Since SL is down yet again, I thought I'd ask what legitimate uses there are for self-replication. I understand that there are many useful reasons to be able to rez *other* types of objects and I use that feature in several of my own creations, but I am having trouble thinking of a legitimate use for being able to rez an exact duplicate that could not be served through other means.
Anyone care to enlighten me?
[EDIT]I AM NOT REFERRING TO GRID ATTACKS, PEOPLE!!! PLEASE QUIT POSTING ABOUT HOW REMOVING THIS FUNCTIONALITY IS WRONG, I'M NOT EVEN SUGGESTING SUCH A THING!!!![/EDIT]
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Is there *any* legitimate use of self-replication? |
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Takuan Daikon
choppy choppy!
Join date: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 305
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10-08-2006 11:18
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Cid Jacobs
Theoretical Meteorologist
Join date: 18 Jul 2004
Posts: 4,304
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10-08-2006 11:35
Flame throwers and A-Life are both good reasons.
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Leena Khan
Lasting Impressionist
Join date: 21 Apr 2004
Posts: 200
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10-08-2006 11:38
Note: Self-replication happens using 2 LSL functions that are extremely useful for other things, like vendors. Its not a simple matter to determine whether its self-replication or a legimate use.
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Joannah Cramer
Registered User
Join date: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 1,539
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10-08-2006 11:43
I understand that there are many useful reasons to be able to rez *other* types of objects and I use that feature in several of my own creations, but I am having trouble thinking of a legitimate use for being able to rez an exact duplicate that could not be served through other means. This in a round-about way answers your own question. Self-replication may or may not have many uses, but trying to prevent it specifically is rather pointless when it can be also done with object A rezzing object B and object B rezzing object A in a loop, where A and B are in fact identical beside maybe the name... etc. |
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Ordinal Malaprop
really very ordinary
Join date: 9 Sep 2005
Posts: 4,607
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10-08-2006 11:51
A-life is the major one for me. But as mentioned above, it doesn't actually matter, because to stop grid attacks you'd have to stop object rezzing - you can't just stop self-replication i.e. objects giving objects to other objects, useful enough as that is anyway. If somebody is prepared to spend an hour putting objects inside of other objects, that's enough levels to create billions of children.
I was explaining the situation on an entry on Clickable Culture recently, if anyone is interested: http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/secureplays_steven_davis_on_recent_second_life_dos_attacks/ _____________________
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Takuan Daikon
choppy choppy!
Join date: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 305
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10-08-2006 11:52
I do not care whether the mechanism that allows it has other uses, I believe that I was quite clear that I know that it does.
I also do not care how difficult it would be to determine whether a specific instance is legitimate. As a fairly experienced professional software developer, I do believe that I have a sufficiently deep understanding of the challenges inherent in making that determination. I was only interested in whether *self* replication had a legitimate use, and had not thought of artificial life simulations, so I believe that I have learned something today  |
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Angel Fluffy
Very Helpful
Join date: 3 Mar 2006
Posts: 810
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10-08-2006 11:55
I can't think of any legit uses for it. Perhaps a sort of 'replicator' object which copies itself 1000 times then, at a certain time, loads info from a notecard, and each piece moves to a pre-defined set of co-ordinates.... to form a structure?
Perhaps a notecard being used in that way, together with an automated replication system to 'auto-build' large objects? Never seen anyone use this, but I've heard it exists and is used by some builders of very large objects. _____________________
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Frans Charming
You only need one Frans
Join date: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 1,847
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10-08-2006 12:00
Fractal buildings.
And like Leena said, the functions used to Self replicate are also the functions used in holo vendors or vehicle vendors that let you test drive, etc. _____________________
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Takuan Daikon
choppy choppy!
Join date: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 305
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10-08-2006 12:03
I think artificial life simulations are an interesting use of replication, since by definition a good a-life algorithm has built-in limits and population control coded in.
