A v a t a r s 9 8
STRUCK Session Transcript
Avatars98 Homepage

AVATARS 98 NOVEMBER 21st 1998

Gerald de Jong's Avatars98 STRUCK Session Transcript

[For more information on STRUCK see these web pages]

From:Gerald de Jong
Subject: Struck session at Av98


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* Active Worlds chat session: Sat Nov 21, 1998 6:44 PM *
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Strucky: great!
Strucky: thanks.
Strucky: now..
setebos: i think randomness is important for knocking a design off a local adaptive peak and making it possible to get onto a higher adaptive peak.
"Rasalgethi": I think too...
"Rasalgethi": You are quicker than me to answer :_)
setebos: what we are coding currently is primitive building instructions.
Strucky: the genome of struck createures right now is still primitive, but in the end it will be a directed graph of instructions used to build a structure. struck structures embody behaviors and movements, so there's no separate movement cod
setebos: i'm a professional typist.. ;-)
halebopp: goodevening
"Rasalgethi": Maybe you can use Genetic Progrmming to evolve your graph ?
setebos: hi halebopp
setebos: that's the idea, rasa.
"Rasalgethi": I made a mistake, sorry :-)
Strucky: eventually, there will have to be things that resemble "higher brain activity" but we hope to integrate that into the structures themselve as a sort of message passing network. token flows, like nerve firings.
"geeBy": setebos: do you think it's even required? randomness, i mean, so that no intelligence, eolution, (life?) couldn't exist wihtout?
Strucky: welcome halebopp.
"Rasalgethi": And what about a Neural Network managed by GAs ?
halebopp: ;0-]
Strucky: who are you, meme?
setebos: without randomness, evolution may simply stop at local adaptive peaks. like bluegreen algae is still around because it has a niche that works.
meme: how do unconnected structures interact. Or dont they?
meme: i'm me. i
setebos: unconnected structures don't interact.
ArveK: i just love the Jasmine avatar :))
Strucky: richard dawkins explained at biota II how the genotype-phenotype mapping must be very high-fidelity, and it strives for that.
Strucky: but at the same time...
setebos: but in a struck alife biosphere, they would all be connected in some way.
"Rasalgethi": Randomness is useful in the Primordial Soup for diversity
"geeBy": hm
Strucky: it must also not quite reach its goal of perfect fidelity, because then evolution halts.
setebos: 'stochastic resonance' is a technical term for the cybernetic significance of randomness.
"geeBy": sensible answers i'd say
"Rasalgethi": sorry, wait a minute....
Strucky: is jasmine that negro mega-babe? she's everywhere.
ArveK: i know ;))
"geeBy": looking forward to what more you have to say..
setebos: she's the default, i believe.
setebos: lots of newcomers don't know how to change their avvy.
"geeBy": setebos: my menu only shows those two boring choices
setebos: btw, strucky, just curious. what avatar did you select? totoro and i noticed that what you see is not necessarily what others see.
Strucky: unconnected structures cannot interact in elastic interval geometry. interaction requires explicit connections.
meme: i do. but i thought jasmine was curte. besides I'm african.
ArveK: any others that use the cedric av?
setebos: that is because you are a tourist, geeby. if you register with AW, you get more choices.
setebos: jasmine is definitely cute, that's for sure.
Strucky: i chose the "monk" avatar.
ArveK: agreed on that ;))
meme: but do we need to distinguish beetwe conenction to self and not self in order to have evolution?
setebos: maybe it's fixed. you look monk. i should look wizard. do i?
ArveK: u definately look wizard
ArveK: ;)
"Rasalgethi": sorry, I'm out for few minutes, I'll come back later !
Strucky: the idea is that each "individual" is an elastic interval network, and its midpoint is its "soul"
setebos: i guess this means that your talk starts early, strucky.
Strucky: it is possible to have a network among the souls, which governs interactions.
"geeBy": meme: well the self needs to be somehow different from the rest in order to have competition?
setebos: a local origin for the individual substructures.
Strucky: and the interaction relationships could even be transitive.
setebos: explain 'transitive'
Totoro:
setebos: hi totoro
meme: but is the network organized by the individuals or some god?
