just posted coloredheatbugs-1.3.1

[Paul E. Johnson]

A while back I mentioned I had fiddled heatbugs so the bugs are
colorcoded by their ideal temperature.  There is now a copy at
http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~pauljohn/Swarm/coloredheatbugs-1.3.1.tar.gz

If you set the minimum ideal bug temp to 150 this sim looks really
interesting!

Don't let your browser mangle this by viewing it.  I've done what I
could to force the server to leave gz files alone, but you have to do
your part  (Netscape users: Right click, save link as...).

If you have other interesting fiddles on heatbugs, I would be glad to
know. I am collecting these for teaching and other documentation
purposes to show the power and customizability of Swarm.  On the Simsoc
mail list, there is now a debate going about modeling toolkits and the
argument against Swarm seems to be that it is hard for non programmers
to use.  It seems to me there is some truth in that, but in response I'd
like to justify the Swarm approach by showing its high level of
responsiveness to the individual user's research question.  Hence, any
fiddles on heatbugs would be nice!  Please include a comment in the
README to say what you have done!

In case you wonder what other kinds of things might interest me, off the
top of my head, here are some examples of things I've not yet coded.

1. I wonder how the heatbug sim would run if we gave some of them a
better vision of the field, for example.  Let some of them search in a
larger neighborhood, for example.  Do those bugs end up happier?

2.  What if there are exogenouse bursts of heat in a small section of
the space, or little air conditioning units.  Can a small environmental
change like that have effects that ripple all the way across the
heatspace, possibly changing stable bug patterns or migration.

-- 
Paul E. Johnson                       email: address@hidden
Dept. of Political Science            http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~pauljohn
University of Kansas                  Office: (913) 864-9086
Lawrence, Kansas 66045                FAX: (913) 864-5700

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