Slashdot Mirror
Digital Life and Evolution
mrivorey writes "Discover Magazine has a story about The Digital Evolution Lab at Michigan State University. Scientists there have created virus-like computer programs that replicate, mutate randomly, and compete with each other... in other words, they evolve. Among such feats as learning to add and compare numbers, these digital life forms also once avoided scientists attempts at "killing" them, by playing dead.
You can download the project yourself from SourceForge." We first mentioned this in early 2003, but it appears to have developed a good deal since then.
Sounds like something my sister would download... ;O
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
"So, mmm-hay, as you can see, I've loaded the evolving virus program onto my wife's Windows computer so that she can experience the evolving and GLAVEN and whatnot for herself. Now, let me just power up the machine and you can see the evolving and surviving and the natural selecting and whatnot for yourself. Brace yourselves, gentlemen."
[[Missing Operating System]]
My wife is going to kill me.
Unknown host pong.
How long after I download this will my computer start threatening to kill me?
Oh God. That was close...
these digital life forms also once avoided scientists attempts at "killing" them, by playing dead.
Cool! A new excuse... next time someone calls me at 3AM and says one of my programs has died, I'll just tell them it's playing dead and call me in the morning.
Garg
Garg
Alumnus, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
Is the digital creationists, who'll tell us that Computer Science is an atheist lie and all programs are created by the Giant Sky Pixie^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H God.
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
I guess this is the first step to the Matrix. I guess Jessus will become Neo.
PETDA protesters are currently rushing to surround the offices of Michigan State University and Nintendo.
...a program that can not only play Mornington Crescent, but can also cheat?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If You have to ask why sex, then you my friend have truly entered into geekdom.
I salute you!
Once you see your kids starting to demonstrate the worst traits of both your mother and your mother-in-law, you'll begin to question whether that's really an advantage.
Oh yeah, well maybe it's time to get medieval on their asses. Here comes the apocalypse:
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda
...the girls all had headaches for generations. As usual, the blokes were left to fend for themselves and had to work something out. In the absence of technology to support paracetamol production, this was all they could do.
</deadpan>
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Slashdot has alot of Athiests and smart, critial thinkers. It is only natural we piss on Creationism, mainly because it is so lacking of science it is the Micheal Jackson of the scientific area.
If you ask "why have sex" then you are merely at the beginning of the path to Geekdom. When you ask "what is sex?", then will you have attained True Geekdom.
we got non-believers in Michigan
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
Record this date if this is the first you've heard of this project. They have unleashed a whirlwind, and we are the dust. I don't necessarily believe that but I enjoyed writing it.
What really happened:
A long time ago, Giardia developed a primitive form of Slashdot. This effectively ended sex as a viable means of reproduction.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
Sounds more like the resume of a lawyer.
liqbase
That's pretty circular. You can't use the Bible to justify anything unless you already believe what the Bible says, in which case it's tautological.
Or, as the Daily Show's "Even Stephven" bit on Islam vs. Christianity put it,
Holy shit! So that's what the guys in Redmond were trying to do the whole time! So I guess all the anti-trust trials were just - ehm - testing?
AccountKiller
how about talking mostly hairless bible-quoting humanoids? Maybe that would help. But then, I am not sure that could be really called evolution.
AccountKiller
Let me get this straight. You, the scientists who created "viruses" that can become intelligent and nigh-unkillable, want me, and 1,000,000 computer geeks, to download and run said viruses?
Yeah, I've seen one too many Outer Limits to fall for that one...
UTF-8: There and Back Again
minroly disabiling problem
Like dyslexia?
(No offense intended to dyslexics.)
Baby raper? Was it anything like this:
.
Evolution: Rap It Up!
(When rapping, follow the rhythm of
Salt-N-Pepa's "None of Your Business.")
Chorus
If I want to teach tonight. Evolution? Right!
None of your business.
If you want to be a freak 'n teach it on the weekend,
None of my business.
What chu doin' with their lives
Leavin' evolution out?
Don't chu think that you should make a stand
and stop the doubts? Ha!
Darwin, Mayer, Watson, Crick,
Mendel(son) 'n old Lamarck,
Retro-, transpo-, hepadn-,
Makes you want to barf? Right!
Flu is evolution too
And you thought you were so safe.
AIDS 'n cold sores-scary stuff but
Changes we've all met. So. . .
Now you know just what IT is.
Change and Evolution. Same!
Don't be suckered into playing
Brown vs. Board games.
(Chorus).
If I want to teach tonight. Evolution? Right!
None of your business.
If you want to be a freak 'n teach it on the weekend,
None of my business.
Go for it.
Source
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Someone DESIGNED a system to prove evolution.
Beyond that, it would be interesting to look at the details of how this works. Does it mimic UV light and other things trying to break down early life? Is the mutation rate random?
It may not prove evolution, but it is an interesting experiment.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.