dumb questions that will probably never get answered (at least here)

[haaaaaands]

Mod edit: all questions must have a connection to cellular automata. No personal questions about other users.

why, of all colors, mod edits have to be green?
why did some move accounts? (can't be ban because in that case they wouldn't be able to change signature)
why are most forums so toxic? (e.g. minecraftforum.net)
why am i told to delete system32 in many sites?

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so, as you can see, those really stupid questions that might annoy others can be freely posted here as long as they don't break the forum rules.
if you don't want to read them, just don't read posts here (obvious.)

please refrain from bloating this thread, as that might upset the mods and get this locked.

[b-engine]

why did some move accounts? (can't be ban because in that case they wouldn't be able to change signature)

Well, there's currently no way to rename accounts, so they had to move to the accounts with the new name.
(That happened to me)

[confocaloid]

Why R64 and Fx77 exist? Why not R77 and F64?
Why there is a LoM-based reaction moving with the same speed as the Corderships?

[Haycat2009]

why, of all colors, mod edits have to be green?

That's dvgrn, the most active mod's fav colour - the only reason why it appears to be so is because dvgrn edits are the most common.

Why are there so many search programs that care about period?

[olivia enessemir]

why, of all colors, mod edits have to be green?

my understanding was that this was to be consistent with the way moderators' names were already colored.

why are most forums so toxic? (e.g. minecraftforum.net)

especially in gaming fora I would expect there to be many teenagers, many of whom aren't terribly mature in their behavior.

[haaaaaands]

why do most math teachers suck so much at teaching math?

[confocaloid]

A Mathematician's Lament
The unreasonable utility of recreational mathematics
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=4252

[iddi01]

why are most forums so toxic? (e.g. minecraftforum.net)

Discord servers are on average much more toxic than forums.

For example, i once joined a server for "Warzone 2100" (which was once my favorite game), which is so toxic, that a highly active user named something like "Peangearocks" abandoned it entirely, and that i left that server (actually i hate Discord so much that i wouldn't have joined if it weren't for the forums for Warzone 2100 being "killed" by Discord.)

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Why is the pre-block in the original diehard facing southwest?
Why does several wiki users flood their user pages with "fun"?
Why does people like posting fuses in the OCA forum?
Why does younger people (like myself a few years ago) like to post phrases with weird or without capitalization?
Why is it so hard to make a rule become famous nowadays?
Why is every subforum except OCA, patterns, and sandbox quite inactive?
Why does the guy who started the most sandbox threads have an age of 22?

[b-engine]

Why is the pre-block in the original diehard facing southwest?
Why does several wiki users flood their user pages with "fun"?
Why does people like posting fuses in the OCA forum?
Why does younger people (like myself a few years ago) like to post phrases with weird or without capitalization?
Why is it so hard to make a rule become famous nowadays?
Why is every subforum except OCA, patterns, and sandbox quite inactive?

1. It doesn't care about orientation. However the the variant with block facing southwest seems to be the one first discovered.
2. They like to have fun.
3. Fuses seems to be the easiest to make out of all patterns.
4. Apparently I never done that even I'm only over a decade old...
5. Yes if new objects in that rule are hard to discover.
6. Making notable posts are apparently harder in those subforums.

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Why INT rules are the most explored rules?
Why most newcomers don't read the forum rules?
Why 3-state rules are rarely found on forums?

[Haycat2009]

Why INT rules are the most explored rules?
Why most newcomers don't read the forum rules?
Why 3-state rules are rarely found on forums?

They are a balance of control and challenge, easy enough to allow a whole level of possibilities but hard enough to not allow exact control of transitions for each state.

Newcomers do not click on the rules thread. Maybe they think that they have enough experience or that common sense is all that is needed - but there are more subtle and new rules

They are too easy to control, so making one good for tech is not much of a feat. DO not forget that you can make the states do ANYTHING you want!

[confocaloid]

Why 3-state rules are rarely found on forums?

They are too easy to control, so making one good for tech is not much of a feat.

