granta, ketchup randomness, and the problem with AI metaphors

A unified theory of random condiments One of the Internet's longest-running old-school website -websites is the Lyttle Lytton Contest. The contest, approaching its 25th anniversary, is based on the now-defunct Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest , which asked entrants to write the worst possible first line of a novel. The difference--as implied by the "Lyttle"--is that Lyttle Lytton entries are more…