pumped! I've been reading this mailing list for the last 3 months
> and I finally feel ready to try out a quiz.  This one sounds fun!
> 
> On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 22:02 +0900, Ruby Quiz wrote:
> 
> > The three rules of Ruby Quiz:
> > 
> > 1.  Please do not post any solutions or spoiler discussion 
> for this quiz until
> > 48 hours have passed from the time on this message.
> > 
> > 2.  Support Ruby Quiz by submitting ideas as often as you can:
> > 
> > http://www.rubyquiz.com/
> > 
> > 3.  Enjoy!
> > 
> > Suggestion:  A [QUIZ] in the subject of emails about the 
> problem helps everyone
> > on Ruby Talk follow the discussion.
> > 
> > 
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> > 
> > This week's Ruby Quiz is about text generation.  That's 
> right, we're going to
> > teach your computer to weave tall tales.
> > 
> > At its most basic level, a solution might be:
> > 
> > 	>> (1..30).map { (("a".."z").to_a + [" "] * 10)[rand(36)] }.join
> > 	=> "fb mcr hhluesjbhtf swm eehokmi"
> > 
> > However, let's make our goal to get as close to English 
> looking sentences as
> > possible.  One way you might do this is using a technique 
> called Markov Chains.
> > 
> > To use Markov Chains, you read some text document(s), 
> making note of which
> > characters commonly follow which characters or which words 
> commonly follow other
> > words (it works for either scale).  Then, when generating 
> text, you just select
> > a character or word to output, based on the characters or 
> words that came before
> > it.
> > 
> > The number of previous characters or words considered is 
> called the "order" and
> > you can adjust that to try and find a natural feel.  For 
> example, here is some
> > generated text using a second order word chain derived from 
> the Sherlock Holmes
> > novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles" by Arthur Conan Doyle:
> > 
> > 	The stars shone cold and bright, while a crushing 
> weight of responsibility
> > 	from my shoulders. Suddenly my thoughts with sadness. 
> Then on the lady's
> > 	face. "What can I assist you?"
> > 
> > If you need text's to prime your program with, I suggest 
> searching Project
> > Gutenberg:
> > 
> > 	http://www.gutenberg.org/
> > 
> 
> 
> 
>