Strucky: tortoro! welcome!
meme: hot totoro
Strucky: transitive: the relationships are not permanent. they can come and go dynamically.
setebos: the connections between individuals are different in nature than the connections between parts of a single individual.
"geeBy": meme: i believe the network is self-organized
setebos: but overall, it is one metastructure.
Strucky: connections could be established based on existing other connections.
meme: who decides and hwo how two soulds may connect
Totoro: Hello, individuals. (Or gods, as the case may be.)
Strucky: the individuals could potentially self-organize the soul-to-soul network among individuals.
setebos: to start out with, in small biospheres, all souls would be interconnected.
Strucky: decisions about how two "souls" interact will be defined in the "god code", meme.
setebos: when you have too many individuals, however, such a complete network becomes inefficient.
"geeBy": meme: the souls, being restricted by the wolrld ie. their environments
ArveK: soul-to-soul network? define soul? has this anything to do with religion or is it a metafor for the mind behind the avatar?
setebos: 'soul' is the term for the local geometric origin in an alife critter.
Strucky: it's conceivable to have a "society" as something that can also be considered to have a "soul" which is linked in yet another meta-network of other societies.
setebos: it is the 'node' that interacts with other nodes of other critters.
meme: are there competing gods then?
Strucky: soul is just a cool word for "center of gravity" actually. :)
setebos: the intention isn't to introduce artificial religion.
setebos: it may be a metaphorically too-resonant term, strucky!
ArveK: hmm..i arrived late..is this a discussion bout critters??like..ants?
Strucky: you could have a point.
meme: competing biologies then
setebos: artificial critters particularly built with the struck software, arvek.
Strucky: yes, ArveK, except that the kritters consist of elastic interval networks.
digigardener: hello all
setebos: hi digi!
icey: hi digi
halebopp: hi
Strucky: hi there digigardner! we got started a little early.
meme: hi digi
digigardener: welcome to the beginning of the speaker track at AV98
setebos: btw, does anyone (strucky, digi?) know how to enable these weblink sculptures?
setebos: would be nice if we could plug in struck URLs for people to click on.
digigardener: screen shot
"Rasalgethi": Back again !
"Rasalgethi": Hi digi
Strucky: we're here to talk about digi-critters made of elastic intervals
setebos: rehi rasa
"Rasalgethi": Digi, we talk about Virtual Worlds 2000
"Rasalgethi": Do you receive the last message of JC Heudin ??
Strucky: fab avatar, bruce!
setebos: cool avvy, digi.
"Rasalgethi": I've people here in real world, talking to me about it !
digigardener: gerald can you save this chat into your chat log?
Strucky: i'm doing so, i believe.
digigardener: is jc hedin here
digigardener: great can you send this to us?
"Rasalgethi": Fine avvy, sorry for mine !!
"Rasalgethi": I don't see him yet !
digigardener: ok on to the next session room
"Rasalgethi": But I talked to him about it
digigardener: ok good luch in the talk i will be back to check
"Rasalgethi": And, He didin't answer me, maybe
"Rasalgethi": he's in holyday !
"antont": hm this is is used-to-be "Gee-by", what's the talk gonna be about?
Strucky: see you later!
"Rasalgethi": I'll leave in few minutes
"Rasalgethi": Maybe see you later digi
setebos: you don't want to stay for this talk, rasa?
"Rasalgethi": It's night here for us !
setebos: rasa has a great website on alife, strucky.
Strucky: okay, so the theme of the discussion is officially the evolution of avatars.
"Rasalgethi": I can stay few minutes but...
setebos: strucky is in rotterdam! but if you have to go...
"Rasalgethi": ...I don't know how many time !
Strucky: the point being that there are really two general ways to approach creating avatars with interesting and believable behaviors: engineering and evolution.
"Rasalgethi": I'm waiting for someone, in real world and after I 'll leave
ArveK: thank god i believed the critter stuff
"Rasalgethi": sorry, strucky !
meme: have you done anu construction of avatars from strucks?
setebos: strucky has a few struck biota animations, but no full-fledged AW avatars (yet).
Strucky: the problem with using Struck to create avatars for active worlds is that this environment has avatars that are designed in an entirely different way.
Strucky: i have animations, nice ones, and i know that they are easy to produce and very believable.
Strucky: but to make avatars of them you would need a virtual world that was friendly to the movement principles of elastic interval geometry.
