Smart gibberish

The first full week of school always leaves me feeling a little wacked out. We are just SO busy. Every once in awhile I've been able to poke my head out of the deep end and notice little things. Like the fact that our new copy of Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer has not been checked out even once because apparently everyone went out and bought it on its release date. Today, in a rare moment of quiet, Daniel W. alerted me to Jabberwacky, a chatbot that claims to learn. As people chat with it, it uses contextual pattern matching techniques to build appropriate responses. So, instead of using a bunch of linguistic rules, it builds on feedback from users to "learn" - or at least get better at making conversation. Sort of. Here's the gist of our first conversation:

JW: What is your name?
FH: Frances. What is your name?
JW: My name is my name.
FH: Do you like libraries?
JW: I like my name.
FH: Do you like to read books?
JW: Yes. Who is your favourite author?
FH: J. K. Rowling. Who is your favourite author?
JW: J. K. Rowling.
FJ: Which book do you like best?
JW: Terry Pratchett books.
FH: Me too.

I'm starting to get it

Twitter, that is. At the very least, the microblogging service, along with my RSS reader, give me lots of blog fodder. Thanks to Linda, I now know about the BatRest for the iPhone. And to Elyssa for cluing me in that the iPhone has been blended again.




The real reason to get a Twitter account, though, is to follow the Online Gargoyle feed. Right now sophomore Will Fernandez is tweeting from the Democratic National Convention. The OG rocks.

An annual tradition

Here's the way I like to start school - by showing off the hidden talents of my redoubtable colleagues, Ms. Kovacs and Mr. Rayburn.

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You can view last year's treats here. Such good sports, aren't they?

(I think) we are ready to go

Shhh, it's Sunday and I've snuck into school. People are out in the hall doing things to walls and lockers, but the floor looks good to go. So... a couple more days of summer hours and then Wednesday, bang, school. Will someone tell my why - if we've been closed so much - my desk is such a mess?

Guess what?

Yep, you're right. We're closed again. Tile goes in Thursday and Friday, August 14th and 15th. But that will be IT. Monday and Tuesday we'll be back on summer hours (8:00 a.m.-noon) and Wednesday is the first day of school. Did I really just say that?

Open... again

I'm realizing that the content of the blog this summer is getting to be a bit predictable. Closed - no, open - wait, closed again - yay, open again. This time, the stinky toxic paint is dry and we'll be open (8:00 a.m. to noon, Monday-Friday) until they lay the new tile in the hallway outside the library. Still walking on cardboard out there. When we close again, I'll make the announcement - again.

In the meantime, using the excuse of updating my tech skills, I'm finally trying the microblogging service Twitter. I've blogged about it before, but hadn't actually taken the plunge. Since I got the new iPhone last month, though, Twitter seemed like the next logical step since you can get updates as text messages. I'm "following" four people right now. Anyone want to join me? My Twitter user name is franceyharris.

Stinky toxic paint time

It's time. The whole school building will be closed the week of July 28th while globby paint is applied to the lockers. We hope. Things are moving verrrrry slowly. Cardboard still covers the floors. And only a few short weeks until school starts. Fortunately, I'm not in charge :-) .

Again, stay tuned for updates.