kulturezone
(http://www.evolutionzone.com/kulturezone/index.html)

Everything you wanted to know about computer-generated writing.  Includes texts themselves, free software to create your own, and other related resources.  You have to go through an index titled "Amoeba Kulturezone."

"these are items of protozoan interest, gathered long ago and sadly neglected. hopefully they will be restored to former glory in the near future... computer-generated writing - the wonders of computer-generated meaning. a million monkeys make a fine shakespeare."

Permutations (P3RMU747IONS, PERMUT4TIONS, PERMU74710NS....)
(http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/index.cgi)

Load this page in English, with "commentaries" on. A thorough compendium of texts created by permutation: from 330 CE until recently, permutation texts were created by using a variety of rotating concentric dials.  This site includes permutating texts from the past 1670 years, in their original languages.  There are also contemporary cut-up works and more strictly hypertextual computer-based texts. Of particular note is "Here Comes Everybody," a "continuarration of/on Finnegans Wake"; users start with the first chunk of Finnegans Wake. Every word is linked to a page full of related words in the novel, each of those words in turn hyperlinked to similar pages. Also of interest is the classic Cent mille milliards de poèmes (http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/queneau/poemes/poemes.html).

VISPO
Langu(im)age Poetry - New Media: L inks of the Imagination
(http://www.vispo.com/misc/links.htm)

"Below are my favorite links to literary (in some sense) Web sites. The goal of this page is not to be compendious but exciting."

Constraint Creativity

A Fairy Tale as You Like It
(http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/queneau/conte/conte.cgi)

"I wish to read the farytale a) interactively, by deciding after each paragraph how the story should continue b) as an automatically created whole."

hAIku for the WWW
by Sunny Gleason
(http://www.obs-us.com/people/sunny/haiku/haiku.htm)

"what IS this place? - A few months ago, my brother introduced me to the idea of computers that could write poetry. The concept was nothing new; programmers had written code to create haiku and stuff for years. For some reason though, the idea really intrigued me. Heartless machines writing poetry? hAIku version 1.0 for the WWW is my first attempt at creating a random poetry generator that is accessed via the World Wide Web. Although it is by no means on a par with Basho, sometimes it creates some very nice poetry...

what are haiku? - For the purposes of this site, a haiku is a poem of three lines. The lines are composed of five, seven, and five syllables respectively. In the real world, haiku take on many different forms and are better described by someone else. Check out the web-ku page for other haiku (and random haiku) sites on the Web.

what is your philosophy? - I believe that there is no such thing as a "wrong" poem or "wrong" piece of art. It is up to the individual to find the meaning within a particular work. In many cases, the poetry here is more understandable than human-generated poetry. 8)"

Lexikon-Oracle
A computer-driven Web oracle / MAX program which reveals the mysteries of Lexikon-Sonate (1996-98)
(http://www.essl.at/works/lexicon-oracle.html)

"This algorithmic text composition will reveal some of the infinite secrets of the realtime composition Lexikon-Sonate, pondering upon problems of algorithmic composition and post modern philosophy, in a never repeating, always mind-challenging way. The text material was taken from several articles about Karlheinz Essl's Lexikon-Sonate (1992 ff.), an infinite interactive realtime composition for computer-controlled piano."

Anagrammers

Internet Anagram Server - I, Rearrangement Servant
(http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/)

This server is slow-running but complete - it outputs a gigantic file of possible combinations directly to your screen. Impressive but somewhat overwhelming.

Anagram Genius
(http://www.anagramgenius.com/)

This site offers many sophisticated name manipulation services, and gives back results which have been filtered for topicality and interest. Many of their more advanced functions are accessible on a pay basis only, and they sell a client-side version of their software.

Raw Materials

The Mad Cybrarian's Library at TortiseShell Cottage
(http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/richmond/88/)

Want to download a generous helping of text to process? This huge collection of free on-line e-texts are all complete and in the public domain.

Project Gutenberg
(http://promo.net/pg/)

"The premise on which Michael Hart based Project Gutenberg was: anything that can be entered into a computer can be reproduced indefinitely. . .what Michael termed "Replicator Technology" The concept of Replicator Technology is simple; once a book or any other item (including pictures, sounds, and even 3-D items can be stored in a computer), then any number of copies can and will be available. Everyone in the world, or even not in this world (given satellite transmission) can have a copy of a book that has been entered into a computer."

"This philosophical premise has created several offshoots: 1.Electronic Texts (Etexts) created by Project Gutenberg are to be made available in the simplest, easiest to use forms available...."

Constrained Combinatorics

The 90 Potentials of Neoism (The 45 Disciples of Monty Cantsin, The 11 Inventions of Neoism, The 87 Hegemonies of Monty Cantsin....)
(http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/neoism/cantsin.cgi)

A self-retitling, self-reloading, self-deconstructing ideology generator.

Cut-ups and the Internet
(http://www.dsl.org/comp/cutups.shtml)

This is a very thorough resource on cut-ups, including everything from original cut-ups of Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs, cut-up theory and open-source Web coding for your very own cut-up machine.

