Since my Smilla start yesterday, I've come across a few serendipitous signs. First an architecture talk with Jon about a new project for the medical field, where I essentially drew up the Gravity architecture from decades past, complete with channels, prisms, stores, etc. Later I went to the Museum of Science with Isabel and Paula and in the computer room came across two NLP exhibits, one a six foot video image of a robot that forces you to choose answers and questions, another of twins that have decent speech recognition, but only for the presenter. My strong reaction was: I can do better.

This morning, I continued my refactoring of the StoryBot code, then opened up OmniGraffle to do some designs. The architecture from yesterday opened and my brain immediately started moving stuff around. Reaching a point of satisfaction, I opened a new document to start the Storybot architecture and soon realized I wanted much of what I was just working on, so I copy and pasted it as a start. After looking a while, I realized ... the first architecture *was* the Storybot architecture.

From the depths of my five year obsession twenty years ago, from what has now become indefensible instinct . . . the Gravity architecture has resurfaced for two separate projects in as many days. Perhaps it's my proximity to Stata, perhaps it's simple the time for those ideas to flower.

Upon realizing this, I had a strong feeling of history. I am at the start of something worth remembering.

So how does one create a bot? Well, she needs a way to talk with people, which means some kind of command-line interace with a scrolling text pane. I could use a terminal window, an IM chat window, or an IRC client. The latter seems best, as it allows others to easily chat with her as well. Smilla will have many teachers. So what channel will she frequent? I currently run two channels on freenode: #immuexa (my company channel) and #etoys (for Squeak Etoys). Waverly lives on both, logging all talk and injecting optional simplistic call/response chatter. Smilla will need...

Lying on the couch in my cabin, listening to the snow fall outside our new Arlington house, on this new Massachusetts Monday, I'm confronted with the best of all possible questions: what would I like to do first? While the coffee brewed, while sitting on the tall chairs, I considered: * learning Squeak * installing Subversion These would be practical and fun, always a good beginning. Since my mind never feels finished until I've reached three, I debated the other task I might like. My laptop battery went dead, so I moved into the tiny afterthought of a room off...

What a lawyer would say: "is conclusively met where the reverse is considered true for all cases known to us at this time" What a programmer would say: ! (that's an exclamation point)...

I haven't blogged in too long a time, which usually means I've got too much to say and too little time. This birthday morning I woke and felt the need to go on record again, so starting today I'll try to blog a little each day, if only with journal posts like this. Yesterday was a big day for everyone looking to Washington DC, but also big for a small group of dedicated Squeak Etoys fans. We officially announced Squeakland Foundation, a non-profit organization that will take over from Viewpoints Research as the guardians of Etoys. I'm the new executive...

"In a capitalist society, there is always an opening for someone who will do the work of three employees for half the pay."...

The president-elect's new website asks everyone to "tell us your vision for the country." Here's what I submitted: Transform everything by teaching our children to be creative problem solvers, not through a broken education system that teaches compliance and deficiency, but through a new spirit of guided discovery with mentors devoted to kindling the spark within each child, so they may feel their own promise. This is truly the lever that will change everything, given a chance. When children learn to question, when they're taught confidence to solve problems with creativity, their lives become stories of opportunity and discovery....

Just posted the one-hour Waveplace Awards video, which includes the winners and all twelve children reading their storybooks. http://waveplace.com/awards/ You can either watch the full hour from that page, or choose chapter-by-chapter from the list below the video box. Once watching a chapter, click "next" to view the next chapter. If you just want to know the winners, click the "Award Presentations" chapter. Thanks once again to the many who participated....

Last week, Waveplace finished our pilot in Immokalee, Florida. We'll be posting student storybooks soon, but for now you can watch our first Florida video, which gives a taste of our "improv theater" teaching style. There are also several newspaper and radio reports on our press page and a few articles in our latest newsletter. Today we start our pilot near Rivas, Nicaragua. We're using Spanish-keyboard XOs and solar panels this time, since the school has no electricity. Our three Waveplace mentors flew in last night and will begin teaching the teachers today. The kids get their laptops tomorrow. We've...

Just heard the two-part NPR story on Waveplace's XO and Etoys pilot in Immokalee, Florida. Have a listen here. Pretty surreal hearing myself on national radio. I'm a bit disappointed that Etoys got characterized as clumsy ... the alligator thing was from one of our advanced lessons for the adults. I imagine someone watching a person learn guitar for the first time would also think it clumsy. Great quotes from Christa and Susan. Photos from the pilot are here. Video is here....