Honeybees Might Prompt Faster Internet Server Technology

coondoggie writes "The Georgia Institute of Technology is working on the theory that honeybees can give us hints about how to improve the speed and efficiency of Internet servers. Honeybees somehow manage to efficiently collect a lot of nectar with limited resources and no central command. Such swarm intelligence of these amazingly organized bees can also be used to improve the efficiency of Internet servers faced with similar challenges." This has some similarities to the rules of the swarm discussion we had last week.

Comments

Not going to work outside of individual systems

[vux984]

Honeybees, and swarm intelligence in general assumes that the other members are working towards the good of the swarm. That is the polar opposite of what we need for a robust internet.

Rogue nodes would be able to disrupt the swarm in the same way that scientists are able to wreak havoc on hives, ants, and other 'swarms' by deliberately injecting fake disruptive markers/signals etc.

This technology sounds about as bright as cooperative multitasking. Suitable for a closed system (e.g. a single application) but an utter disaster if applied in an environment where some threads are just defective, or worse, hostile.

Nope. Humans won that one years ago

[Colin Smith]

I think bees (or ants) should get the all-time patent rights to clustering a number of not so intelligent nodes into something that exhibits a higher degree of intelligence. The human brain is by far the best example of that.

Company Intelligence

[zaydana]

This sounds like the opposite to today's corporate culture, where a whole lot of smart people are part of a swarm, and the end product is utter stupidity...

"None of us is as stupid as all of us".

Re:no central command ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that's supposed to be funny, but lest someone take it seriously, the queen isn't supposed to (and she doesn't) command anyone or anything - she exists for reproduction purposes only. The workers seem to "serve" her because of her unique function on the colony, that is necessary for the colony continued existence. After all, the workers are just doing their part for the survival of the colony, as much as the queen is. There's no such thing as an hierarchy on a colony, everyone works for everyone.

Re:Nanny nanny boo boo.

[McD]

This God character has put together something pretty impressive in only a week, but it's all indecipherable spaghetti code.

In Lisp or Perl?

I have a theory: As time goes on, the odds of any slashdot thread becoming an XKCD comic, or vice-versa, approaches one.