Strucky: namely.. there is no such thing as angle, and everything is springy.
setebos: ideal struck avatars, that is. i'm sure that AW avatars could be made from struck.
Strucky: turns out it's remarkably easy to create interesting movements and behaviors if you build a king of puppet. the only difference between a struck EIG network and a marionet, is that the "strings" are internal instead of coming down.
Strucky: from above.
Strucky: the mapping from struck animations to active worlds avatar behaviors is completely opaque to me. the whole avatar thing here is pretty well undocumented.
Strucky: so, a number of you in attendance here haven't introduced yourselves.
setebos: are there any people here from the struck list (aside from me, strucky, totoro?)
halebopp: still here ;0+
Bonnie DeVarco: me
Strucky: i hope that this can take the form of a discussion to some degree, although i'm also happy to spout off endlessly, if that's desired.
setebos: hi bonnie!
Strucky: hi Bonnie!
Bonnie DeVarco: not proficient in it though
Bonnie DeVarco: Hi Karl and Gerald
Bonnie DeVarco: John too
Bernie Roehl: I'm Bernie Roehl. I'm in the midst of reading your web site about EIG's, so I can follow the conversation better.
Totoro: John says, "Hello, Bonnie".
Strucky: bonnie, have you been following the discussions on the Struck mailing list with Steven Rooke a couple of weeks back?
Strucky: hello Bernie.
"Rasalgethi": Sorry, but I must go now, My neurons are crashing now after the experience of bi-discussion...
ArveK: i am not at all familiar with struck..i guess its a program for developing avatars? Im from an ad agency working with interactive media
Bonnie DeVarco: Tried to keep up but not enough
setebos: see you later, rasa. thanks for talking with me.
"Rasalgethi": setebos, maybe we can keep contact ?
setebos: struck is a geometry program.
"Rasalgethi": Send me an e-mail by the site I gave you, and maybe we can talk again !
Totoro: Bye, neurons.
setebos: rasa, my email is setebos@wolfenet.com
Strucky: Struck presents people with a universe in which everything is springy and flexible.
Strucky: see you rasalgethi!
setebos: ok, bye rasa
"Rasalgethi": OK, I note it, and I will take contact later, bye !
Uldor: hi all
setebos: struck is unique in geometry programs, because you don't mess around with angles and coordinates.
Strucky: we're talking about evolution of elastic interval networks. if you want to see how the genotype might determine the phenotype, take a look at this film: http://www.beautifulcode.nl/cinema/icosa.html
setebos: you don't really need to know any math at all. it is like playing with tinkertoys.
setebos: the basic building instructions, which are also instructions in a genome, are for adding and deleting springs, adding tetrahedra to triangles, that kind of thing.
Strucky: i'm the one who actually wrote the program and i maintain it currently as well. even the internals of the program don't require much math. just a bit of basic linear algebra.
ArveK: what are the benefits of the struck universe...versus for instance an active worlds universe?
setebos: because the springs (which are the only components - no faces or solids) are springy, and can act as muscles, you can build really fluid animations, and lifelike creatures for alife as well.
piranha: ahhhhh
Strucky: everything moves
Little Cupid: *whispers* hellloooo pir ;-)))
Immigration Officer: You are being joined by Slik.
Uldor: neat
Strucky: building is a simple process, so evolution can be employed to let things develop on their own, rather than having to build them.
piranha: hiya LC :)))
Slik: Hi Gee
setebos: active worlds is based on 90 degree angles, for one thing. struck is completely unrestricted as to angle. it is inspired by the philosophy and geometry of buckminster fuller.
Strucky: the struck elastic interval system is extremely cheap in computational terms.
Strucky: hi Slik, nice that you could come.
setebos: hi slik
ArveK: so u will be able to create a more 'lifelike' and dynamic environment?
halebopp: hi slik!
Slik: lokking nice boys
meme: less 'lifelike', more dynamic
Strucky: active worlds is chock full of rectangles, and right angles. this is just one little "corner" of the world of geometry, and it's by no means the geometry that nature employs.
setebos: yes, more lifelike and dynamic. active worlds does a number of klugey things to simulate reality. it is a different paradigm.
ArveK: interesting
Strucky: lifelike fish: http://www.critpath.org/~strucky/biota/fishy.mov
Strucky: built that lifelike fish in about a half hour.
