Famous Quotes

[haaaaaands]

that is, unless you're dvgrn (jk)

ok self insert but ehh it's true

EVERYTHING that

dvgrn posts is valuable and on topic

probably the most helpful guy in the community...

I try to read them all...

the important part was the thing in bold tho

[d/dx]

Dynamite !

that soup shud [sic] get the Nobel Prize

[confocaloid]

"partly"

[...] Its name is due in part to the fact that it is glide symmetric; [...]

[...] The term "transition" for this combination of information -- i.e., current condition ''and'' future cell state -- may have originated partly from the longer term "[[transition rule]]", [...]

/newtopic

[...] The community's collective understanding of NFT mechanisms may be unfortunately simplistic and limited. But on the other hand they may be seeing some things very clearly, such as that it's a non-zero amount of effort to organize, maintain, pay attention to, and "hype" these things. It would in fact be a big commitment, and a change of focus in the community. [...]

[...] The trouble with the "open-source, closed-source war" is that if it happens, it will instantly have a terrible dampening effect on the atmosphere of collaboration that is now a fifty-year tradition. Let's say someone finds a collection of four Spartan still lifes that happens to be a color-changing glider reflector -- but decides to keep it closed source until sufficient "monetization" happens.

A discovery like that would normally mean updates to the gun collection, to slsparse, to various smallest-oscillator and SKOP collections, Pattern of the Year nominations, etc. But people do those kinds of stamp-collection updates and statistics-keeping for fun, as a community. [...]

[...] CGoL as a mathematical recreation has been going strong for half a century now -- but Proprietaria really seems quite capable of killing it off, at absolutely no net benefit to anyone.

[confocaloid]

[...]

bit condescending tbh, I appreciate the links and I'll look into it more, but I don't quite get what you are suggesting here. The "signal processing pattern" did arise naturally...

The code you attached also didn't bare any resemblance to what I generated fyi. They weren't kidding when they said this community isn't very welcoming to amateurs lool.

Yeah, unfortunately the process of sharing interesting discoveries can be quite rough for newcomers. For example, they have no way of knowing that a thread like Miscellaneous Discoveries in Other Cellular Automata even exists, let alone the correct context for those threads or when to make a new thread entirely. I wouldn't be surprised by a reputation of being unwelcoming.

Having concepts like "circuitry" or "signal processing pattern" brought up can be very unappealing, when they are unnecessary to understand or enjoy cellular automata.

All I can suggest is try to spend some time looking at the more popular threads if you want to get more familiar with way we do things. Hopefully something can be done to make these forums more newcomer friendly in the future.

edit:

Let's make things confusing, shall we?

Code: Select all

x = 73, y = 26, rule = LifeHistory
11.2A54.2A$12.A55.A$10.A55.A$10.5A51.5A$14.A55.A$10.2A54.2A$9.A.A53.A
.A$9.2A54.2A$13.2A54.2A$13.A.A53.A.A$.2D12.A39.2D14.A$2D13.2A37.2D15.
2A$.2D52.2D$2.D53.D8$.3C53.3C7.2A$2.C8.2A45.C8.A.A$2.3C6.A46.3C8.A$
12.3A54.2A$14.A!

[...]
Also, I forgot to ask in the topic post, but can someone find a gun for the ship in this rule?

