Hello fellow wordsmiths. Just a quick one to wish you all the best for the fast looming Easter celebrations. May your eggs swell with cream and all things be rendered unto you that you would have rendered unto yourselves given half a chance. So a happy Argos to you all, keep your peckers up come the fourth of July. Hope you all had a smashing Yuletide and that your pumpkins will soon bare candles.

So get your hearts glad with wine and toast St Cliff for it will soon be time for Wimbledon, and he will once again be driving his big double decker up the mens doubles.

May your birthday Christmas pudding spontaniously combust come brandy time.

All the best for the fortnight in bedlam.

Yours Nige

There have been numerous attempts to provide a standardized definition of a computational
agent, but little consensus has emerged. We propose a simple test for agenthood that can be
applied to a putative computational agent. Roughly, this test seeks to capture the intuition that
an agent is an entity that can function as part of a multiagent system. The test depends on the
observed behavior of the supposed agent, and not on the internals of it. We apply the test to
some well-known kinds of systems of (supposed) agents, and discuss the results. We present a
formulation of the test and some variants with a semantics based on sociability. Our treatment
of agenthood can thus serve as a methodological basis for evaluating putative agents and agent
toolkits.

In short then more fancy talking with nothing of note to say in terms that really matter in real life. The Agent would be king on planet Pompousass, but here on planet earth, he surely is a mear pawn.

Fester

Someone using the name Fester has been contributing quite splendidly to the Spoonbill Generator for some years. I have just learnt that the work colleague I believe to have been contributing under that name died last weekend.

Fester's last contribution was the first line of <http://www.spoonbill.org/completed.php?name=poem&value=2774>;. I have given the poem a suitable title in his honour.

Since he never revealed his identity - I worked it out from his IP No. - I shall not do so now.

Of course, my identification could be quite wrong and perhaps Fester's still with us!

/m4862 Peter, I'm sorry about the death of your colleague. I tried clicking on the link you provided to see the poem you were talking about but it doesn't seem to be working.

/m4862 I'm also sorry to hear about your colleague, Peter. I had always believed fester to be just the naughtier side of P, but I guess not (unless P was the less naughty side of fester!) Anyway, if fester really has left us forever, he will be sorely missed! <sniffle>

In doing a little digging, I ran onto this one, which was started by fester and turned out well. It also features a lot of good contributors who have since disappeared.

/m4862

Sorry, there was a spurious character at the end of the link - it should have been http://www.spoonbill.org/completed.php?name=poem&value=2774

/m4865 and /m4866 Fester's contributions will definitely be missed. :-)

Important message

The Spoonbill Generator will be unavailable from 14th to 19th April 2006, as a result of electrical works in the building it lives in.

/m4868

It seems the maintainenance worked finished early and the SG is back in operation.

/m4865 I've always admired the wit and precision of fester's writing, and ever since he picked up and elaborated on my reference to Ngunnawal I've wondered who and where he (having somehow assumed fester to be male) might be. This is sad news.

Speaking of disappearing contributors...never fear, some of us have just lain dormant for a time. Great to see the, er, "quality" here is still being maintained!

/m4871 Welcome back, Nym! An infusion of new (old) blood may reinvigorate the process

/m4871 Looks like you're only contributing to the first three colors, Nym. Didn't you keep your bookmarks? Also, don't forget ZP--or did you lose that link as well? I sent you an email with the links because a couple of the guys on another messageboard wondered why you hadn't popped in over there.

awwwwwww! the poem i was contributing to is gone! did i ruin it? i tried to delete the last line i put in (i'm on dialup with line noise that bumps me offline alot) since it didn't follow with the rhyme. I had concentrated on developing the concept that seemed to be developing instead of worrying about rhyming and i really didn't notice that it didn't rhyme until it was too late. Maybe a sudden non rhyme was what was needed in that noneffervescent universe we were building? ;-)
anyways, i hope i didn't ruin things!
thanks for letting me play.