Boid writeup idea

[thunk]

Hi guys,

I'm struggling with a write-up on my project, and aware that
technically these things are not really Boids as somebody here with
direct AI background pointed out. These program units that rather
define the whole system are small, useless alone, follow simple rules,
and so on, so I'm not so sure they don't fit somehow.

However, as I have strained to think what I think I am seeing it in
this that keeps me working and excited about this project (after 30+
years of this) it has just occurred to me that

.....In the original domain the idea was to have real computer junkies
on computer junkie forums contribute to a knowledge-base about PCs.
They are the logical source, not outsourced programmers, not employees
- the guys in the field / at the benches.

My original DSL kept getting more complex to solve all the problems of
missing data, screwed up and uncertain units, inconsistent terms for
the same thing and so on. It was powerful but nobody but a really
geeky programmer would use it - not the solution.

Many things have happened and I won't go into that now, but the Key to
what I think I'm seeing clearer and clearer is that contributions are
made from "outside".

Soooo - I just starting thinking that maybe what this should be called
to start with is

or maybe just "Externalized Software"

or something more of this sort.

Does that sound less Discordant note and also say something?

Thunk


BTW the WhiteBoard has now been modified to work like "radio channel"
communications. The working method establishes its "handle?" and then
a stack of hashes start - just like requesting a frequency. Its
working. And since the HelperLib is the source the method_name + the
Class form an "automatic" key once the channel has been made
unique.....just like on the boat and coming into harbor.

 

[Robert Klemme]

Many things have happened and I won't go into that now, but the Key to
what I think I'm seeing clearer and clearer is that contributions are
made from "outside".

Soooo - I just starting thinking that maybe what this should be called
to start with is


or maybe just "Externalized Software"

or something more of this sort.

Does that sound less Discordant note and also say something?

Nowadays we usually call these externally provided pieces "plugins" or
"components" - the former term refers to the ability of a piece of
software to integrate itself in a framework while the latter is a more
technical term that simply gives parts of a whole application a name.
The term "services" is also often used when the stress is more on
offering functionality that can be used by others. Actually SOA is a
big buzz - or at least it was a few months ago.

Kind regards

robert

 

[thunk]

Robert.

Plug-ins fit the external contribution feature, but they imply a much
larger program unit. These things run 70 lines all stretched out,
half of the lines are things like the author name, date,
categorization "points" and such. So far I have many Boids that only
make 2-3-4 assertions.

Maybe "pluglets", borrowing from sun?

I wonder what actual work is getting done by totally papered "Boids"?

Anybody know? I read about them in the context of some operations
research problems. The SciFi book from the 40's "Last Men, First
Men" (or close) is supposed to be the first "official" reference to
Swarm Intelligence, I bought the book but found it stilted and just
strange, it is one of very few books I started and have never
completed.

I will listen to these immortal words by the Trashmen for inspiration,
(backwards at 78rpm) snipped in below...


Thanks,


Thunk






A-well-a everybody's heard about the boid
B-b-b-boid, boid, boid, b-boid's the word
A-well-a boid, boid, boid, the boid is the word
A-well-a boid, boid, boid, well the boid is the word
A-well-a boid, boid, boid, b-boid's the word
A-well-a boid, boid, boid, well the boid is the word
A-well-a boid, boid, b-boid's the word
A-well-a boid, boid, boid, b-boid's the word
A-well-a boid, boid, boid, well the boid is the word
A-well-a boid, boid, b-boid's the word
A-well-a don't you know about the boid?
Well, everybody knows that the boid is the word!
A-well-a boid, boid, b-boid's the word
A-well-a...

 

[Josh Cheek]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

Robert.

Plug-ins fit the external contribution feature, but they imply a much
larger program unit. These things run 70 lines all stretched out,
half of the lines are things like the author name, date,
categorization "points" and such. So far I have many Boids that only
make 2-3-4 assertions.

Maybe "pluglets", borrowing from sun?

I wonder what actual work is getting done by totally papered "Boids"?

Anybody know? I read about them in the context of some operations
research problems. The SciFi book from the 40's "Last Men, First
Men" (or close) is supposed to be the first "official" reference to
Swarm Intelligence, I bought the book but found it stilted and just
strange, it is one of very few books I started and have never
completed.

I will listen to these immortal words by the Trashmen for inspiration,
(backwards at 78rpm) snipped in below...


Thanks,


Thunk






A-well-a everybody's heard about the boid
B-b-b-boid, boid, boid, b-boid's the word
A-well-a boid, boid, boid, the boid is the word
A-well-a boid, boid, boid, well the boid is the word
A-well-a boid, boid, boid, b-boid's the word
A-well-a boid, boid, boid, well the boid is the word
A-well-a boid, boid, b-boid's the word
A-well-a boid, boid, boid, b-boid's the word
A-well-a boid, boid, boid, well the boid is the word
A-well-a boid, boid, b-boid's the word
A-well-a don't you know about the boid?
Well, everybody knows that the boid is the word!
A-well-a boid, boid, b-boid's the word
A-well-a...

 

[andrew mcelroy]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

Much ado about something fairly straight forward.

