May 2011
10 posts
4 tags
Turing Tests...
Contemplating AI, Turing Tests, and whether or not I’d pass a Turing test in any given conversation. For reference, the article that inspired this bit, is over here, though for the most part it won’t be related to AI. I’m saving that for a future post.
*****
Two tricks that are used in creating bots in order to trick people into thinking they’re chatting with humans are...
3 tags
Epic Poetry
I’ll get to the why in a moment, but I looked up the definition of Poetry the other day (ok, ok, the wikipedia entry, but still). I’d wondered even as a kid what it was that made something poetry or not poetry, but just hadn’t gotten around to looking into it. Turns out that any words strung together as much for the aesthetically pleasing quality of their combination as for the...
3 tags
Camera
Just a quick post tonight while I wait for my Internet to come back up.
I’m currently in the market for a new camera. I’ve got a handful of photoshoots lined up this year, but can honestly say I’ve never spent more than $20 on a camera before. And those cameras just will not do for what I’m looking to do.
I’m looking at only having maybe $200 in the budget for this...
3 tags
Small Press TV...
This idea is a based on an idea I’ve been mulling over for a couple months, based on the modern state of the RPG hobby, and my growing frustration with TV production companies like Fox, NBC, ABC, etc. This was crystallized by an article written by Roseanne Barr for New York Mag, and a cracked.com article about shows canceled by Fox. Should mention I don’t work in the industries...
“I am not a die-hard capitalist. I do not view capitalism as a credo. Much more...”
– Hernando de Soto (via coeus)
2 tags
Circle of Friends
Got to thinking about this tonight. Standard procedure has always been to make time in one’s day/week/month for those friends who are still in the area, and this was mostly a matter of course. You might send a letter to the friend who moved to Taipai whenever you hear from them, but it would be weeks between sending your letter, and getting a response. These days you can hear back in a...
5 tags
Escallation based skill rolls
Been thinking about this based on… Okay, so by now I’ve mostly forgotten it. I remember a podcast talking about resolution mechanisms, though I couldn’t tell you which one (think it was Jennisodes, but don’t recall the episode), and a blog post by RDonnoghue about the difference between Goals and Tasks. This is liable to be a bit of a wandering post, as I’m still kind...
3 tags
““Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause...”
– Terry Pratchet, “Lords and Ladies”
4 tags
Candles in RPGs
This post is coming from a lot of different sources hitting me just the right way over the past few days, and drawing on references from quite a long time back. As such I’m not even going to try to remember all of them, but some of the key ones were: a book I once read where the local tech poor society used candles of various lengths to measure the passage of time, a discussion with a friend...
Turning the Dangers of Social Networking to your...
So we’ve all heard of the issues that come up when talking about how many people use social networking sites. We’ve seen the “Please Rob Me” lists, heard of the dangers of cyber-stalkers, etc. But what if we could turn some of these techniques to our advantage?
Many people use sites like Foursquare, or Facebook Places to post where they go, and when they get there. Many...