I also had not considered how a building system might use it, though I am having trouble visualizing how that might be necessary for such a use. If it was easy to determine legitimate uses of self-replication vs. malicious uses, I would expect such checks to already be in place. It would clearly be in the best interests of Linden Labs to implement it. Interesting thoughts folks, thank you for giving me something to think about other than my frustration at not being able to log in  |
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Takuan Daikon
choppy choppy!
Join date: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 305
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10-08-2006 12:03
Fractal buildings Ooh. Yes, I've seen some of those recently. Quite cool. Even so, self replication is not an absolute requirement for those, as you could have a "controller" which managed the building of such things at a higher level. |
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Takuan Daikon
choppy choppy!
Join date: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 305
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10-08-2006 12:05
And like Leena said, the functions used to Self replicate are also the functions used in holo vendors or vehicle vendors that let you test drive, etc. Yup. I know this. I am sure there will be many more people who point this out, lol. |
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House Market
Registered User
Join date: 10 Sep 2006
Posts: 78
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10-08-2006 12:07
It gives us something to complain about and helps us to keep appreciating the finer things in our wonderful Second Lives.
Just like this annoying post of mine. Seriously though - Self Replication isn't a specific function of LSL. It's just a side effect of a specific function. It's like asking - "Are there any legitimate uses for stabbing people in the eye?" The pencil wasn't designed for stabbing eyes. It's just that some people find it quite useful for that purpose. So it wouldn't really be fair to remove all the pencils from the universe. So there! Draw up your own conclusions from that. (With a nice sharp pencil ) |
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Seifert Surface
Mathematician
Join date: 14 Jun 2005
Posts: 912
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10-08-2006 12:13
Lex Neva's pipemaker builds a pipe from tori and cylinders, and builds itself as it goes along. The furthest most section of the pipe is a copy of the previous one. Now I think about it, I guess it would be possible to mess with the logic of this so that it didn't involve self replication. But yes, A-life is a big example.
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Winter Ventura
Eclectic Randomness
Join date: 18 Jul 2006
Posts: 2,579
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10-08-2006 12:20
One of the best uses I have seen for replication.. is a ball dropper. The object rezzes a small, physical ball, that drops onto the track and does it's physics thing, knocking down dominoes, etc, and when it gets to the bottom, another ball is rezzed at the top.
This same mechanism is also used whenever you push a button on most vendors and the picture changes. The picture isn't changing, the whole box is changing. Box A is derezzing and box B is being rezzed. Unfortunately, every tool has the potential for being abused. _____________________
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Takuan Daikon
choppy choppy!
Join date: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 305
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10-08-2006 12:38
It gives us something to complain about and helps us to keep appreciating the finer things in our wonderful Second Lives. Just like this annoying post of mine. Seriously though - Self Replication isn't a specific function of LSL. It's just a side effect of a specific function. It's like asking - "Are there any legitimate uses for stabbing people in the eye?" The pencil wasn't designed for stabbing eyes. It's just that some people find it quite useful for that purpose. So it wouldn't really be fair to remove all the pencils from the universe. So there! Draw up your own conclusions from that. (With a nice sharp pencil ) Well, I understand your point, I think, but it makes me wonder why so many people seem to draw the conclusion that I am making some statement that it shouldn't be allowed. I made no such statements. So your statement that "it wouldn't be fair to remove all the pencils in the universe" because they *can* be used maliciously is completely meaningless in this context, but thank you. For the purposes of my original question, I really couldn't care less about anything other than whether there are legitimate uses. |
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Seifert Surface
Mathematician
Join date: 14 Jun 2005
Posts: 912
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10-08-2006 13:00
Well, I understand your point, I think, but it makes me wonder why so many people seem to draw the conclusion that I am making some statement that it shouldn't be allowed. I made no such statements. _____________________
-Seifert Surface
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Dr Tardis
Registered User
Join date: 3 Nov 2005
Posts: 426
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10-08-2006 14:09
There are few situations that require self-replication, but they do exist. The most obvious answer (that's been mentioned 4 times on the first page) is experiments with simulated life, also called artifical life or A-Life.
