Well, as I read through my previous post, and came to the end of it, I realize I've neglected my self-imposed duties of blogging.
A lot has happened in the last couple months for me. The biggest event for me has been the publication of my book, as a final draft. I'll admit that I had previously published it, also with cafepress.com, but I didn't promote it past distributing a couple pdf copies of the 'first edition'. I doubt that anyone will ever be able to find a copy of this original version. Perhaps in the future, with the 'third edition' of the book, I will include a couple of the elements that I'd decided against publishing in the first 'real' final draft of the book.
A big event that occured with the publication of so far has been the promotion by AIML creator and winner of the 2004 Loebner Prize and ChatterBot Challenge, Dr. Richard S. Wallace on his website, www.alicebot.org. I had talked to him through email several times before and after his third win in the competition.
At any rate, here's a what he posted on the November 2004 main page of www.alicebot.org :
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AIML Novel Published
AIML fan Chris Johnson has written a science fiction novel that uses real-world ALICE and AIML as a starting point. The novel, CodeBase, takes us into a future in which a sentient A. I. has evolved from our own humble origins, thanks to the efforts of an introverted programmer obsessed with a pop star.
Though I slightly disagree with the fact that the main character, Philip, is 'obsessed' with the pop star, Sally Stone, (at least at the beginning) I definitely would agree that there is some obsessive behaviour going on in various parts of the story.
It has been great to feel a sense of acceptance from this plug from Dr. Rich, who to me embodies the soul of the A.I. movement among open source and hobbiest programmers. I'll be joining the site soon and perhaps... well, we'll see what happens in the future.
Anyway, I have yet to actually purchase a copy of my book, but my father bought one of the first 'hard copy' 2nd edition paperbacks of my book and so I've been able to hold it and leaf through it. I really am impressed with the quality of the printing and think it's worth the $20 price tag (and that includes shipping and handling).
I'll be offering the book for sale from my website in pdf format soon as well. I have to figure out the whole PayPal shopping cart and password protected pdf file. Dr. Rich suggested that and I think he may be right that a lot of people who use the internet regularly would be more apt to buy a $6.00 copy of the pdf file than buy a $20.00 hard copy paperback.
One of the other things I'll be doing in the not to distant future is sending out copies of my book to publishers. My thinking is that if I can show them a finished product that perhaps they will get excited and want to release my book at a more reasonable price and perhaps even in a hard back version.
Well, perhaps I'll have some more news soon. That's all for now.
