Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Web Fungus, Eric Matthews May 1996

Web Fungus, Eric Matthews

SWITCH

This article explains the difference between digital worms, digital virus, and a fungus in the digital realm. A virus tends to be malicious towards our machines and replicates itself just like how it does in our real counterpart. A worm tends to just keep to itself and mind it's own business in a sense.The author goes in more depth on the topic of what a digital fungus’ purpose is within the digital realm. Just as fungi tend to branch out and live off of other living things in the physical world, this metaphor is extended into the digital realm. Digital …


The Quest For The Gnarl, Rudy Rucker May 1996

The Quest For The Gnarl, Rudy Rucker

SWITCH

The article describes some of the author’s own image-generating computer programs that he describes as “gnarly”. He began writing a simple spirograph program based off simple sine wave function called Spiro. Later transitioned into writing with C and better programs using more nonlinear feedback. Where Spiro is based on a simple sine wave function, Vine uses a nested sine function: the sine of the sine. The need for a more complicated computational approach lead to iteration and parallelism. Julgnarl uses Iteration and Calife uses parallelism. Calife shows one-dimensional cellular automata: spaces in which virtual computers are lined up like beads …


Rudy Rucker's Spirograph, Rudy Rucker May 1996

Rudy Rucker's Spirograph, Rudy Rucker

SWITCH

This article showcases the main aspects of how this spirograph was to be used. The spirograph is part of Rudy Rucker’s quest for the gnarl. The main page shows how to download this spirograph and how to utilize the program to its full potential.


Gnarly Rantings About The Hacker And The Ants, Rudy Rucker May 1996

Gnarly Rantings About The Hacker And The Ants, Rudy Rucker

SWITCH

The article is an excerpt from Rucker’s book “The Happy Mutant”. It begins with his reflection of his career with GoMotion. He discusses the relation that he saw between design and cyberspace. Later he discusses his experience with a game a colleague found on the net: a virtual world where player is an ant. He talks about the struggles he goes through in this virtual world because of game difficulty and poor visuals. He ties it all in with how the Silicon Valley works in a similar way, and is filled with hackers and programers all needing each other to …