*chuckle*
I just realized I read this post...
And didn't understand any of it.
LOL, here is an explanation, from our GECKIES project page. It's written for computer scientists and AI researchers, but I'd like to know how comprehensible or incomprehensible it is to the lay reader, when you have time to skim it.

You can read news about our project on geckies_blog or get the LJ feed of all project members in geckies.

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Banazir

Hmm...I probably shouldn't skim sites like that when I'm so tired. From what I skimmed (I didn't go into any too deep pages), I got the gist of it, I think, but there were still some things that had me confused.
Fair enough, brave anemone.

BTW, I always forget to ask: what animal is that in your icon?
I know the other one has meerkats, but what's this one?

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Banazir

Ferret (afaik).
*smack* Thanks. I knew it looked familiar!

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Banazir

Where the hell did you get a quad Opteron?
Not one. Four. As in 16 procs. (Actually, five, but one is down ATM.)

We have this arrangement in our department where the CS faculty buy dual and quad systems on research grants and toss them into a pool, and an infrastructure committee manages how the clock cycles get divvied up. Modulo our having to meet funding requirements (as in "this is how much processing power they paid for, at the least"), we share.

For instance, I bought two quad Xeon Pentium III-550s when I came here in 1999, and at 1Gb RAM per proc (4Gb per quad) and 1Mb L2 cache (still not quite obsolete), they were about $25K apiece. It's kind of sad how they are just run-of-the-mill Beowulf cluster nodes now, but, well, I got a couple of good years out of them (they were taken out of the cluster and dormant for a bit). Anyway, I have these new 64-bit Opterons to run jobs on now. Shiny. Sparkly. Nice.

And where can I get one? ;)
Are you looking for a grad program in CS? ;-)

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Banazir

... my reply to kaladhwen above, and the papers that are cited and linked on the GECKIES site. The most complete reference on the Keep-Away Soccer (KAS) domain is still Steve Gustafson's thesis, but there's been work by Hsu and Gustafson (2002) and by Stone and Whiteson (2003) that updates this.

There's also a forthcoming paper by Stone and Whiteson in Machine Learning about neuroevolution.

Our most recent work - by Harmon, Rodríguez, Zhong, and Hsu (2004) is a GECCO-2004 poster, and I'm submitting a full-length version to one other conference. The results from the Opterons are going into a 2004 AAAI Fall Symposium that's right in this area.

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Banazir

As a lay person, when I read the link about ADFs, a light popped up in my head. I understood your concept of ISLES on the surface -- it makes perfect sense. There's something I have wanted to develop for quite some time that I think might benefit from me better understanding ADFs.
Good! I'm glad to hear it makes sense.
I'll post links to the papers when they are all out and invite feedback.

I've started writing a post in my journal about the problem I want to solve for work, but it's unfinished. I'm caught up with work today, but will finish it after work. I'd love your advice on the matter.
Sure, I'll read it later.
Is it OK with you if I point the geckies guys at it?
Better yet, feel free to post it to geckies (or request an account on the Wiki and post it there, with a link from your LJ).

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Banazir

Sure! Everyone needs a good laugh now and then. :-D
Oh, I don't know about that.
Feedback is usually good to have, otherwise one is sometimes feeling around in the dark (or bi₄ men₂ zhao₄ ju₁, "building a chariot behind closed doors", i.e., making it up on one's own).

I'll join the community.
Cool.

Please keep in mind, we actually don't post there, though I will read the community - it's really a carrier for the geckies_blog Wiki-to-RSS feed and for our individual journals. I was going to use it for GECKIES announcements, too, but there haven't been a lot of developments on that front because I'm too busy with bayesnets tasks and development on other projects right now.

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Banazir

god.. to have access to that sort of infrastructure..!
Well, it's all zippy when there's only Todd (a full-time research programmer), Jan (one of my M.S. students), and me hogging the procs.

unfortunately, we're limited by a piddly little state budget.
Oh, so are we!
Ignorance is a fire, and poverty its tinder.