"Too easy to control" does not seem correct, considering there are 3^9 = 19683 three-state 3x3 conditions (compared to 2^9 = 512 two-state 3x3 conditions) and approximately 1/8 of that after reducing by rotations and reflections (2862 three-state isotropic 3x3 conditions, compared to 102 two-state isotropic 3x3 conditions). Being overwhelmed by different possibilities is an opposite of "easy to control".

Why is it so hard to make a rule become famous nowadays?

I'd say if someone wants their rule to become "famous", they are probably missing the whole idea of the hobby. Most really interesting rules were never "famous" and will never become "famous", but of course that doesn't in any way prevent on-topic discussion of those rules / sharing discoveries and ideas.

Why is every subforum except OCA, patterns, and sandbox quite inactive?

Why they need to be more active than they are? Some subforums are already a bit too active, sometimes to the point of becoming a distraction from Life/CA.

[b-engine]

1a. Why some newcomers getting images from playgameoflife.com instead of getting RLE from LifeViewer?
1b. Why there's no way to extract RLE from playgameoflife.com patterns?
1c. Why playgameoflife.com is far more popular than conwaylife.com (the homepage and the LifeViewer), even if the controls in it seems to be harder than LifeViewer?
2. Why elementary spaceships are harder to find than engineered spaceship, and why engineered spaceships with new speeds are harder to make than one with known speeds?
3. Why new period (excluding glider loops) oscillators are hard to find without using scripts?
4. Why B2a is needed for a photon to exists?
5. Why there're only few rules are universal?

[hotdogPi]

1a. Why some newcomers getting images from playgameoflife.com instead of getting RLE from LifeViewer?

It ranks higher in Google search results.

1b. Why there's no way to extract RLE from playgameoflife.com patterns?

I suggested a few days ago creating a script that analyzes playgameoflife images. There was already a script written for the back of the CGOL textbook, so the code should be very similar.

1c. Why playgameoflife.com is far more popular than conwaylife.com (the homepage and the LifeViewer), even if the controls in it seems to be harder than LifeViewer?

Again, search rankings. playgameoflife is also more intuitive. In some ways, LifeViewer and Golly are equivalent to a $600 paid software like AutoCAD or Finale.

2. Why elementary spaceships are harder to find than engineered spaceship, and why engineered spaceships with new speeds are harder to make than one with known speeds?

Elementary spaceships period 5 and below are considered uninteresting, 6 and 7 take days to months, and 8+ can't really be found this way except with luck. As for "active regions reappear shifted X cells", that's what a switch engine does, but other than that, we've done over a trillion symmetric soups and a quadrillion total ones and found nothing.

3. Why new period (excluding glider loops) oscillators are hard to find without using scripts?

Because they require an active region to reform in the same position. That said, it can sometimes be done by combining existing oscillators or partials, such as some of the traffic light shuttles in the 1990s.

4. Why B2a is needed for a photon to exists?

B2a pushes both cells at the edge forward. Other B2 transitions don't. That said, there are some photons in carefully crafted B1e rules.

5. Why there're only few rules are universal?

This probably isn't the case; we just haven't explored that many.

[b-engine]

1. Why the first CA has 29 states?
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2. How playgameoflife has made it's way to the high rank in Google search results?
3. Why we can't just disallow playgameoflife here?
4. Why playgameoflife controls are designed to only allow users to make small patterns? Fortunately this makes us able to redraw them easily in Golly or LifeViewer.

I could make this within the boundary of my phone

Screenshot_2024-03-28-21-38-34-67_40deb401b9ffe8e1df2f1cc5ba480b12.jpg (46.81 KiB) Viewed 423 times

Code: Select all

#C the screenshot above redrawn in LifeViewer
x = 12, y = 12, rule = B3/S23
bo$2bo$3o3$10b2o$10b2o3$9b2o$8bo2bo$9b2o!

