Breve is Way Cool[1]

Breve[2] can turn water into wine, and sugar into cocaine[3]. It can walk on the water, and swim on the land. Or it could learn to, if you set up the appropriate Karl Sims[4] style simulation and let it run long enough.

I think it's been too long since I checked up on the artificial life crowd. It seems pretty obvious that many existing commercial systems are already being developed through a very inefficient form of simulated evolution (hack on it for a while, push it into production, see what users think, rinse, repeat). Automating the process might not be a bad idea.

One of the neat things about Karl Sims' work was that his simulated worlds had physics realistic enough to support unexpected behavior. I wonder if Breve's physics is good enough? I suspect so, but I haven't taken the time to try it out. The "Users" section of the Breve site has some interesting links along those lines, I think I'll check them out.

[1] Yes, this is a repost. So sue me.
[2] http://www.spiderland.org/breve/
[3] With apologies to King Missile. Here, go buy something.
[4] Karl Sims is way cool. http://www.genarts.com/karl/