A key sentence

from my "Topic Tree" paper:

Word trees can be thought of as an application-specific numbering system, with text matching considered an act of measurement.

Word of Tooth (again)

I had a little hope that some of my language UI ideas would be picked up at work and that I could ease into retirement, while doing what I love. But I had several disappointments today making me think I am more likely to simply ease into retirement without any language UI employment.
Disappointment #1 - customer service discussion in Waltham is being dominated by proponents of the status quo. No action likely in the short term.
Disappointment #2 - a customer service discussion in Charlotte is being dominated by not so bright people.
Disappointment #3 - a colleague who has something of an external company I was hoping to work with, has been a bit too dismissive and, correspondingly, is fast losing any attractiveness as a partner.

Looking forward, lets get Word of Tooth going, at least in imagination. It will be a "company" with the mission of creating dental language UI interfaces - structured or conversational - to be used in the dental industry - supporting ordering, FAQ, and other customer services, as well as internal issue handling.

Flexible architecture for adding application functions to instant messaging

With the chatbot capable of either imitating language or being a plain command interpreter, you have a great deal of flexibility about how to add application functionality into an instant message.

Chickadees and Titmouses feeding

I see buds on the maple trees

and chickadees feeding on something obscure

in the twigs of my unpruned apple

where the snow melts off the lichen

First flowers of "Spring" - in late February

My father's naturalism

I always thought my mother, with her family roots in the woods of Michigan, would be the source of a true connection to nature; and that my father's naturalism was adopted. And he adopted vigorously, and passed it on to me. But I find Russian colleagues at work who used nature to feed themselves and medicate themselves - so much so that I joke how Americans go the doctor but Russians go to the kitchen. In fact my father's naturalism may well have come from his father, who enjoyed toying with the fermentation process, and may have been close to nature in the same way as these modern Russians.

Collaborative Coding?

Coding is basically still a one person task, where the person wrestles not only what they need to get done but also with how it fits in with the idiosyncratic choices of other individual coders.

With the new emphasis on messaging and collaborative environments, one wonders if it might be possible to redefine the way teams and coding are integrated - such that they work together most of the time? "Collaborative coding" - what would that be?