A phrase spoken by Niall, a program available for Linux which is somewhat like a Furby, but not. For one, Niall does not start with any sort of lexicon that is activated when you speak (type) to it. Instead, Niall remembers whatever words you've used, and it also pays attention to syntax. Theoretically, it should work in any language. I don't think it has the American English syntax built in to it. I was very amused and ever-so-slightly disturbed when Niall said that phrase to me. If ever I had felt that any group of little ones and zeros had achieved sentience, even for a brief moment, that would be it.
www.gnome.org is the place to start if you want to get Niall - then go to "get more software", and in there it's under the entertainment section.
Any program that can (pseudo-)randomly come up with a statement like this has to be the best thing in the world ever. I want it. Gimme.

Don't just leave us like this, Tsarren: we want to know what other gems this thing's come up with. Recipes for pumpkin soup perhaps? Or has it come up with the works of Shakespeare a la the Infinite Monkeys Theorem?

The possibilities of such a device seem endless ... maybe one could only quote Shakespeare at Niall and see if it comes up with some fresh sonnets in time. Or feed it physics equations and wait for it to regurgitate them in some new formulaic pattern... I shudder to think, I really do.

Another wonder of the world thrown up by the hacker community. Here's to them.

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