There was a long thread a while back about fish... someone made artificial fish that replicated and grew based on certain environmental conditions. Eventually, a small food chain was developed, with predator fish at the top, grazers in the middle, and the non-life food at the bottom. This project relied on the idea of self-replication: the fish spawned a new fish and then loaded the new fish with a script that desribed the baby fish's characteristics. "Genes" were passed by way of the object description. |
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Deandra Watts
F-Bombardier
Join date: 12 Aug 2006
Posts: 485
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10-08-2006 14:13
Unfortunately, every tool has the potential for being abused. "Tool" being the operative word with self-rezzing objects, lately |
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Takuan Daikon
choppy choppy!
Join date: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 305
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10-08-2006 14:24
There are few situations that require self-replication, but they do exist. The most obvious answer (that's been mentioned 4 times on the first page) is experiments with simulated life, also called artifical life or A-Life. There was a long thread a while back about fish... someone made artificial fish that replicated and grew based on certain environmental conditions. Eventually, a small food chain was developed, with predator fish at the top, grazers in the middle, and the non-life food at the bottom. This project relied on the idea of self-replication: the fish spawned a new fish and then loaded the new fish with a script that desribed the baby fish's characteristics. "Genes" were passed by way of the object description. If I am remembering correctly, I think I actually went to see these fish some time ago. Quite an interesting idea, and well done. I don't recall ever seeing one of the predator fish, but I did see a number of other fish behaving somewhat realistically. Cool stuff. |
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Llauren Mandelbrot
Twenty-Four Weeks Old.
Join date: 26 Apr 2006
Posts: 665
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Surina`s Fish and Other ALife
10-08-2006 14:25
There was a long thread a while back about fish... someone made artificial fish that replicated and grew based on certain environmental conditions. Eventually, a small food chain was developed, with predator fish at the top, grazers in the middle, and the non-life food at the bottom. This project relied on the idea of self-replication: the fish spawned a new fish and then loaded the new fish with a script that desribed the baby fish's characteristics. "Genes" were passed by way of the object description. Related reading: |
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NickCA Dittmann
Registered User
Join date: 19 Jul 2006
Posts: 12
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OK then ...
10-08-2006 15:27
... some sims where A-life creation is permitted, firewalled by inability to take scripted objects out of the sim. A major inconvenience for A-lifers, but what % of the population is into that???
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SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 14,229
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10-08-2006 16:49
Complex behaviour from simple script Broken link. Complex behavior from simple scripts Fixed. There is not a straightforward "llRezMySelf" command, is there? _____________________
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So long to these forums, the vBulletin forums that used to be at forums.secondlife.com. I will miss them. I can be found on the web by searching for "SuezanneC Baskerville", or go to http://www.google.com/profiles/suezanne - http://lindenlab.tribe.net/ created on 11/19/03. Members: Ben, Catherine, Colin, Cory, Dan, Doug, Jim, Philip, Phoenix, Richard, Robin, and Ryan - |
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Hewee Zetkin
Registered User
Join date: 20 Jul 2006
Posts: 2,702
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10-08-2006 16:57
To answer the original question: yes, there are plenty of legitimate uses. Setting up a mainland communications grid for example, where you carefully create a fixed number (probably one) of objects per region to get around the many inter-sim functionality gaps.
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Kyrah Abattoir
cruelty delight
Join date: 4 Jun 2004
Posts: 2,786
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10-08-2006 17:03
i had an idea of a self replicating vendor... but i never built it
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Francis Chung
This sentence no verb.
Join date: 22 Sep 2003
Posts: 918
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10-08-2006 17:07
Self replication is useful. I don't want my existing content to be broken.
I posted a while ago about how self-replication can be limited without affecting current content: /54/90/105838/4.html#post1046031 The crux of the solution is this: Have unlimited self-replication only if either 1) The owner is in the sim 2) The owner has permanent building rights on the current parcel So we can still have self-replication, without having unlimited grid-wide self-replication. _____________________
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