Strucky: rendered it using POV in a couple of hours.
setebos: struck is currently a stark wireframe geometry program, with output ability to POV-ray, VRML, and AW. but inside the program itself, there are currently no textures and suchlike.
Totoro: You've seen comparisons (contrasts) of physics based vr environments to CAD based?
piranha: well have to go *pir blows kisses*
Little Cupid: Byeeeee pir ;-)))
Strucky: presented it the next morning at the Digital Biota II conference in Cambridge, England, on front of various A-Life luminaries (Chris Langton, TomRay, Larry Yager) and other heroes (Richard Dawkins!)
Uldor: bye pir !
Strucky: the following morning Richard Dawkins came to sit beside me and he asked "i loved your fish, how can i get that program?".
setebos: struck is based on a philosophy that examines structure from the ground up, without any preconceived notions.
Strucky: Struck geometry will soon be employing Java3D in order to present an environment not all that different from what you see around you now.
setebos: earlier in rasa's talk we started chatting about the implications for memetic avatars and the like, too.
Strucky: the potential is to do what active worlds does, but with the added essential elements of mobile code (normal in java-land) and elastic interval geometry to ensure lifelike appearances insead of rectilinear ugliness.
setebos: because the geometry is completely dynamic and transformable, it can be used to display and animate various configurations of ideas, iconified, as supplements to text or voice chat.
Strucky: the "spirit" of a creature you enounter will actually be mobile code that's running on your machine. like applets arrive in your browser and run.
Strucky: hi BCat!
setebos: hi bcat
BCat: hi folks! :o)
Uldor: shhhhh hehehe
ArveK: *has just downloaded and viewed the fish..loved it by the way* object oriented? since u mentioned java?
Strucky: the program itself is pretty exemplary object oriented code. i teach this stuff (Java/OO) for a living.
Strucky: you've seen the fish, now maybe the bird http://www.critpath.org/~strucky/biota/bird.mov
Slik: changing body 's now
Immigration Officer: Robin Sircus - Now speaking in Pod6 - Voices from the Community
Strucky: the discussion here is about evolving digital creatures.
ArveK: how u think this will impact use of 3d world...from chatlands to more usefull working environments?
Immigration Officer: Welcome to Welcome to: Avatars98 *Inside Cyberspace*, Strucky
setebos: i personal invision using the geometry itself to allow more complex communication to be performed structurally. conversations/projects will be built instead of being confined to linearity.
Strucky: useful? i'm not sure. but an Elastic Interval Geometry universe would more closely resemble a natural ecosystem, whereas active worlds is buildings and citizens.
setebos: a memetic struck avatar may be composed of icons representing ideas that you are currently working on, and that other people will see and so discuss with you.
Strucky: i share setebos' interest in actually employing the geometry to embellish the communication itself.
Strucky: the idea would be to achieve more than things like this avatar "wave". watch.
setebos: multiple avatars can wander around a structure that represents a project in development (like geometric explorations, or the development of the struck program itself, or any other project) and will be able to add to it and modify it.
meme: but what are the useful mappings of project ideas to structures?
Strucky: i visualize a chat world in which you "leave your chat behind" when you're finished, and you may revisit it in a few years with fond memories.
setebos: those you'd have to come up with yourself. the structures and the geometry are the medium. any mapping would be possible. exploring ideal mappings is a deeper exploration in and of itself that has not yet begun.
Strucky: the chat would take the form of a growing geometrical structure of words or sentences.
meme: a la recherche des struckes perdus...
setebos: the way i currently use this ability is: i throw a bunch of ideas (for a novel, in this example) into a geometric structure. then i modify the structure to highlight certain interrelationships. the structure itself is a mnemonic...
Totoro: Good meme, meme.
setebos: a mnemonic device that enables me to more clearly see and develop the overall structure of my ideas.
meme: ta toto
ArveK: in rhetoric and rgreek/roman mnemonic techniques...envisioning physicall structures was an important aspect
Strucky: anyway, back to evolution: i have some interesting things already implemented, like the ability to move. see http://www.beautifulcode.nl/cinema/quicktime/worm1.mov
setebos: the structural mnemonic is the memetic genotype. what i do with it (the actual novel that gets written, e.g.) is the phenotype.
