Note 60: Scott Pakin, the author of the idiot

Rubric: Our networks

Scott Pakin, author of the "Idiot"

Anton Nosik

The Russian -speaking user of the network hardly needs to explain for a long time who Dmitry Manin and Roman Leibov need to. American Dmitry Manin - creator Burim and Sonnetnik on WWW - and an employee of the University of Tartus, Roman Leibov, the founder of a recording novel - has long and firmly took their place on the Olympus of the Russian -speaking Internet, creating the first interactive systems of collective creativity. Hundreds, or even thousands of Russian -speaking Internet users from time to time, from time to time, visit the server to Dmitry Manin to write their Burim there (quatrains for two specified rhymes), or take part in the collective creation of sonnets, to which each new user adds his own line. Hundreds of famous and nameless Russian networks go to the novel server every day in order to contribute to the growth of this collective epic work almost uncontrollable today, or to read how the fate of the heroes has developed under the pen of other famous or nameless authors ...

Similar literary games, which received the almost canonical name of the "veterars" in the Russian Internet vocabulary, are based on a unique combination of the network's programmatic capabilities with the creative ambitions of its inhabitants. The replenishment of the novel, Bourim and Sonnetnik with new texts and lines is based on the use of very tricky “scripts” - programs for processing, “assembly” and publishing texts added by random users. For a huge number of users of these tools, they still remain primarily an entertaining technical miracle, however, some researchers today foresee that the combinatorial, annotation and indexing abilities of such texts processing programs are a prototype of machine literature of the future ... The soil is sufficiently prepared in practical terms with Borges and Cortasar, and in theory - Derrida, Bassopierre and Bassopierre and Bassopierre and Basospierre and Basispierre Other hard -pronounced authors, whose names can only be mentioned by Alexander Goldstein or a rare fan of his pen, who read to the middle of the "windows".

Today we will try to talk about a person whose labors can be safely put on a par with the experiments of Manin and Leibov. We are talking about an American programmer and system architect Scott Pakin (Pakin@uiuc.edu).

In the civilian specialty, Pakin, who graduated from the University of Carnegie-Mellon with a bachelor's degree in 1992, and received a second degree on computer science in January 1995, is an employee of the CSAG group (Concurrent Systems Architecture Groups) at the University of Urbanhampeyn (Uiuc.edu) in the state Illinois. According to his own testimony, as part of the CSAG group, he is engaged in the development of high -speed communication systems for local networks based on Myrinet architecture. However, if this circle of his studies was exhausted, then Scott would hardly have ever become a hero of our notes. Our interest in Scott Pakin is connected with his completely unusual undertakings, of which the most famous is his “automatic complaint generator” (http://wwww-csag.cs.uiuc.edu/individual/pakin/complaint/).

The generator allows the user to automatically draw up a complaint against any real or fictional person, using 739 standard sentences, 317 negative characteristics, 616 epithets, 215 subordinate sentences, with mention of 85 different "sides", based on 2570 lexical blocks of the English language. The script is engaged in the combination of all this lexical wealth; To fulfill our order, he only requires to indicate the name and surname of the person against whom the complaint is drawn up, his floor, as well as the length of the appeal in the paragraphs.

By answering all these questions and by clicking on the Complain button, we get a completely executed complaint against the person we specified on the screen, generated from the lexical reserve of the script randomly. “Random, being inevitable, benefits all work,” the poet taught. Complaints created with the help of a cunning program are designed in the best traditions of bureaucratic English, but most importantly - in a large part they are fair. How Scott Pakin achieves this effect, is the subject of a separate philological survey, from which we will refrain here. We only note that all the parameters we entered into the script constitute part of the URL (address) of the ordered complaint. Therefore, when you press the Reload key in our peeping, we will receive a new complaint about the same person, completely reformulated, again randomly, and completely unlike the previous one. It is not so interesting to describe this game as to try yourself. Alas, knowledge in English to enjoy the "generator of complaints" is absolutely necessary.

Another experiment of the same Scott Pakin was the novel "Idiot" in the HTML language. Let us give a completely first chapter at http://wwww-csag.cs.uiuc.edu/individual/pakin/idiot/chapter1.html

"How to puzzle the idiot for many hours

Chapter 1.

If your intentions include for a long time to puzzle a certain idiot, the best way is to use one of the countless Internet databases using multimedia. The main purpose of such databases is precisely puzzling idiots. Additional information on this issue can be obtained here. "

The word here, as the reader guesses, is a hyperlink. By pressing him, we fall into the chapter of the second, which reads:

"If you are puzzling about the question of how to take an idiot with a long -term task, it makes sense to turn to the abundance of information databases using multimedia, so that the idiots are engaged in them for a long time. In order to delve into the problems of long -term puzzles of idiots, read here."

The next link leads us to the chapter of the third. As the insightful reader has already guessed, chapter 400065678 This very informative novel reads:

"Whenever you, the task of reducing the amount of free time in the idiot’s work schedule is faced with, it makes sense to contact the resources of innumerable information databases created on the basis of multimedia to satisfy the curiosity of idiots. For a subject explanation of specific technologies used to relieve idiots for a long time, you should contact here."

It is unnecessary to mention that Link from the word here leads us to chapter 400065679 ...

However, Scott Pakin would not be Scott Pakin if the possibilities of an “idiot” were exhausted by this. Of course, this is remarkable that the script generates chapters as it requires, and not necessarily in a row (you can start reading immediately from the chapter 958567 by contacting http://wwww-csag.uuc.edu/individual/pakin/idiot/chapter958567.html). But another, even more subtle opportunity was thought out - that a cunning reader wants to outwit the script and see the “Table of Table of Table of Book, by requesting the head page of the directory .../Idiot/.

Another author, in the place of Pakin, may have prevented such an opportunity by creating an index.html block, or vice versa - bybaning the directory call without the address of a particular chapter. But Pakin is not the same: after all, he faces the task, as if to take an idiot for a long time. And every person who turned to the address at http://wwww-csag.cs.uiuc.edu/individual/pakin/idiot/, receives the desired contents, which lists all stored in the directory of the head of the novel. Depending on the IQ of this particular idiot, it takes from one minute to half an hour to understand: the table of contents of the novel, like its contents, is generated by exactly the same script that can work endlessly. An attempt to look behind the sciences of the Echid Script turns into another meeting of the idiot with the resources of innumerable information bases created on the basis of multimedia for the only purpose ...

In the next issue, we are waiting for a trip to the bowels of the Altavasters with a reference back to Scott Pakin and another study in Russian tones, dedicated to the solemn premiere of the Easter cakes.