Dumb Brilliant Machines

Machines are dumb, but sometimes they do brilliant things because they can’t help themselves. They don’t talk themselves out of anything, and so they just go for it. No judgement whatsoever.

That’s Nick Zammuto on The Books’ blog talking about how they got the lyrics for Free Translator by running them back and forth through multiple online translation engines, a process that gave us verses like this:

Symmetrical foot in your mouth
and your high speed legs
Your knee-jerks a mark of distinction
It’s an elevator put-on

Also explains some of the charm of everyone’s favourite ebook lovin’ horse.

For a one-eyed man, on the other hand, the most beautiful rectangle would be the square. The beautiful is what corresponds to our nature (

— Horse ebooks (@Horse_ebooks) January 6, 2012