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The Miocene, the right teeth for the right job Today we chat about the Miocene. During this epoch, kelp forest spread along the shoreline, creating habitat for otters and pinnipeds. The climate cooled and forest gave way to open grassland. Those grazing animals without the right kind of teeth died out, and the early apes …
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The Oligocene, getting cold and growing huge Today we talk about the Oligocene epoch, when the climate cooled and forest gave way to areas of open land. Grass spread beyond the lake shores and river sides where it had been living, and began to spread across the landscape. Many animal types changed their bodies to …
I spent a couple of weeks testing a notion I had. I’m not going to bother explaining—it would take too long for something that I’m not going to use. So far as I can tell, what I did to try and increase the system’s stability made it even more fragile. For example, with the usual …
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The Eocene, giant birds and proto-herds We cover the Eocene epoch, including early horses that lived in forests, but didn’t climb trees. We also had early forms of bores, rhinos, whales and primates.
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Why would Paleocene males lay eggs? Today, Phil and I get back to talking about the history of life and evolution, with the Paleocene epoch. During this time the birds spread out and diversify, along with the mammals. We talk about the early versions of the hooved animals and elephants, and a few other creatures. …
Remember six? She’s a small population of the digital creatures I implemented, called “figures.” Six has a population size of 6, thus the name, and no matter how much room there is, no matter what the maximum population size happens to be, she always has a population size of 6 figures. Meanwhile, each figure will …
I’ve been experimenting with mutating some of the populations I had saved. To do such experiments, I had to implement mutation in the first place. I got the first form of mutation implemented on Tuesday night. It had been an interesting and long day, so I climbed into bed, ready to start experimenting in the …
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More rocks After episode 184, phil and I were outside on the porch. We got to chatting about the bits and pieces about geology and rocks that hadn’t fit within the last couple of episodes. So, we setup the equipment, and recorded an episode with no plan or preparation. It came out pretty good, even …
You’d think, after a post like “Perceptions part I” that the next thing I wrote on the subject would be “Perceptions part II.” Those posts, including the one not written, are about sensory substitution and visual qualia, and my experiences over time. Today, I want to talk about today. I pull open my bottom desk …
For once, there are no bugs to report, or fix. There are some utility methods I should add, and the perennial chore of updating the documentation. All that is all well and good, and I’ll get it done well… or good. However, since I can, I spent a few days just playing with the system …