In the world of video games, battling aliens and monsters always involved a sense of survival of the fittest. Now professors from five European universities want to see how such computer characters would evolve in a simulated society. The researchers are developing characters with complex personalities and traits and letting them battle it out in virtual reality to study how societies evolve. The 1,000 simulated characters will have to eat, choose mates, and raise their young, and their genetic traits will either prosper or get wiped out of existence. (NewScientist.com)
20 Responses to Survival of the SIMS
missoularedhead - November 23, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Given all the turkeys this year, it must have been hard to put together this list!
glasspen - November 23, 2011 at 9:53 pm
Excellent list; bumper crop of candidates this year.
Item on UT-Austin tuition fueled a trip down Memory Lane. When I was in law school there, in-state tuition was $4/credit hour…it went up to $6/credit hour (we were outraged). Mandatory fees were a couple hundred more per term. For this vast sum we got, among other things, Mark Yudof (before he was even a dean) teaching “Educational Policy and the Law”. Some would say you get what you pay for; I say it was worth every penny.
Happy Turkey Day.
Guest - November 23, 2011 at 10:32 pm
You write with such style, I almost forget that you’re a contemptible clueless leftist ideologue. I’ll do my own list with Dan Savage, Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton, Joe Biden, and Arianna Huffington in the top ten.
Happy thanksgiving, Claire!!! Rest up from all the work you’ve put into forcing your readers to think.
historiann - November 26, 2011 at 10:53 am
This is terrific. I figured that Kathei would be #1. I agree with you that the question is “how many underlings Katehi is able to throw under the bus before she is persuaded to resign?” She’s toast, but I guess it’s going to take some time before she recgonizes that she cannot govern that campus any longer.
Thanks also for including Charlotte Allen and the link to her description of her talk at Wesleyan. I read the whole column and the 6 comments, which I especially appreciated. One commenter asked how chanting “no mean yes, yes means anal” exemplifies conservative values, and another one asked why these fine young men have to hide behind her skirts.
David Salmanson - November 26, 2011 at 9:44 pm
While I’m in basic agreement about #10, the prosecutor works for Nassau County but the school districts are completely independent of each other. I count 53 completely independent school districts and that’s counting the three Valley Stream districts as one. It’s pretty easy to jack the system when every school is doing it’s own thing.
tenured_radical - November 28, 2011 at 8:38 am
It’s pretty easy to jack the system when the testing companies are profit-driven too, and when the schools themselves have so much at stake in having their students score well. Probably worth adding that this is but one of *many* incidents this year which demonstrate how our overreliance on testing is producing endemic corruption among test-takers and those who monitor the tests.
captain_chronicle - November 28, 2011 at 10:28 am
Hi Claire – a delightful read but could have been stronger if you’d have poked some libs in the eye.
Uh, excuse me miss, but your bias is showing! :-)
tenured_radical - November 28, 2011 at 10:43 am
Do Barack Obama and Arne Duncan count, Miss? More importantly, must sorting all things into the categories of “liberal” and “conservative” be a preoccupation? I have been fascinated by the ways the Penn State folks are read as “conservative” even though I doubt conservatives would agree that accused child molesters and those who shield them are a constituency.
cnathenson - November 28, 2011 at 11:31 am
And let’s add an “honorary turkey” (maybe just some of the choice
leftovers?) to the Chronicle, for its prudish editing of words as common
as “tit.” This is a website with content that is of little interest to
minors, who in any case would know what “f^ck” stands for. How about we
all just agree that we are grown ups who use grown up words?
tisha - November 28, 2011 at 1:01 pm
However meritorious the objects of ridicule might be, it’s disheartening to read something in the Chronicle with so many obvious grammatical errors.
geochaucer - November 28, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Didn’t see a one of them, Tisha, and I’ve been an English professor for 30 years. I’m not saying there mightn’t be some in the piece, but one has to be fairly inclined to notice them. You might find Joseph Williams’ classic article “The Phenomenology of Error” interesting in this regard.
tenured_radical - November 28, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Thanks @geochaucer — and @trisha, we bloggers work without copy editors or proofreaders, and we work fast. Welcome to the blogosphere, a land of error, mashup and rude commentary. For heaven’s sakes, Mrs. Lincoln — how was the play?
tenured_radical - November 28, 2011 at 6:57 pm
It’s not the Chron who does that — it’s me. Mashup language is common to the blogosphere, and often used to call attention to the word, not censor it. I think perhaps the Chron readership is not so familiar w/ bloggery as it is practiced “out there” but keep reading and you wlll be.
minnesotan - November 28, 2011 at 9:55 pm
This all seems kind of petty. I think you’ve missed the entire point of the holiday, when we (of all people!) should be giving thanks for the privileged positions we occupy.
tenured_radical - November 29, 2011 at 9:02 am
Is celebrating the conquest of North America really more important than addressing key questions in education policy and public life? Discuss.
minnesotan - November 29, 2011 at 10:33 pm
That’s really what you think the holiday is about? Celebrating conquest? I think your perspective is terribly skewed. You seem to be a very negative, angry person.
I pity you.
tenured_radical - November 29, 2011 at 11:03 pm
Get a grip. It’s a blog, not Jerry Springer.
lairdwilcox - November 30, 2011 at 2:26 am
I’m not seeing anything particularly funny about this and I’m wondering why it appears in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Other places, maybe.
tenured_radical - November 30, 2011 at 8:26 am
Well I don’t see anything particularly relevant about your comment, and yet, here it is in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Why not try to respond to the real issues raised in the post, or move on to another blog to leave trenchant comments like this one?
Prof_truthteller - December 4, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Thank you this is hilarious. Sometimes there’s so much sh!t going on you just have to laugh to keep from crying. I appreciate all your great comebacks on the comments, too.
However, I disagree on Katehi- I think they’ll keep her- or- she’ll move on to a (even higher paying) consultancy or lobbying gig.