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Electronic Typewriter Rouses Shub-Internet
According to legend, Shub-Internet, Beast of a 1024 Processors, Eater of Characters, Avatar of Line Noise and countless other appellations rests peacefully in its lair deep beneath the Pentagon. Shub-Internet is nothing less than the harsh personification of the hideous multi-tendriled Internet itself. Now, artist Fang-Yu Lin has created a way for mortals to contact the Beast - he calls it From the Great Beyond, a device he quaintly believes to be part of some sort of artsy project.
(From the Great Beyond typewriter contacts Internet)
According to the artist, the project works like this. The user types in a sentence, question or phrase into the old-fashioned typewriter. The typewriter accepts the characters, and passes them on to a computer, which forages on the Internet for some related text. This new text or ASCII art is then typed by the typewriter itself as a response. All this is being done on an old-fashioned continuous paper roll.
"While intangible, the existence of an entity is suggested by the automatic typing and flowing responses spit out from the typewriter. The typing noise generated during the operation of the machine further reinforces that perception. As a result, something that is completely virtual and no more than an abstract concept is channeled into the physical world and presented as an entity."
(From the Great Beyond)
This guy obviously has no idea what he is messing with. Gray ponytailed MUDders will hopefully make the appropriate sacrifices to save us all.
Found this one thanks to Reg. Puzzled newbies can check here for more information.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 10/17/2006)
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