You can ask me something. I don’t promise to answer. If you’ve never heard of me and want to ask me something anyway, here’s some hooks:
I have many opinions on how humans interact with computers and how computers interact with computers; i.e. user interface design, programming language design, networking, and security.
I consider myself to have an akrasia problem but am reasonably successful* in life despite it, for causes which appear to me to be luck or other people’s low standards.
* To be more precise, I have money (but many unfinished goals which I don’t see how to throw money at). Though putting it in those words suggests some ideas…
How does your IRC Teddybot software work to help anyone solve problems—is this like the old Eliza program where questions are paraphrased back to the user?
I only implemented it to the specification; I suggest you take up that question with the designer. If I had to answer myself (it’s been a few years since that project), I would say that it is like the “cardboard programmer” or “rubber duck”: its value is in giving you something to address your one-sided conversation to. It does just a little bit more than the rubber duck.
I can say that unlike Eliza it doesn’t use any of the content of incoming messages at all, except to distinguish when it is addressed from when it is not, and whether there is a question mark.
(Thanks for reminding me that I never published the (trivial) source code; I should fix that.)
You can ask me something. I don’t promise to answer. If you’ve never heard of me and want to ask me something anyway, here’s some hooks:
I have many opinions on how humans interact with computers and how computers interact with computers; i.e. user interface design, programming language design, networking, and security.
I consider myself to have an akrasia problem but am reasonably successful* in life despite it, for causes which appear to me to be luck or other people’s low standards.
Web site, blog, GitHub
* To be more precise, I have money (but many unfinished goals which I don’t see how to throw money at). Though putting it in those words suggests some ideas…
How does your IRC Teddybot software work to help anyone solve problems—is this like the old Eliza program where questions are paraphrased back to the user?
I only implemented it to the specification; I suggest you take up that question with the designer. If I had to answer myself (it’s been a few years since that project), I would say that it is like the “cardboard programmer” or “rubber duck”: its value is in giving you something to address your one-sided conversation to. It does just a little bit more than the rubber duck.
I can say that unlike Eliza it doesn’t use any of the content of incoming messages at all, except to distinguish when it is addressed from when it is not, and whether there is a question mark.
(Thanks for reminding me that I never published the (trivial) source code; I should fix that.)