Re: random-bit-vector network addressing (simulation)

On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 09:56:28 +0200, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> Great stuff, as usual. I wouldn't make all the initial IDs random.
> Reason: you can e.g. set the MAC from a WGS84 GPS position fix
> (about /m^2 Earth surface resolution, IIRC). Ideally, the ID should
> be a real 3d coordinate, of course.

Sure, it might turn out that embedding GPS receivers in every munchkin
is cost-effective, but it also might turn out that it's not.  Right
now they seem to command a considerable price premium, in the tens of
dollars --- about one and a half orders of magnitude greater than the
price for an entire munchkin.  I don't have any idea whether radio
receivers' costs will start to obey Moore's Law, but I don't have
strong reasons for thinking they will.

> I wouldn't also limit this to just direct neighbours, a node can
> sometimes see quite far -- but you'd get other distance metrics,
> such as signal strenght or a relativistic pingpong measurement.

Indeed, I was only starting with a grid and eight neighbors because I
figured that if the approach would work anywhere, it would work there.

While visiting Darius Bacon a couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me
that, at least for a regular two-dimensional grid, an Ising spin glass
simulation (per bit position) is probably the right thing --- it can
evolve arbitarily large domains in relatively few iterations.