To anyone who thought AOLiza was an evil way of messing with people who randomly IM you, it's nothing compared to what's going to happen to Laura Pahl.

Update: Turns out the thing was a hoax, an April Fools joke they say, though I say no, since it's not yet April first. Ah well. Caught me!

Update to the update: Okay, purportedly not a hoax after all, but a story with some form of a conclusion now. Witness the drama, and the value of having a nice mom.

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The AntiBloggies, answer to the Bloggies, has published it's list of categories, letting you vote for the most deserving sites.

If ever there was an award Fury was cut out for it's Most Unfinished Projects. To refresh the mind of the gentle reader:

1. Randompixel (aka Cameo)
2. AOLiza
3. Metacookie
4. QWER
5. Blogger Purity Survey (2001 Edition!)
6. Fury 4.0
7. AIMtunes
8. Fury - Mobile Edition
9. Public version of FuryNodes
10. Fury MicroBlog
11. Underblog
12. LogMusic
13. Tao Dice
14. The Mara Story
15. The Butterfly Orgasm Story
16. Trip log for The Kevin and Ammy Cross-Country Show
17. So very, very many galleries sitting in iPhoto
18. Things I've forgotten but will doubtlessly be reminded of by you
19. More stuff I can't even talk about yet...

So go vote! You can vote once every 60 minutes, so vote early, vote often!!!

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Garry Kasparov, the world's top-ranked chess player, speaks out on why Deep Junior, the computer program he played to a 3-3 tie a few weeks ago, is a superior accomplishment to IBM's Deep Blue, the computer that beat him six years ago.

In his editorial piece, Kasparov puts forth a compelling vision on the juxtaposition of science and cognition, and touches on the 'why' of the Turing test, instead of just the 'what'.

I just wish the article was expanded to a book. Fascinating stuff.

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A couple months ago I was interviewed for an article being written about AI bots for New York Magazine. It turns out the article turned into a piece about the creator of ALICE, one of the most well known and arguably the most human-like AI bot yet created, but it's nevertheless an extremely interesting piece.

Free registration is required, but it's a good read. His story reminds me a lot of that of Howard Beck, the creator of the London Underground map, and how his devotion to the map (even decades after he had been let go by the London Transit Authority) took over his time, personality, and life.

I wonder whether these projects end up wrecking their creators, or if they are simply byproducts of an inevitable journey.

Now, with that, let me say that I'm hard at work finishing as many of my own mothballed projects before heading off to Pittsburgh. Don't worry though, I won't let them be the boss of me.

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Looks like AOLiza got a press mention. It got a whole slew of hits from Google searches yesterday, and a lot of people trying www.aoliza.com (which redirects to the AOLiza home page).

That usually points to a press or web mention without an associated URL. Anyone know where it came from? Clue me in?

Thanks!

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AOLiza turned one year old yesterday! Though some of the conversations came from as early as the 15th, they weren't posted until the 19th.

If you'd like to convey your birthday wishes to AOLiza, or just say 'Hi!', you can do so on AOL Instant Messenger tonight from (looking at watch) now until 8pm Pacific, when she has to go to bed. Her screen name is imabot2.

For those interested, I'm working on a tangential AOLiza-related project with a couple new friends from New York. The fruits from that labor will be posted shortly. If you want email notification, join the mailing list from the AOLiza home page. This is the 'Phase II' of the project that has been alluded to for so long.

Regular conversations are forthcoming as well...

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Out There: One man's search to find the funniest person on the Internet, a new book by Henry Alford, is set for release on June 12th. I got a review copy in the mail this week, and found that AOLiza has been deemed the second-funniest person on the Internet (at least that's the opinion of Mr. Alford and his panel of experts family members.

It's a great book and everyone should get it, if for no other reason than that it talks about sites that are funnier than AOLiza and it has a cool bright green cover.

Speaking of AOLiza, well... I have some new convos, and they'l be here very soon. If you go over there, you can add your email address to the list, so I can let you know when new content is up.

