Welcome to JanusNode!
A JanusNode is a user-configurable dynamic textual projective surface- that is, a generator of random texts. JanusNodes contain tools for creating new texts, using a simple rule-based text-generation language, and for morphing old texts, using Markov chains or more random methods.
Some of our favorite JanusNode reviews (morphed by machine-translation):
But those lunáticas poetic definitions average means enchant to me.
www.deneno.net
...a most interesting accidental generator of witnesses.
With promising premises and interesting functions the program has mined our ego and disorganized the little remained neurons.
flyingcircus.it
The current version 2.08 (updated July 30, 2005) was written to run under Macintosh OS X. You can download it here.
You can download the Windows version here.
Like you, JanusNodes are free.
However, tips are appreciated and encouraged:
May the Divine Indifference of Janus manifest Itself beautifully in your life!
Janus is also considered, in an rather abstract way, on my website devoted to psycho-ontology, the nature of psychological objects.
The JanusNode Definition Project
You can get the very short TextDNA needed to generate definitions here [included with JanusNode]. To use it, put this text in a text file inside a directory called (for example) 'Definitions', inside your 'TextDNA' folder.
The rules for the JanusNode Definition Project are as follows:
i.) No words can be added to the definition generated by your JanusNode.
ii.) Words may be deleted from the definition generated by your JanusNode.
iii.) Articles may be altered in the definition generated by your JanusNode.
iv.) No other editing is allowed.You can read some JanusNode-generated definitions here. Please send along any good ones your JanusNode produces.
Janus-endorsed sites:
Tom Phillips' 'Humument' is a treated Victorian novel, and one of the great pieces of art of our time. The entire work is now on-line here.
The Darwinian Poetry site uses natural selection to create poems, many of which are quite wonderful.
Levitated.net and Complexification.net are two wonderful sources of beautiful computation.
Good places to start looking for interesting texts to paste into your JanusNode's Markov chaining function are U Penn's Online Books Page and the Project Gutenberg page.
Marcel Duchamp did a lot to inspire my work on JanusNodes. I am sure would have loved them, and sorry he didn't live to see them. John Cage and William Burroughs probably would have appreciated them too.
PlumbDesign's visual thesaurus is poetry in itself.
Boingboing.net is indeed as advertised: a directory of wonderful things
The Utility Project is a random musical composition project: "music playing the musician"
www.fubbs.net is a wonderful and mysterious site that makes me think of all that is good.
I am fascinated by this chance-driven way of knowing what's up.
Celebrate many anniversaries!
There is more Dada-inspired fun to be had at AnExquisiteCorpse.net
Have a song written by 'Songs To Wear Pants To'.
We have always liked a Richard Brautigan's poems.
All serious users of JanusNodes read Found magazine
E-mail me at janus@janusnode.com
Buy some über-geeky t-shirts with computer-generated messages on them!
Our guarantee: All t-shirt texts were computer-generated using a JanusNode.
All the t-shirts below have the JanusNode logo (above) printed on the small of the back, as illustrated above.
Click on a shirt below for more info, or to make a purchase.
#1: Random kindness will come to be seen as evolutionary progress.
#2: The chocolate option will be worshipped.
#3: Try to jump joyfully
[ Please note the human collaboration: the image was neither generated nor selected by a JanusNode.]
#4: Don't blame me: I majored in Darwinian pataphysics
[Generated by JanusNode using a special t-shirt slogan rule.]
#5: biological hermeneutics = algorithmic contempt
[One human punctuation mark change. Bamboozle everyone you meet.]
#6: Nonconform is (t) art (is) t
NEW! A series of 4 self-referential, neo-Matissean, post-Duchampian, über-Holzerian t-shirts!
Made with textDNA by Tim Drage.
#7: Tim Drage TextDNA T-shirt #1
This is not an orange and sparkly striped vinyl t-shirt.
#8: Tim Drage TextDNA T-shirt #2
This is not an aquamarine felt t-shirt.
#9: Tim Drage TextDNA T-shirt #3
This is not a silver spandex t-shirt.
#10: Tim Drage TextDNA T-shirt #4
This is not a fluorescent orange lycra t-shirt.
If you would like to see more (non-JanusNode-generated) t-shirts that play with the edges of meaning, then visit The Paradox Gallery.
All done here? In the spirit of Janus, go to a random web page.