Bot Contest

LOL I mean all they have to do after you're done is re-ghost them... it's not difficult to revert them

I know it. 18 hours till the finals:

From Tom Whalen (contact for GSU):
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"I have asked a coukle times what the "Turing Hub" is and not gotten an answer.

If it is a piece of hardware permanantly installed at Sci-Trek, I wonder why I was ever approached to try to host the event at GSU.

If it's mobile, I can offer Ethernet connections to the Interent here, plus workstations suitable for application-type software

I have now verified that it IS possible to run unsigned content outside the sandbox, for what it's weoth.

I am now at Sparks, where I had planned to meet with Niel and others, at 3:30, but it's 3:45 and just me and fifty computers in this bnig room.
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So they havent answered his questions, arent showing up for the meeting, and havent explained to him why not. Sound familiar? I had to tell him what the Turing Hub was.

And another from Tom, about 15 minutes later:
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"I just spoke to Neil. The Hub is in Duluth, and IF you can get your software installed there there should be no problem."
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So I'm to drive up to Duluth? There are no directions, no times, nothing. That's all I get. Drive up to Duluth somewhere and *try* to install it. In rush hour traffic.

Eugene, I think you can fairly judge people running a contest by such things as whether or not they alienate their contestants and affiliates, and whether or not the contest actually takes place. I dont think we're asking anything more than is reasonable under the circumstances.

Also, I'm getting reports that our host is experiencing some downed circuits and rerouting some web resources which should slow things down until its fixed. So if the Turing Hub IS used, the host may mess it up. Oh the drama.

15 hours to go, no response from anybody.

by what criteria do you judge whether or not they are doing things properly?

Eugene, oh please how about the criteria of common decency. Nobodyhere's list for the most part is an accurate portrayal of recent events.

Professor, please keep the updates coming on the continuing soap opera.

Chris

Well, it's 11pm the evening of the contest, and I have yet to hear a word from anybody. Thus I am given no opportunity to install the Forge on any computer for the contest. I'll be really interested to see if they proceed and how they deal with this issue. Will they say I should have tried harder (if so I'd like to hear their idea of what I should have done)? Will they use the hub (if so I hope our host fixes their problems)? Will they postpone the event (if so we likely wont know until afterwards)?

Should I even bother going to the final event? I dont know if it'll be at GSU or SciTrek. I dont know if it's even taking place.

It seems that they would either have to use the Hub or postpone this. Either of those options sounds pretty good right now. Yes, the site is running slow right now, but not THAT slow.

Either way, if they postpone, they probably won't tell anyone .. (?)

30 minutes to the contest. No response. A letter I wrote to everyone:
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Today is the day of the Loebner Contest. It's less than an hour to the contest, and I've been given no opportunity to load the Personality Forge onto a computer for the contest. In the final day before the contest, GSU announced that it would *not* be providing a computer for me as promised, and I received a cryptic message from someone at GSU that Neil said to him that if I wanted to be in the contest, I would "go to Duluth" to install the Personality Forge. I immediately wrote back to the contest address as well as Hugh, Neil, Robby, and Thomas, asking someone to confirm that this is what I should do, and if so, where do I go, how do I get there, and when I should meet someone. I have not heard a response from anybody.

So today is the contest. Or is it? The last I heard from Neil he was considering moving the contest to SciTrek because of difficulties with GSU. But there has been no update on the web site, no email to confirm or deny this. So I'm really curious about what's going to happen next.
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Okay, Robby just contacted me. The contest is a go, it's at GSU, and God Louise is going to be a part of it. They apparently stayed up all night making sure things would work, fixing last-minute errors, and so on. It's too bad they didnt spot me a message to let me know what was up before now, but what's done is done.

So I guess it's going on right now. The web cam and audio feed arent coming up, so I dont know if its starting late or if they decided to just stick to the basics of running the contest.

And now it's 3:30 so the contest is supposedly over. I didnt go. I figured I'd see how I felt, and I didnt feel like chancing it again. So I'm heading off to the park now to walk about with my girl and my dog, and when I come back, we'll see what's new.