Since you seem to have stumbled in from the YouTube comment section, I'll do you a solid. This is /., we try to maintain at least a veneer of civility around here. Don't sully the good name of Anonymous Coward.

Yeah, he kind of covers that in section 5. No reason for picking his model (other than simplicity), it can't predict new characters, and there's very little data to go off of.

Sure, it's mental masturbation. But developing little toy models like this is still interesting and helps you understand limitations and keep up your skills without working on big, complicated, boring real statistical models. This kind of thing is worth doing for the same reason masturbating is worth doing--it's fun. As long as you don't take it too seriously and start confusing it with actual sex.

If this counts as 'monkey analogs' writing Shakespeare, I should start keeping a list of words I say. Then when any new book comes out, if it can be written using only words I've previously generated, but not necessarily the same order, then I wrote the book. Only Dr. Seuss will be safe from my litigation.

I've always wondered if it would be difficult to make a voice recognition program integrate mathematical symbols. Even though those symbols exist as a shorthand, fields with underdeveloped notation can be a little cumbersome for writing. Anyone who can make my pen obsolete by accomplishing this can claim it as a prize.

I should answer A because in that case it is impossible for me to invalidate any other choice. That way everyone wins!

Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand and I can move the earth. I can not, however, move your mother.

My favorite is a TI-89 emulator, because when I use a calculator I'm usually not in it for the general operations. Unless you count Mathematica as on-screen (and as a calculator). But I guess anything that can make graphs and calculate their diameters and girths for me isn't a 'calculator.'