Honey, I Finished The Internet

11 Replies to “Honey, I Finished The Internet”

1. A few real sh1t-for-brains in the comments.

2. Exactly. The really sad part is they are allowed to vote.

3. No welfare in ant colonies, no wonder they get something done.

4. That was really neat. Nothing amazing about it though as one can create quite complex structures using simple interaction rules between organisms whether they’re meatware or hardware. Only very few rules are involved in the flocking behavior or birds. Ants are neat insects and can watch them for hours but they’re nowhere as intelligent as bees and wasps. What is even more amazing than this ant colony (which as I’ve noted is isomorphic to a cellular automaton structure) are wasps which are able to forage freely and come back to exactly the same physical point where they continue building their nests. Have a love/hate relationship with wasps as they seem to like my greenhouse and every year I watch them for a while before blasting them with Raid. Wasps and bees have much more complex brains than ants and are capable of quite a bit of learning.
   Maybe we’ll start creating insect computers as Greg Bear has discussed in some of his books.

5. Now that was impressive.
   My daughter wanted an ant farm when she was young, so she got one and really enjoyed watching them.
   But it was a sad day when I had to vacuum them up as she had decided let them all out for ‘exploring’.
   However she was very happy with her new hamster and it’s exercise ball.

6. interesting stuff.

7. Agree with you Loki. The first thing I wondered about was the algorithms the colony must use in order to construct their city. What triggers what type of building behavior in the ants? Is it CO2 or methane concentration, temperature, chemicals in the soil composition? Fascinating stuff. But no doubt a few simple rules produce this complex, well coordinated and highly adaptive behavior.
   Now if politicians could cotton on to the same principle . . .

8. Like

9. Actually, I noticed not so much building as digging in, infiltrating with little sign on the surface….
   Sorta like “progressives” in civil service…..it’s there ya just don’t see it a lot.

10. The hive mind of socialism at work.
    Unfortunately for the collectivists people are not ants.

11. so anyone think a 10 tonne frac or a 100 tonne frac at 2ooo meters any bigger ?
    really 10 tonnes is only twice the size of a burned out police car in NB