"The cut-up (or "cutup") is a method of juxtaposition where a work (usually text) is cut into pieces and the pieces rearranged in a random order, similar to the montage or collage technique in painting. The traditional cut-ups of Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs were done manually with scissors, razor blades, axes and other cutting devices. (Netmonkey.com has published an excellent summary of the theory behind the cut-up method, and another good one is in Brion Gysin's own words.)"

Mott, Warren F.  Oulipo, a Primer of Potential Literature.  Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1998. [This reference is unavailable on the Web but indispensible]

This latest Oulipo anthology is a good mix of theory and practice. Opening with the old standbys of decades-old first and second manifestos, this edition also features Oulipo's first American member, Harry Mathews.  There's also some gritty math-focused theory by our friends Italo Calvino and Raymond Queneau.

Oulipo - Stefan Sinclair's Homepage
(http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~4ss42/Oulipo/)
Links to other Oulipo sites
(http://clawww.lmu.edu/faculty/pharris/oulipo_links.htm)

These are two very good pages of Oulipo links, compiled by two different professors for their own purposes.  Most links are to French web pages, including the official (and surprisingly unimpressive) Oulipo site (http://www2.ec-lille.fr/~book/oulipo/info/), but there are a few related English-language sites that are interesting. Stay away from student-created Oulipan writings.  Except ours of course.

Mathematical Reference

Britannica Matrix Information | More

Encyclopedia entries and references on the basic mathematical operation of matrices.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Matrix \Ma"trix\, n.; pl. {Matrices}. [L., fr. mater mother. See {Mother}, and cf. {Matrice}.] 1. (Anat.) The womb.

All that openeth the matrix is mine. --Ex. xxxiv. 19.

2. Hence, that which gives form or origin to anything; as: (a) (Mech.) The cavity in which anything is formed, and which gives it shape; a die; a mold, as for the face of a type. (b) (Min.) The earthy or stony substance in which metallic ores or crystallized minerals are found; the gangue. (c) pl. (Dyeing) The five simple colors, black, white, blue, red, and yellow, of which all the rest are composed.

3. (Biol.) The lifeless portion of tissue, either animal or vegetable, situated between the cells; the intercellular substance.

4. (Math.) A rectangular arrangement of symbols in rows and columns. The symbols may express quantities or operations.

WordNet (r) 1.6

matrix n 1: a rectangular array of elements set out by rows and columns 2: an enclosure within which something originates or develops (from the Latin for womb) 3: the body substance in which tissue cells are embedded [syn: {intercellular substance}, {ground substance}] 4: the formative tissue at the base of a nail 5: used in the production of phonograph records, type, or other relief surface.

Jargon File (4.2.0, 31 JAN 2000)

Matrix n. [FidoNet] 1. What the Opus BBS software and sysops call {FidoNet}. 2. Fanciful term for a {cyberspace} expected to emerge from current networking experiments (see {the network}). The name of the rather good 1999 {cypherpunk} movie "The Matrix" played on this sense, which however had been established for years before. 3. The totality of present-day computer networks (popularized in this sense by John Quarterman; rare outside academic literature).

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (05 Sep 00)

1. Fanciful term for a {cyberspace} expected to emerge from current networking experiments (see {network, the}).

2. The totality of present-day computer networks.

The Test

The Turing Test Page
(http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~asaygin/tt/ttest.html)

A repository of all thing Turing Test (although not all things Turing). Great list of talk bots.

The Turing Test and Chinese Room Experiment
(http://members.aol.com/lshauser/turingho.html)

An excellent lecture handout with diagrammatic explanations and discussion.

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (05 Sep 00)

A criterion proposed by {Alan Turing} in 1950 for deciding whether a computer is intelligent. Turing called it "the Imitation Game" and offered it as a replacement for the question, "Can machines think?"

A human holds a written conversation on any topic with an unseen correspondent (nowadays it might be by {electronic mail} or {chat}). If the human believes he is talking to another human when he is really talking to a computer then the computer has passed the Turing test and is deemed to be intelligent.

Turing predicted that within 50 years (by the year 2000) technological progress would produce computing machines with a capacity of 10**9 bits, and that with such machinery, a computer program would be able to fool the average questioner for 5 minutes about 70% of the time.

The {Loebner Prize} is a competition to find a computer program which can pass an unrestricted Turing test.

{Julia (http://fuzine.mt.cs.cmu.edu/mlm/julia.html)} is a program that attempts to pass the Turing test.

(1995-01-04)

A Legacy of Bots

BotSpot
(http://www.botspot.com/)

"A bot is a software tool for digging through data. You give a bot directions and it bring back answers.... Bots were not invented on the Internet, however. Robotic software is generally believed to have been created in the form of Eliza, one of the first public displays of artificial intelligence. Eliza is a computer programmer that can engage a human in conversation: Eliza asks the user a question, and uses the answer to formulate yet another question (for more on Eliza see Don Barker's review). Artificial intelligence is an advanced form of computer science that aims to develop software capable of processing information on its own, without the need for human direction." (from http://www.botspot.com/bot/what_is_a_bot.html)

CoLIN
Computer Linguistics ImitatioN
by alan j. brown
(http://www.barc0de.demon.co.uk/nlp/)

"A free ChatterBot program based on the premise by Alan Turing, the computer pioneer who decreed that Artificial Intelligence would exist if a computer could make a human believe that they were talking to another human. Most ChatterBots pretend to give human responses, CoLIN actually learns language from scratch, as a child would. This unique approach also gives CoLIN the ability to hold a conversation in any language. CoLIN is designed to respond to user statements based on previous statements made by the user. In other words, it learns what to say by listening to you."

