brevecreatures
December 14th, 2005 by Lawrence David
i’ve decided to delay studying for biochemistry by playing with this really really nifty screensaver. the screensaver starts off with a random set of blocks and rules for how they are connected and can move. it then simulates movement for a couple of seconds and records how far the assembly traveled. things that show good locomotion are selected and allowed to “breed” with one another. (in other words, its a genetic algorithm.)
i’ve had a lot of fun with this for 3 reasons:
1) i like selection processes
2) it actually lets you watch these things move (that’s what the screensaver is)
3) it runs on the mac; in fact, it’s mac only.
so yea, grab it from here – you won’t regret it. be warned: this is very distracting and you won’t want to wake your computer whenever the screen saver loads up. also, you need to be patient – i’m on generation 18 and these little block creatures are still having trouble figuring out how to move. nonetheless, they’ve definitely been making good progress.
note: i believe brevecreatures is a more general form of breveWalker, in case anyone has come across that screensaver.