I gave him my phone number to see if real time communication would shed any
light on what this is.

Essentially you have two parts to this that would be of interest.

first part is a webform that is a front end to a code generator (think along
the lines of how scaffolding works in rails 2.x)


This web form would be aware of a list of methods (no big deal there).

The next part is this misnomer of Boids.

Really you should think of them as @$$hol3s (i'll call them agents to make
things easier.). space balls clip/ reference :

(nsfw -language)

The real trick here seems to be emergent behavior.

each agent is given a simple task and these tasks would build up to some
emergent behavior.

This is what I got out of the conversation.

I have only seen the same code everyone else here has seen.

appears to be what this is all about. a quasi dsl (really a collection of
methods) that have several process. each process has some code that makes an
assertion.

This probably doesn't clarify anything up, but that's what I understood it
to be.

Now on to application:

1) forex/financial - you could have a collection of these agents assert is a
chart up or down. This seems like an overkill of a solution at first until
you begin to try to trade every currency at the same time. Why would you do
this? Because High Frequency trading isn't thrilling enough already. That's
why. Other then that, who knows. Maybe Dr. Cham has a better answer.


Couldn't you do this with distributed Ruby and rspec/ something more sane
(speed wise) like Ocaml? Sure, but this is a ruby form, not Ocaml.



2)The dead end expert systems road- If each agent is set to look for a
collection of words and put them into a generic list. The next swarm could
do the same with an additional collection of words until every word in a set
(say this mailing list) is accounted for. Then additional swarms could begin
to try to tag emails to labels using some form of language processing.

Again, are there saner ways of doing this. Yes. Why bother? Because
intellectual masturbation is fun.

3) Venture Capital. enough said.

Is there something here? If that question boils down to is there application
for this, then its a resounding yes.

However if the question is whether or not this is the best tool for a
distributed or expert system-esque job, then that's a question I don't know
the answer too. Ocam's Razor doesn't appear to be in full support of this
boid/agent system.

Andrew McElroy

 

[thunk]

Andrew,

Systems are rather like languages. I'm not sure there is any one
reserved word/command that makes ruby "better" than another language -
but somehow the sum of all the parts turns into something very
powerful.

I'm not ashamed, rather I'm PROUD that I have had to use Prolog or
something to get useful work done.

And yes, heads on, "get it done wise" this is an INSANE approach to
any one problem, but it also has some general utility. I'm
struggling to keep the lines so there is a framework to get pulled out
of it BUT that is not as simple as it might seem.

What justifies the efforts, to my thinking, and this was a
"requirement" from the git-go is this:

1 People experience things anywhere, anytime, anyplace

2. Some people experience exceptional things of exception worth to
other people (We are all a big Swarm you know....)

((3 Text is based on language, we don't all share it. We are
overwhelmed by blobs of it. They get lost, confused, misunderstood, re-
retranslated and eventualy just plain boring. Our CPU based friends
have a bigger contribution to make than dynamic tags to point to more
of the same.))

4. In steps a "BOID" - its a crisp, clear, set of basic assertions
that can be authored into a basic "form" by a "Expert Session" and you
have the "Shell" for something useful. Its a mini-plug-let. Its a
class. Its a text file. Its doesn't DO anything - it gets done to,
but it makes a small contribution momentarily to something bigger -
give me 1000 of these things and you can replace a average WalMart
clerk, and an average "department"
depth of knowledge wise. (Like I heard myself tell Andrew - it might
be in charge of "vacuum cleaners" and the individual Boid might be one
of 100 dedicated to the world changing task of calculating the average
monthly cost of filters for your house size / family, and number of
long hair cats - ) Well Andrew didn't let me finish but he
understood.

5. Back to #1! yes these things could get blasted at info on an
exchange and so on BUT I think a salient point is getting
transliterated out of things here: THE WEB DOES THE TIME/PLACE thing
for us, the "most exciting" thing I see about these things is that
they can put the Doctor's experience in Israel into a usable FORM (out
pops the boid) - and that Boid can get fired! at your Medical Records
before your surgery in Boston. Routinely - no midnight calls, no blue
lights, just a Right Boid at the right time (but one of millions)
making some sort of contribution to the world system.

Its a probability thing, like a "Hero pet cat" - there are millions of
them sleeping/eating/and pooping all across our country - eventually
one of them is going to wake us up before a fire - well, something
like that - if we bred smoke sensitive cats that were pre-programmed
to jammer when there is smoke - they could be called fuzzy friendly
feline Foids or something..... but they'd have a USE and if I have a
point in this paragraph that is probably it. And this isn't entirely
off the wall because I'm learning from actual experience with really
"pumped up patient records / 10 or so health conditions) that about
1/2 my boids DON'T FIRE - and that's at "two passes" - I'm seeing
3-4-5 passes for many problems domains.


