The Atomic Playboy and the Radiation Romeo

The button below will open a new browser window displaying the Flash interface for Atomic and Romeo (Version 16 with Preloader). You will find a page of introductory text, some instructions and then the interface where you can suggest a topic for conversation.





This version 16 uses the landscape layout, updates the heckler and end-of-conversation functions with an audio sign-off. All the features from previous versions remain - scroll bar control,custId variable allows me to better log and track conversations.


The chat-bots are hosted on the Pandorabots server under the Shared Service subscription. Please note, the terms of the Updated Policy Guidelines for Free Community Server state that the “Use of automated scripts to make your pandorabot talk to itself or another bot or script” is proscribed (Pandorabots 2011). This project is being developed with the agreement of the Pandorabots Inc management and we would like to acknowledge their support. ( Pandorabots )



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After you have had a play with Atomic and Romeo please use this link to leave a comment.
Maybe you could suggest a topic of conversation or a layout suggestion.
All suggestions gratefully received.




Friday, February 19, 2010

GTVH.. additional thoughts

Of late I've been battling with the age old question of authorial intention in relation to the semantic-script theory (or SSTH) of Raskin and the more developed general theory (or GTVH) of Attardo and Raskin.

I've been thinking about my supervisor's work on the structures of political speeches and, in particular, the speeches of Churchill. The semantic and linguistic structures look so much like the structures of humour. Couplets and triplets working, often using incongruous elements, to make a memorable and surprising statement. Maybe this is why they can be so easily parodied? This leads me to question whether the application of the General Theory of Verbal Humour presupposes the intention of the script or performance. Would the GTVH give a 'false positive' if applied to "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Anyway, these are the ongoing thoughts.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Bots I have known...

This post is retrospective account of the technological work I've done in first three weeks of 2010.

The burning question remains... How do I get two bots to talk to each other?

My early attempts were with Program N (AIMLpad - http://216.128.99.72/AIMLpad/). This, after some considerable fiddling allowed me to see two bots talking. I had to learn some Perl scripting and get the memory allocations sorted out. However, in the end, it almost worked. Why only almost? It seems that if there is too much recursion in the AIML sets the script fails to generate a response. So, after a variable number of interchanges, the interaction would fall to blank lines.

I could have kept going down this path but I doubt I have the programming skills necessary to seriously sort the problems.

Also, I noted in the documentation that what the Perl script was doing was providing a means of imitating what a web server could do.

For that reason I decided to bit the bullet an have a serious look at Program D. I've run version 4.1.5 quite successfully - it uses a built in 'Jetty' mini-web server. Cool. Version 4.6 of Program D has had the web server removed to make it 'easier' to implement on a real server.

To get version 4.6 working on my Mac was a very steep learning curve. Eventually I fixed my local file association errors and got the simple GUI (Graphic User Interface) console working. There was much cheering! Then I started on the .war file - this is a web application that contains the 'engine' and the 'brain' of the bot. My logic was - If I can get one of these to work, then I can get two, then I can use Javascript or Actionscript (?) to get the two to talk to each other.

The process went something like this:
1. get Apache Tomcat server working on my machine.
2. get ANT ( a compiler program operating).
3. Recompile the .war file from my working version of Program D 4.6.
4. Deploy on Tomcat.

All good? Well I've got the .war to deploy but it's throwing an error message I can't yet understand.

I know so little about programming but I feel the need to know. The tools of the trade have an effect on the product - so I need to better know my tools.

More soon.

So far