Little Spikey Land - stuff

Ok, copied the files across to my new lovely (paid for) webhost. Theoretically I have PHP access there, which could allow for some fun. In the meantime there are probably broken links, as I have probably failed to copy some files over...

This blog has now moved to http://www.littlespikeyland.com/blog/.

posted at 6:21 PM John

littlespikeyland.com.

Seeing as my email account has been playing up lately (taking days to receive some messages) I though I'd take the plunge and get my own domain name and a proper hosting service. So with any luck I'll have transferred everything over in the next week or two.

posted at 7:53 PM John

I upgraded to the latest version of Thingamablog and so now I have a working (as in valid) RSS feed. So for those of you using Firefox can now "live bookmark" this blog.

Having a lazy couple of days to recover from running around for the last week. One drawing on the way, another one planned (in my head at least).

posted at 3:46 PM John

Well it appears I am now collecting blogs, as well as email addresses. Trying out livejournal and pleonast ('cus my friend Kennon wrote it).

posted at 1:06 AM John

Well as far as I am concerned my report is finished. As to whether I'll get a (good) mark is another matter entirely,

posted at 11:43 PM John

Right so I've only got 2000 words done so far, but at least I have a cute digital camera now:

Also did a bit of (unassesed) work for molecular and quantum computation. Wrote three little (less than 4K) cellular automata applets: Conways Game of Life, Sand Piles and Excitable Lattices. It made me feel a bit better to right some code with (sort of) a purpose.

Edited on: Sunday, December 28, 2003 10:16 PM
posted at 10:14 PM John

Duncan asked me what shellac was, as I had mentioned it was in some inks. So now I know. No wonder those inks cost a lot.

Sort of reminds me of bacteriorhodopsin, an apparently very light sensitive substance that is produced by certain halobacteria. It could revolutionise molecular computation, but as of yet we still need the bacteria to make it for us.

posted at 11:54 PM John

Got off to a better start on my report and have now passed 500 words. That's not a lot, but it is still something. Hopefully I'll be inspired by the movies on TV over xmas and get some more done soon.

Also drew a devil girl. She is meant to be looking backwards, but her neck seems not quite right. Still at least now I have a good dark red to use.

posted at 11:39 PM John

Well I had my presentation for my mini-project on Wednesday. I was quite nervous, but it seemed to go fairly well. Anyway, because I used Latex for preparing my slides I was easily able to make a PDF of the slides. The slides are not very informative, as I did not want to end up just reading from them, but they do have some references on them and some pretty graphs too.

posted at 11:29 PM John

Well looks like my Uni Website just came online. Not much to look at yet, only a link to the DNA Sim I wrote for Molecular and Quantum Computation.

Hopefully I've have a few more things on it soon. Maybe some results from my mini-project even.

posted at 12:45 AM John

Came accross e-kat and madboy, which is a cute little gif animation.

posted at 9:55 PM John

Well now I'm happy!

I have made the parameter that controls an agents "field of vision" evolvable. In this case all agents started off with fields of vision of 180° (ie they can see in front and to the left and right). I created two species one coloured blue and specified as being herbivores, the other coloured red and carnivorous. The interesting thing is that after a while the carnivores and herbivores have differentiated by field of vision quite well.

In the above picture you can see (from the black lines) that the herbivore now has a field of vision that allows it see partially behind it. This is great for when it is being chased (particularly as the carnivores are slightly faster). Conversely the carnivore has a field of vision that is slightly more forward looking. This lets it stay a bit more "focused" on it's target.

The best thing about this is that this is what you would expect from real life predators and prey. Think cat (forward looking) versus mouse (eyes on side of head, lets it look around).

The only weird (but still interesting) thing at the moment is that the predators tend to stay in one place and turn on the spot. This seem to work fairly well as they can scan the "horizon" for incoming herbivores and pounce on them when they appear!

posted at 6:08 PM John

Work at Uni continues on my project. Nearly got evolution working in the virtual world I am making (Little Spikey Land 3?). I am at the stage of figuring out the wiring of my agents, such that they have more potential for evolving in interesting ways.

Kennon (who is doing Natural Computation at B'ham) pointed my in the direction of NEAT (NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies). I had not come across it before. It lets you evolve ever more complex topologies, but still allows you to crossover Neural Networks that are not identical. Looks pretty good, so I think I might give it a go.

It should be useful from the co-evolution side of things, as I can then compare and contrast between NEAT (which allows for increases in complexity) to fixed network topologies.

posted at 8:02 PM John

Steve Ballmer with an iPod.

posted at 9:17 PM John

Thought it was about time to get some instructions up on how to make an origami penguin. Its something quite random that I can do and I still have a tendency to transform spare bits of paper into little penguins when I am bored.

posted at 11:17 PM John

Cat and Girl sell babies for profit.

posted at 12:26 AM John

It feels strange being a student again. I think I got used to having my free time as my own. Not that I've been particularly busy this week (first week after all), but I feel guilty that I haven't been doing more. I guess that will change when I get started on my first "mini-project".

I am hoping to do a mini shared networked world of sorts. It'll probably be quite basic as I have less than ten weeks (unless it turns into my summer project too), but hopefully I can get something working. Here goes Little Spikey Land II...

posted at 12:09 AM John

Well I am now a student again:

Also went on a bit of a drawing bender (well for someone who isn't an artist). It all started with a picture of my sister graduating, done manga style. Anyway, uploaded six other pictures too. Two are old ones I rediscovered, which are more for interest as they date back to sixth form, which makes then nearly ten years old! The others are comicy/manga ones.

Edited on: Monday, September 29, 2003 10:50 PM
posted at 10:48 PM John

Well just had a quick play around and wrote an ASCII Art generating program. which was based on a bit of code from Wikipedia. I've made it so you can move a slide bar to alter the effective contrast. Works pretty well:

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Edited on: Monday, September 15, 2003 11:29 PM
posted at 11:25 PM John

Normally I don't like to post things that are political in nature, as it's a highly individual topic and posting my views will have little effect. However I am making an exception here.

Yesterday, in The Guardian, Michael Meacher (the former minister for the environment) wrote piece on how This war on terrorism is bogus. This was an interesting read and for those of you who might doubt the Guardian (I believe some refer to it as a "pinko rag") it was also published in the Daily Mail today.

What disturbed me the most was the comments about Project for the new American Century. I had been aware of this neo-conservative thinktank before, but did not know too much about them. Now in one of the reports published on their site, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century (pdf) their is one quote that is particularly worrying. On page 60 of this report (page 72 of the actual PDF) you will find the following:

And advanced forms of biological warfare that can "target" specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

Now to me this seems a little like contemplating genocide as a "politically useful tool". Let alone the practical problems of possible mutation in the biological agents (evolution usually finds a way) how on earth can people even think about, let alone write about, something so evil!?

Edited on: Sunday, September 07, 2003 4:58 PM
posted at 4:56 PM John