Reddit reviews Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Complex Adaptive Systems)
We found 3 Reddit comments about Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Complex Adaptive Systems). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Not sure where you got that 10-25% bit. Care to give references? There are a really large class of computations (including protein folding and quantum physics) that are done well in Java.
Most network simulations are run on ns2, which uses TCL. Java is used a lot in these problem domains and JIST is far faster and easier to use.
See also ptolemy, another nicely written hybrid simulation framework written in java.
See starlogo. It's very nicely done and the framework's written in Java. It is a companion to Mitch Resnick's excellent book "Turtles, Termites and Traffic Jams"
that shows how simple simulations can yield lovely insights.
Responding publicly to: "Any recommendations for stuff to read about agent based modeling?"
One of the best resources for agent based modeling is the modeling tool, NetLogo. It's developed by Northwestern:
https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/
It has TONS of sample models in quite a few different disciplines to see how things work.
Railsback and Grimm have a nice textbook style book on agent based modeling (http://www.amazon.com/Agent-Based-Individual-Based-Modeling-Practical-Introduction/dp/0691136742)
Mitchel and Resnick have a smaller book focused on the concepts of ABM called Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams. (http://www.amazon.com/Turtles-Termites-Traffic-Jams-Explorations/dp/0262680939)
Lastly Growing Artificial Societies by Epstien (http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Artificial-Societies-Science-Adaptive/dp/0262550253). He developed generative models of economics using an environment he called "Sugarscape".
Another popular modeling system is Repast (written by people at Argonne National Labs) but I think it's not as easy for the non-programmer to get started with. If you happen to be near University of Oregon, they are having a complexity conference later this month that features a day-long seminar on Repast taught by some guys from Argonne.
http://calendar.uoregon.edu/event/exploring_complexity
Not a new idea:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Turtles-Termites-Traffic-Jams-Explorations/dp/0262680939
Edit: the experiments were very good