More stats weirdness

[willy1]

I have one island running - on one PC. I started it up this morning.

Now, in the 'Current best individual ranking' page that also shows the topology map, I am shown as having two islands - one at 8,10 and the other at -2,-10 . Whichever link I click on takes me to the stats for the island at 8,10 , but the java gui on my PC shows the neighbors for the -2,-10 position.

What's happening?

[rshepard]

If I understand it correctly, the client gets a new position everytime you connect. The island you first connected with is the one at 8,10; and it is the one associted with the stats display you get when you click on the link. This will not change until the server is reset. The other island at -2,-10 is the "live position, and is reflected in the java GUI. If you reconnect the client again, you would get another position.

[willy1]

I would possibly believe that, but I'm always connected via DSL. There was no disconnect since that session was started, and the client was not stopped and restarted..

So you're saying that if I stop and start the client, I'm going to end up in a different place in the topology each time, with new neighbors? What does that do to the GA?

[michaelgarvie]

rshepard is correct. one position per connection avoids problems with multiple islands with same name. this does not harm evolution.

[willy1]

But wouldn't that leave a whole bunch of islands that are stagnant? If you can't start working again on the same island in the same location it will never improve.

[Stephen_B]

It might make sense if your island #2 would drop out at the next connection.

[michaelgarvie]

Abandoned islands still give out their emigrants to other islands. This means their genetic information is shared. They don't evolve themselves, but this doesn't matter because the new ones are evolving. New ones are not evolving from scratch since they receive fit immigrants from other islands such as stagnant ones. What will happen is that the newest islands will be on the outer layers of the topology receiving ancient immigrants from the inner layers. So if we left the server up for a while we'd see the topology map light in the middle and getting darker towards the edges. Viewed as a whole nothing is lost since old individuals just migrate to new islands and develop there.

When the server is restarted, each connection gets allocated a previously existing island.