From: thunk <gmkoller@...>
Date: 2010-02-09T12:46:33+09:00
Subject: It's a Bird, it's a plane, no! umm, it's Super Boid?

Hey Guys,

I have something actually working that seems allot like Swarm
Technology to me.   The system features many smaller parts that seem
allot like "Boids" (or "Agents").

I'd be tempted to call them "Dorts" because they get thrown straight
at the target and fire on my machine at about 2,000 per second (in
1.9).  Not very "natural" - one would not want to have mosquitoes able
to do that :)

There's no "in-flight" communication between the Boids - their life
cycle involves trying to attain values for a list of required
attributes and a docking with a "HelperClass" (see Ruleby also) for
any in-depth calculations.  They make their assertions, record all the
results, and wait to be debriefed after they have landed.

So are these things Boids or not?

For example:

They are fired sequentially so they are not buzzing around sending
signals to each other.

However, if a Boid is assigned a lower pass number it can "leave
information" for a Boids fired on later passes - so there is
inter_boidal_communications :) - but only after their "flight" /
period of activity.


It's taken me almost 3 years to get this all this far along  Right
now, however, I can go on localhost  and author 10 new real almost
guaranteed to work "Boids" easily in an hour.(When I started and did
these by hand they could take a full day.)   Mostly all I have to do
now
is make  multiple choices.  (Lots of Ruby reflection at work!)

I'm guessing that most you folks here are actively developing Web
applications these days?

Does anybody here happen to follow "Swarm Intelligence"?

Anyway, the power of this technique just seems to keep revealing
itself more and more.   For example, the system now supports "multi-
pass" so that pass 1 Boids can do things based on pass 0 Boids which
is defined as "System".  For another example, the Boids can be
promoted or demoted based on some statistical work we do (related to
their category distribution).

The whole power of all this hits me between my eyes when I make
changes to the UrBoid - the grand-daddy of all the Boids - a few line
changes here and 100s, someday maybe 10,000s of these things can be
taught new behavior.  Fun stuff!

Cheers,

Thunk