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Anybody remember Sodaconstructor?

I'm not sure if I'm getting it... But now these ideas are making me wonder what would happen if the manifold dynamic qualities of SodaPlay and manifold spatial qualities of Wings3D could be combined... Maybe throw in some other node type stuff ala Nero and you could have a really interesting chaotic and emergent behavior toy. (Spore? Who needs spore?)

It'll probably never happen, but that's my crazy imagination for ya!

I have some more to that list:
Puzzle Pirates
Bang! Howdy
Soda Play
JSettlers

sodaplay.com

If you've never been to this site it's worth a visit. Some of the coolest java I have ever seen. Anyway one of the models you can choose reminds me of the shape they described.

Something along those lines exists at sodaplay. I don't believe there's any evolution about it, but you get to build models and control how their muscles move and such. It's pretty cool.

When I read this article, my mind immediately conjured up sodaconstructor. With this applet, you create a bunch of "tendons" and/or "muscles" (line segments) connected together. You then adjust the function that controls the cycle of tension on each segment. The result is that you can make "creatures" that walk.

The thing that triggered this memory was the talk of "700 independent parameters". I pictured each muscle in this virtual walking body to be much like the line segments in sodaconstructor. The difference is that instead of a human thinking about how to adjust each one, random mutation adjusted them and evolution selected them.

I found this link quite interesting to play with. Nothing to do with AI, but rather simulation of organic motion. Quite lifelike and it's fun to play with all the variables.

A quickie list...

• Hand/eye coordination: any FPS or racing sim
• Logic/Problem solving: Lemmings, Tetris,
• "Anti-social" socializing: IRCs "gimme ops!" game, The Sims, RPGs, ...
• Coding: IRCs "scriptz", That old C-Robots game, ego contests
• Capitalism 101: _$Latest_Sequel_ Tycoon, ...
• Physics 101: Scorched Earth, Soda,
• Dancing like a spaz: Dance Dance Revolution, EOL.
• Boring facts: "Research" for /. posts, Trivia games, Google whacking (or whatever it's called.)

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It's more than just constructing walking robots... it's a laugh and a half, at how ridiculous some of these moving animations are.

But it shows the beauty of math within nature, reduced down to a handful of lines and tension points.

Check out Sodaplay

Try sodaplay, a fun applet which allows users to simulate walking creatures made from soda straws. Good for encouraging creativity and stuff.

sodaplay.com is a cool site where you can build 3d objects that move.

These critters look quite a lot like the Sodaplay constructions.

Ahh...the memories. I must've wasted hours of time experimenting with these at work.

Check out the sodazoo while you are there - look for models by dryguy!

If you like construktion games and aren't allowed to bring the Legos to your cubicle, try the Sodaconstructor.
It is a lovely toy that let's you build walkers etc. out of springs.

I haven't tried Konqueror2 yet, but again, I'll have to install KDE2 (is it true?) and that would make the "browser" bigger than Netscape 6 by comparison...

I just need SSL and Java (for Sodaplay). Nothing else...

What a pain...

I'll tell ya why. When I use Netscape and click on my /. bookmark, it takes me right there. Same with my Freefall bookmark, my User Friendly bookmark, my news bookmark, and even my play bookmark. Direct. No redirects.

But now Micro$oft comes along and says, "Hey, we can make money off this too!" and starts doing redirects with their strong-armed browser market. Load balancing? Hit tracking? Bullshit. Let MY ISP deal with load balancing, or the sites that I'm actually going to (notice none of them are M$). Ditto with hit tracking.

Basically, M$ has no NEED to redirect. They just decided to do it and grab MORE information from those who happen to use IE (not me!!) and yet further bend the Internet public over and have their way with us.

Have a look at the Watersnake model on SodaConstructor Software to operate robosnakes?

It's a java applet where you can design some silly little robots in 2-D, and see how you can make 'em work. No neural networks, or real-world synthesis, but hey, it's cool!

Reminds me of the constructor at soda.