Code: Select all

x = 520, y = 96, rule = B2ei3-cjkr4cejkyz5ci/S2en3-acny4-ntz5-eijk6-e78
33$474bo$475bo$424bo41b2o2b6o$235bo189bo34bo5b5obobo$38b2o135b2o59bo123b
o55b2o2b6o32b2o6bobob5o$37b4o48b2o41b2o40b4o49b2o2b6o124bo48bo5b5obob
o33b13obob2o$36b2ob3o46b4o39b4o38b2ob3o42bo5b5obobo116b2o2b6o46b2o6bo
bob5o32bobobobobobob2ob3o$36b6o45b2ob3o37b2ob3o37b6o40b2o6bobob5o67bo
42bo5b5obobo47b13obob2o33b14obo$36b2ob2o3bo42b6o37b6o37b2ob2o3bo37b13o
bob2o67bo39b2o6bobob5o46bobobobobobob2ob3o34bobobobobobob4o6bo$36b6o45b
2ob2o3bo34b2ob2o3bo34b6o39bobobobobobob2ob3o59b2o2b6o39b13obob2o47b14o
bo34b14obo$36b2ob3o45b6o37b6o37b2ob3o41b14obo53bo5b5obobo39bobobobobo
bob2ob3o48bobobobobobob4o6bo26b2obobobobob2ob3o$37b4o46b2ob3o37b2ob3o
38b4o42bobobobobobob4o6bo44b2o6bobob5o41b14obo48b14obo34b12obob2o$38b
2o48b4o39b4o40b2o43b14obo51b13obob2o40bobobobobobob4o6bo40b2obobobobo
b2ob3o41bobob5o$89b2o41b2o85b2obobobobob2ob3o50bobobobobobob2ob3o41b14o
bo48b12obob2o40b5obobo$220b12obob2o51b14obo40b2obobobobob2ob3o55bobob
5o41b2o2b6o$227bobob5o52bobobobobobob4o6bo34b12obob2o54b5obobo50bo$227b
5obobo52b14obo48bobob5o55b2o2b6o48bo$186b3o38b2o2b6o50b2obobobobob2ob
3o48b5obobo64bo$186bobo2b2o43bo51b12obob2o47b2o2b6o62bo$186b8o41bo59b
obob5o57bo$188bobob2o101b5obobo56bo$187b6o102b2o2b6o$304bo$143b3o157b
o$143bobo2b2o$143b8o164b3o169b3o$145bobob2o164bobo2b2o50b3o62b3o47bob
o2b2o$144b6o165b8o49bobo2b2o58bobo2b2o43b8o$100b3o214bobob2o49b8o57b8o
44bobob2o$100bobo2b2o209b6o52bobob2o59bobob2o43b6o$100b8o140b3o122b6o
59b6o$49b3o50bobob2o140bobo2b2o$49bobo2b2o45b6o141b8o$49b8o193bobob2o
$51bobob2o192b6o$50b6o!

The ship looks like a firing gun to me so I have called it gun, and I want to be able to say the rule has a gun gun

[tommyaweosme]

Yeah, now it's really famous quote. (don't forget that tommy allows us to quote his posts here no matter what)

(Now "me" refers to b-engine)
Them: How? Why it doesn't works?
Me: *Lots of expert-like-mediocre-like explanation*
Them: How about shorten it?
Me: 3WSS becomes 2 ship ties as constellation "fleet". However it's possible to add fishhooks to turn it into a p8 oscillator.
Them: like this?

Code: Select all

x = 12, y = 7, rule = B3/S23
9b3o$obo6bobo$3bo5b3o$o2bo6bo$b3o6bo$8bobo$8b3o!

Me & tommy: still wrong! *laugh hyper-hyper-sterically*

no after the owss i explain that the spark is 3-long, which summons a blinker and therefore kills the owss.

[confocaloid]

Periodic glider thingies

with the name change, it has the wrong number of syllables, so removed entirely

frequency class tutorial: log2(2.03e15/51083) = 35.2 to one decimal place, where 2.03e15 is the number of blocks in C1

[Citation needed]

ColorfulGalaxy is not able to access Wikipedia currently, but things may change a few weeks later. (citation needed) ColorfulGalaxy is now busy with moving house.

.

Yes it's pareidolia, "the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one detects an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none." However, it really did leap out at me.

This thread on the "Le Saviez-vous" website may be related. The link was provided by a bot.

[confocaloid]

With all due respect, I don't think it's really our place to be making polls like this... these options seem like they're just things you came up with and foisted on the community without discussing anything first, whereas ideally we would need a clear consensus among both moderators and a large subset of normal users on what the options for voting would be if we were to have any kind of vote on this, which again would need moderator consensus and support from a large subset of normal users as something that would even be a good idea in the first place.

Honestly, these threads are themselves in so many ways a reflection of the "sandbox mentality" that has happened to this forum recently in my opinion: When I first joined, creating a new thread was something people would usually only do in rare circumstances, and it was often a big deal. When the Sandbox opened up people initially followed the spirit of that unwritten rule — which was that people should only create new threads if they thought the subject of the new thread would be important or sufficiently interesting to people and not fit somewhere else, or if they thought it fulfilled a useful role that other people would also see a need for. A lot of the early threads in the Sandbox that have still been active recently (like Absolutely Useless Patterns and even Random Posts) did follow that even if they don't superficially seem like it: they were places that served to attract the "noise" away from the diminishing signal-to-noise ratio elsewhere in the forums. I do partly disagree with Random Posts being locked, since I feel like it has the potential to continue to divert noisy posts away from other more "signal"-rich threads in the Sandbox and elsewhere... That aside, the problem has always been that new users have been more likely to post new topics than established users, since unless they've been lurking for a while they haven't learned that piece of forum etiquette — and once they encountered the Sandbox, where they didn't need to worry about moderators merging, locking, or deleting redundant, pointless, or unnecessary threads, and where established users were more lax about diverting them to what would have been the appropriate threads, the "don't make new threads unless you have a good reason" unwritten rule essentially disappeared in the Sandbox — and then started to erode outside it. (I don't think the Sandbox is 100% responsible for the shift elsewhere, since I could definitely pin part of the blame on the structure of the OCA forum not being well-suited to exploring thousands of different INT rules at once rather than tens to hundreds of outer-totalistic, generations, etc. rules at once like before INT rules came into the vogue, or simply on the somewhat increasing activity and popularity of the forums over the past few years... But I think it's clear it's been a large part of the cause.)