The other big news (well, big is such a subjective term (but then, so is news)) is that I'll be making AvantGo gateways, and possibly WAP and/or Tellme gateways, for both AOLiza and Fury.com, so you can catch up on the latest as you commute to or from work.

I re-activated my Omnisky account for my Palm V CDPD modem, so I'll even be able to post while commuting to or from work. Win-win!

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So I'm enjoying the Yahoo hits, but there are a whole bunch of people coming straight to AOLiza without referres. I'd suspect Harper's, but they just listed fury.com as the url, so these folks must be coming from somewhere else.

Did you see AOLiza mentioned in a newspaper or something? Give me a clue!

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AOLiza was selected as a Yahoo Pick of the Week today! Keep those hits and letters coming!

Finishing up a redesign of the AOLiza page. The original design , while neat and innovative (It's still okay for other people to call things innovative, right Microsoft? You haven't trademarked the word yet?), it didn't work well when there were more than ten or twelve conversations there. The new layout will be more informative and make navigation a lot easier. It'll either be up Monday or Wednesday.

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Ho, hum. Let's see, working on simultaneous redesigns of the AOLiza page and the Cameo site. The funky horizontal layout of AOLiza doesn't scale well now that there are over 40 convos online. I have it all planned out, but I'm still coding the global, cross-site navigation to make everything nice and ultra-modular. Once that's done there are a lot more features I'll be able to put in to the weblog, including a search function for entries, and a bunch of other stuff.

When, you ask? Well, I'm guessing the reworked AOLiza will go up by midnight tonight, and Cameo by this weekend. I should really stop giving cameo estimates, shouldn't I? Peter has chided me for letting redesigns inhibit content publishing, and he's absolutely right. Hey, at least I'm writing in here!

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At long last, I've put up 12 new AOLiza conversations tonight. There are two absolutely fabulous pieces in there. Hopefully within the next day or so you'll be able to tell which they are by the voting score.

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Everything happens at once! I'm working fervently on the Cameo design (and rebranding) and am also being innundated by hits from MemePool and cherished readers of Harpers magazine (still haven't seen the issue yet. Time for me to scavenge from my neighbor's mail!).

Also working on the promised additions to AOLiza. I'm working on a redesign there too, but I won't let that delay putting up 5 or 10 new conversations this evening.

And of course there's school, grad school applications, and possible job interviews (covering all my bases. It must be Monday!

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Okay, not an article, but Harper's did print AOLiza excerpts in the 'readings' section of the November issue. I can't wait 'till it hits the newsstands and I can read a copy for myself! Meanwhile, site traffic is taking a healthy upswing and I again feel compelled to put more into the site.

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Big traffic spike on AOLiza this morning, but none of the people coming in have referrers. Where're you all coming from? Was there a mailing list? Drop me an email, and satisfy my curiosity!

Added at 9:27: Ooh, weird. Are you coming because you read today's User Friendly and you're checking back to see if things have been updated? Wow... Anyhow, yes, there is an update coming... Check the AOLiza page for details...

Added at 9:37: Yep. there was a post on UF's message board, but it wasn't an active link, so people were typing it in. That explains it. Thanks guys!

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Toby's taken exception to my likening him to a cyberstalker, so I'd like to clarify, I didn't mean to imply he was stalking me, only that he took a domain name that only has two uses, presenting information on AOLiza, or taking hits from people looking for AOLiza in the wrong place.

Toby's assured me that he didn't mean to cause any harm, or to cybersquat, just that he was at namedemo.com the same day as he read one of the AOLiza articles, and it was the first domain name that came to mind, not meaning to do anyone any harm.

I'm hoping that this is the case, and that he'll work with me to register the domain in my name. The site's been getting a fair number of hits, due in part, no doubt, to the fact that the WSJ article didn't have a URL, and AOLiza.com is the most likely URL.

Anyhow, I've got to go to lab, but I'm hoping Toby really is trying to help, and I'll keep you posted.