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Banazir

"that's nice dear"
Meep! Nyah.

See the edit! The benefits of a rudimentary education in classics!

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Banazir

Oh. My. Gods.
::headdesk::
*nirg* Is "headdesk" a Horsechick thing? Acos I've seen a lot of bktheirregular and elainemc's friends (e.g., havocthecat) using it.

Now, personally I think elainemc was brilliant, but I wonder whether she could have (with a little effort) got her co-worker to phone that question into talk radio...?

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Banazir
(oh, sorry, is my eViol showing?)

Troy is mother to us all! (It's a transgender film!)
::groan::
::nirg::
But so aptly timed for the gay marriage legalizations, see?

*nirg* Is "headdesk" a Horsechick thing?
dunno. I lurk on a few people's LJs who've used it...I think I picked it up from wiliqueen.
Ah, OK. Good show!
(My version of :headdesk: involves falling asleep and pitching forward acos I have only half my wit.)

talk radio...?
ooooh...good thought!
There are people, I'm sure, who know Trojan War primarily as a movie starring Love Hewitt. Scary, but true.

(oh, sorry, is my eViol showing?)
yes.
::covers up::
Trask these stewpit skirts.
Bronze Age, my patootie. (Knot literally!)

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Banazir

yay! Just so long as they're not prophecies that end up driving me insane.
(Highlight to peruse)
The thorn draws blood...

But so aptly timed for the gay marriage legalizations, see?
true.
Meep!

(My version of :headdesk: involves falling asleep and pitching forward acos I have only half my wit.)
I've done that, too. ;)
Did you ever hit?
I never have, which is why my brain is still (more or less) intact.

There are people, I'm sure, who know Trojan War primarily as a movie starring Love Hewitt. Scary, but true.
pass the reglan please....
"Not Ninwë, nor the towers of Trui, nor the many takings of Rûm which is greatest among men..." wrote J.R.R. Tolkien of Nineveh, Ilium, and Rome in The Book of Lost Tales ("The Fall of Gondolin"). I think the question elainemc's colleague merits a few takings of Rûm, myself.

::covers up::
better now.
*innocent look*
Nuffink to see here, people!

Trask these stewpit skirts.
Bronze Age, my patootie. (Knot literally!)
Try wearing philosophers' robes (READ: a bedsheet) while reciting part of the Apology. Or wearing a stola while reciting Virgil...
I wear a stola on occasion.
I hafta wipe up sproglet-spittle with it sometimes, though.
Ruins the mood, is wot.

"You drank what?!"

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Banazir

[Angel S5 finale spoiler]
::g::
Shh! Not 'til tomorrow!
W00t! Raise the multiverse!
(I only just saw the penultimate ep tonight.)

Hey, you know, I could use one of those 6-minute glamours.
Especially when some smarmysmart grad student asks a tough question. :-P

::waits for Wile E. Coyote to follow in pursuit::
Wile E. Coyote is gay? More power to him, but that really brings new meaning to the term "gay-bashing", nesupasu?

Yes, falling asleep while standing. bruised the hell outta my ribs...
Owww!

::opens mouth to make an obvious comment, then closes mouth and simply smirks::
Hayy!

I wear a stola on occasion.
I hafta wipe up sproglet-spittle with it sometimes, though.
Ruins the mood, is wot.
I'd imagine so... ;P
Ah, fashion classics. Or is that classical fashion?

Plus ça change, plus c'est le même trasque...
Or perhaps "metaballon anapauetai" as you would say.

"...but the bottle said `...for Human consumption'..."
"Yes, but the first word was unfit. This is what you get for eating airline food...."
But... but who plays Troy?!
(I can see Aeneas Lightyear in Troy Story 2 now... "to Etrusca... and beyond!")

Hey, did I show you this additional bit of Troy levity?

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Banazir