Strucky: the muscles in this worm work cyclically, and the joining points between elastic intervals vary their inertia cyclically as well. the result: a spaceworm that crawls quite effectively.
Strucky: this spaceworm was engineered, but similar things, and much more interesting forms of behavior, could be evolved instead.
Strucky: this is a movement that's really more endemic to cyberspace. i see it as more a fluid or a gas than a gravity well.
setebos: flying is so popular in AW - what need is there for a ground?
Feu des Astres: Familiarity for a people born to gravity.
Strucky: ground/gravity/rectangles.... these are all contrived artifacts that give active worlds users some sort of recognizable environment.
setebos: it is useful for our initial forays into virtual worlds, but as familiarity with the potentials increases, the analogy to real life may become less significant.
Strucky: the first movies were made by pointing a camera at a stage play. later we came to understand the power of the camera.
Strucky: similarly, the first attempts to inhabit virtual worlds seem to use what's already known.
setebos: science fiction writers like Greg Egan are currently exploring the potentials of virtual reality in books like his _Diaspora_.
ANGEL 01: hello all
Strucky: near-future virtual worlds will gradually discover more about "that which could be" as opposed to "that which is".
setebos: Egan's _Permutation City_ has a more conventional VR in that part of it is modeled on a city. PermCity also has a geometry software that is quite analogous to Struck.
setebos: of course, the link to science fiction is built right into AW - which is inspired by _Snow Crash_ by Neal Stephenson.
ArveK: What sub-genre is Egans work in? Hard sci-fi or cyberpunk(gibson et al)?
setebos: it's hard sf, idea-oriented, with lots of cyberpunkish type ideas.
ArveK: wow
setebos: Greg Bear's _Eon_ has citizens of a virtual reality that communicate in a way that is analogous to what we've been saying about Struck Memetics.
Strucky: evolution in cyberspace can also be about releasing a kind of "universal biology" rather than something that necessarily resembles our specialistic carbon-and-water-based biology.
setebos: these are good resources to see what the future of VR might be like, and how it won't necessarily be confined to analogy to reality.
Strucky: Tom Ray's Tierra is the best example right now of an evolutionary system which tries to _really_ treat cyberspace as natural habitat. he evolves viruses.
Strucky: i'm looking for a kind of middle ground. i'm incurably fascinated with volumetric/dynamic space (the common-sense real-world space where we live out our days), but not the ancillary aspects of gravity or liquid/gas/solid.
"remi": But Ray's tierra is completely devoid of visual metaphor
Strucky: exactly right! he's evolving true cyberspace creatures. i want to evolve semi-cyberspace creatures so that we might learn to interact with them.
"remi": a way to interact more intuitively?
"NoteTaker":
Immigration Officer: FOLKS, DONT FORGET SPEAKERS ARE NOW IN SESSION GO TO BIGBOARD AND JOIN IN THEIR PODS
Zzap01: maybe in the sense of an augmented reality...
Strucky: welcome to the newcomers here! feel free to introduce yourselves. it's a friendly scene. you don't have to be an expert or anything.
setebos: what kind of interactions do you imagine between people and alife creatures in a virtual world?
setebos: will they merely be moving sculptures, given that we are probably fairly far away from artificial intelligence right now?
Strucky: augmented reality, perhaps. but when i want a truly immersive multimedia experience, i just have sex. cyberspace remains a fundamentally different kind of reality.
Strucky: simple interactions like going into cyberspace to feed your tamagochi pet would be one.
Zzap01: thinking more in terms of objects/rooms that have an extension into cyberspace
Zzap01: "surf as you go" or so
Strucky: you might "go inside" and play a game with a creature. you may hunt them, or be hunted by them. you may take it upon yourself to breed them like pedigree dogs.
setebos: a virtual 'wild kingdom' that people research by visiting and observing.
Feu des Astres: Is not entry into the net for maintenance of one's personal web site and VR world something like that?
"remi": (I introduce myself, I'm remi, a french journalist). Do you think it would be possible to translate Ray's algorithms with a visual representation, whcih would not be simply esthetic but meaninful ?
Strucky: the point is that this world will go on when the people's avatars are gone (and the people have gone back to work, or bed, or whatever). a subsequent visit may present us with a surprise.
setebos: the difference would be that the alife biosphere would continue to change and grow when nobody is around.
