Thread for basic questions

[mniemiec]

I created SnakeLife recently and want to know what sparkers also work there.

One way is to look at existing Life sparkers on Catagolue, and replace the Life rule string with the SnakeLife rule string in the URL. If it works in that rule, you will get a valid Catagolue page, even if the pattern has never been searched; otherwise, it will tell you that the pattern is invalid.

[yujh]

It depends on the context, i.e. where is the pattern coming from? For example, Catagolue already does this for you.

I created SnakeLife recently and want to know what sparkers also work there.

Throw the latest osc collection into your rule(in golly)

[Donald Fe Trump]

Could you tell me how to find an "apgcode" of a pattern?

Put the pattern in Golly, then run biggiemac's script. That will only produce a result if it's an object that would show up in a Catagolue census, though. You can adapt the canonise_orientation() function in biggiemac's script to produce apgcodes for any arbitrary pattern.

Also, does anyone have a list of patterns that also mentions "apgcode"?

You can find the apgcodes of a lot of common patterns by looking them up on the LifeWiki, though that's not exactly a list. Catagolue textcensus lists like this one have lists of apgcodes, but don't mention the common names. The regular census pages have both apgcodes and common names when they're available. Here again, adapt canonise_orientation() if you need to build your own list.

How should I make some code show in viewer?

In the message editor, select your pattern RLE and click the </> menu button at the top of the text area. This will wrap your RLE in [code​] tags, which signals LifeViewer to pick it up and display it.

What's the Character Limit of apgcode in "Catagolue"?
Also, Why Is "Catalogue" spelt like That?

[dvgrn]

Why Is "Catalogue" spelt like That?

It's "CataGOLue" because "GOL" is the traditional acronym for "Game of Life".

[hotdogPi]

Why do 20P2 through 26P2 not have the number of cells indicated?

[dvgrn]

Why do 20P2 through 26P2 not have the number of cells indicated?

I was going to answer this with, "They DO indicate the number of cells -- the '20' and '26' indicate the cell count!"

Which just shows you what a silly language English is.

20P2 has 21 cells.
21P2 has 16 cells.
22P2 has 20 cells.
23P2 has 17 cells.
24P2 has 18 cells.
25P2 has 18 cells.
26P2 has 20 cells.

None of these objects seem to have those names in Achim Flammenkamp's census, or in Mark Niemiec's database, or on pentadecathlon.com, or in the Life Lexicon, or in any old email discussions that I can find.

I'd say this is an old non-standard naming convention left over from when the LifeWiki was first being created over a decade ago, and it's somehow persisted all this time without anyone noticing that they weren't real names. Let's switch over to naming those objects by apgcode, ASAP, and remove the redirects from "{n}P2".

-- Unless someone can come up with a lovely piece of history that justifies those names, of course... but they'd better do it quick.

[MathAndCode]

I'd say this is an old non-standard naming convention left over from when the LifeWiki was first being created over a decade ago, and it's somehow persisted all this time without anyone noticing that they weren't real names. Let's switch over to naming those objects by apgcode, ASAP, and remove the redirects from "{n}P2".

-- Unless someone can come up with a lovely piece of history that justifies those names, of course... but they'd better do it quick.

I agree that those names shouldn't stay, but I'd prefer not to name them by their apgcodes either because a quick glance at an apgcode doesn't convey much information about the pattern. (Also, if no one has bothered to give the pattern another name, that could indicate that it's not notable enough for a wiki page.) Here are the descriptive names that I came up with:

• 20P2: cis-beacon down on dock with mango
• 21P2: loop weld 1 beacon weld table
• 22P2: loop weld 1 beacon weld worm
• 23P2: beacon down on bookend weld table
• 24P2: loop weld 1 beacon weld fishhook
• xp2_caabaiczw32: 1 beacon up-weld symmetric scorpion
• 26P2: 1 beacon weld inflected clip