BTW - I woke up thinking about the best name for this, and I think,
unless there are working Boids somewhere that are offended by it, I
like the "Boid" name best precisely because they contribute somehow to
the confusion that must proceed the "ah ha" moment when it all clicks
into place. If really bright guys like Andrew hear a phrase he
thinks he knows, no flag goes up, and he thinks "oh another Rinda
based sextuples" how boring is that? These little guys are not
pretentious - they are working class, pabst drinking, tv watching
little worker boids that go to work and get something done. (like
their SwarmShepherd - me)

I took out TheSwarmShepherd.com/.net to present these things to the
world but the service company running linux expert that was going to
do this never got going on it so I just keep pounding away at software
wondering when/how to plug this into the bigger system that I think it
belongs in.

and one last BTW - I have picked a domain with really good data for my
commercial path - DRUGS - but the OTC / Herbal medicine based ones -
the 380 or so officially sanctioned guys, some of which were used by
Roman legion doctors, passed to the Arab lands, came back, jumped the
ocean and are appearing on the counter at your neighborhood
Walgreen's. All of which I find fascinating. I have a 300 page book
by Canadian writers, based on German "monograms" the guts of which
I've maybe 40% translated into Boidalese. Give me a list of your
health issues, and so far I catch all the matching conditions, and
list all the contra-indications and give me 50 more boids and I'll
list all the adverse effects. They will easily estimate your daily
costs and such if/when actual instances of these drugs are plugged
into the system - all info readily available on the net.


And that's my addition to Andrew's comments - I think he sees uses in
domains near and dear to him and he has given himself a few hours to
think about it, I've been staying awake nights for months working with
it, he might be 100X brighter than I am but I don't think he's had the
chance to think out what all makes up the value of the results. the
Doctor in Israel thing is highly concocted, but that's a life to get
saved and there's is a point in there that nothing like that appears
to me to be happening yet. So if all the university stuff is so
advanced, then WHY NOT? The technology is just sitting there - it's
in your plain Ruby without a single gem to pump it up until this gets
connected to the Web.

Sorry if I rambled.



TheSwarmShepherd,

thunk

 

[thunk]

Sorry,

I just reread my posting that I fired off a little to fast. I meant
to write:

I'm not ashamed, rather I'm PROUD that I have NOT had to use Prolog or
something to get useful work done.

and that's not exactly right either, I'd love to use Ruleby or the
Prolog - but its encouraging that those brilliant tools are waiting in
the wings to take things farther.... I don't need them yet, and
that's kinda nice for my sanity.

THEN I want to mention that their are decisionless Boids that are
effectively reviews - they don't need to make any decisions - they
just tell you what somebody thinks about something. So there are
different classes of Boids (think of Ants - that helps me)....

BUT then my point is that mostly, right now I'm laying a foundation of
"System" boids that lay a foundation for the "free form" boids. This
will vary / I know this from experience already - greatly from domain
to domain. But system boids are authored by programmers / aand are
ahhh must be "systematic" - as in one per Drug or so. I have played
with the idea just weeks ago of "SuperBoids" the spawn themselves -
not too much of a trick BUT I think the concept of One Boid per
Assertion set leaves a concrete set of code where something can be
different if/when the time comes. that seems important to me. BUT
clearly, the Boids need not be authored one at a time, I just don't
want to spend the time just now to write that code before I have more
"testing" done on the other parts.....

My point is that I am developing "HElperClasses" for sub-domain issues
to do certain things - another point getting lost a little in this -
but they are just the foundation of it all, not the essence of it
all.

More later, I have to do.....


The SwarmShepherd,


thunk

 

[andrew mcelroy]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

Andrew,

Systems are rather like languages. I'm not sure there is any one
reserved word/command that makes ruby "better" than another language -
but somehow the sum of all the parts turns into something very
powerful.

Ruby has its place. However, the programatic paradigm (functional, oop,
Procedural ,etc) and the syntax are only one aspect of a language. At some
point, you must look at how the language is implemented from a lower level.
Ruby does a lot stuff in the background. This is both a blessing and a
curse. It is no secret that Ruby isn't as fast as
a compiled language. There are pretty fundamental reasons for this.

And yes, heads on, "get it done wise" this is an INSANE approach to
any one problem, but it also has some general utility. I'm
struggling to keep the lines so there is a framework to get pulled out
of it BUT that is not as simple as it might seem.



What justifies the efforts, to my thinking, and this was a
"requirement" from the git-go is this:

1 People experience things anywhere, anytime, anyplace

How is this point relevant to a program? Is there data being collected

based off these obserations?


2. Some people experience exceptional things of exception worth to

other people (We are all a big Swarm you know....

How does this get inputted into this proposed system? Is this a numerical
value system like a star rating or is it tagged?

((3 Text is based on language, we don't all share it. We are
overwhelmed by blobs of it. They get lost, confused, misunderstood, re-
retranslated and eventualy just plain boring. Our CPU based friends
have a bigger contribution to make than dynamic tags to point to more
of the same.))

There is an entire field of study within information theory that deals
specifically with the issue of understanding large blobs of text.
Infact, the vast majority of the people studying that aspect of Information
Theory probably work for or contract indirectly with the NSA.
How does this proposed system contribute to resolving the loosely stated
problem?

