Lagniappe

I lived for two years in New Orleans while I taught computer science at an undergraduate university.

Loved the food, music, and much of the many cultures. Hated the heat, humidity, and other aspects of the many cultures.

One Cajun word that I learned was 'lagniappe', which means 'a little something extra'.

I'm going to start having Lagniappe sections in which I can share... whatever.

I'm finishing a pile of murder mysteries by P.D. James that I've been enjoying very much. I especially enjoy her character Commander Adam Dalgliesh.

I've just started watching the third season of Slings and Arrows on DVD from Netflix. I very much enjoy Paul Gross and the rest of the cast. Loving drama and Shakespeare and watching acting as I do, the dark comedy of this series makes it a natural for me.

While I enjoy reading popularizations of science and the history of science, I try to slowly work through one or two textbooks at a time in subjects that really interest me and about which I know little.

I've been slowly working through two college texts, one on genes and the other on immunology.

The first text is Lewin's Genes V, which I'm sure now has gone through a few more editions. I've gone through several sections of the book before, but really need to start at the beginning and work it through as best as I can. Remarkable.

The second text is Immunobiology - The Immune System in Health and Disease - 6th Edition, by Janeway, Travers, Walport, and Shlomchik.

One blog that I discovered only recently but thoroughly enjoy is that of P.Z. Myers, a professor of biology at a university in Morris, Minnesota, and his blog is about 'Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal'. His blog, Pharyngula, is at http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula. He is someone I would very much enjoy having a beer with.

One blog that I check daily is that of Andrew Sullivan, www.AndrewSullivan.com. He's a successful gay blogger and author that is pretty full of himself, but I enjoy many of the things he brings to my attention, even if I don't agree with several things he says (especially regarding religion - he's all for it; I'm very much against it).

I have two cats that are my comfort and joy. Tessa is a tan-and-white tabby and likes to lay within and over my arms when I work on my desktop computer. I often don't realize that she's there until I hear her purring, all curled up in the crook of my arm. Cymru (the Welsh name for Wales) is a fierce loving little thing (hence her name). I don't know what her breed is, but she's gray and black on her sides and black, light brown on her belly, and gorgeous.

The cats have me very well trained. They are also young enough to think that they're actually going to get to eat my birds.

I have two cockatiels, Sasha and Archie. Sasha came first - we thought he was a male when we named him. We got her Archie for company. Archie is named for Archie Goodwin in the Nero Wolfe stories.

Speaking of which, the Nero Wolfe series of detective/mystery novels and stories are superb. Even better, however, is the Nero Wolfe A&E television series, envisioned and realized by Timothy Hutton, who also plays Archie Goodwin in the two-seasoned series. Utterly superb.

This being the first week of the Year of Darwin, I've decided to read all of Darwin's major works over the course of the year. I'll start by rereading The Voyage of the Beagle, a book that I read with pleasure within the past year but which deserves being read again. It is an unexpectedly interesting and engaging account of his travels. Knowing what we know now about what he will glean from these travels and his encounters with life, it is fun to scrutinize the text for some sign of what is to come, especially in his accounts of his visit to the Galapagos Archipelago. All thoughts of science aside, his account is fascinating. It should well prepare me for encountering Origins again.

I'm sitting in a comfy armchair by the fireplace at my favorite coffee house, The Wilde Roast Cafe in northern Minneapolis. It is a fair drive from where I live in Eden Prairie, but it is worth it. The two guys that own it got married about a year ago. One was an elementary school teacher and the other a construction worker, if I'm not mistaken. They have built a coffee house that is welcoming to everyone - young, old, gay, straight. I've been coming here for years and have done a lot of good work here. The Wilde Roast Cafe is dedicated to the memory of Oscar Wilde and has a few touches of Victoriana to complement the pictures of that great man. It is nice to have a welcoming place that I can call home.

I've written most of a first draft of a science fiction novel, Woven. I wrote much of it during last November's National Novel Writing Month (a wild experience), put in several more spurts of work, and have been letting it rest for several months. I think I'll be ready to pick it up again, read in critically, read it again with a friend's notes in hand, and then begin to write it again.

I've been reading a great many mystery and detective novels over the past few years, and I decided about three months ago to work on one of my own. I haven't written a word yet, but some of the characters are beginning to stand up and start walking around. I may spend the days until this November 1 thinking about the characters and then work on a first draft during this year's National Novel Writing Month. I was astonished last year at how easy it was to write when you need to write nearly 2,000 words a day for a month.

I've let most of my friendships slide over the past several years. I think it is time that I reawaken some of them and take a little more joy out of life.

Several of my relationships have becomed seriously damaged by my coming out as a gay man and again as an atheist. These relationships - some with family; some with friends - are not the ones that I'll be working on. I'm no longer willing to make accommodations on these issues so that someone else feels comfortable.

Isaiah died a year and a half ago. I hadn't realized how much I enjoyed sharing things with him until he was no longer there. I haven't been sharing with anyone since he died. I think this blog came along just in time.

I really like windmills. As I drive into work each morning, I pass by the windmill at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. I don't know why, but it always cheers me up. In fact, I have to be careful to focus on driving and not glance at it too long or too much. Such elegance.

The Adaptive Market Pattern - Agents

          First in thread      Previous in thread

What does an agent have to offer?

