@pauline and I, along with our friend Matt, were able to join the memorial services at Manzanar this year.
Manzanar is one of ten American concentration camps, where Japanese-Americans were held during WWII. The camp grounds are in California, near the Nevada border. At 4,000 feet, the atmosphere is thin, and the sun is blinding. Standing around, being cooked for hours on end, it was difficult not to imagine oneself on the surface of the moon: the terrain was as desolate as it was beautiful.
Basic models of flocking behavior are controlled by three simple rules: 1) separation: avoid crowding neighbours (short range repulsion); 2) alignment: steer towards average heading of neighbors; 3) cohesion: steer towards average position of neighbors (long range attraction). With these three simple rules, the flock moves in an extremely realistic way.