Whatever the cause, what's happened is that people don't think as carefully about whether their new thread — or by extension whatever they have to say in their new thread, or even in normal posts (even though thread-making etiquette is a large driver of the change in mentality imo it's not the only area where the changes have happened) — is worthwhile, appropriate to the forums, or will be welcomed by the community. At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon at the ripe old age of twenty, it seems like users now seem to think they can ask people to do whatever they want to, direct people's attention to whatever they want to, and take authority over whatever they want to, without being questioned in it, especially when starting new threads, and it's diminishing the quality of the forums greatly... I hope it doesn't feel like I'm calling you out, I understand you want to help, but I don't think polls like this help anything — in fact, if it was up to me I would disallow user-created polls entirely, but again obviously that would be something requiring moderator and to a lesser extent community consensus to implement. I do think some of the proposals you give deserve consideration — I like that you identify people creating new threads as the problem, but I'm not sure it's a question of whether they're CA related or not, because a lot of the same problems have happened intermittently in the OCA forum and even Patterns to a lesser extent with the proliferation of minimally distinct conduit threads that seem to exist just because someone wanted an excuse to make a new thread. I definitely feel like somehow the standards for making threads need to change but I don't know if any of the rules changes you propose would do that, or if it's a rules change rather than simply community awareness of the problem that would be the best solution... Anyway, those are my thoughts, for what they're worth.

[confocaloid]

"prd twnt-fr pnkr blffr", I guess

N gsss th sgntr. Whn th gt t rght, th pst nw sgntr.

[d/dx]

most of the code already exists, though admittedly it's my code so it's fairly terrible

not sure if allowed to quote him here.

[Citation needed]

I've sent a private message to otismo about this being a completely inappropriate topic even for the Sandbox.

Based on some discussion with otismo, this thread will be removed by mid-October.

I would like to thank you for closing that thread with misleading title.

[confocaloid]

[...]
21. tommyaweosme may add new rules at any time
22. tommyaweosme is too busy policing the game that he cannot play himself
23. if tommyaweosme decides to show up, however, he will be the beehive
[...]

I AM CREATOR!!!. [...]

edit 1: self-describing post:

you are taking up too much space and [...] [...]

Code: Select all

x = 550, y = 507, rule = B3/S23Super
...
(a large 550-by-507 multistate pattern omitted due to taking up too much space)

[Haycat2009]

There has been no reply for a while. Can we safely declare consensus?

"Declare"? Yes.
"Safely"? No.
Consensus requires discussion. Discussion requires time. Weeks, months, sometimes even years.
Sometimes people who could contribute to the discussion about a certain topic are not here yet. Some people are currently inactive.

If the discussion doesn't remain open for any future comments / feedback / corrections / etc., then there's no possibility of consensus to begin with.

In many relatively recent disagreements, there was very little actual discussion about the matter. (Although there were many tangential distractions, loosely relevant comments, etc.)

Safety vs Passion

[confocaloid]

(from "The Past and Future of CGOL")

[...]
Speaking of which, Alan Hensel's 1994 decimal counter was considered to be a fairly impressive piece of p46 circuitry, when it came out in 1994. It was one of those patterns that got "showed off" a lot -- look what Life patterns can do now! Alan posted the pattern originally with just the note "Say, this is fun!" -- and got this reply from Bill Gosper

> Say, this is fun!
>
> x = 851, y = 520 ...

Get medical help. Often, there is a simple, organic cause.
Your friends and family will understand. If not, you can be
fitted with a special, padded keyboard.

[Banananananan]

So I have none?

[Haycat2009]

Just a question: Why is this topic so controversal?

It's complicated.

Some people find the idea of NFTs based on CGoL patterns to be harmless, maybe entertaining, maybe even a useful way to make interesting CGoL discoveries visible to a wider audience. Some people have wondered whether NFTs might be a way to encourage more people to put more resources into making new CGoL discoveries.

However, other people think that these hypothesized positive effects are highly unlikely to work out well in practice, and that the negative aspects of widespread attention to NFTs in the CA community would most likely far outweigh any theoretical benefits.