5. Why playgameoflife is very limited, even if LifeViewer cost the same as it (and conwaylife.com is at the top three when I search "conway's life")? I'm very worried about playgameoflife overtaking Golly & Lifeviewer, after d/dx's first post.
6. Why it's so hard to make notable discoveries in B3/S23?

[iddi01]

playgameoflife.com reminds me so much of this bad little program i used to play CGoL with, with the advantage of being able to drag around.
(interestingly, the speed, colors, and icons are all very similar. Are they made by the same person?)

In some ways, LifeViewer and Golly are equivalent to a $600 paid software like AutoCAD or Finale.

:O :O :O

o o
O

[b-engine]

playgameoflife.com reminds me so much of this bad little program i used to play CGoL with, with the advantage of being able to drag around.
(interestingly, the speed, colors, and icons are all very similar. Are they made by the same person?)

I think it is, but since it's no longer available, I can't verify.
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7. Why ruletables/trees are bulky?

[Haycat2009]

7. Why ruletables/trees are bulky?

You need to list every transition, and you cannot make it so that some parts use permute and others use none.

8. Why is playgameoflife.com so limited and yet google favours it? I am not a reverse engineer.

9. Who would pay $600/ $2800 (I had to convert Zumalandian thalers to Singapore dollars) for such software?

[confocaloid]

7. Why ruletables/trees are bulky?

That is more or less the price of flexibility when combined with simplicity.
How would you make ruletables less bulky, without losing either flexibility (being able to encode so many different cellular automata) or simplicity of the syntax?
Even non-isotropic two-state ruletables feel more intuitive to work with, compared to MAP rulestrings.

Each line in the main part of a ruletable encodes a single rule. Sometimes it will be possible to use variables to reduce the number of rules written explicitly in the ruletable. But then you'll need to define variables.

IIRC if a matching rule is not found, the default is "no change". So an empty two-state "neighborhood: Moore" ruletable would work the same way as B/S012345678 does, and an empty 256-state ruletable would work as Rule:Display256 (except maybe with a different palette). That default can be changed by appending a single catch-all line at the end, for example

Code: Select all

any, any1, any2, any3, any4, any5, any6, any7, any8, 0

with variables defined as (assuming a two-state CA)

Code: Select all

var any={0,1}
var any1=any
var any2=any
var any3=any
var any4=any
var any5=any
var any6=any
var any7=any
var any8=any

Code: Select all

symmetry: permute
0, 1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0, 1  # rule B3
1, 1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0, 1  # rule S2
1, 1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0, 1  # rule S3
any, any1, any2, any3, any4, any5, any6, any7, any8, 0  # everything else becomes 0

[confocaloid]

8. Why is playgameoflife.com so limited and yet google favours it? I am not a reverse engineer.

Because it is so limited. When you give too much flexibility to newcomers, they won't be able to know what to do with it.
Again, being overwhelmed by different possibilities is an opposite of "easy to control".

[d/dx]

Can we resurrect John Horton Conway using a p160 puffer glider rake (4,9)c/160 knightship spaceship breeder hassler?

[tommyaweosme]

Why does younger people (like myself a few years ago) like to post phrases with weird or without capitalization?

idk about the rest of the people that use it, but i do it because of my unstoppable aesthetic

[haaaaaands]

Why does younger people (like myself a few years ago) like to post phrases with weird or without capitalization?

idk about the rest of the people that use it, but i do it because of my unstoppable aesthetic

i do it because my shift key is pretty tight

[b-engine]

i do it because my shift key is pretty tight

Just keep pressing your shift key using brute force no matter how hard it be, then I think the shift key would no longer be tight.

[C_R_116]

Why does younger people (like myself a few years ago) like to post phrases with weird or without capitalization?

idk about the rest of the people that use it, but i do it because of my unstoppable aesthetic

i do it because my shift key is pretty tight

I Do The Opposite.

[b-engine]

10. Is 3-state OT having same possibilities as 2-state INT? I'm now focusing on 3-state OTCA.
11. What's the most chaotic non-explosive rule? (This means that soups last extremely long and apgsearch will do poorly on those rules)