What is breve?

From the official website[1]:

breve is a free, open-source software package which makes it easy to build 3D simulations of multi-agent systems and artificial life. Users define the behaviors of agents in a 3D world and observe how they interact. breve includes physical simulation and collision detection so you can simulate realistic creatures, and an OpenGL display engine so you can visualize your simulated worlds.

breve is available for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows...

Name Pronunciation and Origins

In the context of this simulation package, the name breve is pronounced as "breh-vay" and not "breev" nor "breh-v".

The pronunciation of "breh-vay" is associated with a milk-based espresso using steamed half-and-half instead of milk[2], whereas "breh-v" or "breev" (among other definitions) is a written or printed mark that looks like a bird, indicating a short or unstressed vowel[3].

Note: Although it is a proper noun, the name is written in all lowercase (as specified by the software package's creator, Jon Klein).

The forum post submitted by Jon Klein on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 in reply to the topic thread "offtopic@jon: breve name?"[4]:

The name breve comes from the name of a coffee drink made with espresso and cream. The original word breve does mean "short" and comes from Italian.

To be honest, I don't know how the Italians pronounce it, but the English pronunciation of the particular coffee drink is "brev-ay".

- jon

References:
[1] http://www.spiderland.org/, as visited on 2006 October 14
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_preparation, as visited on 2006 October 14
[3] New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd Edition
[4] http://www.spiderland.org/node/3152, as visited on 2006 October 14

breveCluster Project • Document prepared by Brian Krent (bkrent@nmu.edu)