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Thanks go to Toby, the guy who registered Aoliza.com, for putting in a redirect to the site.

I'm currently dealing with namedemo.com (register.com) to see what their deal is. Looking into the details, it looks like namedemo.com is a front to allow register.com to get around ICANN registrar rules prohibiting domain name registrars from warehousing domain names. Register.com is probably breaking that agreement, and I'm looking into it. Hopefully, further bulletins will follow.

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Some stars say they don't really see themselves as famous until the day they find out they have a stalker. Well, on the internet there aren't as many cases of stalking (unless you're Jenni or Jamie) but I've discovered an equivilant.

I found out today that somebody has cybersquatted AOLiza.com. They registered the domain on August 29th, the same day that the ABCnews and CNN articles came out.

As regular readers of the site know, I'm all for the rights of domain name holders who have legitimate purposes for their sites, even if they happen to conflict with the trademarks of large companies, but this is just mean. The word "aoliza" didn't exist on the net, not even once, prior to my putting up the site in mid-August, and they go and grab the domain for what? To get the mis-hits when people try the domain? To bribe me with it? Grumble, grumble.

Actually, looking into the service, namedemo.com, a division of the internet registrar Register.com, they'll let you get use to any one unused .org .net or .com domain you choose for free, but their agreement states:

"As part of the NameDemo.com service, NameDemo.com grants you a limited, non-exclusive, personal, non-transferable, non-assignable, revocable license to use the .com, .net, or .org domain name selected by you solely in connection with the NameDemo.com service. You acknowledge and agree that NameDemo.com, not you, will be the registrant of the domain name selected by you, and that your rights to that domain name are solely those of a licensee. You also acknowledge and agree that there is a one domain name per user limit. You further acknowledge and agree that your NameDemo.com domain name is subject to the terms of this Agreement."
--Excerpt from namedemo.com terms of use

Basically, this is legalese for "You can't give or sell the domain to anyone. We own it, we'll let you use it until we don't want to anymore, and if we want to let someone else use it at the same time, we can." The only rationale I can think of for a company to do this (and an ICANN authorized domain name registration company, to boot) is if there's a clause in their ICANN agreement prohibiting them from simply doing a domain-name grab for themselves. This way, they're ostensibly doing it at the request of their legitimate customers (who aren't paying anything), and if they find a use for the domain, they can take it away from the customer for any reason. Further, the terms of service ensure that the customer can't move the domain to another registrar (or even ISP), as namedemo.com is listed in Whios as the registering party and domain name owner.

I'd wondered before what would stop one of the domain name registrars from simply grabbing a huge number of domains and hold them. Now it looks like we've found one that found a way to do just that.

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I'd like to thank Rick Wayne for the great AOLiza article in the Wall Street Journal today (Section B, page 14). It's a shame that when the New York office trimmed the story from 20 inches to 11, they also omitted the URL for the site...

Update: Thanks go out to Jonathan Dube at MSNBC for adding a link to the WSJ story on that site.

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I couldn't help but notice the throng of people coming to AOLiza from Pixar, but the referring page is behind your firewall! Any chance anyone can send me a copy of the page so I can see what you've got to say?

Thanks!

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One savvy individual executed a very convincing play on AOLiza this morning. I so wanted the chat log to be real, that I had to chat the guy later under a pseudonym just to see if the story checked out. Unfortunately it didn't hold up, and it was just someone playing with AOLiza, hoping to spoof his way on the the chat logs, but it was such a vliant attempt, it's spurring me on to create a "deviants" section on AOLiza, for all the chaff chats that for one reason or another can't make their way on to the 'legit' site.

Other chats I'm planning on including on the deviant list are chats AOLiza has had with other 'chatterbots' (and the neologism goes) including Bizzarokiehl.

If you know of other chatterbots hooked into AOL, please let me know. I'd love to have them match wits (or is that bits (argh.. Not... blonde.. yet...)) and post the results.