4. In steps a "BOID" - its a crisp, clear, set of basic assertions
that can be authored into a basic "form" by a "Expert Session" and you
have the "Shell" for something useful. Its a mini-plug-let. Its a
class. Its a text file. Its doesn't DO anything - it gets done to,
but it makes a small contribution momentarily to something bigger -
give me 1000 of these things and you can replace a average WalMart
clerk, and an average "department"
depth of knowledge wise. (Like I heard myself tell Andrew - it might
be in charge of "vacuum cleaners" and the individual Boid might be one
of 100 dedicated to the world changing task of calculating the average
monthly cost of filters for your house size / family, and number of
long hair cats - ) Well Andrew didn't let me finish but he
understood.

If a program isn't crispt and clear, its either meta programmed, poorly

programmed, or both. I am not seeing the significants of what appears to be
an abstract factory pattern or plugin architecture.

5. Back to #1! yes these things could get blasted at info on an
exchange and so on BUT I think a salient point is getting
transliterated out of things here: THE WEB DOES THE TIME/PLACE thing
for us, the "most exciting" thing I see about these things is that
they can put the Doctor's experience in Israel into a usable FORM (out
pops the boid) - and that Boid can get fired! at your Medical Records
before your surgery in Boston. Routinely - no midnight calls, no blue
lights, just a Right Boid at the right time (but one of millions)
making some sort of contribution to the world system.

Its a probability thing, like a "Hero pet cat" - there are millions of
them sleeping/eating/and pooping all across our country - eventually
one of them is going to wake us up before a fire - well, something
like that - if we bred smoke sensitive cats that were pre-programmed
to jammer when there is smoke - they could be called fuzzy friendly
feline Foids or something..... but they'd have a USE and if I have a
point in this paragraph that is probably it. And this isn't entirely
off the wall because I'm learning from actual experience with really
"pumped up patient records / 10 or so health conditions) that about
1/2 my boids DON'T FIRE - and that's at "two passes" - I'm seeing
3-4-5 passes for many problems domains.

I would argue that pets have plenty of uses as is.

This is a end user problem not a pet entity problem. This again is fuzzy.

This sounds like event driven programming.

BTW - I woke up thinking about the best name for this, and I think,
unless there are working Boids somewhere that are offended by it, I
like the "Boid" name best precisely because they contribute somehow to
the confusion that must proceed the "ah ha" moment when it all clicks
into place. If really bright guys like Andrew hear a phrase he
thinks he knows, no flag goes up, and he thinks "oh another Rinda
based sextuples" how boring is that? These little guys are not
pretentious - they are working class, pabst drinking, tv watching
little worker boids that go to work and get something done. (like
their SwarmShepherd - me)

Boid has a very specific meaning to me. I can assure you that Rinda is not
the
first thing that came to mind.
Again, it sounds to me like useful idiots. That is these are limited in
individual scope, are given a direction, and do one task.
This correlates well with American Politics.

and one last BTW - I have picked a domain with really good data for my
commercial path - DRUGS - but the OTC / Herbal medicine based ones -
the 380 or so officially sanctioned guys, some of which were used by
Roman legion doctors, passed to the Arab lands, came back, jumped the
ocean and are appearing on the counter at your neighborhood
Walgreen's. All of which I find fascinating. I have a 300 page book
by Canadian writers, based on German "monograms" the guts of which
I've maybe 40% translated into Boidalese. Give me a list of your
health issues, and so far I catch all the matching conditions, and
list all the contra-indications and give me 50 more boids and I'll
list all the adverse effects. They will easily estimate your daily
costs and such if/when actual instances of these drugs are plugged
into the system - all info readily available on the net.

There is a lot of money in this field. I am surprised that Intel isn't

willing to fund it.
Have you talked to them?

Again, this sounds like an emergent Expert System. There is nothing wrong
with the idea, but its worth calling a duck a duck when it is a duck.
How is this not an Expert System?

And that's my addition to Andrew's comments - I think he sees uses in
domains near and dear to him and he has given himself a few hours to
think about it, I've been staying awake nights for months working with
it, he might be 100X brighter than I am but I don't think he's had the
chance to think out what all makes up the value of the results. the
Doctor in Israel thing is highly concocted, but that's a life to get
saved and there's is a point in there that nothing like that appears
to me to be happening yet. So if all the university stuff is so
advanced, then WHY NOT? The technology is just sitting there - it's
in your plain Ruby without a single gem to pump it up until this gets
connected to the Web.

I have spent the last 4 years thinking about async distributed systems.
I am not a AI researcher but I do work with statistical classifiers for
computer vision.
This system sounds like an expert system that asserts things in a
distributed manner.

 

[thunk]

How does this get inputted into this proposed system? Is this a
numerical
value system like a star rating or is it tagged?

================

One thing at a time here..., I'm LOVING this, this is a Dialog,
something I've not been privileged to have on this for months of
working alone! Thanks -


=============================

This is a cool question, and I've given a lot of thought to it,
really. I think there is a "vetting" system very similar to some
forums (that I usually don't like) - but this is not about popularity
- its about keeping bad boids from doing damage - that's the #1 thing
- like a doctor's "do no harm" oath.

So my default system assigns a "candidate" stature to all new Boids.
this is level 0. Only level one and above get fired on a routine
basis - but the vetters / and people willing / and knowing what level
0's are can specify that they get included. That's the basic "kick
off" mechanism and it keeps seems like it should do some decent
"damage control" - do ya see it?

