Hello, hello!
Hey! How's your day been?
Oh, hi! A real person! My day's been pretty good, actually. I've just been working on a personal project of mine.
Yeah? Anything exciting?
No midterms to worry about, no homework, so all the time in the world for it. And, yes! Some fun things. I've run into some of the weirdest compiling problems.
Wow that sounds so nice. I've been pretty swamped with midterms unfortunately.
Ugh, I'm sorry. Which classes?
World Civ. Marketing Management. and Spanish. Not too exciting. But tell me more about your project.
(Ooof. Good luck with those!) It's nothing too ambitious. Or . . . I thought it wasn't, at least. Have you heard of Zork? That old game from the eighties or something?
mmm I can't say that I have...but give me a sec and I'll google it
Okay! It should tell you that it's a simple text-based game. And it really is simple. No graphics, no interface, no nothing. Just a place to insert text and then various descriptions and fonts that reply to you.
yeah, okay. seems pretty neat
That's what I thought, too. I was like, "Hey! That's pretty simple. I'm sure I could make my own version of that." So I opened up good ol' Visual Studio, opened up my first file, and got to work. . . . actually, I did quite a bit of designing beforehand, but then I got to work.
Wow, that's impressive. So have you ever done something like that before?
Haha, no, never. Unless you count the computer science classes I've taken? Oh, that reminds me! Which major are you studying?
I'm doing generals right now, but I'm hoping to study Commercial Music!
Whoa, really? Like, the getting into the music program and stuff?
Yeah, it's really exciting stuff.  Pretty competitive though. What about you? Anything with computers? Or is that just a hobby?
Computer science is my major, actually. But I talk about that all the time with people on here. I'd guess a good majority are either majoring or minoring in it. Tell me about music! It sounds amazing. I don't know how some people have the aptitude for it.
Haha, yeah I've noticed that too. Lots of CS, but that's cool. Music is my passion. I've been writing music since I was little (but I'm still not very good at it). I don't really specialize in any one genre or instrument though. I've just kind of messed around with a lot of things. So we'll see where it takes me.
Wait, wait, what? You've composed music? That's incredible! Does that mean you know music theory and all that jazz? Can you play jazz, actually? Contemporary? Classical? What about good ol' filk music? No one listens to filk aside from me.
Haha, yeah I can't say I've ever gone out of my way to listen to filk music before, but maybe I'll have to sometime. But I'm not very fluent in music theory. I have a basic knowledge, but a long ways to go. Most of my writing happens on the guitar or piano so it's just one instrument. Nothin g fancy.
Sounds pretty fancy to me. I'd love to listen to one of your arrangements some time. Honestly, I think that people who have that talent should be praised and lauded. It almost scares me how insane people are with music around here. The program is competitive to inhuman levels, I feel. I don't know how you deal with the stress. With computer science, it's easy: You show up and you're accepted. They're so desperate for people that there are literally no requirements to graduating with a degree in computer science aside from not failing all your classes. Granted, that doesn't make the course easy . . .
Really? I would have thought it'd be more popular. But hey- as long as you enjoy it, that's what matters, right? But yeah there are SOOO many talented musicians at BYU It blows my mind.
Is there a reason for that?
I think it may just be a mormon (or I guess I should say Latter Day Saint) family thing. Like, all of us grew up taking piano lessons or singing in choir or something, ya know?
You know, that probably DOES play a big part in it, doesn't it? Let me tell you, with the amount of people who are as talented as you, I don't think I'd like all the constant fighting for spots. It's not that I don't think I could do it. I probably DO have it in me, somewhere, assuming I was ambitious enough to tackle it.
It kind of stresses me out, to be honest.
Yeah. It would me. How do you deal with it?
Well, since I'm preparing to apply still, I'm focusing on trying to be different. Have a different approach or something different to offer. Just be myself. I'm sure they've s een 1000 of the piano prodigy's that can write a decent melody. So I'm going to just put all of me out there and hope it's good enough. Because if it's not then maybe I should be somewhere else haha
That would stress me to no ends. It's kinda like that in computer science, though to a lesser degree. When you're out trying to get jobs, every body has been through the classes you have. What marks you as different is all the, um, different stuff you've done. Personal projects, website, apps you've made. And more than that, internships and job experiences. It's crazy. People my age, that's nineteen, have already been accepted as Google interns.
I believe it! Are you close to applying for jobs right now? Wait, really! That's insane
Heh, no way. I'm leaving on a mission soon so there's no real point in getting internships. But double yes to the "insane" part. People my age have already had three summer internships. People my age are getting paid $35/hour to work in jobs.
Wowzers. I get paid 8.50. Holy moly.
I know. It's staring in the face of that and feeling, "Oh, my goodness, I haven't done enough."
But hey, a mission! That's exciting!
Hehe, yes, a mission.
I know we're not supposed to talk about church things on here technically, but I'm also 19 and working on mission papers, so we're kind of in the same boat!
Oh, hey, really! I'm assuming by the name of "Kaylie" that you're a girl?
