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Honeybees Might Prompt Faster Internet Server Technology

Posted by Zonk on from the heard-the-buzz-about-it dept.

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.

13 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Oblig by crowbarsarefornerdyg · · Score: 4, Funny

    I for one welcome our new swarming server overlords!

    --
    "Slapping lipstick on a pig does NOT make it Natalie Portman. Paris Hilton, maybe, but not Portman." - UncleTogie
    1. Re:Oblig by digitig · · Score: 4, Funny

      "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!"

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
  2. clusters ? by jacquesm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    MP3 Search Engine
    1. Re:clusters ? by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 4, Funny

      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...

  3. Compulsory Comcast comment by BestNicksRTaken · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    --
    #include <sig.h>
  4. Nanny nanny boo boo. by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Nanny nanny boo boo. by stranger_to_himself · · Score: 5, Funny

      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!

    2. Re:Nanny nanny boo boo. by arevos · · Score: 5, Funny

      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!
  5. no central command ? by permaculture · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Don't tell that to the queen.

    --
    Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
  6. After all... by Burpmaster · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Internet is basically a series of bees.

  7. Not going to work outside of individual systems by vux984 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. See: MUTE by trawg · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

  9. Company Intelligence by zaydana · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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".