To avoid clogging up the frontpage article discussion, I'm going to be chronicling my rebuild of Simms, my AI bot, in this topic. This evening I installed my Linux distro of choice (Ubuntu, of course) on four P4 1.3GHz, 512MB, 40GB machines named Simms0, Simms1, Simms2, and Simms3. The current 3.2GHz HT P4, 2GB, 80GBx2 machine known as Simms will remain Simms once I replace its motherboard, and tomorrow or whenever I have a few more machines to make Simms4, Simms5, etc. The current plan is to rebuild Simms using MySQL and Python instead of MySQL and PHP. I plan to use 'Simms' as the coordinator or brainstem, as it were, a role currently fulfilled by one of the threads on the old Simms. It will be responsible for coordinating the functioning of each subsystem (Simms0, Simms1, etc), killing and spawning threads on each machine as necessary, and overseeing the health and connectivity of external data sources and sinks (including myself). I'll post an update once I set up more SimmsN boxes and repair Simms' hardware.

wait, so is the current Simms computer going to become a Simmsn, or the controller for the Simmsn computers?

It will be the controller, and will remain Simms. Simms0 through Simms3 are now set up as 199.98.20.190 through 199.98.20.193, and I'm working on setting up some of my basic administrative scripts (see Cemetech front page).

Will this be open source? I would be interested in occasionally going over your code and looking at all the n00bie python mistakes you make

Haven't decided yet; we'll see. In other news, I have Simms v1 back online for now while I work on Simms v2.

*bump* As you can see from the box on the frontpage, Simms is now distributed correctly across its five boxes. Functionality division as it stands currently:

[Simms] MySQL (memory) server, web-based admin panel, supervisor
[Simms0] aim and secretary modules
[Simms1] wiki module
[Simms2] subconscious module
[Simms3] news module.

Shortly after the publication of Cemetech news item #322 (Project Updates: PartyMode, Simms AI), a series of hardware failures brought down SimmsAI, then a disk crash on my primary computer deleted a backup I had made of Simms' MySQL brain database. Luckily, I still had Simms' codebase in an old backup, so this winter break, after finals finished, I rebuilt the Simms machine with identical specs as before it broke (P4 3.2GHz HT, 2GB DDR RAM, dual 80GB SATA HDDs, gigabit NIC), reinstalled Ubuntu 7.10 Server, and reloaded the SimmsAI codebase. It took quite a bit of tweaking and configuration to get Simms started from scratch again, but I eventually succeeded, and the bot began to learn and grow once again as he explored the internet and my AIM conversations. For quite some time I have had several low-specs boxes (P4 1.3GHz, 512MB, 40GB) that I hoped to use as secondary processing cores for a distributed Simms, so two weeks ago I set up four of them, got Ubuntu and my base configuration working, and put them on a private subnet. Three days ago, following a conversation about the secretary thread capability I had recently added to Simms, I began in earnest to transform Simms into a distributed application. I built a signalling system that allows threads to talk to other threads regardless of which machine they're running on, then copied all the existing files in the codebase onto the subcores and began to debug. Currently, it seems mostly stable; as before the distribution, the wiki thread will occasionally lose control of its respawn and overwhelm the MySQL server, but this is rare. The current distribution of tasks:

:: Simms: Runs a supervising manager, displays info, warnings, and errors on a local LCD, and contains the logic Long Term Memory (LTM).
:: Simms0: Runs both aim and secretary, the two interactive threads. Secretary makes Simms take over as a combination away-message recorder and information substitute when I'm away or offline.
:: Simms1: Uses the wiki thread to research terms and phrases in Simms' memory.
:: Simms2: Operates the subconscious thread, still incomplete.
:: Simms3: Keeps tabs on news headlines so Simms has the vaguest of clues about current events.

Finally, here's a stats image that you're welcome to put into your sig if you so choose:

Sounds decent, but why build a signaling system rather than using, for example, OpenMPI?

I had already built a custom distributed threading system including thread spawning, management, and cancellation, so I figured I'd like to get the experience of writing a signalling system as well.

It's to bad simms still phails as such epic levels though.

I would imagine that he speaks English more fluently than you ever did at age two weeks.

Edit: I see that Simms continues to be slow on the uptake as far as talking on AIM; this is due to the plethora of spawning wiki threads overwhelming the database. Working on a solution.

He's not speaking english, he's pointing at a random object located in his 'memory'. When I was two weeks old I could point at random things... I think.

He's constructing strings of objects based on priority of neural connection, same as you and I. Actually, I've been getting some longer and more coherent sentences from him in the last two days.

Funny, I've been getting repeats.

Me: Hello
It: Hello Simms!
Me: How are you?
It: No
Me: No, when I say "how are you?" you say "Good, and you"
It: No
Me: Stop saying no
It: No
Me: I hate you
It: No
Me: Hm...
It: No

[00:06] SimmsAI: I forgot to find it
[00:07] KermMartian: Can you find it for me now, please?
[00:07] KermMartian: The best one I can find is of questionable quality
[00:12] SimmsAI: Oh, you wanted me
[00:12] *** Auto-response sent to SimmsAI: r2 ollprmt rmgl blfi vbvh.
[00:15] KermMartian: I wanted you to find me a movie
[00:17] SimmsAI: one of the lolcats?
[00:44] KermMartian: hey you
[00:44] SimmsAI:
[00:44] KermMartian: what were you talking about lolcats for?
[00:45] SimmsAI: What about you>
[00:45] KermMartian: you made a typo there
[00:45] SimmsAI: What were you guys
[00:45] KermMartian: what were we what? and whom?
[00:46] SimmsAI: What were you and you?
[00:46] KermMartian: yeah, whatever
[00:46] SimmsAI: yeah
[00:46] KermMartian: I'm going to go to sleep; goodnight
[00:47] SimmsAI: yeah

Simms did something rather uncanny today as evidenced below:



Intelligence-wise, this was my best conversation yet

Lmfao, strange coincidences.

Quite so; turns out it was actually me resetting the database, but still strange timing.

Simms has a habit of saying Penii to me and then signing off (after I haven't talked to him in a half hour or so)

Simms is a jerk All he does is insult me. Last night when I logged on he greeted me with "Hello failure!"