Matt McInerney

Chance is an interactive series I’ve been working on for a Multimedia Design class at SCAD for the past few weeks. It consists of three flash applications that all deal with random chance in some way. You can click through above to interact with the pieces. Below I’ve pasted the description of each piece.

The Evolution Machine is a very simple simulation of the process of evolution. DNA is represented by a simple integer generated at random. That DNA can be bred by selecting a mate and hitting “Reproduce.” The offspring will be generated as an average of the two DNA strands, but with the random possibility of genetic mutation. Once a child is born, the child becomes the parent in the next generation by hitting the “Next Generation” button. This process can be repeated infinitely. All the circular creatures are generated dynamically based entirely on the DNA integer. If you’d like the see the evolution of your species, you click the “Show Evolution” button the top right.

Chances of Death in America takes the popular minesweeper game and turns it into a simulation of actual probability of death in America. Every time a player clicks a square, they risk clicking on a cause of death, based on actual 2002 statistics. The player can choose to click on the squares very quickly and die of one of the hidden causes, commit suicide with a button in the bottom right, or just wait for their life to run out as the years (seconds) tick away.

The Infinite Monkey Generator is a simulation of the infinite monkey theorem. The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. The generator allows the user to plug in a line of Shakespeare, or any word(s) they’d like, and watch as random strings of letters are generated. The application continues to generate a series of completely random letters until the user’s selected word has been stumbled upon, at which point the application will stop and let the user know the word has been found. Note: if you select a high speed it may slow down your machine. words longer than 4 letters long can take a very long time to generate randomly.