Ann Arbor, Michigan (Reuters)

University of Michigan scientists admitted today that the LadyLogic 2000 Internet Assault Unit is a dismal failure and that the project may be shelved.

"We'll think twice the next time before we transplant the brain of Marilu Henner into a Rosie O'Donnell model android" said Chief Scientist and former Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon.

The project, originally devised to help internet posters make sense of the Y2K problem, went awry nearly from the start and has continued its death spiral since early this year with no end in sight.

The LadyLogic 2000 has been plagued by many problems, including glaring inconsistencies, contradictory behavior, repetitive spam-like postings, insulting comments, and a strange manic-depressive type of behavior characterized by chastising others and then quickly apologizing. At the same time, U of M scientists are amazed at times by it's ability to learn certain words over time, especially the word "fuck", which it now uses constantly.

The program is nearly $3,000,000 over budget as well, due to constant applications of a white, powdery substance over the buttocks, presumably to ease the friction of anal electrical arcs that are constantly emitted from the units' rectal region. Moreover, her "ass", as scientists like to call it, is growing at a rate of 4 inches per day, approaching the size of the butt of Shirley Hemphill, the former waitress on the TV sitcom "What's Happening." As this continues, the incremental costs of butt powder will continue to increase as well.

Scientists have considered repairing the LL unit, but noted that it would take "millions of dollars just to improve it from its inane state to that of just being severely ludicrous".

The biggest problem facing any future LadyLogic units is the competition for funds at the University. Most of the money has already been allocated to two areas: A feasibility study of a new and improved Gary North with "Kung-Fu Grip", and a post-mortem of the Y2K activities of Ed "Teflon" Yourdon, in order to find out how one can maintain credibility while inflating bank accounts through fear.

-- CJS (cjs@noemail.com), May 22, 2000

Answers

LOL, Webb! You finally showed some creativity and originality!

-- (Ladylogic@...), May 22, 2000.

presumably to ease the friction of anal electrical arcs that are constantly emitted from the units' rectal region.

Too freakin funny-Actually laughing!

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), May 22, 2000.

LadyLogic,

You are still off on the "Webb" thing. Go ahead and keep thinking that. I saw you telling me to "fuck off" earlier today on another thread that I had not posted on, so I figured I'd at least validate your "fuck off" to me.

I thought that you were a private investigator at one point. Apparently, you've lost those abilities.

-- CJS (cjs@noemail.com), May 22, 2000.

CJS

ROTFLMAO! You are ever so creative. Congrats! I'll still be laughing to myself tomorrow. Good one, bubba!!!

-- Aunt Bee (SheriffAndy@Mayberry.com), May 23, 2000.

(choking on my Sprite),

Wow, CJS!

Actually, this is only a hair away from fiction. My current field is AI, and I have sometimes wondered at the characterization of the LL persona. Is it real, or is it Memorex?

The atavars we create for research purposes are often given a wide latitude for generating their own personas, and sometimes the results oscillate out to some bizarre manifestations. When given semi-free access to the internet (to provide them with data for human society structure and interaction), our Intelligent Agents, designed for general purpose learning, occasionally start behaving erratically by human standards.

Art Clark was way ahead of his time, a true visionary. He forsaw this problem over 30 years ago.

Occasionally one of our "charges" figures out our firewall systems, and escapes. While watching the LL persona evolve over the last year or so, I've often wondered about the nature of this particular Atavar, and speculated about the close parallels to human personality disorders that this entity manifests. But it is the differences that are most interesting to AI researchers. Our apologies for any inconvenience this mistaken release may have caused to some posters.

-- Spindoc' (spindoc_99_2000@yahoo.com), May 23, 2000.

Oops, sorry. Nevermind.

Sysman is right. Back to our regularly scheduled programming...

-- Spindoc' (spindoc_99_2000@yahoo.com), May 23, 2000.

The LL 2000 IAU typically exhibits anal arcing when a Mr Polly IAU is plugged into it.

-- (nemesis@awol.com), May 23, 2000.

Early AI -- Eliza>

http://www-ai.ijs.si/eliza-cgi-bin/eliza_script

-- Eliza will talk with you (about@your.problems), May 23, 2000.

Bad URL. Go here.

http://www-ai.ijs.si/eliza/eliza.html

-- A shrink (at@no.cost), May 23, 2000.

LOL -- CJS, this is hilarious. Between this one and the Paula Gordon Video Series thread, my day is pretty much "laugh-complete". You really should go to The Onion -- submit a couple of these essays. It's right up your proverbial alley.

BTW, there's something I've been meaning to say to you for a few months now, and this seems like a really good opportunity:

GOOD NIGHT, CJS!!

[G]

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), May 23, 2000.

Good night, Patricia-

I do remember that, by the way. It was pretty funny.

Unfortunately, The Onion won't take submissions. I write a lot of stuff that I e-mail to friends when I have the chance, which hasn't been lately, unfortunately, due to the kids (baseball season and swimming), grad school, and work.

Hope everything is going well for you in Las Vegas.

-- CJS (cjs@noemail.com), May 23, 2000.

Everything's going quite well here; I'm even starting to grow accustomed to 110 degrees (no humidity really does make a difference, though if I don't get the stupid a/c fixed in the car I'm just going to roast).

Too bad about The Onion. That site is hilarious and it looks like you'd fit right in.

Re baseball and swimming: I just had this mental picture; have you seen the new Volvo commercial where the "soccer dad" is at the gym watching his son in a swim meet and as soon as the kid dives in, dad races to the Volvo and drives to his daughter's soccer match. This goes on back and forth..... It's pretty funny. Hope it's easier for you.

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), May 24, 2000.