Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!Germany.EU.net!mcsun!sunic!aun.uninett.no!nuug!nntp.uio.no!sol!rivero
From: rivero@sol.cie.unizar.es (Alejandro Rivero)
Subject: Re: Computer writes a book?
Message-ID: <1993Jan26.084928.16437@ulrik.uio.no>
Sender: news@ulrik.uio.no (Mr News)
Nntp-Posting-Host: sol.cie.unizar.es
Reply-To: rivero@sol.cie.unizar.es
Organization: Department of Theoretical Physics. University of Zaragoza
References: <25JAN199314110698@rigel.tamu.edu>
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 08:49:28 GMT
Lines: 42

In article 25JAN199314110698@rigel.tamu.edu, spb0457@rigel.tamu.edu (SubGenius) writes:
 >
->+-------------------------------------SubG---------------------------------+
->There's at least one book authored by a computer I can think of--a thinnish
->volume that came out six or eight years back called _The Policeman's Beard
->is Half Constructed_ and, while most of it was on the ragged edge of
->comprehensibility I'd rate it far above any of J.S.'s efforts.  Because
->although it contained a good deal of repetition due to a conspicuously
->small vocabulary, it did deliver occasional jems like, `A black pig is
->like a tormented bat,' explained in tortuous logic, and the wild
->`inconsistancy is the hobgoblin of little minds,' which leads one to
->wonder what trash the programmers had been feeding their machine.
->

that was from RACTER, was it?  I read a reference to Racter in Scientific Amer.
time ago, probably in computer games. There was a Racter vs Eliza match, funny,
showing how RACTER routines can make fool a sophisticated parser as Eliza is.

The more important point about racter was the interactive version. He could 
speak with a human and take records of conversations for future use. A good
character to include in a game... 

I dont know if racter source is avalaible. In fact, I dont know if the program
is avalaible actually from any place. I have heard there are other projects running 
in internet, some of then in .ca areas, but I have not info about. Perhaps someone
there.

-Alejandro Rivero
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