From candide@urbanium.tv Wed Jan 02 03:58:09 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: candide@urbanium.tv X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_1_3); 2 Jan 2002 11:58:07 -0000 Received: (qmail 24889 invoked from network); 2 Jan 2002 11:58:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.172) by m10.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 2 Jan 2002 11:58:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO urbanium.urbanium.tv) (194.183.224.155) by mta2.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 2 Jan 2002 11:58:08 -0000 Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 12:58:16 +0100 Subject: a beginner's questions Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v480) Cc: L.Bauchau@swing.be, ioannis@urbanium.tv To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: <016B38C3-FF78-11D5-84A2-000393074A5A@urbanium.tv> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.480) Received: from 212.68.238.171.brutele.be ([212.68.238.171]) by urbanium.urbanium.tv (JAMES SMTP Server 1.2.1rc2) with SMTP ID 133; Wed, 2 Jan 2002 12:58:07 +0100 From: Candide Kemmler X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=92614944 Hi, I'm Candide Kemmler and I'm new to this list. I've been lurking for one=20 week to see what kind of discussions were held here and it seems that=20 it's ok to ask general questions. BTW, I learned about lojban from Bj=F6rn Gohla who's been developing a=20 lojban vocabulary quiz for GNUstep, which is a platform I'm also playing=20 with (and it's on my TODO list to port it to Mac OS X, if it isn't=20 already done). My interest for lojban stems from my motivation for=20 getting acquainted with logic concepts "at a low cost". I'm more a=20 literary type of guy than a math type of guy (studied latin-greek at=20 school), so the formal way of expressing things isn't very attractive to=20 me; learning a new language is. However, being a programmer, I'm sure that logic programming is the=20 future, and every effort at making humans and machines communicate in a=20 more natural way catches my attention. In general, while we certainly=20 have lots to do to make machines more human, I think humanity will also=20 have to cope with its creature's way of thinking. And lojban also=20 interests me in that respect. That being said, I'm very curious about what drives other lojbanists'=20 motivation. In particular I'd like to know about possible projects=20 involving human-machine communication. Here's a list of things I'd like=20 to explore with lojban, things that are possibly being explored by=20 others here (in the style of the recent "What are you doing now ?"=20 thread): - build a lojban voice synthesizer (there's an open source C and Java=20 implementation of a voice synthesizer that seems low-level enough to=20 build what they call "voices" for new languages: -> http://freetts.sourceforge.net/docs/index.html). - build a lojban voice recognition framework (there's a sourceforge=20 project on voice recognition (not much yet though): -> http://sourceforge.net/projects/cmusphinx/). - couple the lojban lexer/parser with logic engines to store/analyse=20 facts and construct some kind of weltanshauung (not sure of the=20 spelling); - use lojban in Reputation Calculation Engines (see: -> http://www.openprivacy.org) - use lojban in cunjuntion with the semantic web initiative; I've decided to animate a workshop every fortnight here in Brussels in=20 which I've invited several friends to participate. It will be about=20 human-machine communication and the first meeting introduced lojban=20 already: we did lessons 1-4 of a set of 7 and the 3 that remain are on=20 the program. I'd be glad if some of you could be virtually present by=20 then (I mean, using IM or IRC). Next meeting is Monday 7/1/02 at 7 PM=20 GMT+1. Cheers, Candide PS: there's no "an" (like "France") sound in lojban, and without it my=20 name is sounding ridiculous to me :-) too bad !