Future Implications

The Age of Intelligent Machines
"A (Kind of) Turing Test"
by Ray Kurzweil
(http://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/poetry/rkcp_akindofturingtest.php3)

"The Kurzweil Cybernetic Poet is a computer program (written by the author) and provided with an input file of poems written by a human author or authors. The program analyzes these poems and creates a word-sequence model based on the poems it has just read. It then writes original stanzas of poetry using the model it has created. Some of the following stanzas of poetry were written by the Kurzweil Cybernetic Poet. Some were written by human authors (in fact the same human authors that were read and analyzed by the Kurzweil Cybernetic Poet). See if you can tell which are which."

Wired Magazine
Idées Fortes
The Lying Game
by Richard S. Wallace
(http://www.wirednews.com/wired/archive//5.08/idees_fortes.html)

"Whatever Turing's place in today's gender identity debates, perhaps most interesting is his idea to have the computer play the role of deceiver. The AI program Turing had in mind was not so much a machine capable of natural language understanding as a program capable of lying. The intriguing suggestion is that intelligence itself is a kind of artifice, a deception. This raises a deeper question: Is the feeling of guilt associated with self-doubt and duplicity illusory, or is it in some way connected to the fundamental basis of consciousness?"

Twelve Reasons to Toss the Turing Test
(http://zompist.com/turing.html)

"I posted this one day to comp.ai.philosophy, because it seemed to me that the Turing test had passed from being an interesting philosophical piece to a stumbling block which actually impedes thinking about AI and about intelligence."

The Ultimate Turing Test
by David Barberi
(http://www.ibiblio.org/dbarberi/vr/ultimate-turing/)

"Can Turings test be improved on? Yes. With current advances in computer graphics, virtual reality, biomechanics and many other fields, it is possible to create an "Enhanced" or "Virtual" Turing test. The underlying idea of the test is still the same, but the amount of interaction between judge and subject is increased greatly."

Fractals FAQ
(ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/usenet-by-group/sci.fractals/)

A clear, concise explanation of fractals and in all fields and disciplines.

Fractal Newsgroups on Usenet

news:sci.fractals
news:alt.binaries.pictures.fractals
news:comp.graphics

Fractal Page
(http://www.insite.com.br/art/fractal/)

Good source of fractal art.

WordNet (r) 1.6 (wn)

fractal n : a geometric pattern that is repeated at every scale and so cannot be represented by classical geometry.

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (05 Sep 00)

A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a smaller copy of the whole. Fractals are generally self-similar (bits look like the whole) and independent of scale (they look similar, no matter how close you zoom in).

Many mathematical structures are fractals; e.g. {Sierpinski triangle}, {Koch snowflake}, {Peano curve}, {Mandelbrot set} and {Lorenz attractor}. Fractals also describe many real-world objects that do not have simple geometric shapes, such as clouds, mountains, turbulence, and coastlines.

{Benoit Mandelbrot}, the discoverer of the {Mandelbrot set}, coined the term "fractal" in 1975 from the Latin fractus or "to break". He defines a fractal as a set for which the {Hausdorff Besicovich dimension} strictly exceeds the {topological dimension}. However, he is not satisfied with this definition as it excludes sets one would consider fractals.

contraductions n(plural) : the conflagration of conclusions and in introductions, resulting in the resemblance of contradictions.

Link? To something else? As in, exteriority? Non-centripetal thinking?

The Atlantic Monthly
As We May Think
by Vannevar Bush
(http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm)

A founding document in the conception of hypertext, it coined the term 'memex'.

"As Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Dr. Vannevar Bush has coordinated the activities of some six thousand leading American scientists in the application of science to warfare. In this significant article he holds up an incentive for scientists when the fighting has ceased. He urges that men of science should then turn to the massive task of making more accessible our bewildering store of knowledge. For years inventions have extended man's physical powers rather than the powers of his mind. Trip hammers that multiply the fists, microscopes that sharpen the eye, and engines of destruction and detection are new results, but not the end results, of modern science. Now, says Dr. Bush, instruments are at hand which, if properly developed, will give man access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages. The perfection of these pacific instruments should be the first objective of our scientists as they emerge from their war work. Like Emerson's famous address of 1837 on "The American Scholar," this paper by Dr. Bush calls for a new relationship between thinking man and the sum of our knowledge. --THE EDITOR"

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (05 Sep 00)

Vannevar Bush's original name for hypertext, which he invented in the 1930s.
Fantastic article at http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0051.html.
(2000-01-09)