However, just because I can somewhat with at least somewhat descriptive names once someone proposes changing the wiki article titles doesn't mean that they're notable. In my opinion, none of the 1 beacon variants are individually notable. Also, whether or not a 1 beacon has a wiki page is not exclusively dependent on commonness, as evidenced by the fact that loop weld 1 beacon weld beacon on cover does not have a wiki page but xp2_caabaiczw32, 23P2, 26P2, 24P2, and Mangled 1 beacon do. I think that all of the pages for 1 beacon variants can be merged into a single wiki page that also mentions other 1 beacon variants, such as loop weld 1 beacon weld beacon on cover and 1 beacon in-weld 1 beacon.

[dvgrn]

... just because I can somewhat with at least somewhat descriptive names once someone proposes changing the wiki article titles doesn't mean that they're notable. In my opinion, none of the 1 beacon variants are individually notable...

I certainly won't disagree -- I'm just not volunteering to do all the judging and rewriting and fixing work on the LifeWiki to merge all of these pages successfully into a single combined page.

That said, the current articles are a bit worse than I thought. 22P2 and 23P2 are both identified as "about the 47th most common oscillator" in Achim Flammenkamp's census. I guess that makes sense, since they're both in a group on Flammenkamp's page with the number "44", and the next numbered group is "49" for some reason -- the numbers don't quite seem to line up.

On that page, 22P2 is identified as "?22?238", and 23P2 is listed as "?17?691".

24P2 is "?18?688", 25P2 is "?18?651", and 26P2 is "?20?423" -- these are all "about the fifty-fifth most common oscillator" in the same census.

I never managed to figure out what the question marks were supposed to be -- some kind of ASCII code-page replacement, I'm guessing? Possibly a bad translation from whatever the standard ASCII code page was that Achim Flammenkamp used in 2004 in Bielefield, Germany. That's totally just a guess, but it's the kind of thing that used to happen all the time in emails between people using different subsets of ASCII characters.

We Know Something, Anyway
At least that tells us why these pages were created. Someone was going through and giving names to all of the oscillators in Achim Flammenkamp's census, on the theory that that made them sufficiently notable.

[mniemiec]

Why do 20P2 through 26P2 not have the number of cells indicated?

I believe that this is because these first objects were first noted as results in Achim Flammenkamp's random soup experiments, and these were respectively the 20th through 26th period 2 oscillators in the list, and did not previously have assigned names. The practice of naming objects "(population)P(period)" was not established until much later.

[dvgrn]

... these were respectively the 20th through 26th period 2 oscillators in the list, and did not previously have assigned names. The practice of naming objects "(population)P(period)" was not established until much later.

Are there any objects that you know of that were named according to that old convention, that are well-enough known (say, listed by name in the Life Lexicon, or maybe having that name and no other name in your synthesis database) that it would cause any confusion to alter those names to fit the modern "(population)P(period)" naming convention?

[mniemiec]

... these were respectively the 20th through 26th period 2 oscillators in the list, and did not previously have assigned names. The practice of naming objects "(population)P(period)" was not established until much later.

Are there any objects that you know of that were named according to that old convention, that are well-enough known (say, listed by name in the Life Lexicon, or maybe having that name and no other name in your synthesis database) that it would cause any confusion to alter those names to fit the modern "(population)P(period)" naming convention?

Not any more, that I know of. There were a few other higher-period ones, but those all have common names now (e.g. Jam, Mold, Cloverleaf, etc.) Higher-period oscillators are rare enough that the few that were found all got named. Only still-lifes and P2s are common enough that there are too many to conveniently assign names to without some kind of methodical nomenclature (which did not exist at the time).

[Donald Fe Trump]

Let Me Ask You Again, What Is A Glider?
I Don't Mean The Glider That You Mentioned Before, I mean This Glider. I Couldn't Find This Glider On The Wiki.

Is This The Right Way To Add Links?

