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Fruit Flies Hold the Key To Faster Computing
hapworth writes "Dr. Ziv Bar-Joseph, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon, may have found the key to faster computing in the form of fruit flies. While computer scientists have long struggled with determining optimal communications paths in digital environments, Bar-Joseph believes the answer can be found by studying the biological make-up of fruit flies: 'Determining how to select a [Maximal Independent Set] is difficult and has been under scrutiny for many years. It turns out that fruit flies solve a similar problem. During brain development, a process called Sensory Organ Precursor [SOP] selection occurs,' he says. 'As in computer networks, some cells (SOP) in the brain will become local leaders (MIS) and convey information from the environment to neighboring cells.'"
I don't see how that would help the problem, and surely would only cause distress to those who know you
...once they get all the bugs out of the system.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Fruit flies like a banana!
he might not fire a tear gas cannister up your nose/shoot you in the head. other than that; weren't we told that life was about suffering? then shouldn't there be equal suffering for all? shouldn't our leaders be examples of the required suffering, instead of billionerror actors?
n/t
I think I shall jump off a cliff. Thoughts?
I think you should throw your arms out wide when you jump. That way we'll find out if fruits fly, though the result would be more natural selection than Sensory Organ Precursor selection .
Interesting how prophetic Terry Pratchett was with his Discworld Hex computer though, which was also insect-driven. I wonder if this new one will have a GBL as well?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
The kinds of physical processes which drive these kinds of biological solutions are good at arriving at local optima, but are unlikely to find the global optimum which is considered to be the exact solution to the problem, as soon as the size of the problem outstrips the scale of the physical processes used to solve it. OTOH, when porting the physical paradigm to the (virtual) world of computing, it is much easier to scale the now-virtual solution processes than it would be for nature to solve the larger problem. So it still could very well lead to an interesting heuristic for arriving at good approximations to the global optimum.
http://www.tikalon.com/blog/blog.php?article=2011/fruitfly
This really isn't news, since the article was published in January (Yehuda Afek, Noga Alon, Omer Barad, Eran Hornstein, Naama Barkai, and Ziv Bar-Joseph, "A Biological Solution to a Fundamental Distributed Computing Problem," Science, vol. 331, no. 6014 (January 14, 2011), pp. 183-185.)
Beowulf cluster of those, running DragonFly.
We should call it PitayaFly!
An old family friend went to school with Pratchett. He's rather more acerbic when out of the limelight, exposing his geek-attracting ego primed with armchair philosopher self-belief. There's also a matter-of-fact flavouring of misogyny. In Slashdotter recipe format: take Randall Munroe, add subtlety, then infuse with genuine writing talent...
Anyway, Pratchett also has stated that he will kill himself when the time is right for him. He also sees no sense in living beyond hope. His notion of hope is just a little more self-centred. In the billions of years forming the scheme of the universe, his three or four decades of productive activity will come to nothing. As will mine. As will yours. Attempting to abuse those who tell you this is just a cowardly way of hiding from a simple statement of fact.
Finding a maximal independent set in a graph on n vertices is doable in O(n) time. Finding a maximum independent set is difficult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximal_independent_set
Quest Title: "Fruit Flies Hold the Key To Faster Computing"
Walkthrough:
Diplomatic route:
1. Go to the flies.
2. Talk them into cooperating with you. (You'll get a 75 Speech check at some point.)
3. The flies are going to agree to cooperate but they'll ask you to gather 10 issues of "Flies Monthly" in exchange for the key. (Follow this link for the locations of the issues.)
4. Once you get the magazines, go back to the flies.
5. Give them the issues. They'll give you a "Key to Faster Computing."
6. Open safe to get the "Faster Computing."
Non-diplomatic route:
1. Sneak on the flies.
2. Plant live grenade.
3. Walk away.
4. Boom.
5. Go back to the corpse of the flees and grab the "Key to Faster Computing."
6. Open safe to get the "Faster Computing."
Note: If Miss Puss is in your party, she'll eat the flies at first sight. You'll then have to wait for her to pass them and the key. Wait for about 24 hours. You'll eventually see her... hmm... do her business. Click on the business to open it, get the key. By the way, this business of hers is just a regular locker so you could use it as a convenient location to hoard stuff.
I wonder if this new one will have a GBL as well?
Well, yeah, if it's got fruit flies it's bound to have a fruit.
It's not THE key, it's a key. Assuming this pans out that is, but there are always different paths towards faster computing.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like bananas.
--Groucho Marx (1890-1977)
It's all very well using fruit flies, but there is no way you're getting me to keep a box of rotting fruit under my desk, even if it has got eight cores (apple) and provides a constant supply of compost for the garden.
Same
Diplomatic route:
1. Go to the flies.
2. Talk them into cooperating with you. (You'll get a 75 Speech check at some point.)
3. The flies are going to agree to cooperate but they'll ask you to gather 10 issues of "Flies Monthly" in exchange for the key. (Follow this link for the locations of the issues.)
4. Once you get the magazines, go back to the flies.
5. Give them the issues. They'll give you a "Key to Faster Computing."
6. Open safe to get the "Faster Computing."
www.urlvision.com
URL Vision - Web Directory | Free Website Submission
Do they hold elections or does this just happen as they twitter?
Didn't James Bond work for MIS? I get so confused without
someone providing me with good information.
why don't you learn to fly first? That should keep you busy for a while and maybe you'll meet someone or learn something that makes life worth living.Thinking obviously hasn't done you any good; maybe you should consider becoming a doer instead of a thinker.
You know who else was a socialist and wanted to kill himself?
That's right... Hitler.
It will probably make your life on the internet easier if you get a brain installed..
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Existence is horrible. To put an over-simplified, Slashdot-soundbite style summary on it:
Cause: free will implies selfishness; causality then intervenes to ensure that selfishness prevails.
Effect: suffering is maintained.
Fix: remove at least one of free will and causality.
Well, that's clearly not possible.
The state of Europe is just a symptom, not a cause. No particular act within my existence is going to make life "worth living". Anything which makes life bearable would be predicated on denial.
There are three options:
(1) You live life for your own enjoyment;
(2) You "do your bit", feeling good about helping a few individuals but ignoring that this temporary aid will just help to maintain the current state of affairs;
(3) You kill yourself.
(1) worked for the first 15 years of my life, due to my being blinkered than due to active denial.
(2) worked for the next 17 years of my life. I was seduced by the story of the kid at sea who is mocked for throwing back struggling creatures which have been washed ashore. "You'll never save them all," the cynic says. "But I just saved that one," he responds. I have struggled to help people as a primary aim, while looking after myself so I am not constantly asking others for help. But I wasn't fighting bad things in a good world; I was fighting reality.
(3) remains.
I have thought. I have done. I am done.
It seems this would find a maximal independent set I.e. that cannot be made larger by finding additional nodes, and not a maximum independent set, which is an independent set of greatest size.
Fruit Fly: "Water Cooling yo"
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I hated these little buggers in high school biology, but it is nice to see there may be some usefulness to the study of these particular bugs other than teaching the fundamentals of genetic manipulation.
Ok, I followed your advise, but I'm still trying to locate the key within the debris. How big is this key anyway?
You need to see a psychiatrist or a therapist. Clearly you have time on your hands, and since you live in Europe, you have ready access to healthcare.
It's not that what you're saying is wrong, it's just that we all have to cope with things we can't change. For some it's an innate skill, but for others it's learned. So go learn.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere