ABOUT MIRRORSHADES & PROSODY ************************************************************************ by Keith Eluard FAQs with a bit of Technical Info buried inside... 1. What are Mirrorshades & Prosody? and Why? Mirrorshades and Prosody are my babies - a pair of text generation/revision programs that I developed to suit my needs as a creative pump to force me to use more vibrant and evocative images in my writings. They originally started as a semi-intelligent thesaurus on my Commodore 64 (which I still use ...as a printer controller). If I were to enter the word "bird", I would have spat back at me a few dozen choices such as "black bird" or "the blue bird of happiness that flew up my left nostril". Anyway, I kept messing with it and eventually ported it out onto a NeXT, where I also was using a wonderful language known as cmusic to generate musical sequences and sounds. Then an evil idea occurred to me. If language is related to music, then a music tool could be used to create a language tool of a similar nature...Why Not! The first program was what would later become Mirrorshades. It wrote haiku. nothing but haiku lots of haiku 1,768,669 haiku, to be exact. Then it ran out of possible word combinations that fit its algorithms (more later) That bit o' code was called "basher" (in dadaist mockery of Basho) and was slapped onto indyvax.iupui.edu by a few friends (a copy might be around there still...). It had quite a few things in it I didn't like, so I revised it to fix its problems and what I thought were problems... Then a lovely group of people sent me a note called SUNDEVIL... ((I'm still paying for that Mac... <contributions welcome>)) It was at that time I decided that encryption is A GOOD THING and bought into PGP. Not a bad cypher, but it could be better... That's where Prosody came from - a bulletproof adaptation of PGP into an encryption that I DARE ANYONE to decode (& if you do, may I please drool over your machine, pretty please...). It revises an existing text to a degree specified by the user. If the word "bird" is entered, it might spit back "black bird" or it might spit back "a silly gesture" depending on its settings. The original text is preserved electronically in its original form, but encoded using a strange attractor. So if you see the text block: it snores in the simple tank. its pipe pesters the mud. its hot glove is full of meaning. you have to decide if I'm being weird or using Prosody to send an encrypted post. And it can't be decoded except by using Prosody to revise the received message at the appropriate setting or else you get weirdness of a similar nature back at you. Combine this with traditional encryption and viola! Privacy at its finest and easiest. But Mirrorshades uses the same algorithms to search a database of words (the text pool) and generate a surreal style all its own: rubbing her sable with long thoughtful fingers. skimming the curdles of the dream. his eyes, dull and tired, like grape seeds. gravy stains from the previous tenant. motific clouds. a summer shaped like a hot dog, and its rungs of sunlight. nails--no two bent the same way. 2. How exactly does it work? Both programs use iterative mathematics to search databases of words classified by 1)part of speech, 2)connotative meaning, 3)association to other words, 4)metrical value & common pronunciation, and 5)established user preferences (it can be taught to write really messed up love poems, if you'd like). In Prosody, most of the algorithms are strange or chaotic attractors with a few Julia curves thrown in for good measure driving a probability engine in the form of a set of distribution curves set up in a way reminiscent of cmusic algorithmic composition programs. As a result, it flows very well when spoken aloud (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you voice synthesis developers <especially those involved with singing simulation>...). Mirrorshades does somewhat of the same thing, except that it uses the intersections of strange attractors, distributed pseudo-random number generators, various fractal curves, and formal rules to create semi-surreal, lucid dreaming images (I was inspired by Wm Gibson's work in _Mirrorshades_, an anthology of first wave cyberpunk authors ed. by Bruce Sterling) that fit a series of preferences that could be called poems. That is, if you want a sonnet you can get a sonnet. If you want a really f8nky paragraph on gravity to lead off a chapter in a physics textbook you're working on, you could get that too. In short, I was setting out to create the most flexible writing tool I could. I think I've come close. 3. Is it commercial? What do you think!!! No, actually it's shareware with a pricing structure like this: if you request a copy as an *.edu user from now until 1 December, it's free. After that, it's available at the *.com user price of $10 to receive the code key to unlock a copy. I'm still not sure if I want to let any *.gov types have it yet, but if they're nice to me...we'll see. Hacked copies are worthless - it comes out as a really screwed up epic poem (when I tried hacking it, it was about an umbrella and a sewing machine --I heard great grandpa Eluard rolling in his grave). You have to use the appropriate code key for that copy of the program or my shipping backdoor (no, it won't open messages created with it, just the copy I give you...). I think it's a reasonable pricing structure. If you don't, please tell me through keithwriters @ delphi.com. 4. When will these programs be available? That depends on your function in the universe. If you are a sysop at a university with a respected Creative Writing program, advance copies for your Net will be made available. The same with industry magazines (computer science, cyberculture, artificial intelligence, iterative math, etc... but not $5/issue advertisements like @(*# or &@ (##% posing as "true sources of NEW information" on computers when they're actually rehashing stuff thought of and started in the '50s...yes, it's a torchy kind of thing for me...). User copies will be sent via e-mail or to designated FTP sites for downloading by 1 December. Pre-release registration materials will be sent to requestors around Thanksgiving. Physical (diskette) copies will be available also (give KEITHWRITERS@DELPHI.COM a physical address for you and everyone will be happy). 5. Has anyone used this stuff before? Yes. Me. I have 4 books of poetry out and available that are direct output from Mirrorshades and/or Prosody: _Naked_City_, "Black Sun" (actually the libretto to an opera in development of the same name), _A_Dream_of_a_Shadow_of_Smoke_, and _Hieroglyphs_of_Desire_. Copies of all are available by e-mail and asking nicely for the book(s) you want and providing a physical address. They will be sent COD (or free to reviewers). 6. Is it AI (artificial intelligence)? Maybe. I'm not completely sure. They use a cut-down version of a neural net and intuitive search processes based on past accepted outputs (it can figure out what you want from that session, but not between sessions). They have passed some informal Turing tests among some poets & writers of international caliber with some interesting results. However, none were computer experts and so I am interested in that side of testing. Any volunteers? 7. Where can I find out more? Prowl the sci.ai.nat-lang for some nifty academic resources. I have brewed my notes from my development stage into a text file I could send to any interested persons, but it's mostly on strange attractors and fractals. Most GOPHERs will have something there under computer science, artificial intelligence, fractals, chaos theory, or related topics. Thanx for your time and patience. Please direct replies/correspondence to KEITHWRITERS@DELPHI.COM mark it: "ATTN: K Eluard" in the subject line so that it doesn't wind up on Keith Boyle's desk here at the Writers' Center of Indianapolis. or snail mail us at Technosys: Keith Eluard, software development Technosys 3025 North Meridian Street #202 Indianapolis Indiana 46208