[bprentice]

All Moderators,

Please give a concise description of your job. In particular your responsibilities and what you do.

Brian Prentice

[toroidalet]

Mr. Ex-President: that appears to just be a normal glider with some comments in an esolang (please don't make a post just to say which one). Obviously it would not be found on a wiki for cellular automata. Whether you are trolling or genuinely don't know the rules, your behavior is inappropriate and annoying as heck.
The community has reluctantly tolerated your antics, but understand that this won't last forever. A thread has already opened up advocating the banning of you and all your buddies, and you are only making that more likely. This is a forum for cellular automata. If you want to contribute, then contribute. But if you want to ask stupid questions and direct quasi-racist statements at a member, then go somewhere else.

If you genuinely want to become a member of the forum, I apologize for the tone of this post. But I am annoyed, and while I am not the ConwayLife community, much of it is annoyed too, and with the recent events (the tempbanning of BokaBB and locking of several prominent Sandbox threads), you should be wary of the wrath of the moderators.


In any case, your link should look like
[ url=https://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic ... 61#p126461][/url]
as opposed to
[ url=https://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic ... 461#126461][/url],
the important thing being that it ends with #p[number] rather than #[number].

[JP21]

Let Me Ask You Again, What Is A Glider?
I Don't Mean The Glider That You Mentioned Before, I mean This Glider. I Couldn't Find This Glider On The Wiki.

Is This The Right Way To Add Links?

Code: Select all

x = 29, y = 24, rule = B3/S23
6bo$6b2o8$3o3bo3b2o$2bo3b2o3b2o$bo3bobo2bo10$27bo$26b2o$26bobo!
Seriously?
Almost all texts at the bottom of the rle code does not affect the pattern.
Except for this:
[[ AUTOSTART PASTET EVERY 32 PASTE 3o$2bo$bo! -32 32 ]]

[Donald K Trump]

Should the "Skewed pre-pulsar" be considered a "gliderless methuselah"?
What's the difference between "xp0_5" and "xp2_5"?
Where did those large breeder apgcodes come from?
What is a "Long moose antlers"?
What does "gosperize" mean?

[Moosey]

Asking here for lack of a better thread:

recently, the term "Pattern" in PoTY has become a bit of a stretch; a lot of the nominees are things like "34-bit still life enumeration", "Period-9 heavyweight sparker and associated R shuttle", "New growing spaceships", "New c/5 diagonal spaceships", and that's just a few from PoTY 2020 alone. Sure, you can compile all of those into a single pattern, but people aren't voting for that single pattern, they're voting for its contents.

Might we want to consider rechristening it something else, like Discovery of The Year (as exists in the OCA world)?

[Macbi]

Asking here for lack of a better thread:

recently, the term "Pattern" in PoTY has become a bit of a stretch; a lot of the nominees are things like "34-bit still life enumeration", "Period-9 heavyweight sparker and associated R shuttle", "New growing spaceships", "New c/5 diagonal spaceships", and that's just a few from PoTY 2020 alone. Sure, you can compile all of those into a single pattern, but people aren't voting for that single pattern, they're voting for its contents.

Might we want to consider rechristening it something else, like Discovery of The Year (as exists in the OCA world)?

Good idea! How about 'Project of the Year'? That would allow us to keep the same acronym, and it would allow including other things. For example if somebody created an amazing new search program or put a lot of work into writing up tutorials for newcomers, it would be nice to be able to recognize that.

[Moosey]

Good idea! How about 'Project of the Year'? That would allow us to keep the same acronym, and it would allow including other things. For example if somebody created an amazing new search program or put a lot of work into writing up tutorials for newcomers, it would be nice to be able to recognize that.

"Project of the Year" would be a better name, I'd support it. It includes more or less everything relevant to CGoL

[Donald K Trump]

Should the "Skewed pre-pulsar" be considered a "gliderless methuselah"?
What's the difference between "xp0_5" and "xp2_5"?
Where did those large breeder apgcodes come from?
What is a "Long moose antlers"?
What does "gosperize" mean?