As there are different classes of Boids - like the review class - if
the circumstance should come up that no vetted expert has spoken on
something and there are 100 level 0's then I'd suggest that the user
should get a message informing him of this.

AND this gives me a chance to ramble on about the "Drill down" -
that's pretty cool, i think - the "ControlPanel" I had working in Wee
gives you 3 levels of "drill down" from just summary to completely
analistic - i mean assertion level stuff - what attributes got called
in, what units got changed. Unless the world has changed more than
I'm guessing that will be useful for testing and an occasional user
geek - but I see it being one hundred % available. so if anybody
takes the time to really drill down and sees a glitch - volts for
watts or some stupid thing (units make for a lot of confusion in the
real world stuff i'm doing) then that user can "raise a flag" which is
what it sounds like - some human will have to set things right.
HOWEVER the data is the more likely source of flag instances and I'm
BENDING MY brittle old bones backwards to avoid this by standardizing
units on the front-end - and that's important for performance - my
3 yo hackentosh fires 2,000 real boids per second - that's largely
because EVERYTHING IS MADE READY - for the Boids before they fly.
They are stupid but they are rather privileged also - like some
English kid king or something.

BTW - The helperClasses are a KEY part of the scheme to allow them to
be so stupid too - but more about that elsewhere -

 

[andrew mcelroy]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

How does this get inputted into this proposed system? Is this a
numerical
value system like a star rating or is it tagged?


This is a cool question, and I've given a lot of thought to it,
really. I think there is a "vetting" system very similar to some
forums (that I usually don't like) - but this is not about popularity
- its about keeping bad boids from doing damage - that's the #1 thing
- like a doctor's "do no harm" oath.

This sounds like a weak statistical classifier.
Meaning it would rather return false than return true on something that it
should not pay attention to.


So my default system assigns a "candidate" stature to all new Boids.

this is level 0. Only level one and above get fired on a routine
basis - but the vetters / and people willing / and knowing what level
0's are can specify that they get included. That's the basic "kick
off" mechanism and it keeps seems like it should do some decent
"damage control" - do ya see it?

From a theoretical perspective sure. However where the rubber meets the road
Is this why the helper classes matter so much?
How does it know to elevate a candidate to the next level?

As there are different classes of Boids - like the review class - if
the circumstance should come up that no vetted expert has spoken on
something and there are 100 level 0's then I'd suggest that the user
should get a message informing him of this.

AND this gives me a chance to ramble on about the "Drill down" -
that's pretty cool, i think - the "ControlPanel" I had working in Wee
gives you 3 levels of "drill down" from just summary to completely
analistic - i mean assertion level stuff - what attributes got called
in, what units got changed. Unless the world has changed more than
I'm guessing that will be useful for testing and an occasional user
geek - but I see it being one hundred % available. so if anybody
takes the time to really drill down and sees a glitch - volts for
watts or some stupid thing (units make for a lot of confusion in the
real world stuff i'm doing) then that user can "raise a flag" which is
what it sounds like - some human will have to set things right.
HOWEVER the data is the more likely source of flag instances and I'm
BENDING MY brittle old bones backwards to avoid this by standardizing
units on the front-end - and that's important for performance - my
3 yo hackentosh fires 2,000 real boids per second - that's largely
because EVERYTHING IS MADE READY - for the Boids before they fly.
They are stupid but they are rather privileged also - like some
English kid king or something.

BTW - The helperClasses are a KEY part of the scheme to allow them to
be so stupid too - but more about that elsewhere -

Conceptually this part doesn't raise any flags other than everything is

made ready.

Are you saying now that this is a compiled system or that the code
generation happens Ahead Of Time (tm) rather than as your executing your
eval.

Andrew

 

[thunk]

I have spent the last 4 years thinking about async distributed
systems.
I am not a AI researcher but I do work with statistical classifiers
for
computer vision.
This system sounds like an expert system that asserts things in a
distributed manner.

======================

this is for tonight - i need to get some actual walk'n done, my walk'n
to talk'n t ratio is getting wacked....

Yup! Name a specific "working system" and these Boids will be
getting zinged all over the place. take my domain, sorta, if I was
doing the critical drugs and working with the experts (that I think I
should be working with) then there would logically be a "central"
gathering place for all boids to be vetted. for boids to be refitted
or maybe removed. visualize the scene from star-wars where the little
fighter planes are being repaired and refitted to fight the evil
empire. like that.

Then the regional hospital (i think) would have their patient records
- and I'd say that every medical record could be easily bombarded by
100,000 or so boids looking for ANYTHING THAT IS IMPORTANT - and that
could be as mundane as Bertha Schmitts turning 60 and overdue for some
review given some condition. Like that. tHAT would be, ahh mundane
but much more exciting things, I can guarantee you, would come out of
it because CHANGE is happening all over all the time and the Doctors
cannot possibly be expected to keep up with it.

