Vershun’s Brain Dump

What:  Off-the-wagon AA Meeting
Where:  Alley behind Pat’s Pub
When:  Sunday 3AM
Topic:  This meeting will mainly be for warmth.  Dan said he’ll bring the booze.

What:  Smokers Break Group
Where:  Right outside the building
When:  During the time we should be working
Topic:  We will vary topic of conversation from the latest office gossip to newest cancer treatments.

What:  Consortium of Public School Students
Where:  Karen’s Mom’s Basement
When:  Tuesday after school
Topic:  We will delve into the proper use and handling of handheld firearms.  Moving target practice afterward for interested parties.

What:  Hipster Colloquium
Where:  The local coffee shop.  No, not THAT corporate trash one, the other one.
When:  Jill’s break
Topic:  We’ll pseudo-intellectually complain about important things such as society, government, and foreign affairs.  Other issues that we’re too worthless to ever change will also be discussed.  Toward the end of the meeting we’ll express our overwhelming individuality by discussing obscure music we all listen to and planning new fleeting trends that we all follow.

What:  A Banker’s Dozen
Where:  Central Park (location might be moved to the Plaza Hotel pending a government subsidy)
When:  12 PM, Friday (after hours)
Topic:  Fantastic presentation from some of the leading experts on how to use the government and taxpayer money to profit from a failing business.  This will be followed by an open discussion on new investment strategies, such as buying expired milk for cheap in hopes it turns into Gouda cheese.

So 3-4 years ago I picked up a really neat book on Swarm Intelligence and in it there were a few pages on the Adaptive Culture Model.  I really liked the concept (algorithmically simple and pretty) so I coded up a quick and dirty OpenGL app for it.

Well, for whatever reason, I thought of it a couple days ago and took a day off doing actual work to play with ACM in Flex.

Quick concept rundown.  So basically (from what I remember, don’t quote me) the adaptive culture model describes how information is spread throughout a population, specifically beneficial traits.  I guess an example of this would be success and proximity.  You notice a neighbor being successful, so you incorporate some of their traits into your life in hopes of you being more successful.  This goes from neighbor to neighbor until the successful traits are assimulated into the whole population.  Geography is just an example.  This can also model information spreading through virtual networks and other such fun stuff.

I implemented a quick and dirty presentation of this concept in Flex.  Success is rated by closeness to the target color you choose.  When you click on a couple squares it randomly checks a neighbor to see if it is more successful.  If it is, the neighbor assimilates one of its neighbors traits, which in this case is randomly either the red, green, or blue component.  If the square updates it notifies its neighbors of the change and they go through the same process.

You can change the color while the program is running if you feel like it.  There’s a lot more stuff that’s easily configurable but I got bored of this and am setting it aside for a while.  I’ll release the source when I come back to it later.

It might take a few clicks for the process to start.  Just select your color and keep clicking; when the queue starts filling up you’ll know.

As few of you are aware, for the past many Mondays I have been playing coed volleyball with a few high school buddies on a team called the Guppies.  For our last game we went out to celebrate the season with some Dairy Queen.  ”Celebrate,” might be a misleading term; we lost every single game we played.  It was less of a victory celebration and more of the kind of celebration one might have when being released from torture.  If you’re wondering, yes I have thought about it, and after deep self-analysis and reflection I have decided that sucking at volleyball is slightly more gay than just playing it.

Good things did come out of it, though.  Like plans for our new movie: Stem Cellz, which features a killer fetus that lassos its victims with its umbellical cord.

He Will Defetus All

We have a few good scenes for it too, but I’ll let them be surprises to you when it hits the big screen.

For production inquires or any other sort of interaction that will land us free money, please contact me.

… Tinkerbell?

Hey Tink!  Where are you hiding?!

FAT.

Fin.