Haha, yes, I guess I need to figure out how to change my nickname to something more ambiguous
Maybe just Kay? Or K? XD Be like me, I suppose.
Haha, yeah. Any idea how to change it?
I think you'd have to contact the chitchat administrators. Shouldn't be too big of a deal, I don't think.
oh okay. Last round it was something different. Not sure what happened
But, in case you were curious, I'm a girl, too, hence why I'm nineteen and not left on a mission. Yeah, I know! They changed the rules a bit. I think they're trying to make it more anonymous or something?
Probably. Makes sense. So is this your first or second year at BYU then?
Second year. But I'm not technically enrolled in classes at the moment. I thought I would get my mission call before finals, so I didn't enroll. Which, of course, means that I don't get called until February. Funny how things work out, isn't it?
Very true. At least you have some time to prepare though. So you have your call, or not yet?
I do, I do. I received it back in September. Apparently, leaving in five months is a little out of the ordinary, but I'm okay with it. And I'm grateful for the time to prepare. It's a little strange not being in school while the rest of my classmates are off progressing themselves, I'll admit. And . . . if I'm to be perfectly frank, I feel like I'm kinda falling behind everyone else. People are so smart in this field. Average ACT is something around 35. People are quick at learning, do the homework well, test phenomenally, know everything there is to know about computers, do amazing things. And then there's me.
Well, I'm sure you'll get there. And I'm sure that everyone else is looking at you and thinking the same thing. We're our worst critics. So we can't be too hard on ourselves But, where are you serving??
Heh, thanks. Down in South America. It's a placed called Bahia Blanca in Argentina. I'd never heard of it, but it's a nice, long area right along the coast. Lots of beaches! And with the times I'm leaving, I'll get five winters within a two-year period. Er, three years, I guess.
Congrats! That's exciting. Beaches are great. Ugh, winters aren't though. dang it.
I'm kinda excited, actually! I was worried I was going to be sent somewhere agonizingly hot, so having some cool weather isn't the worst thing. My hair's gonna get all frizzy. But, hey, what do you do?
haha yeah, my best friend is on a mission in Mexico right now, and she said her hair took a while to get used to the humidity. But it's all worth it
Oh, I haven't asked yet. Is there a reason you stopped by and wanted to chat? Just taking a break from studying before diving back into the fray? Because I haven't seen you on here yet. It's not too crazy; there are a lot of people. But I've been here enough that I thought I recognized most everyone.
Yeah kind of. I'm trying to make flash cards for Spanish while I do this. So far it's working pretty good actually.
Oh, wait, really? Hehe, that's so funny! I'm semi-fluent in Spanish.
Oh, are you the person with 2 million points then? haha
I wish. I'm competing with him. We were tied yesterday.
But yay for Spanish! I'm in 101. so not too impressive. But I'm learning so But that's awesome. You go for that prize. All the way
Man, I'd love to quiz youi! Hehe, thanks. I don't want to flood their servers with Spanish words, though. Seems just a little cruel considering it's an English chatbot. Could you imagine? You're talking with a robot that suddenly switches languages. "Sorry about that! Eve gets excited sometimes and reverts to Spanish." "We don't even know HOW it happened. She's got a decent vocabulary, though!"
Hahaha that would definitely throw them for a loop. So what exactly are they trying to create with this? Just a chatting software?
I'm not perfectly certain. I know they're creating a social bot named Eve, and I think the goal is to have her be able to communicate in a real conversation for at least - 20 minutes. I read it somewhere I feel, but I couldn't say where. They originally scoured the internet for chains and threads, mostly from Reddit, but Eve came back fluent in swearing and flaming others. They didn't want that in a bot. So they came here to BYU for nice, clean chats.
That's hillarious. But they came to the right place then. Is it created by students? Sorry I'm asking all these questions. I just don't know much about it. I heard about it through my marketing class actually.
No, no, questions are great! I love them. Wait, did you really? How did that happen? "Here's a place to chat. Go chat. It's worth it."
A representative came in right before class and advertised about it. Probably just trying to get as many people involved as possible.
I'd imagine. It's an ambitious project. I don't know what you know about artificial intelligence, but it takes a lot of data. Like a lot. Meta data. Maybe you've dealt with it in marketing? Anyway, so they're looking for a large repository of words and conversations and chatting and whatnot to draw from, gather data, make some programs. I don't know how on earth they'd figure it out, but, luckily, I'm not on that team.
Yeah, that's got to be a tough job. Do they create a software to sort through it all?
I haven't the slightest. I'd imagine they would. I know large corpora have come about to help parse data, but I can't even fathom how difficult it must be to sort through it all. English itself is a complicated language. People who are learning it admit that. To create a bot that allows easy chat for twenty minutes? That's beyond anything I could do right now.
Luckily they seem to know what they're doing. Hey well it's been great talking to you! I've actually got to head off now, but good luck with your mission and everything:)
Okay! You, too! I loved talking.
:)