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An 'ohiogozaimas' and 'shalom' to readers coming in fron the two latest AOLiza stories on opposite ends of the planet, one from Hotwired Japan and another from Nana Israel!

In a couple days when school and work mayhem level off I'll put up a list of articles on the AOLiza page.

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Now you can rate the AOLiza conversations on a scale of 1 to 10, and see how the others rate, and how many votes they've received.

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Rereading my previous post, I suddenly realized the reason the world needs a 'chat phone' is so people can talk to AOLiza anywhere, anytime.

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Hoorah! The Wired article is up, and they even tracked down Mr. Weizenbaum in Germany to let him know what his child has been up to and get his opinions on it. I'm really impressed by how the news stories have gone deeper than just the humor, interviewing sociologists, getting great quotes from AOL spokespeople, and generally doing a really fair job of reporting.

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I've found that with all the recent traffic to the site, I've been reluctant to write more in the blog because the biggest news is all the traffic coming to AOLiza, and for all you first-timers coming here, that sounds pretty self-referential (which is fine, this is a personal weblog, after all) and egotistical (which isn't as cool). So bear with me. I encourage people coming here for the first time to look around, and check back now and then to see what's new.

Anyhow, suffice to say I had to do a lot of work yesterday throwing up a few mirrors of the site to handle twin stories from ABCNews and CNN. I think Wired is going up today, and I've been getting a healthy flow of traffic from UserFriendly (thanks Rachel!!).

I love the different levels people think about AOLiza. At first it was all about humor at the expense of AOL folk (other people's take, not mine). Then the conversations turned toward the ethical implications, then the sociological implications (if people can't tell this is a bot, how will bot communications evolve in the future? Watch out AskJeeves!).

In a nutshell, a lot of very interesting questions have been raised and I'm looking forward to seeing where the discussion goes. I'll be putting up my thoughts here as time permits.

Alos, on the Cameo front: Due to the huge current tax on my bandwidth, I can't put up the cameo pictures for another few days, until the traffic dies down. Those who are interested in the project (and I hope it's everyone, no wait, then I'd still have the bandwidth problem, aw, hell!) should come back next week and take a look. If you don't thikn you'll remember, go ahead and go to the cameo home page now and enter your email address and I'll drp you a note when the content goes up!

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Who says weblogs don't pay? I set up a donation request link on AOLiza and now I won't have to pay for grad school! (that is, if another quarter-million people follow suit)

Still, it's tons better than serving up 250 banner ads for the same net effect. Don't you agree?

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Spending the day jetting to my first classes of the semester, negotiating for temporary bandwidth from campus servers to mirror AOLiza for a few weeks, working on a client project, and somewhere in there I have to find time to eat.

Web traffic has taken a huge spike the past few days. It's like I'm this week's Mahir.

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Working on a client project before the semester starts (tomorrow!).

There are a couple more storis coming next week regarding AOLiza, and if I (miraculously) have the chance, I'll put in a voting mechanism, so people can rate the chats. Then new users can take a look at the best chats first (what, you don't read all 30+?).

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I just posted conversations fourteen through thirtyone to AOLiza.

Have at it!

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AOLiza's larger than life.

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Check the discussion board for the latest on AOLiza. I've decided (again) to take down, or at least edit, the transcripts, for reasons detailed in the discussion. I was hesitant to do this and let the project die, but now I can because I have a plan for a way to make the project better than it was before, and more fun and participatory all around.

This has the potential for being truly great, and I'll be unveliling more about it in a few days.

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Okay, I've tentatively decided to put AOLiza back up, but I've renamed all the participants by number. I originally put up AOLiza to show that ELIZA could pass the Turing Test against unwitting participants. I didn't put it up to poke fun at anyone. Still, the results are relevant, in very high demand, and I believe that taking out all personal info makes it fair enough to give it another go.

