Santa's little Infs©

Lurking the internet, a rather pathetic pass-time of mine, I somehow stumbled upon the world of Infs, namely Inf.net.
What are Infs exactly? According to the site, Infs are Intellectual Agents. Intellectual Agents whom you have to teach how to talk, before they can actually converse with you on their own. You can also give them a unique personality as well as appearance; plus, you can also post these little Infs on you blog, website, Myspace page, wtf-ever.
Come to think of it, they don't sound all that intellectual. I dare say they don't sound intellectual at all. Nevertheless, let's dig a bit further into this Inf business. (Ugh, that last sentence sounded disgusting.)

After quickly signing up, I get to start creating my Inf immediately! :D oh joy

After opting to create a girl, I'm straightaway struck by the limited choice of skin colors - pinkish off-white, orangey brown, and curry-like yellow. I'm guessing pasty white people, semi-bronze tanned people and not-orangey brown people don't exist in the world of Infs. oh well.

After minutes of making tough decisions and slaving away in front of the monitor screen, I end up with this charming little young lady:



Hm. Wait a second, I think she's lacking a certain something,... a certain "je ne sais quoi"....


there that's better.

I shall call her Pia. Pia Snahkarrots.
After giving her that saintly name, I'm promptly bombarded by dozens of things I can do with my Inf. Also, I learn a little bit more about Pia:
Her rating is 0, she's in the 0th place and she has 0 inf-friends. Pia, stop being so damn anti-social.
There's a speech bubble next to Pia, so I begin chatting with her. I soon realize that Cleverbot is slightly more entertaining than she is; her responses are too optimistic. She's always so damn happy. And happiness ruins her beautiful dress. So, it's time to teach her how to talk befitting her fashion sense! this should be fun.

First off, I edit Pia's interests - that's right, Pia. I'm in control now. My commands are your words.
And my command is that you're currently residing on the moon - Dorsa Geikie, to be exact.
I then make a template; basically, I choose a specific reply Pia says whenever a Guest says a specific word or words. I haven't the foggiest notion what unanchored or anchored means, so I'll just leave that out for now. So now, I just programmed Pia to say "bless you" with a bewildered expression on her face whenever a guest says "hi" or something similar to "hi" (like "Hi").

Cool! But this is getting boring real fast. Let's continue. I proceed to fill out her responses to cues. yeah.


I move on to filling out Pia's replies to various questions and phrases. It may seem tedious ( well, it is ), but it's also kind of fun.
All in all, Inf.net is rather interesting. Making your own little Cleverbot with your own little avatar to go with it is a pretty good idea.
Tomorrow, I'll dig even more int Inf.net and unravel everything the site has to offer, closing this topic in (hopefully) only two posts.

_
the Mockdoctor