DaliLab Inc (short for Distributed Artificial Life) has started Daliworld.net, a virtual internet fishtank. Like Napster, this takes advantage of connected nodes of computers, but instead of sharing files, you're sharing fascinating, realistic fish in a reef enviroment.

Unlike the average screensaver, the programmers of Dali have tried to create an artifical ocean enviroment, where fish can swim as they please across the internet, living, dieing and multiplying like real fish. There is even code set in for further generations' evolution and adaptation to avoid preditors and to find better places to swim.

True, it doesn't take a lot of smarts to be a fish, but this is another example of the vast changes in processing power in computers.
To download DaliWorld's fish program, go to the DaliWorld website

From NPR's Morning Edition. From this, we learn two things: 1) society often reacts badly to nonconformity, and 2) don't wear your fursuit in the streets of Almaty. :)



"Host Alex Chadwick talks to a Central Asian human rights monitor about the Kazahkstan government's arrest of people with "bohemian" lifestyles. That includes those who dress up like Hobbits, the gnome-like creatures from the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy books. The interviewee is Saule Muthametrakhimova, an editor for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting."

At the recent RoboCup, Sony's AIBOs played soccer. Sort of a more civilized version of the Robot Wars program on TV. It's worth going to MSNBC just to see the pictures of the dogs splayed on the playing field. Anthropomorphics in its most literal form!

Despite the seriousness of the topic of protecting what little Florida wetland remains, I had to get several chuckles out of this spoof in The Onion:

Endangered Manatee Struggles to Make Self Understood to Congress

CBS News reports that a 1500-lb bull moose decided to beat the heat by hopping into a Spokane family's back yard pool. Although the pool owner was startled, he did manage to snap a photo before the moose exited the pool and hopped over the fence to leave, presumably refreshed. You can see the photo here.