A.D.D. style post
Hi all,
It's Thursday, and you all know what that means...
... yeah, neither do I.
Anyway, here's some
As some of you already know, I'm involved in a robotics project, the goal of which is to create a basic sociable robot for the AAAI competition in the middle of July. I've spent the better part of this year teaching myself both fundamental A.I. techniques and Prolog.
I chose Prolog for a number of reasons, but the most important reason is that Prolog was designed with Natural Language Processing in mind. Since I'm creating a sociable robot, NLP is a large part of the project.
Up until now, I've been using the Visual Prolog distribution, as I was told it was the easiest distribution to link with Visual Basic. I actually developed a nice set of DLLs for VERY basic language processing.
Anyway, what I'm working on is reworking the NLP stuff so that it uses more advanced techniques. Now, much of the NLP stuff that I've come across in my readings uses Definite-Clause Grammar (DCG) to validiate incoming captured utterances. Prolog, being the nice little NLP language that it is, makes DCG a very easy thing to code. Actually, I should say that MOST Prolog distros do so.
Apparently, Visual Prolog decided that DCG was something that wasn't at all necessary. I mean, seriously. Who would want to do Natural Language Processing in Prolog?
So, I spent the better part of today investigating different distributions. What did I find out? Apparently every other distro of Prolog is easier to use than Visual Prolog. Awesome.
I actually have a lot more to say about this, some of which might help convey how I actually feel about all of this. I'm just too lazy to type it out right now.
-------
In other news, I just picked up "Stadium Arcadium" by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. It's pretty good. My laptop speakers don't really do it justice. I'm sure I'll like it a lot more once I get it into my car.
-------
Anthrocon was a lot of fun. Pittsburgh was a pretty cool city (or at least the small bit that I saw was nice). I wish I'd gotten to spend more time with everyone. God dammit why do you all have to live so far away??
The food Amanda and I had in Philly was pretty damn good. I actually have a little bit to say about two of our dining experiences. I'm just don't feel like writing about it now.
Damn A.D.D.
-------
What happened to summer? Does anyone remember when summer meant sunshine and fun? What is with this rainy, humid, depressing little floodfest we're having now? I mean, I remember being a kid and being upset when it rained for the first time in a month during the summer. Now, I'm surprised when I look outside and see color.
When did we all move to Seattle?
-------
I just got the urge to go snowboarding. Anybody want to fly to South America with me and go snowboarding?
-Canj ^..^
P.S. Damn, focused thought is unbelievably difficult today. You probably guessed that already. I mean, this is probably the worst entry anyone has written in quite some time.
It's Thursday, and you all know what that means...
... yeah, neither do I.
Anyway, here's some
As some of you already know, I'm involved in a robotics project, the goal of which is to create a basic sociable robot for the AAAI competition in the middle of July. I've spent the better part of this year teaching myself both fundamental A.I. techniques and Prolog.
I chose Prolog for a number of reasons, but the most important reason is that Prolog was designed with Natural Language Processing in mind. Since I'm creating a sociable robot, NLP is a large part of the project.
Up until now, I've been using the Visual Prolog distribution, as I was told it was the easiest distribution to link with Visual Basic. I actually developed a nice set of DLLs for VERY basic language processing.
Anyway, what I'm working on is reworking the NLP stuff so that it uses more advanced techniques. Now, much of the NLP stuff that I've come across in my readings uses Definite-Clause Grammar (DCG) to validiate incoming captured utterances. Prolog, being the nice little NLP language that it is, makes DCG a very easy thing to code. Actually, I should say that MOST Prolog distros do so.
Apparently, Visual Prolog decided that DCG was something that wasn't at all necessary. I mean, seriously. Who would want to do Natural Language Processing in Prolog?
So, I spent the better part of today investigating different distributions. What did I find out? Apparently every other distro of Prolog is easier to use than Visual Prolog. Awesome.
I actually have a lot more to say about this, some of which might help convey how I actually feel about all of this. I'm just too lazy to type it out right now.
-------
In other news, I just picked up "Stadium Arcadium" by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. It's pretty good. My laptop speakers don't really do it justice. I'm sure I'll like it a lot more once I get it into my car.
-------
Anthrocon was a lot of fun. Pittsburgh was a pretty cool city (or at least the small bit that I saw was nice). I wish I'd gotten to spend more time with everyone. God dammit why do you all have to live so far away??
The food Amanda and I had in Philly was pretty damn good. I actually have a little bit to say about two of our dining experiences. I'm just don't feel like writing about it now.
Damn A.D.D.
-------
What happened to summer? Does anyone remember when summer meant sunshine and fun? What is with this rainy, humid, depressing little floodfest we're having now? I mean, I remember being a kid and being upset when it rained for the first time in a month during the summer. Now, I'm surprised when I look outside and see color.
When did we all move to Seattle?
-------
I just got the urge to go snowboarding. Anybody want to fly to South America with me and go snowboarding?
-Canj ^..^
P.S. Damn, focused thought is unbelievably difficult today. You probably guessed that already. I mean, this is probably the worst entry anyone has written in quite some time.