Java, applets, forests and ecologies.

[Ling]

On Fri, 28 Nov 1997, Chris Gray wrote:

> I hate browsers so much that I want my Java client to work as a stand-alone
> application, run with 'java'. I'll likely make an applet version, too. I
> was just reading in a Java book last night that the sound playing stuff
> comes from the Applet library - I hope its useable outside applets!

In my ideal world (never gonna happen), I'd like to have a client of some
sort as well.  Don't care what language it is.  Would be nice to let the
player open several windows, one which displays the current stats of the
team, another with the current map of the Known Universe and a third, a
more traditional window with normal i/o.

Letting the players open three telnet windows for the above purpose is one
of the things I'm doodling around with.

Okay, today's stupid question:  Forests!  How do they start?  I mean,
seriously!  I've always lived in rurban areas, and the forests near me
seem to have been pruned a bit.  Do forests really start off with a wall
of trees?  Does nature define a sharp boundary in Her mysterious ways?

Also, today, I read a really interesting article in the NewScientist about
ecologies and how, sometimes, introducing a creature with better
attributes to a new environment won't necessarily mean the creature will
thrive.  It's all to do with webs, heavy independencies between species
and how it parallels with the business world.  I haven't drawn any
conclusions from it but it seemed interesting at the time and almost
applicable to muds in some ways...

This is it, in my own words:  If your mud ecology/food chain/supply chain
can be corrupted by adding a few entities a few factors more 'powerful'
than the existing ones, then there's something wrong. (that's not what the
article says, that's me being me)

  |    Ling Lo, freshwater fish (cod variant)     Another 'Screemer!
_O_O_  EEE, Loughborough University, England    My baby only cares for me