When one set of people thinks they should have the freedom to do something harmless/fun/lucrative, and another set of people is deeply worried that the "something" won't in fact turn out to be either harmless, fun, or lucrative... well, that certainly sets the stage for a little bit of controversy!

Some background
In the history of CA research, only a very few patterns have ever had a copyright notice included in them, and only a very few intellectual-property lawsuits have ever been filed about CA topics -- possibly exactly one (?). For the most part, the CA research community is a place where nobody has to worry about lawyers showing up and telling them not to do things, issuing takedown notices or cease-and-desist orders, arguing whether such-and-such is "fair use" or not, etc., etc.

The absence of legal complications is a really, really nice feature of the community. Hobbies involving things like music, images, video, or software are absolute minefields by comparison, with a lot of legal ugliness lurking in the corners and seriously disrupting the lives of occasional unsuspecting bystanders, more or less at random -- it's called the "justice system", but in situations like this there's not necessarily any justice in who ends up getting sideswiped by a lawsuit and losing years of their lives and/or many thousands of dollars to the legal system.

Like other "mathematical facts" (again, with rare unfortunate exceptions) CA patterns are considered to be instantly in the public domain the moment they're created -- nothing to sue anybody about or try to trademark or copyright or take out a patent on.

... Relevant? Not clear ...
Given all this background, there's some concern that the existence of popular CGoL NFTs, or other CA-related NFTs, might accidentally introduce various types of legal headaches and arguments about ownership into the community. True, an NFT owner would own only the NFT, not the pattern from which it was made. But some people are deeply skeptical about doing anything that encourages even that level of ownership -- just on the grounds that it seems like a significant step in a scary direction.

We do collectively pay a lot of attention to attributing discoveries to the right discoverers, but there's no money involved -- nothing that would be likely to get anyone interested in passing laws or enforcing any complicated international intellectual-property agreements ... and nothing that would encourage advertisers to start targeting the community with marketing campaigns.

-- Full disclosure, I certainly count myself among the group that would really rather not deal with any more advertising spam, let alone any legal disputes!

NFTS vs the world

[confocaloid]

As a semi-involved semi-observer, I think these discussions share several common properties. Probably these properties can be checked before deciding whether or not you want to get involved.

People are talking past each other, with the likelihood of two randomly chosen participants being "on the same page" decreasing over time.

Attempts to make sure that everyone is "on the same page" often fail, with explanations flooded/buried in mostly-nonproductive chitchat.

Some people are attempting (and predictably failing) to give summaries of positions/opinions of other people.
Often, such "summaries" turn out to be incorrect (turn out to be misrepresentations).
Sometimes, such attempts to give summaries are premature, while the discussion is still in progress.

There are cases of people getting "burned out" and apparently "backflipping to the other side", not necessarily because their personal opinion/position on the issue changed.

For the commercial-license idea I can make a much stronger statement: I will retire permanently from the field of CGoL research before paying any money for one of these hypothetical Proprietarian patterns. I believe that doing that would be setting a terrible precedent, so as a matter of principle I won't do it.

So if for example I build universally directional spaceship of any valid speed - and sell it on Etsy per each download, you will retire from CGOL?

What I wrote was written very carefully, and you have not summarized it correctly. You are free to try to sell an omnidirectional spaceship pattern on Etsy if you want. I would strongly advise you not to attempt this, since it seems nearly certain that you won't see any kind of positive outcome -- but I'm not demanding anything. I wouldn't necessarily quit the CGoL field because of that.

However, I would give up on CGoL before I would consider "buying the rights" to any such pattern myself. Not being able to tinker and improve on a pattern would be annoying, but buying the rights and then being unable to share anything (improvements, observations, generator scripts, etc.) with my fellow Enthusians would be much, much worse.

My statement was in response to a "guess" of yours that I might actually, if it came down to it, buy some NFTs or otherwise participate in one of your hypothetical patterns-for-cash systems. Once again, I'm not speaking for anyone else, and I'm not telling anyone else what to do, but I personally will not be participating.

CA patterns are mathematical entities, not property. "Buying the rights" to CA patterns would mean pretending that there are property rights attached to them. This would set a very dangerous precedent, and would be a serious violation one of the key points of trust that helps to hold the current CA community together: "don't make something fun into something horribly painfully complicated by getting the lawyers involved". In the history of CA research, to my knowledge, only Stephen Wolfram has ever been silly enough to violate that rule.

