Chaz,
see, this was all explained while you were on sabbatical. "Bruce Brown" isn't a real person, he's a post-bot, a program that a bunch of the software geeks cooked up one week to see if they could create an AI message board denizen who could pass the Turing Test. I don't write code so I can't explain the details, but basically the program creates a flurry of messages each day by throwing together a bunch of new-agey infrastructure stocks, some historical charts and/or statistics, and some LTB&H mantras. Sort of like a sophisticated version of that interactive "therapist" program ("Liza," I think it was called) that was almost as annoying as Id.
It was supposed to be a temporary gag, but one of the early verions got uploaded to the Fool website somehow, and ever since then it's been out of control. One of the neat parts is that it's managed somehow to "learn" some things on its own, and has fleshed out its identity, begun to offer some opinions, etc. Anyway, that's the story. Pretty cool, eh?
I like to play with it by "asking" it the same question on different days. The responses are similar, but always have at least a few humorous minor variations--sort of like that translator program on AltaVista.
tekboy/Ares@wonderwhatthey'lldreamupnext.com |