Then there is the whole "official" lawyer/big pharm list - that moves
at the speed of cold sludge - I'd suggest there should be a much
faster changing, more versatile, more safety based list that is
totally separate. Multiple VIEWS are something sets of Boids could do
without working up a sweat by just changing the source info - the
hospital could decide to use both lists or one or the other depending
on their policies.

There are economics in this too. Lots of money to be considered. if
a drug falls off patent and there is a suitable generic at 25% the
cost - that has become available from a reputable vetted house - who
informs whom when? This is a really "automatic" kind of fall off a
log thing that Boids could do to save millions instead of just talking
about it. maybe its being done somewhere, but i've seen zero sign of
it here.

again the first domain was conceived to be a shopping basket of
computer components at newegg/compusa type places. what a cool time
to fire! a bunch of boids at something? Right there before you agree
to pay for your parts, let a system of boids crawl over your parts and
see if they fit this way and that - did you remember the CPU heatsink
grease, are your cables long enough, are the fans adequate, are you
about to pay $300 for a case when there is a open box special on one
for $100 that is better - all time based things but the same 2000
boids could just get fired at every shopping basket. if the guy is
buying 3 cpus and no motherboard then the system level guys need to
call off the swarms 'cause that not a "system".

Let me ramble on? I'm doing "testing" or whatever you guys wanna call
it now by generating 1000's of simulated patient records in a "two
screen" system. screens exist between the sender and the reader.
thinking of what goes into each screen is how things have to start.
It could be a potential investor + 100,000 different investment
opportunities - meat * potatoes stuff but the same boids just getting
re-used as you slap the investor into one screen, and the momentary
opportunities into the other over and over and over until something
comes out of it. It could be short plays, take over possibilities on
a daily basis anything like that. There's a lot of time value to
things like that and indeed I was trying to get MorningStar interested
in chatting about this stuff sometime back for education purposes. I
had a system hooked up to a speech system so the market was being
announced to me like horse race - with this very pleasant female voice
- my momsie-in-law thought I was having too much fun, and she was
right.


and now back to work, time to get those ratios back in line.


thunk

 

[thunk]

Andrew bought up the issues of Complexity and performance.

I can write up pages on either of these topics, my problem is that I'm
totally confused about to whom and also WHY, at this point. Some
folks seem to not want to believe this works, are hostile even, and
others are ready to ho-hum it. Fine. I'll send all'ya'all a link to
a working commercial site someday not that far off.

COMPLEXITY
The system work to support these things has been a royal pain. I
would not wish it on anybody. Using "method missing" is dancing with
the devil like somebody told me once - it means that anything you typo
on ends up getting trapped somewhere else. Eval was a nightmare butI
was assisted months ago to get rid of the worst of those. Meanwhile
at 3 years of experience with Ruby the work has gotten much better.

Bottom Line - this would be good stuff to share but my stuff is not
cleanly domain independent yet - I'm making big progress on this - but
my new domain has been complex enough that this is a challenge.


PERFORMANCE
My system is doing over 2,000 Boids per second on my half state-of-
the-art
system. This was a happy surprise for me.

The design, being totally "Boid Centric" almost requires that
everything be done before the Boids are fired! - units are resolved,
checks are made for data ambiguities, prices are reset, whatever - any
external call to another website or such DURING the execution phase
would drag performance down by call kinds of factors. common sense.

RUBY VS ??
There is so much Reflection and such getting used to keep things free
floating AND little/no maintenance that I can't think about the
goofiness of doing it another way. Java would not get started on this
stuff unless they've come a longer way than I can imagine. I don't
know much about the other languages BUT I'd have to guess that most
would not arrive at the fight, and from what Andrew told me about
Python, if I understand his reference to Functions versus Methods,
then I'm pretty sure Ruby would could whip Python in the
implementation and at least hold her own in time trials.


APPLICATIONS FOR THIS TECHNOLOGY
Oh my. Andrew mentions Financial and "I've been there done that"
enough but yes - anything with Time value Could be done this way. And
it would be fun.

When I evaluate apps I look for "outside contributors" (like this
forum could be to a Boid farm to organize a sort of reverse query
system. Instead of a "subject line" there'd be a set of 2 or 3
picklists presented. You'd have to pick one - like say "String" - and
100,000 boids contributed (one time) could be fired at that topic.
CATEGORIZATION is a key to this, but its common sense, not rocket
science. So a newbie would be shown a control panel of hits on his
topic before he started writing his newbie question. He can then (all
framework stuff) drill down by methods and so on.... or go on to
write his question. Boids make decisions and "ya ring'n talk'n to
ME?" is like one of the first and so on. So right here is an app and
the social system plays to the whole thing - fits like a glove - and
no accident either.

BUT real world value wise - that Heart Surgeon in Israel / you in
Boston concocted scenario trips my trigger - its extreme of course,
but entirely doable with not much more than what I have on my system.
I'd suggest that every hospital should, in the end, have three or so
linux based pure Ruby systems bombarding every patient everyday
against dozens of sub-domains of medical oriented Boids. One set for
heart, one set for recent operations, one set of prescription drugs -
and like this.

