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by dvgrn
16 minutes ago
Forum: Patterns
Topic: Stable universal regulator
Replies: 36
Views: 33692

Re: Stable universal regulator

Here's the proof of concept for a stable universal regulator using the new L141 conduit: ... A beehive does occur, but it doesn't seem to mess anything up. That's a long way from universal, I'm afraid. You've picked drive gun and test input periods that are both a multiple of 13. If the test glider...
by dvgrn
Today, 12:39 pm
Forum: Patterns
Topic: Still-life 'factories'
Replies: 209
Views: 134808

Re: Still-life 'factories'

AlbertArmStain wrote:
Today, 11:59 am
Block keeper...
It can also be used as a stable universal regulator
How?
by dvgrn
Today, 11:05 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: NewLifeCA discussion thread
Replies: 26
Views: 6505

Re: NewLifeCA discussion thread

It's probably about time for another NewLifeCA issue or two. I intend to write up an issue on the new c/4 diagonal technology soon (especially given today's new discoveries). Before that, there should be an issue covering the various other Life results... I've done a relatively brief email summary ...
by dvgrn
Today, 8:59 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Thread for basic questions
Replies: 4807
Views: 1234247

Re: Thread for basic questions

is there anything stopping me from naming the L141 conduit "Lucy"? I can't think of anything offhand. L141 would be the only H-to-H conduit that has gotten a non-systematic name, though. Speaking for myself... I'm probably not going to want to expend much effort trying to remember that L141 = Lucy....
by dvgrn
Today, 8:20 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Thread for basic questions
Replies: 4807
Views: 1234247

Re: Thread for basic questions

what makes the recently-discovered L141 so interesting? Details can be found here . Long story short, there's a provably universal but very limited toolkit of Spartan Herschel conduits that can be used to build self-constructing patterns -- i.e. circuitry that slsparse can automatically compile int...
by dvgrn
Yesterday, 5:42 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: NewLifeCA Back Issues
Replies: 49
Views: 13033

Re: NewLifeCA Back Issues

NewLifeCA #47, 30 April 2024: catch-up issue for 2024 so far Every now and then, Real Life gets in the way of Conway's Life documentation. Sometimes this happens to such a large extent that it becomes unlikely that NewLifeCA newsletters will ever be able to get properly caught up with current event...
by dvgrn
Yesterday, 12:43 pm
Forum: Patterns
Topic: Thread for your speculative elementary conduits
Replies: 282
Views: 37165

Re: Thread for your speculative elementary conduits

L141... Wow! That's a rare one. There are even a couple of completely Spartan versions, in the oldest sense of "Spartan" -- a sidesnagger works, and/or there's no need to weld the eater to the boat, unless additional clearance is needed for the output. And two of them can be chained together: x = 5...
by dvgrn
April 29th, 2024, 11:22 pm
Forum: LifeWiki Discussion
Topic: LifeWiki Trusted Account Request Thread - Post requests here
Replies: 796
Views: 292542

Re: LifeWiki Trusted Account Request Thread - Post requests here

Haycat2009 wrote:
April 29th, 2024, 9:35 pm
But today is April 30 in my Time zone. Sorry for hassling you or sounding like an unblock request.
No problem! Okay, then, close enough...

(Maybe we're halfway between a 30-day month and a 31-day month now.)
by dvgrn
April 29th, 2024, 11:20 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Thread for basic questions
Replies: 4807
Views: 1234247

Re: Thread for basic questions

tradition or something idk Pretty much exactly that. Those were John Conway's terms, from around 1970 -- it somehow didn't seem quite as weird a choice back then. But 1970 was somewhere around the time when people were only just starting to think that maybe using "he" as a "gender-neutral" indefini...
by dvgrn
April 29th, 2024, 7:56 pm
Forum: LifeWiki Discussion
Topic: LifeWiki Trusted Account Request Thread - Post requests here
Replies: 796
Views: 292542

Re: LifeWiki Trusted Account Request Thread - Post requests here

I think that 1 month (plus 3 days) is over. Do not forget that the block is for one month! Not to worry, I'm keeping a close eye on the date. The tempban, or rather temp-trusted-flag-removal, was on March 30, and tomorrow is April 30. (... That might be a month plus one day depending on how you cal...
by dvgrn
April 29th, 2024, 6:58 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Thread for basic questions
Replies: 4807
Views: 1234247

Re: Thread for basic questions

are these bitmaps built in or do you have to paste them in? There's no need to think of a Python script as a deep dark mystery -- just read it and see what it seems to be doing. You don't really have to know Python to do that. The script currently has a sample pre-defined character map that looks l...
by dvgrn
April 29th, 2024, 4:28 pm
Forum: Website Discussion
Topic: Thread for your website-related questions
Replies: 350
Views: 57209

Re: Thread for your website-related questions

This may be the wrong thread, but how do I contribute to b3s23osc_stdin and Catagolue's gun and guntrue pages? Either this thread or the "Basic questions" thread seems like a reasonable choice -- Catagolue isn't really the conwaylife.com website, but it's linked to in the header anyway! For an over...
by dvgrn
April 29th, 2024, 3:14 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Thread for basic questions
Replies: 4807
Views: 1234247

