If you ever wondered what a computer would say if it looked at Toronto and wrote a haiku, now you can find out.
A team of designers and builders called Satellite Studio has built a tool called ‘OpenStreetMap Haiku’ that can generate haikus based on a database of information. On the OpenStreetMap Haiku website, Satellite Studio explains that it uses OpenStreetMap (OSM) data — self-described as a giant list of all the things in the world — to ‘see’ what’s around a given point on a map.
Users can experiment with this on the Haiku website by dragging around a minimal black-and-white map of the globe. The site generates a haiku based on what’s near the centre point on the map.
Satellite Studio matches OSM data to tags that randomly yield different potential verses. For example, if there’s a grocery store near the centre point, it’d get a supermarket tag that may yield verses like “The cashier’s bored” or “A lonely aisle.” Of course, it may not actually match the 5-7-5 syllable format of a traditional haiku, but more often than not, I found the site produced three interesting lines — most containing the word ‘chilly,’ an appropriate descriptor considering the recent weather in Toronto.
The designers seem well aware that the haikus might not be perfect, writing that the results are “sometimes fun, often weird, most of the time pretty terrible.”
But that doesn’t make generating poems about your favourite Toronto neighbourhoods — or any place in the world — any less fun. If you’re interested in playing around with the haiku generator, you can check it out here. If you’re curious about how Satellite Studio built OpenStreetMap Haiku, you can read a full breakdown of the code here.
Source: Satellite Studio Via: Toronto Star