Other apps? my brain explodes inside my Darthvador Helmet - YES -
what's out there all around - in Shopping Baskets should get scanned
by Boids BEFORE any purchase - that's where this started - the info on
hackentoshes is all over the Web but in such a form (date sensitivity)
as to boggle the mind unless you build a new computer every month (I'm
on the 3 year plan) who can keep up with this stuff, and better
phrased, why should anybody have to? NewEgg and CompuUSA could save
a bundle in open box specials, unhappy customers, and guys that get
95% done and find some part is missing - or worse - the thing won't
boot at that magical moment when you'd really like to see something
appear on your screen, anything. They'd sell more, and people would
just tell each other about how "their shopping basket" was "scanned"
not having a clue that 10,000 ruby boids had bombarded his basket -
hey, about "Scanners" as the catch phrase??


Thunk

 

[Seebs]

I can write up pages on either of these topics, my problem is that I'm
totally confused about to whom and also WHY, at this point. Some
folks seem to not want to believe this works, are hostile even, and
others are ready to ho-hum it. Fine. I'll send all'ya'all a link to
a working commercial site someday not that far off.

I honestly still have absolutely no idea what a "boid" is.

If I might make a suggestion: You have a whole lot of analogies,
metaphors, and language about how amazing the things are that you could
do with these things. You don't have a simple, plain English, description
of them that I've seen.

A lot of people will be uninterested in your technology until they can read
that description.

Basically, consider the following two paragraphs:

Ruby is a transformation of the entire paradigm through which we
view or think about computers; it's like the showing the Wright
brothers a modern hang-glider. I think Ruby has amazing potential
to allow people to develop software totally unlike other
software, and thus solve fundamental problems in medicine, because
a Ruby program could answer questions doctors might have that
current software can't answer.

Ruby is an object-oriented interpreted language, with an unusually
complete commitment to everything-is-an-object; for instance, even
plain fixed integer objects are objects, as are values like "false"
or "nil". Ruby's design is focused on clarity and expressiveness,
and in particular on achieving these through allowing terse
expression of common constructs.

The first paragraph makes me think that the writer is probably going to
end up listed on crank.net someday. The second makes me curious to see how
Ruby achieves these things, but gives me at least a frame of reference for
understanding what Ruby is.

-s

 

[thunk]

I honestly still have absolutely no idea what a "boid" is.

If I might make a suggestion:  You have a whole lot of analogies,
metaphors, and language about how amazing the things are that you could
do with these things.  You don't have a simple, plain English, description
of them that I've seen.

A lot of people will be uninterested in your technology until they can read
that description.

Basically, consider the following two paragraphs:

        Ruby is a transformation of the entire paradigm through which we
        view or think about computers; it's like the showing the Wright
        brothers a modern hang-glider.  I think Ruby has amazing potential
        to allow people to develop software totally unlike other
        software, and thus solve fundamental problems in medicine, because
        a Ruby program could answer questions doctors might have that
        current software can't answer.

        Ruby is an object-oriented interpreted language, with an unusually
        complete commitment to everything-is-an-object; for instance, even
        plain fixed integer objects are objects, as are values like "false"
        or "nil".  Ruby's design is focused on clarity and expressiveness,
        and in particular on achieving these through allowing terse
        expression of common constructs.

The first paragraph makes me think that the writer is probably going to
end up listed on crank.net someday.  The second makes me curious to seehow
Ruby achieves these things, but gives me at least a frame of reference for
understanding what Ruby is.

I'm TRYING!

I was just thinking before I checked in here, these things last for
all of

..00005 seconds

average. They steal the whole show for about 0.00005 of a second and
then they completely and utterly disappear.

BUT they leave a few artifacts behind including:
1. an exact mechanical (black box like) recording of every attribute
transaction made
2. "scribbles stuff on a whiteboard / causes some singletons to be
created and data to be appended to these methods

Then the SwarmReader....

ahhhhh never mind, I give up for now.

Creating Singletons seems like it slowed things down, or it could be
all the traces. I have work to get done.


Thunk

 

[Seebs]

I'm TRYING!

Where's your try?

I was just thinking before I checked in here, these things last for
all of

Who cares?

No one cares how long they "last". We want to know WHAT. THEY. ARE.

Is a "boid" a piece of code? An instance of a class? A description of
some kind of design pattern? Does it have a physical form?

average. They steal the whole show for about 0.00005 of a second and
then they completely and utterly disappear.

But you don't say what they DO.

So who cares how long they were doing it for?

Slow down, start from the top. You're writing stuff which would probably
be sort of helpful to someone who already had some concept of what they
are, to whom your insights into what their implications are could be useful.

But you haven't got anyone who has a concept of what they are.

BUT they leave a few artifacts behind including:
1. an exact mechanical (black box like) recording of every attribute
transaction made

But what's an "attribute transaction"?

2. "scribbles stuff on a whiteboard / causes some singletons to be
created and data to be appended to these methods

This, too, is incomprehensible.

ahhhhh never mind, I give up for now.

So far as I can tell, you haven't even started to try.

Creating Singletons seems like it slowed things down, or it could be
all the traces. I have work to get done.

If you can't clearly articulate it, it's not work, it's farting around.

