Intel and Artificial Life
This is my fourth day at Intel. I think I will enjoy working here. I haven’t done much yet though, and I still don’t know exactly what it is I am supposed to be doing. I tested some 140 chips yesterday, but that wasn’t too much work. My supervisor is out until Tuesday, so until then I am doing some odd jobs and reading up some documentation about the platforms and tools we use. I am excited to be working here. It looks like it’s going to be hard work, but I think it will also be fun.
Now about the Artificial Life. I have written up some specs on an Artificial Life program. This is different from earlier ones. I am implementing the “creatures” like assembly programs. This code is their “DNA”. It describes how they behave. A “God Program” executes one instruction of each “creature” and moves on to the next. Sort of like a pre-emptive multitasking operating system. The creatures all live in a two-dimensional area of memory. They can reproduce, and there is chance of error during reproduction.
I think I was going about it the wrong way earlier. I was trying to describe behaviour through variables and through discrete quantities. Now, I represent each creature as a bit-pattern – exactly like an assembly program. I have instructions for moving, eating, moving and attacking, reproducing, and sleeping. In addition, I have some very basic branches and loops. So based on the bit pattern, the creature has a certain behaviour. Also, changes in the bit-pattern can cause changes in behaviour. They can be subtle, or drastic. At least, that is what I believe. I need to actually implement my idea before I can find out! My God program is essentially an operating system, and the “creatures” are tasks. There’s a little more to all of this, but I can’t write it all here. If and when I finish the program, I will make a separate page for it and describe it in detail.
I am thinking of calling this program “Eden”. Anyway, that’s all for now!
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Real Programmers
Real Programmers have their epiphanies at around 3 or 4 am. I have been debugging assembly code for a few hours. I fixed it at about 4:15 am. It is a wonderful feeling. I am a code monkey and proud of it.
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Your own code. Use IE.
I probably should document my code. It’s not cool coming back to it after three months and wondering what the hell you were smoking when you wrote it.
I managed to figure out (vaguely) how I got fly working. I know I did something weird to the makefiles. I think I had to link it explicitly or something. Anyway, I can add Photos properly now. All I need to do is finish the “Delete Photos” and “Update Photos” option. Then I can put up the photo album for real. I need to make a non IE5.5+ version too… so that other people can use the photo album at least. I wish everyone would use IE. Seriously. Alright, alright… now you’re probably thinking “What? You can’t say that! That’s an affront to nerds everywhere!”… Microsoft is Evil, but it sure as hell makes my coding a whole lot easier if everyone just stuck to IE. Then there’s .001% Mozilla crowd going. Oh Mozilla is SOOOOOO much better than IE and Microsoft is Evil and you’re a traitor! Yeah whatever. Makes my job SOOOOOO much easier. Stick to IE and while you’re at it, PLEASE upgrade to the latest version – i.e 6.0 (eh? eh? get the pun?) If you’re still using IE4.0, that was sooo 4 years ago! UPGRADE!
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New Interface and bAdkOde
I changed the interface again. No more frames! There actually two index files up now. The other one will run on IE only. Anyway, the big thing is that I put something new up. I put up my pet project – bAdkOde. It is an interpreter I am working on. It’s a VERY early beta and you can check it out. I have provided a link. Hope you like it!
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The Matrix
I uploaded a program I wrote… You can look it up in the Downloadz section. I was bored at work… That’s pretty much it. Spring break coming up this weekend! Alright!!! Woohooo!!
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