Feu des Astres: Ah ... my visitors tend to leave me little surprises in my VR world but you mean AI creatures should also exist within that structure.
Strucky: my website doesn't change when i haven't logged in for a while (unfortunately!). it only changes when i change it. i want cyberthings to evolve while i'm gone.
"Geb": evolution takes a long time. it seems that what you are suggesting would not run fast enough (?)
setebos: AI is more speculative, but it is an issue dealt with in science fiction. the citizens of greg egan's virtual worlds *are* 'artificial intelligences'.
Strucky: we've got to get these damned computers to do more of the work for us, rather than working for them. the CPUs should be sweating to provide an environment for a compelling form of evolution.
Feu des Astres: If many people have access to a VR world for constructive purposes, isn't this much the same?
setebos: microevolution is much more rapid than the evolution of macro species, geb.
"kirby": setebos: kirby here, just joining, where's Gerald?
"kirby": Ah Strucky is here.
setebos: hi kirby
Feu des Astres: Why create artificial entities when the real people are already more than sufficiently interesting?
"Geb": true. is that all that's being suggested?
Totoro: One perspective: Struck deals with the philosophically classic "extension in space" in a way that is simple, structurally sound (in terms of the capability to resist shearing forces) and is computationally very efficient. ......
Strucky: remi, my asnswer is a resounding Yes! we will be able to evolve creatures that are truly at home in cyberspace, but at the same time more compelling to human observers than Tom Rays' nonvisual virusses.
Totoro: As such, Struck provides an ideal medium for many types of explorations.
Strucky: there are a number of ways to "cheat" with this kind of evolution to make it much faster than biological evolution.
"Geb": why eig rather than, say, sims-like block creatures?
Strucky: it can be a subtle mix of evolution and engineering.
Strucky: hi Kirby, nice that you could come!
setebos: the goal isn't necessarily a hands-off evolution. the goal is to discover novel significance in the medium of evolution.
Strucky: why create artificial creatures? there is a very very good reason:
"Geb": that seems a rather lower goal than Ray's
"kirby": Strucky: yes but don't let me interupt. I see your giant picture an your wizard-like costume -- very becoming.
Strucky: they are "at home" in cyberspace and we are visitors. they will develop an understanding of it, and amass information about it, that we will never have the patience to do.
setebos: the evolution of society in virtual worlds is not in competition with alife evolution. they are co-evolutionary. people are often interesting precisely *because* of what they are exploring.
Strucky: they will be our guides.
Immigration Officer: MARGARET CORBET STARTING HER TALK IN POD 2
"kerubi": i think that was the best motivation for ai / alife i've heard. i sometimes tend to think that with all this life around, why would we need anything artificial
Strucky: Elastic Interval Geometry is minimal in a number of fundamental ways. that's very important. these are recognizable structures and at the same time they don't require much computational work to make them animate and such.
Totoro: Sims simple looking blocks involved large computations -- he had to compute fluid interactions on the faces of the blocks. With Struck generated objects one could hope to achieve similar results with sensationaly less computation.
ArveK: excuse me ..could everyone move a bit closer to the stage for a screenshot?
Strucky: EIG is so much more simple than the universe created by Karl Sims, and the resulting movements are vastly more recognizable as "natural".
setebos: the distinction between AI/alife and real life is somewhat artificial itself. gone are the days of thinking that AI monsters will replace us. current cutting-edge science-fiction thinkers speculate that *we* will become a-life .
ArveK: Great..thanx ;))
"kirby": setebos: (pssst: just noticed how cute I, um my avatar, is).
Strucky: Geb, it's a different goal than Rays' goal. it's not "lower" by any means. we're going to invove people much more than he did, so it introduces sociology and psychology and lots of other things. it's less pure research, for sure..
setebos: to some extent, anyway. these are prosthetics or extensions of our own minds and bodies. they are not seperate.
Strucky: but it's not a lower goal at all. in a number of ways it's much more ambitious. scares me sometimes.
"Geb": sorry - lower was the wrong word.
setebos: also, we are defining the medium in addition to what we want to do with the medium. there will certainly be room for 'hands-off' evolutionary research using EIG.
