Who do you write like

[DanJW]

  Nachimir said:

My boss is slightly tormented at being told he writes like Dan Brown.

Ahahaahah, I was wrong, it does have unflattering results!

[elmuerte]

Lorem Ipsum also writes like David FosterWallace

[Snooglebum]

... Apparently I write like Mario fucking Puzo.

I guess I wrote the godfather, then?

EDIT: Copy and pasting Raymond Chandler over and over again gets the result of "Raymond Chandler".

[OssK]

You write like Lovecraft.

Really ? Sweet !

In the sense that what you write is nigtmarish.

Fuck you you damn machine !

[Nappi]

I got "You write like Dan Brown" from my hurried post on Mass Effect 2 thread. So take that Dan Brown.

On the other hand, the introduction of my bachelor's thesis got me William Shakespeare. It was on luminous efficacy of lamps. And in Finnish.

[circadianwolf]

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012502.html

The comments have some more information, too.

[DanJW]

Well yeah, the actual stuff being promoted is fairly obvious. I wouldn't even call the marketing ploy surreptitious, let alone a scam. It's why I called it a gimmick.

It'd be nice to know if there is any algorithm of meaning in the analysis, but it's impossible to without seeing the code. A fun distraction anyway.

[ThunderPeel2001]

It's complete balls I'm afraid. My review of Red Dwarf says I write like Douglas Adams (sci-fi). My review of Harry Potter says I write like J.K. Rowling.

I suppose it might be more accurate with fiction (seeing how it compares everyone to fiction authors), but really I just think it's looking for word frequency and taking a best guess -- and hopefully massaging some egos that will then put the results on their blogs, which will then lead to some people buying books from the sponsored link in the author's name. (Cynical, moi?)

Edit: Apparently this little site has really caught people's imaginations, though, and the author is working hard to improve his algorithm. http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article/837164--i-write-like-finds-your-inner-author

Edited July 18, 2010 by ThunderPeel2001

[syntheticgerbil]

  Murdoc said:

William Gibson; which is odd because I've only read half of one of his novels.

So at least it isn't a conscious decision... also, he might be a terrible writer.

edit: Reading what Gerbil got, I also used a forum post as an example, so that pretty much confirms(sure?) that William Gibson writes like an average(again, sure?) Idle Thumbs forum post.

Haha, that's awesome. I really don't know much about the guy even though I'm kind of a geek for cyberpunk, so maybe I should check out some of his books and stories someday, even if it's incredibly narcissistic almost to want to.

[James]

Even if it were accurate, saying which of a limited set of authors (apparently about 40) somebody writes the most like isn't tremendously meaningful without knowing the actual proximity. Of all these famous and generally talented people, it's quite possible that I write the most like someone amazing, because one of them has to produce the highest (or joint-highest) score with their algorithm, but it's also very possible that my writing is a thousand times more like patterns found in randmly smeared shit than any of the provided options. If there is no "you don't write anything like any of these guys" result, "surprising" results are pretty much guaranteed.

Also, apparently it's sexist and racist (or at least ill-informed in the related fields), but I wouldn't really know much about that.

I am, of course, taking this way too seriously.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I think that's very true, James.

[Snooglebum]

I hit Control + A on the first page of this thread, and pasted it into the little entry box. The first page of this thread writes like Arthur C. Clarke.

[James]

How about instead of trying to trick it with authors who are in the database, somebody enters some notoriously shitty prose? A celebrity autobiography or something? I would, but I pretty much only browse the web on my phone at the moment. Also, I'm quite lazy.

[Hermie]

This horrible (and super hilarious) e-mail writes like... David Foster Wallace.

[ThunderPeel2001]

  JamesM said:

How about instead of trying to trick it with authors who are in the database, somebody enters some notoriously shitty prose? A celebrity autobiography or something? I would, but I pretty much only browse the web on my phone at the moment. Also, I'm quite lazy.

Yeah, I was going to look for something Glen Beck has written.

[James]

  Hermie said:

This horrible (and super hilarious) e-mail writes like... David Foster Wallace.

That e-mail is amazing. I put DOOM: Repercussions of Evil through and it came out as Dan Brown, which may well be the most accurate option.

[Snooglebum]

Chris's long blog post about System Shock reads like Edgar Allen Poe. Quite the literary person, Chris B. Remo.

[Lu]

  Snooglebum said:

Chris's long blog post about System Shock reads like Edgar Allen Poe. Quite the literary person, Chris B. Remo.

Christopher Boostivale Rémo, artisan writer.

[tm_drummer]

Apparently, I write like Stephen King. I put in my short "retrospect" on the game American Mcgee's Alice. Which...maybe makes sense, because there are expressions such as "disturbing atmosphere", "distressing soundtrack", gory visuals", an "asylum" and "falling down chasms"...lol.

[Sleepdance]

Dante Aligieri aperantly writes like James Fenimore Cooper.

Edit:O, and if I put the hole poem in, he writes like Shakespeare.

[Kolzig]

I wrote some gibberish about happy happy times and suddenly darkness coming and it tells me I write like Stephen King. So I guess that figures as Stephen King writes a lot of cheap crap.

[Rawru]

Fiction: James Joyce

Blog post: Stephen King (Uhh, it was about birthday presents, I also used the word 'Weeew!'...)

Thumb post: Cory Doctorow, who I have never heard of until now.