Previously, On The X-Files...
February 17, 2011 10:55 PM   Subscribe

Previously, On The X-Files... Using nine seasons of dialogue, some Markov chains, and an image generator, cortex created a site that creates somewhat thematic dialogues between X-Files characters. This results in some pretty funny dialogue. I want to believe. [via mefi projects]
posted by flibbertigibbet (51 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
Almost as incoherent as that Frasier/Nine Inch Nails remix thing...
posted by mannequito at 11:12 PM on February 17, 2011


BUT DO THEY ATTACK PEOPLE?!
posted by gsteff at 11:17 PM on February 17, 2011 [8 favorites]


omg

"I may not mean anything to me that all you wanted to ask you a catholic, Bob?" That's right, Scully.
posted by bewilderbeast at 11:22 PM on February 17, 2011


The surrealists would be proud. Who'd a thunk their games would be amusing the world nearly 100 years later?
posted by hippybear at 11:24 PM on February 17, 2011


I'm glad I understand what a Markov chain is because otherwise I would be inspired to find out by these kinds of goofy projects, and I think the reality of what a Markov chain actually is would be disappointing if I thought it was just a fun thing to give me infinite X-Files.
posted by little light-giver at 11:34 PM on February 17, 2011






Cancerman would never thank anyone that was not a smoker or related to Ed Lansdale.
posted by clavdivs at 11:57 PM on February 17, 2011


I don’t know why I find this one so funny. I think it’s the tension in the third panel.
posted by him at 12:52 AM on February 18, 2011




It's coming! PUSH! PUSH!
posted by cj_ at 2:07 AM on February 18, 2011


An awkward silence.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 2:35 AM on February 18, 2011


What? What?
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 2:35 AM on February 18, 2011


About?
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 2:48 AM on February 18, 2011


Ewww!
posted by Splunge at 3:17 AM on February 18, 2011


What caused the accident?
posted by noyb42 at 3:31 AM on February 18, 2011


Byers is the sane one.
posted by noyb42 at 3:37 AM on February 18, 2011


Byers thinks he has a shot.
posted by noyb42 at 3:41 AM on February 18, 2011


Tell him about the cheese steaks.
posted by valkyryn at 4:33 AM on February 18, 2011


Dadaist X-Files. Wow.
I surely can't be the only one thinking "These make more sense than the first X-Files movie."
posted by SaharaRose at 4:39 AM on February 18, 2011




This is kind of oddly compelling.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:00 AM on February 18, 2011


You need to decrease the entries in the probability matrix that lead to "Not Found - Sorry, but the page you requested cannot be found."
posted by Wolfdog at 5:10 AM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


Who is this Josh Millard and where does he get all those wonderful toys?
posted by tommasz at 5:10 AM on February 18, 2011


What's startling me is how young everyone in that show looks to me now. Whoa.
posted by Kitteh at 5:16 AM on February 18, 2011



Markov ...

What, I have to go on Wikipedia again?
posted by Major Tom at 5:17 AM on February 18, 2011






Good morning!

You need to decrease the entries in the probability matrix that lead to "Not Found - Sorry, but the page you requested cannot be found."

Heh, I'm working on it. The deal is, error reporting from Perl running in a CGI context is terrible. Just, really terrible. If something goes wrong, it just dies and the error.log ends up with "Premature end of script headers:" as the whole reason. When I was building this, I went in and identified the specific areas where I could figure out that some sort of error might be happening (and so managed to identify a couple of nasty loop conditions in the process), but after all that there's still obviously something going wrong now and then and so far I have no idea what.

It is a bit crazy-making, but I'll keep looking. The codebase is really content-agnostic (much more so than it was during it's life as Garkov) and so I have plans to generalize this to a couple other shows as well once I can get the assets together, but I'd also like to just release the code itself as a DIY thing if I can get the code stable enough and make it no so embarrassing to look at in spots.

What, I have to go on Wikipedia again?

Heh. I really need to write up a nice clean intro to Markov chains one of these days. I linked to the wikipedia article from the POTX page itself but that's not really the best layman tutorial of the subject.
posted by cortex at 7:13 AM on February 18, 2011 [2 favorites]


POTX-385776452:
A Jack Colquitt Adventure

By Raoul Bloodworth

(A leap...)

A weapon.

"Scully. Take a look at his hotel, who will help build a weapon."

posted by Iridic at 7:29 AM on February 18, 2011




during it's life as Garkov

Garkov is an Absurdist Masterpiece. Well Done, Sir!
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 8:25 AM on February 18, 2011


Every X-Files episode, ever.

Also, some of the fan transcriptions are just not very good.
posted by muddgirl at 8:51 AM on February 18, 2011




Scully doubts she and Mulder are on TV.
posted by BeerFilter at 9:15 AM on February 18, 2011


Oh ... oh.
posted by edguardo at 9:15 AM on February 18, 2011


Back off, gimp!
posted by BeerFilter at 9:24 AM on February 18, 2011


Fine, change the subject.
posted by BeerFilter at 9:29 AM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


Wow, I...I can't stop. I'm shocked at how entertaining this is. My favorite so far.
posted by NBJack at 10:04 AM on February 18, 2011 [2 favorites]


Thanks cortex, now my ungrad employees think I'm completely insane.

How the hell can you explain this to a 17/18 year old?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 10:29 AM on February 18, 2011


An unusually funny moment that honestly could have come from the series.

I'll stop now...
posted by NBJack at 10:45 AM on February 18, 2011


My favorite thing about noyb42's second link is how the placement of the computer in Scully's shots make Byers look like he's wearing an oversized top hat or possibly a Playstation 3. (Offer may not be available on screens larger than 3" x 5")
posted by kagredon at 10:52 AM on February 18, 2011


So we agree.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:06 AM on February 18, 2011










Know what?
posted by flod logic at 11:49 AM on February 18, 2011


Whatever.
posted by kagredon at 12:11 PM on February 18, 2011


cortex: if you're taking requests, please do "The Wire" next.

Panel 1: "Fuck."
Panel 2: "Fuck."
Panel 3: "Fuck."
Panel 4: "Fucking fuck."
posted by kagredon at 4:09 PM on February 18, 2011




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