From: Marnen Laibow-Koser <marnen@...>
Date: 2010-02-09T22:26:52+09:00
Subject: Re: It's a Bird, it's a plane, no! umm, it's Super Boid?

thunk wrote:
> 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?

Well, I am, but lots of people here are not.  You'd have better luck in 
the Rails group.  Anyway, what does this question have to do with the 
rest of your post?

> 
> 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

And your point is...?  And the question you were asking is...?

Best,
-- 
Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
marnen@marnen.org
-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.