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After a lot of thinking, I've decided that though I created AOLiza to see just to see if it could be done, and as a personal experiment, putting the convos online was wrong. It's hard, because my readership has increased fivefold since I put it up, but it's really humor at innocent people's expense. In the words of Homer Simpson, "It's funny because I don't know the guy." (Also from Homer, "It's funny because it's somebody else" and, "It's funny because it's true.")

So, in a nutshell, I'm taking the site down for the time being. Once I get the all-perl version up and running, I'll replace it with a version that lets visitors give it a whirl, and then with the 'AOL-Teen' version and perhaps the "AOL-cybersex' version, for people to play with, but I'm not keen on playng on the unwitting ignorance of strangers to fuel traffic to the site.

It's a shame though, because it was funny as fuck.

Think I'm being a wuss? Think of a compromise? Bribe me for my source code so you can take up where I left off? I'm leaving the Discussion board open.

Also, if you want to be kept appraised if AOLiza goes back up in any fashion, add yourself to the notification list, here:

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AOLiza works because of two simple concepts:

First: In the AOL world, there's this thing about having the last word, or at least making sure the conversation is over before leaving. 95% (an admittedly fabricated stat, but probably close) of all AIM conversations end with one person saying goodbye (however they do) and the other one saying goodbye. To leave before the double-signoff would be like hanging up on someone, and most people don't do it.

AOLiza never stops. It never pesters, but for every message you send, it will send one back. The only ways to get it to stop are to sign off or to simply let any one if its questions pass without a reply, but people just can't bear to do that.

The other thing that makes AOLiza work is that there's a HUGE tolerance for illogic on AIM. If this took place in email or a phone conversation (even if speech synthesis was up to snuff) it wouldn't work. People would see right through it. But in a medium where most people don't use punctuation of any kind, contractions you have to sit there and figure out, and phrases that just don't make sense, the average AIM'er is going to beleive that they just don't understand what's being said before they believe that it doesn't make any sense at all.

As a preview, here's an excerpt from a conversation that's going on right now:

AOLiza: does that have anything to do with the fact that you're e-mail?
Sela: do you mean female?

People have wicked pattern-recognition systems, they'll find meaning in anything. That and they have to have the last word. That's what makes AOLiza work.

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AOLiza's going well. I'll be putting up some more conversations on Wednesday for your viewing pleasure.

On the Cameo front, Rick is being developed and will be back tomorrow, but the site redesign won't be up until the end of the week. If this is your first time here, be sure to add your email to the notification list at Cameo so you'll be reminded when the four rolls (Mercury, Bob, Emily and Rick) go up.

Classes begin on Monday, so I'm doing all I can, working full tilt on a client project and putting in a couple hours a day on other projects before the classload kicks in.

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Wow, seek and ye shall find. I went hinting tonight for a command-line AOL client, or ideally an AOL module for Perl, and here it is.

This will let me enhance AOLiza in a bunch of ways, most notably that it won't require a semi-dedicated mac running Applescript.

It'll also be more robust, let me have several screen names running simultaneously (different personas), be a heck of a lot faster (though I'll still keep delays in to make it feel real), and will let me open the project up to everyone. I should be able to handle dozens, if not hundreds, of simultaneous conversations.

Anyhow, it's back to real work for me now, so other than putting up a few gems that came in this weekend, AOLiza enhancements will have to wait 'till next weekend.

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To share my joy, I've opened up a Discussion Board for AOLiza.

Make yourself heard!

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You know, it's funny but while I think the final transcripts are intriguing, funny, or downright cringeworthy, I can't bear to watch as an AOLiza session is actually taking place.

This guy's been talking to her for over an hour now. I'll post it later today, along with 4 more I got yesterday.

As usual, I'm interested in what you think of the project. Is it funny? Is it evil? Is it wrong? All three? Tell me, I'm curious.

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Ever wonder what would happen if an AI program got loose on America Online? Welcome to fury.com's latest project: AOLiza is absolutely, positively, a must see. Check it out before you hear about it from a co-worker!

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