Re: Thread for basic questions

Can you provide a printer that prints out any ASCII character? I need it for a hypothetical typewriter and the simple “Hello world” program. That linked post has all the tools you need to build a printer like that. You supply the bitmaps of the characters that you want, at the resolution that you w...
by dvgrn
April 27th, 2024, 10:09 am
Forum: LifeWiki Discussion
Topic: Rule definition terminology
Replies: 101
Views: 5168

Re: Rule definition terminology

Here's the writeup I mentioned yesterday, that could be a starting point for a LifeWiki page. Existing uses of "transition" could link to this explanation. Now is not necessarily the right time to add a page like this to the LifeWiki -- I'm happy to continue the discussion as long as there seem to b...
by dvgrn
April 27th, 2024, 8:12 am
Forum: LifeWiki Discussion
Topic: Rule definition terminology
Replies: 101
Views: 5168

Re: Rule definition terminology

I want to see those changes be implemented, and I would support using them in LifeWiki articles in general. Many thanks! Your response and H. H. P. M. P. Cole's are exactly the kind of feedback that I've been asking for, from people who would like to see confocaloid's suggested transition->conditio...
by dvgrn
April 26th, 2024, 10:57 pm
Forum: LifeWiki Discussion
Topic: Rule definition terminology
Replies: 101
Views: 5168

Re: Rule definition terminology

I'm sorry to say this, but I am on confocaloid's side. Why sorry? People agreeing with confocaloid, especially about the proper definition of "transition", is exactly what I've been asking for. It's not quite clear to me yet if the definition of "transition" is what you're agreeing with confocaloid...
by dvgrn
April 26th, 2024, 9:12 pm
Forum: LifeWiki Discussion
Topic: Rule definition terminology
Replies: 101
Views: 5168

Re: Rule definition terminology

The most productive thing to do would be for you to acknowledge that you're a side in this conflict, and undo your edit adding the only redlink to that target. No other changes from you are needed at this point in this debate. I certainly do acknowledge that in some sense I'm "a side in this confli...
by dvgrn
April 26th, 2024, 8:49 pm
Forum: LifeWiki Discussion
Topic: Rule definition terminology
Replies: 101
Views: 5168

Re: Rule definition terminology

...the most productive thing to do remains to wait until someone else , an uninvolved editor, decides to go and fix the actual problems with LifeWiki articles. Um... it's true that there's no particularly huge urgency about settling this issue. On the other hand, I've tried this "most productive" o...
by dvgrn
April 26th, 2024, 8:20 pm
Forum: LifeWiki Discussion
Topic: Rule definition terminology
Replies: 101
Views: 5168

Re: Rule definition terminology

Applying the label "forum jargon" to an idea doesn't disqualify it from consideration. Quite a number of people have now stated that the current use of "transition" on the LifeWiki is perfectly acceptable. No one has yet spoken up to say specifically that they want to see your proposed changes to th...
by dvgrn
April 26th, 2024, 8:10 pm
Forum: LifeWiki Discussion
Topic: Rule definition terminology
Replies: 101
Views: 5168

Re: Rule definition terminology

The word 'transition', as used on these forums, is local forum jargon. It's not a technical term, and doesn't have a single well-defined universal meaning. Different people mean different things in different contexts when they use the word. I don't see any evidence at all of any of these statements...
by dvgrn
April 26th, 2024, 7:52 pm
Forum: LifeWiki Discussion
Topic: Rule definition terminology
Replies: 101
Views: 5168

Re: Rule definition terminology

... confocaloid is completely correct in arguing that LifeWiki articles should be edited for ease of understanding, even if it means replacing "transition" with "condition" wherever it would make the meaning more intuitive. Sure, I can agree completely with that -- nothing wrong with ease of unders...
by dvgrn
April 25th, 2024, 4:07 pm
Forum: LifeWiki Discussion
Topic: Rule definition terminology
Replies: 101
Views: 5168

Re: Rule definition terminology

It cannot be an article about a single well-defined concept, because it's basically forum jargon, rather than a single well-defined universally-understood term. What would you suggest as the content of a "transition" disambiguation page? Of the three definitions you mention, the first two don't see...
by dvgrn
April 25th, 2024, 3:35 pm
Forum: LifeWiki Discussion
Topic: Rule definition terminology
Replies: 101
Views: 5168

Re: Rule definition terminology

It's been several months since the "transition" vs. "condition" argument ran out of steam. This seems like the thread that most succinctly collected the relevant explanations of the different definitions of "transition", along with the differing philosophies of LifeWiki explication that might make o...
by dvgrn
April 25th, 2024, 7:52 am
Forum: Other Cellular Automata
Topic: Very nearly exploding rules
Replies: 201
Views: 106504

Re: Very nearly exploding rules

The report button isn't really designed for disputes such as this: it should only be used to alert moderators to actual spam, or offensive content, or other things that are severely inappropriate. Seconded. I've gone ahead and closed all seven of the post reports -- they were collectively a much mo...
by dvgrn
April 24th, 2024, 11:26 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Thread for basic questions
Replies: 4807
Views: 1234247

Re: Thread for basic questions

Maybe the intended question is "What patterns can be improved by recent new discoveries?" I.e., what can we build better now, but we just haven't gotten around to it yet? The example that always comes to mind for me these days is the "SQ" / "B2D" two-dimensional memory component in the Osqrtlogt pat...