I stumbled on this live traffic monitor called FEEDJIT today while visiting the Church of the Spaghetti Monster…
They also have a map that displays where the traffic is coming from.
Pretty cool, huh?
Kevin Knuth
Albany NY
Posted under Internet, Inventions, Software, Solutions, Technology
This post was written by drknuth on November 19, 2007
The MIT Center for Collective Intelligence is investigating the phenomenon of collective intelligence with the goal of improving collective decision making in social and business systems. They are working to devlop methodologies for quantifying and measuring collective intelligence.
Perhaps in the future we will be able to quantify and characterize the collective intelligence of ant colonies.
Kevin Knuth
Albany NY
Posted under Intelligent Systems, Internet, Philosophy, Research
This post was written by drknuth on November 18, 2007
I have always been fascinated by the idea that ant colonies may exhibit some kind of collective intelligence. Whether this is actually the case needs to be proven, however, I am not quite sure how one can prove such a hypothesis. As far as I am aware, there is no Turing Test for ant colonies. How could one test a hypothesis like this? One must first form a predictive hypothesis, such that the hypothesis when applied to a particular situation would allow one to make predictions about what one would expect to observe. Such hypotheses are testable, and as such can be either falsified or found to be supported by the evidence. Could it be proven true? Well, that is another issue altogether, which is best saved for another post.
I would have to defer to biologists who study ants to form predictive hypotheses regarding the collective intelligence of an ant colony.
Tonight, I saw an interesting Discovery Channel special on Killer Ants. As usual, there is a lot of hype focused on whether ants can hunt and kill humans. However, I was struck by the collective decisions made by Army Ants in Costa Rica to go on raids, and to enter a nomadic phase and move the hive. Right now there is a special on Killer Bees, and they just discussed the dance that scout bees perform to communicate the direction and distance to food sources. The most competent scouts dance the hardest, and the hive eventually reaches a consensus and heads off en masse to explore the food source.
I have always wondered how such collective intelligence could form, function, and whether it was actually possible. However, during the segment on Army Ants, I learned that the hives are on the order of one million ants. These ants are differentiated and are specialized for different tasks. The ants that make up the hive are all female and as far as I understood, are sisters. Some sisters are soldiers, others workers, doctors, nurses, and so on. These sisters communicate by complex chemical signals.
It struck me that a mouse’s brain consists of about one -to one hundred million neurons. Again neurons are highly differentiated, each form designed for different tasks. If a mouse thinks, why not an ant colony?
The main difference, and this I find intriguing, is that if an ant colony has a collective intelligence, then the “brain” is spatially distributed. It would be as if our neurons could crawl around and spatial reorganize.
There is an excellent piece in Douglas Hofstadter‘s book Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid that deals with an anteater who is friends with an ant colony. The anteater can communicate with the ant colony by talking to it, and the ant colony communicates back via patterns of moving ants. The anteater will sit an enjoy eating some ants during its conversations with the colony. The colony doesn’t mind… just as some of us don’t always worry about losing a few neurons now and again.
How can we measure intelligence, especially when it may be so different from our own?
Kevin Knuth
Albany NY
Posted under Biology, Information, Intelligent Systems
This post was written by drknuth on November 18, 2007
While growing up, my brother and I often talked about making a gliding suit like a Flying Squirrel… we called it a Squirrel Suit.
While we thought that it should work, we never made such a crazy thing.
But now they exist… and WOW!!!
http://www.biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=4262
This video is not to be missed!
Enjoy!
Kevin Knuth
Albany NY
Posted under Fun, Inventions
This post was written by drknuth on November 15, 2007
Both of my friends Joe and Ron like to cook. Ron was a professional chef and is amazing to see at work in the kitchen. We are trying to cook more in our home and shed the going-out-to-eat habit picked up in New York City and California.
Both Joe and Ron have recommended Cook’s Illustrated:
http://www.cooksillustrated.com/
They have excellent recipes, and Joe has pointed out that they take a scientific approach to cooking… something I can appreciate!
Here is an example:
Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes with Leeks and Chives
The Problem: Merely replacing the butter and cream with buttermilk to create tangy, creamy buttermilk mashed potatoes doesn’t work–the finished potatoes are curdled, crumbly, chalky, and dry.
The Goal: We wanted mashed potatoes with buttermilk’s trademark distinctive tang, but we also wanted mashed potatoes creamy and flavorful enough to be worth eating.
The Solution: Many recipes for buttermilk mashed potatoes remove so much butter that the potatoes taste lean and lack creaminess. We started by restoring just enough butter to save our mashed potatoes from this fate. We then tackled the curdling problem. Buttermilk curdles at 160 degrees; a temperature reached almost instantly when the cold liquid hits steaming-hot potatoes. By adding the butter, melted, to room-temperature buttermilk, we coated the proteins in the buttermilk and protected them from the heat shock that causes curdling. We also simplified the recipe by choosing peeled and cut Yukon Gold potatoes rather than using unpeeled russets (our usual choice for mashed potatoes). Because Yukon Golds have less starch and are less absorbent than russets, they don’t become soggy and thinned out when simmered without their jackets.
Bon Appetite!
Kevin Knuth
Albany NY
Posted under General, Lifestyle
This post was written by drknuth on November 15, 2007
