Organism

Microbe Hosting

2008-12-18T08:47:00.000-08:00

Microbe has moved house!
The application is now hosted as part of the Portfolio project for Hugo's module.
http://www.spinningcreations.co.uk/Portfoliopages/Microbe/classes

Online here

2008-11-06T07:54:00.000-08:00

Microbe is online here but he won't be for long!!!

Concept and Expansion

2008-11-06T07:46:00.000-08:00

The concept of microbe is a simulation of a microorganism (such as a virus) interacting with an environment with positive and negative consequences. It was inspired by the way in which anti-viruses work against virus cells within the human body, and how biotic and viral infections can tolerate antibiotics and antibodies.

Scope for expansion:
I would like to implement an evolutionary adaptation to the Microbe, so it can build an immunity to the drugs it encounters. I would also like to implement different strains of the Microbe virus, that have different tolerance levels and immunity.
It would also be interesting to think about reproduction and multiplication of the virus.
Originally, I [planned that the microbe would not feed off the random grid, but instead feed off regular screenshots of a users activity. In this way a user could control, by his activity, the life (or untimely death) of the organism.
I'd like also to modify the interface, so users can interact more with Microbe, by choosing how many microorganisms there are, and controlling their tolerance levels.

Final Organism

2008-11-04T17:44:00.000-08:00

Download it here

Web development.

2008-11-04T15:48:00.000-08:00

Hooray! Finally have a working, embedded applet, in an (as yet offline) website.

Success!!!!

2008-11-04T04:01:00.000-08:00

(He's dead!)

The red dot is my organism. Pink dots are poison. And when he's eaten more that 10 pink squares, there's too much poison in his body, and he dies.

Took me a while, and a lot of help from Martin, but it goes! Hooray!

My organism has a lifecycle!

Aaargh!

2008-11-01T12:40:00.001-07:00

It's not working!! GUI development in Java seems the most pernickety thing in the world- jDev is never happy!!! But, it's ok, I have a working model, and the time to produce a view easily. So its all good.
Breathe...

CAUTION: Organism Production in Progress

2008-10-31T04:32:00.001-07:00

I have a (text based) organism! Hooray! It eats colour! Hooray!

Had a few iffy moments in between, where it fell off the edge of the world for a while, (rectified by wrapping it around- yep, the world is no longer flat!!) ate everything in sight, (needed to add the poisonous property- I forgot at first!!)

But the text works!!! And I'm a happy bunny! May even make this deadline yet, it seems possible!!!

Here's the Java screenshot, for those interested.

The pattern of 2's and 1's here are empty and filled pixels... the organism has eaten some! Hooray!

Now all I need is a GUI... (It doesn't look very friendly at the mo...)

What organisms should know...

2008-10-29T04:10:00.000-07:00

Planning the attributes of each organism... what it's aware of.

Poison and death. (What a lovely blog title!)

2008-10-29T03:47:00.000-07:00

Been working on the count functionality that determines whether an organism has too much poison in its body.
It's an if statement really... this is the (very basic) pseudocode.

BEGIN A LOOP
If your poison count is more than 3, you're dead.
Else, move squares and eat.
If the square you ate is poisonous, add one to your poison count.
Repeat the loop.
END THE LOOP

Life cycle

2008-10-29T03:42:00.000-07:00

The labs in Babbage don't have JDeveloper installed, so instead i've been working on my planning.

This is the life cycle of one organism.

Organism inspiration

2008-10-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

Emergence and Evolution

Here's a java example of an insect interacting with its world by changing its colours.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/complexity/models/langtonsant/emerging.html

Luckily, this is in Java, and is very similar to the work we've been doing with Martin Beck! Hooray!

Organism production (or... "How on earth do I actually build this thing?!")

2008-10-24T06:25:00.000-07:00

Talked to Martin Beck (who is a legend, and so helpful!) this week abut my organism. Seems its best to build in JAVA, but I'll have to make some compromises to the original plan.

The "Sprites"/"Bugs" will have to be just 1 pixel dots, no faces or whatever (which limits the tamagotchi-ness... one good side effect),
The baby bugs can't be generated in the same cell as the parents (since reproduction is just being in the same cell, there's potential for an awful lot of incest otherwise...no, thanks!) so they'll have to be generated in a random square.
The bug world will be randomly generated pixel colours, as I can't feed in pictures in JAVA.

There will be no avoidance factor, as apparently, this gets into a lot of heavy PHD level coding... and the project is difficult enough as is.

He also ended up explaining to me some crazy JAVA stuff about Darwinian Evolution principles, so that has potential I guess... but once the rest is working.

Planning the Interface

2008-10-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

How do we observe the organism? What does it look like?

Simplifying and solidifying my idea

2008-10-15T08:01:00.000-07:00

The circle of life...

2008-10-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

Planning organism lifecycle and ruleset.

What exactly is an organism?

2008-10-15T07:20:00.000-07:00

Brainstorming

Organism Brief

2008-10-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

Organism 25% (Delivered by Dan Livingstone)

organism n. 1. any living animal or plant including any bacterium or virus. Jean Baudrillard, Simulations2. anything resembling a living creature in structure, behavior, etc ----, organ’ismal or,organ’ismic adj. organ’ismally adv.

‘The artificial purification of all milieus, atmospheres, and environments will supplant the failing internal immune systems. If these systems are breaking down it is because an irreversible tendency called progress pushes the human body and spirit into relinquishing its systems of defense and self-determination, only to replace them with technical artifacts. Divested of his defenses, man becomes eminently vulnerable to science. Divested of his phantasies, he becomes eminently vulnerable to psychology. Freed of his germs, he becomes eminently vulnerable to medicine.
It would not be too far-fetched to say that the extermination of mankind begins with the extermination of germs.’ [ Jean Baudrillard ]

‘Artificial Intelligence: the art of making computers that behave like the ones in movies.’ [Bill Bulko]

Working in pairs generate "a living creature in structure, behavior, etc...". The final organism should be a form of interactive media, able to work on any platform from mobile, desktop, internet, ipod etc. The intention is to make the organisms accessible/downloadable on a live web site

The rational behind this exercise?
A: to generate a problem which is not technology driven, i.e. the idea drives the project. You should not start working on the computer until the ‘life form’ spec is generated. You will then have to find ways of realising it with appropriate software or platforms.
B: to force you to consider a truly timebased, multidimensional, interactive problem. In principle a life form needs to feed or to be fed, sleep, move, multiply, expel waste etc. It will be sensitive to certain conditions and have a life expectancy. Do not use buttons, instead concentrate on a process of interactions and behaviours. In defining a life form do not fall into the obvious trap of using cartoon characters, question existing models, redefine and innovate! What is digital life? What is OOPs?

Keywords: Artificial Life, Cellular Automata, Organism, Entity, Lifeform, Virus…