"Geb": do you have eny evolved examples?
setebos: EIG alife is currently in the 'theoretical applied science' catagory (a term of eric drexler's originally applied to nanotechnology).
Strucky: not as yet. i'm still building the infrastructure to provide for evolution.
Strucky: i have an initial genotype-phenotype mechanism which looks very promising.
setebos: what we have is a primitive genome processor, and some hand-built examples of what we want to evolve. plus lots of general experience using the geometry.
"kirby": Strucky: have you tried to synthesize that wavy fish from a genome yet? Does your genome module (part of STRUCK) contain all the info in an EIG file? Can you randomly mutate a genome or find a way to merge genomes given strict rules
"Geb": ah! i've just realised, strucky - you demonstrated at digital biota ii (?)
setebos: we are gathering interested indivuals on the struck mailing list for discussion and development. steven rooke has joined us, for one.
Strucky: this is not something i do professionally (yet?). it's a hobby. i built Struck largely during train rides across the flat Dutch landscape.
Strucky: kirby, that is not currently possible, but i'm well on the way to making it possible.
"kirby": setebos: a listserv, not just a passive mailing list... very useful place to extend this discussion, for those interested...
setebos: the genome files are lists of primitive struck building instructions, like 'add tet' or 'add spring'.
"Geb": i cannot see the list on the links
Strucky: the cool thing is that the thing that currently takes up the processor's time with Struck is rendering to screen. movement, behavior, and evolution will be much much faster when it happens outside of our view.
setebos: see my struck community site at: http://www.critpath.org/idioverse/struck
setebos: (site in dire need of an update, but it has the info you need for the list and weekly irc chat, for those interested)
Strucky: the mailing list currently has over fifty people on it. it continues to grow as i get requests for Struck from literally all over the planet. architect here, graphics person there, professor of geometry there.
"Geb": thanks very much. i have to dash now but i'll add my address to the list before i go. [Geb: adc96r@soton.ac.uk]
setebos: instructions for subscribing are at the community site, btw.
setebos: unless gerald wants to manually add addresses...
Strucky: yes, that's good to mention: folks this kind of discussion takes place every sunday on IRC (and sometimes active worlds) on the channel #struck. see community page for details. if you want to participate, you're welcome.
Strucky: shall i subscribe you Geb?
setebos: also, you might want to visit the struck AW display. do you have coords, strucky? there's a teleport from the amigos booth, i believe.
"Geb": i've just done it - thanks
"Geb": best wishes - see/ speak to you again another time
setebos: maybe totoro has the coords on hand?
Immigration Officer: POD3 has moved directly to 40N 0W for chat isolation, join the discussion there now
Strucky: shall we visit the Struck display in Active Worlds?
Strucky: join me in a few seconds, i'll be there.
Immigration Officer: Welcome to Amigos Game Place, Strucky
Immigration Officer: You are being joined by setebos.
Strucky: might have to explain what join means.
setebos: i'll go back.
Immigration Officer: POD3 has moved directly to 40N 0W for chat isolation, join the discussion there now
Immigration Officer: Concession stand is open, hotdogs for Only $1, big lines forming
Immigration Officer: AV98 Radio is now broadcasting, click on the microphone at GZ
setebos: from the show menu, show Tabs, unless they are already showing on the left.
Totoro: The Amigos site with many full objects is at Amigos 22.5s 22e 0.1a facing N.
Feu des Astres: alt-T T ... then place AW in world slot and 1618N 615E 90 in the fields.
Immigration Officer: AV98 Radio requires Realplayer G2, turn off your wav file playing under Options
Strucky: there is some very beautiful stuff there to see. clues as to what's possible.
Immigration Officer: AV98 Radio is courtesy KarenLake productions
setebos: i think that is totoro's display, feu des astres.
Feu des Astres: Same process, different coordinates for other places.
Feu des Astres: alt-T brings up the Teleport menu, Remi.
Strucky: you could also add Strucky to your "Contacts" list. :) and then use the right-mouse-button click to join me.
Strucky: anybody still not figured out how to teleport there?
Strucky: we could gather there and take a tour.
setebos: if you put Amigos in the world field, and 22.5s 22e 0.1a facing N in the coordinates field, you will be placed right in front of the display's map.
Strucky: come on!
