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

Oblig

[crowbarsarefornerdyg]

I for one welcome our new swarming server overlords!

Re:Oblig

[digitig]

"Bzz"

"What's that, Bumbly?"

"Bzz"

"Network bottleneck at the 4th-floor router? How did that happen?"

"Bzz"

"Faulty ethernet card in room 402? Quick! We'd better get down there and save them!"

clusters ?

[jacquesm]

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.

It's still quite hard to come up with stuff that is not in some way already present in nature. If you are prepared to accept a certain level of metaphor.

Re:clusters ?

[poot_rootbeer]

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.

Which is not to say that there isn't any room for improvement. There's a lot to be learned from wolves, for example, where each member of the pack serves a unique and important role.

It's quite likely that by combining aspects of many of these ecologies, we could create a system even more efficient than any individual one.

Imagine a Bee-Wolf cluster...

Re:clusters ?

[daem0n1x]

Very much the opposite of humans who are very intelligent but, as a crowd, behave in a very stupid way.

Compulsory Comcast comment

[BestNicksRTaken]

Its not good making a new internet protocol, Comcast will only block it!

Nanny nanny boo boo.

[rice_burners_suck]

heh heh. This so-called "swarm intelligence" will do nothing to teach us how to make efficient web servers. The hive and the swarm of bees operate efficiently but not because they have some sort of innate intelligence that allows them to do so. They operate in this manner because they are programmed to do so. The actions of each bee are based on something akin to a computer program. This program is designed in such a manner that when many units are executing it in parallel, with each unit operating on its own timer, so that statistically all parts of the program are being executed simultaneously across the bees in the swarm, the result is the efficient overall operation that we witness. However the point is that the individual program is designed so that the overall program will execute efficiently, regardless of where any particular instance of the individual program might be in its program code. Who did this programming? God. And the crazy thing is that beehives are only one tiny part of it. The overall program encompasses the entire universe. So ha ha ha... cuz you can study those bees all day long and it won't make you a better web programmer.

Re:Nanny nanny boo boo.

[stranger_to_himself]

cuz you can study those bees all day long and it won't make you a better web programmer.

No, but you'll be a web programmer who knows a lot about bees. Think of the possibilities!

Re:Nanny nanny boo boo.

[arevos]

Who did this programming? God. And the crazy thing is that beehives are only one tiny part of it. The overall program encompasses the entire universe. So ha ha ha... cuz you can study those bees all day long and it won't make you a better web programmer. I'll say. This God character has put together something pretty impressive in only a week, but it's all indecipherable spaghetti code. Where are the comments? The well-named functions? The bloody documentation? We're stuck with this system, and working out what the hell is does is pretty much a full time job for millions of experts. You think you've seen bad COBOL systems? Take a look at Universe 1.0; it's got so many quirks and undocumented features that it'll make your head spin just trying to understand what the hell it's doing half the time. I mean, sure, maybe quantum superposition made sense as an optimization feature at the time, but some, any, documentation on it might help!

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.

no central command ?

[permaculture]

Don't tell that to the queen.

Re:no central command ?

[Nazlfrag]

You forgot the part where she controls their mind them from birth to become virtual extensions of her hive mind and assimilate all the nectar in the cosmos to build more Hive Cubes.

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.

Bees

[archeopterix]

Honeybee method? Now that's a good buzzword.

After all...

[Burpmaster]

The Internet is basically a series of bees.

Re:After all...

[FinchWorld]

Forced through tubes? So basically too many bee's cause the tubes to jam up? So bascally what we are trying to avoid is bees in swarms entirely? Because as far as I can tell I've avoided contact with swarms of bees due to a healthy regard for my own well being...

Almost historical concept ...

[foobsr]

Quote (Lem, The Invincible, paraphrased):
"A powerful military space ship a "second-class cruiser" called Invincible, lands on the planet Regis III to investigate the loss of sister ship, Condor. During the investigation, the crew finds evidence of a new form of life, born through evolution of autonomous, self-replicating machines. The evolution was controlled by "robot wars", and the only form that survived were swarms of minuscule, insect-like machines. Individually, or in small groups, they are quite harmless to humans and capable of only very simple behavior. However, when bothered, they can assemble into huge swarms displaying complex behavior arising from self-organization, and are able to defeat an intruder by--what could have been called today--a powerful surge of EMI. Some members of the spacecraft crew suffered a complete memory wipe-out as consequence. The angered crew attempts to fight the enemy, but eventually recognizes the meaninglessness of their efforts in the most direct sense of the word." (emphasis mine)

Hint for a scientific career; Revive old stuff!

CC.

Re:Almost historical concept ...

[zippthorne]

We need Polish pros to polish Polish prose?

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.

See: MUTE

[trawg]

MUTE is a privacy-protecting p2p application: MUTE's routing mechanism is inspired by ant behavior.

Obligatory

[sw155kn1f3]

So it's a lot like beowulf cluster of bees, right?

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".

ACO for corpse recovery

[Thanshin]

I used an ACO algorithm in a system to direct cow corpse recovery trucks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization

I wonder if the people at the The Georgia Institute of Technology (git?) has nightmares with bees running through a series of tubes as I had about giant cow-corpse-eating zombie ants.

Sometimes swarm behavior is inefficient

[MichaelCrawford]

Several times I've seen flocks of birds flying in circles. One time I watched this for several minutes. The birds were flying really fast but going nowhere.

Re:Sometimes swarm behavior is inefficient

[TheGoodSteven]

Those birds you speak of are doing something called "updrafting". Basically, they find a spot where warm air is rising from the ground and glide around in circles in order to attain a higher altitude using much less energy. You might see this over highways quite often, since the black pavement sometimes causes warm air drafts. I think the best demonstration of inefficient swarm behavior is when it arises in humans.

spaghetti code

[jefu]

Obviously if the universe is mostly spaghetti code, it is a clear indication that the Creator must have been somehow involved in, well, spaghetti. Like say the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Talk about Occam's Razor - there is no simpler hypothesis available. Pasta -> Pasta. QED.

Colony Collapse Syndrome?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Does this mean my servers will now be subject to sudden, massive die-off?

It's a plot by HP, I tell you!