After the point when the whole swarm is synchronised there seems to be no further nudging, does this make sense? Am I missing something? Very interesting, just not sure I understand.
Fireflies
21–30 of 93 posts
Re: Fireflies
#22> But whenever you shine, you inspire those close to you to shine too, a little bit sooner than they otherwise would have. And those close to you, in turn, inspire those close to them.
This is adaptation to input disruption on a network of brain impulses. Fascinating that so much correlates with our own perception and technologies.
Really great interactive post both informative and engaging.
Re: Fireflies
#23After the point when the whole swarm is synchronised there seems to be no further nudging, does this make sense? Am I missing something? Very interesting, just not sure I understand.
It's because of what dyarosla pointed out in their comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14452832#14456254
Re: Fireflies
#24This is similar to a pretty famous result in networking and distributed systems about self-synchronization, which used to cause problems. http://ee.lbl.gov/papers/sync_94.pdf
Fascinating! I can see how synchronization across distributed systems would cause problems -- lots of requests against the same type of resource at the same time, for example, resulting in a thundering herd (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thundering_herd_problem) -- but also how it could be absolutely what you want (like if you want to synchronize clocks across systems, which I guess is exactly what's going on in the OP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_synchronization).
Re: Fireflies
#25Is there some inverse of the firefly's sync protocol that if they all followed would turn a synchronized swarm back into a chaotic one?
Re: Fireflies
#26I think the example works more quickly than it should due to the line "if(ff.clock>1) ff.clock=1;" Every time the clock goes over 1, wouldn't you mod the clock value, not set it to 1 exactly?
I think that's why it works -- if you change that = to a %=, the effect no longer happens. It does make (intuitive) sense, though, because the only time that makes a significant difference is when a lot of fireflies flash around one firefly simultaneously, in which case the firefly wouldn't decide to flash twice in a row but instead interpret it as a singular flash. And if a firefly sees another one flash when it's a…
Right- but the explanation in the 'explorable' is that the effect happens due to the simple pattern of Step 1: When you see a nearby firefly flash, nudge your clock a little bit forward, Step 2: That's it. Problem is, the description of what's happening and what is actually happening doesn't match.
Re: Fireflies
#27Parable of the polygons is extremely questionable. For one, it attempts to have its cake while eating it too, by pretending it's an abstract demonstration about choices while explicitly calling out to hot topics in diversity, implying a clear causal link. For another, the model involves discrete agents on a discrete grid making decisions based on their immediate 8 square neighborhood, with no persistence or hysteresi…
If you're so passionate about it, you should go implement these changes to show how the model fails. I would read that, if it were done well. It's not obvious to me that simply changing the radius or grid geometry would have the effect you claim. Your objection is just that the model is too simple, but everyone knows linear regression predicts quite a lot, quadratic polynomials estimate physical motion very well, etc…
Yes, absolutely. Also worthwhile to note that it's based on Thomas Schelling's model of segregation: http://nifty.stanford.edu/2014/mccown-schelling-model-segreg...
Re: Fireflies
#28I did the same thing a few years ago! My fireflies didn't move around though.
Re: Fireflies
#29Nature's PLL.
Re: Fireflies
#30Is there some inverse of the firefly's sync protocol that if they all followed would turn a synchronized swarm back into a chaotic one?
In real fireflies, the individual clocks have slightly different frequencies. The inverse of the protocol is no protocol: stop syncing and let the blinks slowly fall back into chaos.