http://www.cyc.com/

"Cycorp, Inc., based in Austin Texas, is the leading supplier of ArtificialCommonSense.  Its Cyc(r) software has been under development since 1984 by ArtificialIntelligence pioneer DougLenat."

This AI project has, somehow, avoided bankruptcy even unto today.  A portion of their ontology is freely available from their website; it can make for interesting reading.  For a brief summary of Cyc read SummaryOfCyc.
* ''somehow, avoided bankruptcy'' -- in a very simple way, via tens of millions of dollars per year from the DOD for DOD projects. Specialized versions of Cyc might be embedded in every new cruise missle, for all we know.

* "Dave, I don't feel like blowing up Iraq targets today. How about New Zealand instead, for a change of pace..."

It was mentioned in one episode of the "Inventions" TV series, now seldom broadcast but often shown on video to young computer-science protostudents.

You can try out an opencyc server and browse the cyc ontology at 

www./opencyc251.homelinux.org:3603/cgi-bin/cyccgi/cg?cb-start ''[BrokenLink: 8 December 2004]''

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CategoryArtificialIntelligence