Talk:Rectifier
Uses
Why don`t I ever see this OR the boojum reflector in patterns? Why do I always see two pentadecthalons or a figure eight, a boat, and an block? -wwei23 11:58AM 10/4/2015 NY time
Population
Population count can be reduced by 4 cells by using tubs instand of snakes in eater
- The reason the snakes are used on the eater 3 is to minimize the bounding box. Minimal bounding boxes are typically considered more important than minimal cell counts when dealing with stable technology.
~Sokwe 13:20, 14 October 2011 (CDT)
Removal of pauses
Regarding this edit, I think pauses are useful. Without pauses, the glider appears out of nowhere and immediately starts moving, which is non-intuitive. I think it's much easier to understand what happens if the patterns stays non-animated for some time. Confocal (talk) 06:43, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
- Could modify the RLE so that the glider starts out outside the visible box, but I'm not sure if the RLE is used anywhere else that could potentially break. --Galoomba (talk) 08:45, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
- One possibility is to not animate the infobox pattern at all (AUTOSTART OFF), and add some additional animated pattern in the text. An example would be a pair of rectifiers forming a loop. Could zoom in on one of two rectifiers and put multiple signals in the loop, so that input gliders continuously come "from outside" and output gliders escape "to outside" (example below). Such pattern should not be in the infobox, because it would be a signal loop rather than a reflector (while the page is about a reflector). But there should be no inconsistencies with showing it in the main text. Confocal (talk) 10:33, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
- Ignoring personal attack in the above reply, the point is that it may be unnecessary/undesirable to animate every pattern. For conduits/converters/reflectors, there's no single obvious way to animate the device without making it non-intuitive in some way. Without pauses, gliders appear out of nowhere and instantly start moving, and likewise disappear into nowhere -- both of these are extremely non-intuitive. Your suggestion to modify the RLE has the problems that (a) the RLE is supposed to show the input glider in the visible area rather than outside, (b) anyway it shouldn't be necessary (and is undesirable) to modify the pattern to be displayed. Confocal (talk) 18:41, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
- > Without pauses, gliders appear out of nowhere and instantly start moving, and likewise disappear into nowhere -- both of these are extremely non-intuitive.
How does adding a pause fix that? The glider still appears out of nowhere and disappears into nowhere, the only part it changes is the "instantly start moving", and I don't see how that's unintuitive, Life patterns evolve after all.> the RLE is supposed to show the input glider in the visible area rather than outside
RLEs don't have a "visible area", that's done by the viewer.> it shouldn't be necessary (and is undesirable) to modify the pattern to be displayed
That's standard for conduits though. And it makes sense - it shows where the input and output is and how the conduit works. --Galoomba (talk) 19:40, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
- > Without pauses, gliders appear out of nowhere and instantly start moving, and likewise disappear into nowhere -- both of these are extremely non-intuitive.
- Pauses alleviate the problem with gliders appearing out of nowhere, precisely because the gliders don't immediately start movement. If I'm about to instantly appear from empty space somewhere on the street, I'd better not immediately walk anywhere, for a few seconds at least. Pauses give time to understand the appearance of the glider because the animation is restarted.
The infobox pattern correctly shows the input glider in the initial position -- without the input glider in visible area, it would be more confusing, not less. Confocal (talk) 19:48, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
- Pauses alleviate the problem with gliders appearing out of nowhere, precisely because the gliders don't immediately start movement. If I'm about to instantly appear from empty space somewhere on the street, I'd better not immediately walk anywhere, for a few seconds at least. Pauses give time to understand the appearance of the glider because the animation is restarted.
Example viewers for above discussion
| (1) Rectifier reflecting a p106 glider stream (click above to open LifeViewer) RLE: here Plaintext: here |