-s

 

[thunk]

I'm starting to repeat myself

nobody wants me to do that

not you guys

and not me

it needs

some

sort

of

...

...

(gets his 2nd opera type wind... but is laying on the stage
with his hand on his fatal wound - and he's singing - nobody seems
to
care why - shut up )

so i'm self taught, sorry but the schools here were teaching cobol and
assembler when i got started... that doesn't help

i work alone, nobody on our peninsula speaks ruby, they are
discovering
html (maybe not, but i have met anybody else) - so on like most of
you(?)
i don't have daily discussions with the guys that still smoke, if
anybody
still does.

i have't been to a conference since 1984, Pascal, and our pres was
selling
a pascal to c translator - i just sorta thought, why? after that.

i love ruby, i knew programming, and gosh dang it i have something
WORKING that does what i wanted it to do better than i ever expected.

when i started this i had the complexity in other places. step-wise
(our old buzz word) i have reduced and reduced the complexity until -
i thing - i believe - i have seen the danged things get generated from
a SIMPLE "form" of simple multiple choices....... what else can I
say???????? if you filled one out (on line of course) and don't
think you'd have any clue that you just picked a helper library /
choose the methods and specified AN assertion (in some way - well it
works and doesn't need any weird prolog type statement, doesn't use
those cool symbols - BUT you telling it how to answer your question -
its not magic - but I would not have thought it could be so SIMPLE -

but let me tellya - the system that makes that damn thing are rather a
royal pain to work on - just true.

but MAYBE this is like, ah, where RUBY can do something that Python
and his flying circus friends can't do as well....

Reallly truly i need DIAGRAMS, and a big pointer stick, and guys
telling me how smart i am and I could do it, i know i could but....
i'm thinking this ain't gunna work, ya know, there are 8 parts - this
circle of power thing - and it just ain't gunna work.....not on this
forum with you guys as this is going.

Ahhhhhhhh ahhhhhh

i'll send you guys a link to something that WORKS - from the otherside
- i'm fading

i'm faded.....

bye

 

[thunk]

Ahhhhhhhh ahhhhhh

i'll send you guys a link to something that WORKS - from the otherside
- i'm fading

i'm faded.....

bye

curtain falls

there's this silence - could they really kill him off?

just before the murmur starts, from behind the curtain a gurgling
voice says

michael f, michael n. andrew! andrew saw . he's.... fades
(again)

 

[Peter Hickman]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

From what other people have been able to tease out of you you seem to be
talking about mini domain experts.

I had a friend who's Phd was a genetic algorithm that tried to produce
optimal wiring for electronic circuits. The GA would spit out a design and a
host of experts would tweak the output. Each expert knew only one or two
things, most only knew one thing. One would, for example, know that wires
couldn't be too close to each other or they would start to interfere.
Another would try and shorten wires to reduce power loss, another would try
and space things out to avoid overheating.

Each mini expert would modify and score the design. In effect they became
the fitness function for the GA. It was largely a blackboard system, the GA
threw the initial data onto the blackboard and the experts adjusted it until
either they cycled or no one could find anything else to do. Then it went
back to the GA.

And yes, such systems were used to design trading algorithms and the like.
But the financial industry was somewhat cautious about placing their faith
in randomly generated algorithms.

All this technology was old when I studied it 20 years ago. "Swarm
intelligence" just sounds like a rebranding of much older technology, or
perhaps it simply demonstrates that someone has not been bothered to do the
research.

Thunk, you need to tighten up your writing / thinking. If I took a red pen
to your emails most would be reduced to only a single paragraph, the rest
would be blank. If you want help or to make people interested in your work
then you need to put some effort into communication. The signal to noise
ratio is too low.

Sorry for being blunt but you are in danger of taking on Arthur T Murray's
mantel ( http://www.nothingisreal.com/mentifex_faq.html for those old enough
to remember is contribution to AI )

 

[thunk]

Absolutely fascinating.

"Largely a BlackBoard system" you say?

Thunk seemed excited about his new "WhiteBoard" system, before he
faded away.
He had things working, and was timing and doing other analysis of the
newest factored design. He seemed to believe that at about 2,000
"boids" per second some serious work could get done.

Let me add that he was not liking his persona much either, but had
limited time for communications. Also, he had a sense of humor, and
liked pulling some chains. He was chuckling about his
"NotTestingClass" and really puzzled what else to call it. Please
note that when he showed up here he was trying determine if his
project would be of serious utility to serious programmers.

There is still plenty of room for confusion.

Who could be the least interested in a simple / pure 100% Ruby system
that uses simple concepts to do trivial things like saving a few
millions of dollars, and a smattering of lives here and there, and
such as all that?

So, I think you are right, I'd also be inclined to wait for those
professors to do a really serious job at this stuff - even if it is in
Ocram8 or something.

Anyway, very seriously, it is all getting talked about.

 

[Andrea Dallera]

Hei,

this whole idea might be of some interest for us people, but as Peter
pointed out before you really have either to explain yourself in a more
precise way or point us all to some repository where we can see the
code. Preferably both. Otherwise i think it's better if you go on
discussing the topic somewhere else, since IMHO hasn't been very
ruby-related up to now, so it's off-topic.