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Monday, 08:26 pm, 07 February 2005 Dirty Monkey Business... Over the weekend the front of the Noble Ape site was hacked.  In actual fact a weakness in the Noble Ape forum was exploited by a hacker and they used this weakness to change the front of the site. This particular hacker's other targets included the Communist Party of Venezuela. Being a small, self-developed project, any nonsense of this nature is a complete waste of my time. But at the same time I realise that if I don't adjust the project with these kind of attacks, more fool me. What this action has done is removed the forum for actual feedback - public feedback - which is a loss for all. More Monkey Business I am working through the Noble Ape thread safe source currently. It's very interesting - I am dividing the delta time processing between minute cycles and day cycles. The primary difference is that the minute cycles are thread-spread. The day cycles are processed together with the time date shift. Somewhat unrealistically this primarily covers aging and birth. Death can happen at any time. This time delta analysis is producing a multi-process class of information built from the development with Apple Computer for their WWDC 2003 seminar. I am returning to the core Simulation cycle which predates the Stockholm rewrite. Good night. Sunday, 08:43 pm, 06 February 2005 Breeding - Multi-Processor Style Over the weekend I have been working through the problems of the Noble Ape life cycle with various threads - each simulating clumps of apes. The modern simulation has developed very much around self centred apes and introducing a genetic community - as I am doing currently - requires the community logic to be thread safe. I am solving the problem currently with a series of locks on bits of information. Checking the line of sight between apes is pretty central to Noble Ape dating. After all one Ape wants to see another Ape and keep that Ape in its sights through the courting ritual. I have been working through the potential paradoxes together with showing the Ape courting and life cycle through the ''Meters'' window of the Simulation. Interestingly enough Noble Warfare has come to the rescue. The logic of combatants charging a foe can replace the delicate Noble Ape courting ritual. Truth be told, I find it very strange creating attributes like 'Pregnant' in the Noble Ape Simulation. The Simulation has recently existed in a far more short-term form. The genetic ape experiment is taking the long term running of the Simulation to new levels. I'm expecting to run aspects of the Simulation for days if not weeks. With the Ape at Home development, possibly a number of machines will run the Simulation non-stop, pooling the information collected. To this end, I'm organising a trip to USC to talk to their developers about what they are doing with Darwin at Home. The information online spells early days yet. But I am hoping to put some ideas into the ether and talk pragmatically about protocols and the problems I see with the development. Good night. Saturday, 04:19 pm, 05 February 2005 Good Bye Manchester... My wife and I decided on a whim this morning to go into the centre of Manchester. We hadn't been into the centre of Manchester for a number of months. Possibly even years. So we decided to revisit the Arndale Centre. I had written horrible things about the Arndale Centre a couple of years ago. It was one of the earliest entries in the Log I seem to recall. But now, with the repairs finished we spent all of twenty minutes walking around the Arndale Centre, picked up GW's Ogre Kingdoms and then decided to grab a meal and head out of Manchester. As we headed out of Manchester, we took a wrong turn. Within a couple of minutes of driving we were surrounded by Manchester United supporters on foot. We'd never been to Old Trafford before but continued to drive past thousands of people flocking in to the stadium. It is a time to say goodbye to these kind of experiences. But a good time to have them nonetheless. Good afternoon. Thursday, 08:44 pm, 03 February 2005 No Logo - No More Since starting the rework on biota.org, I have been thinking about the lack of link logo for Noble Ape. To this end, I have developed the temporary logo to the left. I'm not totally happy with it, but it covers the landscape and the cognitive simulation aspects. A good logo needs to have recognisable simplicity. The Noble Ape ''logo'' has been a Noble Ape hand in the past. I think I will be working through possible replacements. So what should the logo of Noble Ape be? What is the central theme of the development that could be represented in a iconic logo? Something to think about. So It Becomes Fact... As predicted in Barbalet's Log, the bogus Pew Internet numbers have started cropping up in start-up press releases/the technology media. CNET News: RSS feeds attract venture dollars Published: February 2, 2005, 5:20 PM PST ... According to a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 5 percent of Internet users in the United States used syndication technologies in 2004 to read news headlines and other content. Blog readership was up 58 percent, and more than 8 million Americans created blogs of their own. ... According to a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, more people have used the internet than ever have used the internet before. That's the real story. Planes to Spheres Working through the Planet Noble Ape sphere numbers, there needs to be subtle massaging of the numbers to make them work correctly. This is where the unique data set - the set of numbers that have to be included with the software - becomes important. My plan is to finally integrate the Planet Noble Ape development with the Simulation. I am working through what the Ape at Home development will look like. Will the user have a ''God'' view or an ''Ape's eye'' view? So many questions, slowly being resolved. Good night. Tuesday, 10:45 pm, 01 February 2005 So dazzled by the blues, I forgot to upload the first Log entry. Expect Email... I'm waiting on half a dozen emails currently. But all I am seeing in my intray is spam relating to GDC. I won't be attending GDC - I've never attended GDC. But for some reason all my email accounts are getting GDC email. I have almost weened myself off email. Nah. If ever there was the denial of the addict. I still use email to replace human contact. My wife has commented a number of times in recent weeks that the move better produce social networks that have been sorely lacking in the UK. ''You will make friends, when we move'' seems to be a command more than a question. Although the UK has provided an almost infinite amount of time for Noble Ape development, the British are insular people. It has been a strange experience. Aggressive on the roads to pedestrians - but not very friendly. Superficially friendly but not befriending. So my refuge to some extent is email. Simulating Functioning and Dysfunctioning Social Networks It seems strange leaving the UK, thinking about the genetics that lead to problematic social traits. To see if these traits survive. Writing an email today to the Biota.org mailing list - I edit the site but still need moderated permission to post onto the mailing list (permission that hasn't yet been granted) - it occurred to me that I would like to see ALife akin to Noble Ape used as a political tool in some regard. I want to understand the world. The information I receive through news or the internet doesn't explain the situation so I revert to simulation. I believe on some level that understanding the genetic inheritance of conflict might yield something more. Something new. So at this hour, I wonder what genetic traits I should include in such a melting-pot simulation. The Noble Ape Simulation is very much about one minute deltas. A life time is a lot of one minute deltas. The cognitive simulation has a lot of subtleties, but motivating long term behavioural traits is quite challenging. When you set up a simulation of this nature, it is very difficult not to have some bias. Through my last entry last month, you may read my bias is towards the weapons manufacturers - the skills of business - being the skills that create elites. But it could be a constant rotation of power traits. Who can say. Good night. Tuesday, 07:59 pm, 01 February 2005 Conflict, please... From my last entry last month, I received an email this morning from a new Noble Ape Simulation user. I just downloaded the latest version of Noble Ape. It is VERY cool. Keep up the great work. I have a question: I assume the purpose is to show their cognition and its development. What metrics can a user employ to gauge each ape's progress? Thanks for the email Wayne, It's a good point. I use ''remaining alive'' for macro testing the progress of the apes. If you are a programmer, you can add additional metrics like the ape's diet for example. But with no natural predators simulated for the apes to compete against their main risk of ''death'' is drowning. I want to add conflict to the Simulation in the near future. The idea of tribes of apes forming and competing with each other would add a new dimension to the Simulation. In any case, thanks for your question. Best regards, Tom... Of course the next question was when. New-Madic Massive I updated the Regulars section of the site today with the new snaps from the Nomadic Massive website. http://www.nomadicmassive.ca/ The front of the site is greatly improved and the press release provided some interesting bio information on both DJ Static and Butta Beats. Good night. [ Previous Log ]
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