Immigration Officer: Welcome to Amigos Game Place, Strucky
setebos: anyone here yet?
Strucky: just me it seems.
setebos: maybe this was a bad idea.
Strucky: we need a click teleport.
Immigration Officer: AV98 Radio is courtesy KarenLake productions
Strucky: seems that nobody is teleporting along.
Strucky: bummer.
Totoro: Anyone else need help with the trip to Strucky's place in Amigos?
Immigration Officer: Welcome to Amigos Game Place, Strucky
"kirby": So, wondering how many managed the Teleport -- not the usual thing at a conference, where the most you can do is duck out for a smoke.
setebos: who all is here now?
setebos: kirby, strucky...
"Pablo": I'm along for the ride
Feu des Astres: Here. ... but loading.
Totoro:
Strucky: ah good, at least we have a few.
setebos: strucky, did you see my gallery wall yet?
setebos: inside the NE dome.
Strucky: hey great!
Strucky: i'm going to go back to av98. could you tour people here, please?
Immigration Officer: AV98 Radio is courtesy KarenLake productions
Strucky: there are a few people that have teleported to a display related to this talk. the room was full a few minutes ago.
Strucky: i'm going there too. feel free to join me there.
Immigration Officer: Welcome to Amigos Game Place, Strucky
"kirby": It's Pablo the flying robot dog and 3 o:clock...
Strucky: hey, c'mon inside the great circle ball!
setebos: this tower in the middle is based on Kenneth Snelson's Needle Tower Tensegrity. the sphere on top of it is a double-layer geodesic sphere based on the geometry of the one in Montreal.
"kirby": Hey Strucky, I thought you went back t AV98!
Totoro: Great circle ball in NE dome?
Strucky: join me inside here!
Immigration Officer: You are being joined by Totoro.
setebos: if you teleport up to the geosphere, you have to fly immediately in order to keep from falling.
Immigration Officer: You are being joined by setebos.
Immigration Officer: You are being joined by setebos.
"kirby": I'm inside the ball -- very pretty view.
Strucky: this is a great place to meet for a synergetics discussion, isn't it?
Totoro: Last night I was showing a friend this very view.
"kirby": Yeah (if you've got the right equipment)
"kirby": Gorgeous BTW
setebos: the big domes are octahedral in symmetry. they weren't created in struck, however.
Strucky: i love this ball. the 31 great circles. the lovely colors. (very arbitrary, by the way, just a hack).
Totoro: Kirby, download OK?
"kirby": Yeah, I've got the whole world on my screen (folk song)
"kirby": What's the frequency of this thing? I see a pentagon.
"kirby": Looks to be 6-frequency
Immigration Officer: You are being joined by Totoro.
Strucky: i love it in here too!
Strucky: it is a great lesson in synergetics to fly around inside this ball.
"kirby": sure is huge, we avatars be tiny
Strucky: you can see the hexagonal and pentagonal inside layer, and the omnitriangulated outer layer.
setebos: feu des astres, you are involved in alife research, correct?
Strucky: this is like a dream!
Totoro: Kirby, you should have seen the *really* big one.
Immigration Officer: You are being joined by setebos.
Feu des Astres: No. I am involved in the evolution of virtual communites afrom a first-person point of view.
"kirby": I went to 80M visibility (starting to push my little Pentium 133 32Meg RAM)
Feu des Astres: I have many interestes though.
setebos: sounds like that means you are a reporter?
Feu des Astres: No. I am a CADD Technician involved in civil engineering infrastructure projects.
setebos: yeah - we had a big version of the double-layer geosphere that covered all four domes.
Feu des Astres: I am also involved in many virtual communities as a pastime.
setebos: i see.
Feu des Astres: Interesting to build communites both real and virtual.
Feu des Astres: The infrastructures involved in both types have similaroities in concept.
setebos: you will be at the sociology/anthropology talk, i assume.
"kirby": I've taken a couple of screen shots so far: one at of the podium, one here.
Feu des Astres: Probably.
"kirby": for my notes: who was the person depicted adjacent to Strucky?
setebos: be right back... have to let the dogs out.
"kirby": hah hah, that sounds like us (many dog avatars in this world)
Feu des Astres: This has been a busy week. I am in need of more caffeine. Please excuse me. :-)

 

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