blog.td76.com

26 July 2010

Electronica

Electronica, originally uploaded by Fortyseven.

Boom. My first ever published app. Wrote it over the weekend; more updates to come.

16 March 2010

Voice Post: Understanding Genetic Algorithm Survivalism

I’ve played around with genetic algorithms before. Coding a program that figured out an equation to reach a particular numeric value. It was a fun and exciting thing to work on and it really expanded my range of thought on things.

Anyway, I had problem understanding it as it applied to evolution in a living species. Basically in my program, I could test the result of the generated equation and test for fail/success. However, while I basically understood that ‘success’ on a species level meant moving on to the next generation, I didn’t quite get how my dying from an unfortunate mutation would contribute to the advancement of the species. How does it all “learn”, you know?

Now I get it. And I recorded a memo out in the car explaining it while driving to work since that’s faster than writing, and it got it out of my head fast so I didn’t forget anything. :)

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After discussing this with a coworker (yes, we are web developers) I also figured out several other things that did not get discussed here. I’ll avoid mentioning them because in retrospect they’re just as obvious — perhaps moreso — as this ‘revelation’ was. ;P