The addition of property-rights negotiations to CGoL research would be extraordinarily irritating and depressing to me personally, so I would avoid it like the plague. If I had to worry about it very much -- "let's see, can I safely build a different, simpler design of omnidirectional spaceship than simsim314's, or will he think that I've copied some part of the mechanism that I've actually re-invented, that he thinks is his intellectual property, so he'll sue me and lose all of his money paying lawyers while wasting a year of my life?" -- I would very likely become too depressed and distracted to get anything useful done in the CGoL field... and that is why I would retire. Life is hard enough as it is.

Dave included in the list of great creators that should get payed for their effort, as far as I'm concerned.

I've requested this before, but I'll ask again in a different way: please, please do not include me in your mental list of people who might eventually be benefited by your plan in the long run. For the reasons I've described above, the odds are very heavily against my seeing any benefit from Proprietarianism, whether it succeeds or fails.

Everyone who has responded to your comments seems to believe that an eventual failure of Proprietarianism is much more likely, if not a virtual certainty. Without more participants, can your funding model possibly have a shadow of a hope of working? Please consider, where exactly are you going to get the additional recruits you've postulated, who will join you in this quixotic Proprietarian venture and produce irresistibly amazing patterns that they will then sell downloads of, while guarding them forever against copyright infringement by suing everyone who doesn't pay for them? Please ask those specific people that you're thinking of if they will, in fact, consider becoming CGoL-pattern Proprietarians under any circumstances -- and please listen to what they have to say.

[hotcrystal0]

It’s here.

I feel like super reactions should do stuff. For example, would instantly charge the recipient's battery to 100%, would boost for 30 minutes, would gift Nitro for 30 minutes, 🪙 could be given in non-integer increments and would give money, would give the recipient access to special events, would pin a post for 1 day (even if you're not an admin), etc.

[Haycat2009]

So I have none?

For now?

[Aleph]

Unfortunately, nobody needs to synthesize the p40 moose honey farm hassler.

Fortunately, long moose antlers (xs17_31e88gzc8711) are very valuable on the black market.

Unfortunately, I had to put the apgcode, as this would be mindless non-academic chat if it wasn't.

[confocaloid]

"... had had a better effect on the teacher".

Name this [...]

Square with table and table with block and table with block and table with block and block on long long long long long cap on long long long cap on long cap on table and long long long long long cap on long long long cap on long cap on table with block and long long long long long cap on long long long cap on long cap on table with block and long long long long long cap on long long long cap on long cap on table with block and block.

Name this

Code: Select all

x = 40, y = 40, rule = B3/S23
18bo2bo$18b4o2$18b4o$17bo4bo$17b6o2$17b6o$16bo6bo$16b8o2$16b8o$12b2ob
o8bob2o$12b2ob10ob2o2$12b2ob2obo2bob2ob2o$8b2obobob2ob4ob2obobob2o$4b
2obobobobo12bobobobob2o$2obobobobobobob2ob4ob2obobobobobobob2o$bobobo
bobobobo2bobo2bobo2bobobobobobobo$bobobobobobobo2bobo2bobo2bobobobobo
bobo$2obobobobobobob2ob4ob2obobobobobobob2o$4b2obobobobo12bobobobob2o
$8b2obobob2ob4ob2obobob2o$12b2ob2obo2bob2ob2o2$12b2ob10ob2o$12b2obo8b
ob2o$16b8o2$16b8o$16bo6bo$17b6o2$17b6o$17bo4bo$18b4o2$18b4o$18bo2bo!

Sorry for bump.

[tommyaweosme]

instructructinstructistructististuctistuctistuctuctistuctistuctisuctisuructistuctisurctisurctisurctisurcticticiciticitsurcticitststurcticitstucitstucrcticitstucritstucritucrit

i dare you to pronounce this. anyone.
its harder then synthesizing xs334_0o8go0kc3pq3kc3pq3kc0qmz8o6ik69p6ik69p6ik69p6ik68ozjic59cjic59cjic59cjic59cjiz65objo65objo65objo65objo65zdbgm6gdbgm6gdbgm6gdbgm6gdbzw1kd1qm1cd1qm1cd1qm1c59czx11x3123w3123

[unname4798]

This is my last postin 2024, and I won't be active everuntil 2025. For that, I'll post the last CA simulator I makein 2024 - https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1115503164/, but unfinished - will done that a year afterin 2025, of course.

Bye for now, everyone here. Quote my post, please. It's not that apparent. I'll be active later.

[Citation needed]

Unlikely events happen.
My silence does not imply agreement, nor indifference. If I disagreed with something in the past, then please do not construe my silence as something that could change that.

[Haycat2009]

Created topic: Golly isn't gollying