So far, I've looked at things from the point of view of clients. Most of the hard work has to be done by agents, however.

What does an agent have to offer? Knowledge, character, and performance.

There are at least two pure varieties of agents, and blends of these two types are likely.

The first type corresponds to a general contractor - it knows how to break a task into subtasks, how to select and work with subcontractors, and how to manage several operations in parallel in order to accomplish its task. This type of agent knows how to find others that it can delegate work to. I'll refer to this as a 'delegating agent'.

The second type of agent corresponds to a terminal subcontractor - one who does not delegate to others but performs the work itself. This type of agent knows how to use one or more tools effectively, understanding them and able to adapt them to the task at hand. I'll refer to this variety as an 'exectuting agent'.

They have two very different types of knowledge - who to delegate to and how to work with them vs. how to use tools effectively. How to use agents effectively vs. how to use tools effectively.

It is certainly possible for a delegating agent to make use of one or more tools itself, making it a 'multi-mode agent'.

For our purposes, a tool is a process that can be executed on a set of processors.

The process may be in a public repository and available for use without charge, or it may be privately owned and may be available for purchase or lease.

The processors may be owned by the agent that will use them, owned by some other agent from whom they will be rented, or some combination of these.

Thus, an executing agent may own or lease the processes that it will use and may own or rent the processors on which those processes will be executed.

What an executing agent must provide is the knowledge of how to use its tools to effectively perform its task.

What agents know

The catalog of services that an executing agent can provide is limited to what it can accomplish through the use of its tools.

The tools may be capable of much more than the agent is able to direct the tool to perform, and an agent may be able to coax a tool to perform much more than the tool's designers anticipated.

A tool may be parameterized - it may offer several choices or settings that will affect its behavior. In order to make effective use of a tool, an agent must understand the options offered by the tool and when to use those options.

An executing agent may have the use of several tools, which may be used alternatively or in conjunction to perform tasks. In order to make effective use of a set of tools, an agent must understand the capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses of its tools and when and how to use these tools to perform a task.

In other words, an executing agent must have a knowledgebase that covers the tools at it may acquire the use of, their capabilities, their strengths and weaknesses, and how to acquire their use for a task.

This knowledgebase will include a private directory of references to and into repositories, as well as statistical knowledge derived from experience with tools and agents.

A delegating agent also must have a knowledgebase that covers the agents that ti may contract with, their capabilities, their strengths and weaknesses, how to use these agents to perform a task, and how to negotiate contracts with these agents.

Again, this knowledgebase will include a private directory of references to and into repositories, as well as statistical knowledge derived from experience with agents.

An agent's catalog of services offered

When an agent constructs a catalog of the services that it will offer, it must take care to do the following:

• give a reference to an ontology that provides a semantic framework for the terminology that will be used
• use terminology in ways consistent with the referenced ontology
• construct a set of services that conform, at least in part, to a standard set of services and provide a reference to that standard
• construct a set of services that have a useful granularity
• avoid unnecessary changes in services, as the agent's history will contain references to services performed, and changes may make comparison difficult or unfeasible
• provide a pricing framework that honestly reflects what a client can expect from contract negotiations and contract fulfillment
• provide templates for task definition
• provide a set of positive reputation factors, each with a set of references
• provide a method for efficiently obtaining information on capacity, resources, and availability

The catalog of services offered should not only attract business opportunities to an agent, but increase the likelihood that the inquires that an agent receives are appropriate for the services it provides, and that it will be able to efficiently and effectively respond to requests for bids that it receives.

Tasks from the agent's point of view

An agent will often be quite limited in the services that it offers, especially executing agents.

It is essential that an agent not enter into a contract to perform a task that it is not competent to perform within the constraints of the contract. It is essential, therefore, that both client and agent truly understand and agree in their understanding of the task definition and the terms of the contract.

I have suggested that each service advertised by an agent be accompanied by a task definition template that conforms to a referenced ontology.

When a client issues a request for bids, it will have had an opportunity to inspect the task definition templates recommended by several of its prospective bidders. If the request for bids is issued to a closed list, the client will have knowledge of the relevant task definition templates of all of its prospective bidders. It may then use this information to construct the task definition in the request and it may choose to provide a mapping from the request's task definition into the templates of the request recipients.

Why should a client go to this trouble? It has the best understanding of the task - initially, at least - and it wants to be able to identify and attract the interest of agents able to perform the task. If it has difficulty mapping its task definition to an agent's task definition template, this may indicate that there is a mismatch between task definition and template or that the agent isn't ready for serious consideration.

This is another reason to consider using standardized task definition templates - it facilitates communications and reduces the opportunities for confusion and misunderstanding.

Standardized task definition templates won't be available or useful in all situations, of course. It may be the case that a standard template, while not complete for a situation, may be able to serve as a standard core that can be extended in a controlled fashion.

The task definition templates that an executing agent uses are likely to be very constrained, as the tasks that it can perform are very constrained.

The task definition templates that a delegating agent uses may be less constrained than those used by executing agents, but probably not by much. Not until some of the promises of artificial intelligence are realized will delegating agents be able to enter into the free-form discussions and negotiations that a general contractor participates in daily.

          First in thread      Previous in thread

Copyright and Legal Notices

All Rights Reserved.