"i forced an ai to read the entirety of the neopian times..."

**kittyray** · 02-12-2021

At some point in the past few months I found myself wondering "I wonder what the longest article in the Neopian Times is". I had the tools at my disposal to figure it out, but I realized that if I was going to have something look at the text of every single article, I may as well do something with that text. Analyze it for common themes? Sentiment analysis? Nothing really felt exciting. Then, as a struggling ne'er-been-published Neopian, who is getting low on needed avatars, something to help the painful-to-me writing process seemed ideal. So, I made an article generator.*

The gathering part was an interesting process. I ended up using Selenium to bypass stackpath to look at The Times, but I had to do two different approaches because the layout was revamped starting at issue #150. Then I started looking into different approaches to generating text, as I haven't done it using a machine learning approach, and was toying with a couple different things and battling versions of Python and the tools I need (namely Keras needs certain versions of TensoFlow which needs older versions of Python). While taking a break from that headache, I found a Jupyter/Google Colab Notebook specifically to make text generation more accessible. You can find it (you need an account to see links) and read the author, Max Woolf's, blog post on it (you need an account to see links).

The blog post has some instructions on deploying, but the example project isn't working and I am about to spend the next week packing up boxes, so I don't have time to dive into it. I'm hoping to circle back to it and make a little generator site, but for now I'll just share some highlights.

For these I used a markov chain for easy title and then picked something from the title to try for a fitting opening set of words.
I initially cleaned the text to be free of punctuation, so I went back and added it as I saw fit. None of the text as been altered by me except to cut off some extreme repetition after a point.

Busy Owners Come Up On The Probably-Doomed Esophagor

My Life�s Consonance

Regrets!

Igloo Chias - Your Mark Your Petpet

Lifestyle of the Usuki

Sources of the Rescue: An Altador Cup VI: A guide to Creating Terror: A Shopper's Guide to Nova Battle Items for Those of Evil: The Pounded Pets Love of the Top 10 Must Avoid Costly Impulse Buying on Neopets's Birthday Party!

Pants off of Daily Dare Prizes That We're Lucky Saint Patricks Day Party

Dirty Place Where to Celebrate Valentines Day � Most Powerful Women in Your Life Of Neopians (Who Are You Know)

Attributes Gained from Jhudora

*None of these should actual be submitted. If I deploy the project, which I hope making this post will make me accountable to do, do not used any of the generated text as a submission. This is all for fun. I feel like this should go without saying, but just in case, CYA.

OH!
And since this all started with curiosity about the longest NT Articles:

11672	(you need an account to see links)
11233	(you need an account to see links)
8829	(you need an account to see links)
8461	(you need an account to see links)
8282	(you need an account to see links)
8109	(you need an account to see links)
7479	(you need an account to see links)
7414	(you need an account to see links)
7196	(you need an account to see links)
7096	(you need an account to see links)

**Digipoop** · 02-12-2021

~ "A story about a Neopian you really don't like is just a story about you."

**padfoots** · 02-12-2021

ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. I found this weirdly poignant:

My life has been shaped by my peers and has been shaped by my parents and the past. It s a time for me to breathe and I'm sure I won't be able to live my life the way it used to be.

Also, me writing my theory chapter in my PhD:

This year I m going to be writing about the Neopian Times. What does it mean for the Neopian Times and its readers? The Neopian Times is the most important publication in Neopia.

Also me giving advice to someone:

The igloo garage sale is the most popular way of raising money for your pet so that you can help your pet out and have it become a successful owner. So there you have it, my recommendations on the best ways to raise money for your pet. I hope you enjoyed it and that you may also enjoy this article as well.

**♥ PrettySarcastic ♥** · 02-12-2021

1000% you could get published using this. Please do it. Do not release this source code, it's a work of bizarre genius.

Use a shell, get published, a few months later, tell us you were published, but never tell us which issue or which user.

Let us all cackle while we try to figure it out and marvel at the wonder of @(you need an account to see links).

**Digipoop** · 02-12-2021

Attributes Gained From Jhudora:

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**Flordibel** · 02-12-2021

Originally Posted by kittyray

Lifestyle of the Usuki

I have come to tell you that this is the best thing I've ever read. Ever. EVER. It expresses my feelings about Usukis perfectly. I want to put this in my sig. I treasure it. Thank you for your work, kitty. This is fucking glorious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Ice** · 02-12-2021

I'm absolutely CHOKING these are amazing and you are seriously a genius, oh my god

I love this kind of stuff so much and with Neopets as the theme it's just so much funnier jklasjdflkas

**Stealth** · 02-12-2021

Incredible.

I'm absolutely here for the Jhudora propaganda at the end. When will this AI be taking over plots?

**♥ PrettySarcastic ♥** · 02-12-2021

Also I moved this to Neopets because it's hilarious and Neopets-related and belongs here in posterity forever.

Otherwise no one will ever know to use the igloo garage sale to raise money for their petpet.

**Digipoop** · 02-13-2021

Originally Posted by Digipoop

Attributes Gained From Jhudora:

Can't stop reading these but now realize I should have done "Regrets!" instead. The "thanks for reading this article" kills me every time and it gets better with each re-read

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