Should that "Long moose antlers" be actually named "Eater siamese V-spark siamese Eater"?

[Donald Fe Trump]

Let Me Ask You Again, What Is A Glider?
I Don't Mean The Glider That You Mentioned Before, I mean This Glider. I Couldn't Find This Glider On The Wiki.

Is This The Right Way To Add Links?

Code: Select all

x = 29, y = 24, rule = B3/S23
6bo$6b2o8$3o3bo3b2o$2bo3b2o3b2o$bo3bobo2bo10$27bo$26b2o$26bobo!
Seriously?
Almost all texts at the bottom of the rle code does not affect the pattern.
Except for this:
[[ AUTOSTART PASTET EVERY 32 PASTE 3o$2bo$bo! -32 32 ]]

What Does The Rest Of The Code Do?

[Donald Fe Trump]

Should the "Skewed pre-pulsar" be considered a "gliderless methuselah"?
What's the difference between "xp0_5" and "xp2_5"?
Where did those large breeder apgcodes come from?
What is a "Long moose antlers"?
What does "gosperize" mean?

Should that "Long moose antlers" be actually named "Eater siamese V-spark siamese Eater"?

Those Large Breeders apgcode Are Certainly Worked Out By Hand.
If He Used A Computer Program, Then He Wouldn't Have Seen The Letters In The Middle.

[dvgrn]

Should the "Skewed pre-pulsar" be considered a "gliderless methuselah"?
What's the difference between "xp0_5" and "xp2_5"?
Where did those large breeder apgcodes come from?
What is a "Long moose antlers"?
What does "gosperize" mean?

Should that "Long moose antlers" be actually named "Eater siamese V-spark siamese Eater"?

Let Me Ask You Again, What Is A Glider?
I Don't Mean The Glider That You Mentioned Before, I mean This Glider. I Couldn't Find This Glider On The Wiki.

Is This The Right Way To Add Links?

Code: Select all

x = 29, y = 24, rule = B3/S23
6bo$6b2o8$3o3bo3b2o$2bo3b2o3b2o$bo3bobo2bo10$27bo$26b2o$26bobo!
Seriously?
Almost all texts at the bottom of the rle code does not affect the pattern.
Except for this:
[[ AUTOSTART PASTET EVERY 32 PASTE 3o$2bo$bo! -32 32 ]]

What Does The Rest Of The Code Do?

Should the "Skewed pre-pulsar" be considered a "gliderless methuselah"?
What's the difference between "xp0_5" and "xp2_5"?
Where did those large breeder apgcodes come from?
What is a "Long moose antlers"?
What does "gosperize" mean?

Should that "Long moose antlers" be actually named "Eater siamese V-spark siamese Eater"?

Those Large Breeders apgcode Are Certainly Worked Out By Hand.
If He Used A Computer Program, Then He Wouldn't Have Seen The Letters In The Middle.

Sorry, three posts in a row from the same IP address is too many. None of these questions are particularly clear or focused, and there's no sign that anything constructive has been done with the previous answers to similar questions from these accounts. They are starting to look more like "questions for the sake of asking questions", which is pretty much just a waste of everyone's time.

I've permanently banned the "Donald K Trump" and "Donald Fe Trump" accounts, since they were created more recently than the "Donald J Trump" account. I suspect that the IP address in question is a shared school computer, but when one IP address causes this much trouble, one user account per IP address is enough.

If new accounts continue to be created with the same IP address, I'll have to ban the IP address also.

[yujh]

Uh excuse me?
It looks like that discord is banned.
Is there another goal chat room somewhere available to me for now?

image.jpg (7.32 MiB) Viewed 3833 times

[dvgrn]

Uh excuse me?
It looks like that discord is banned.
Is there another goal chat room somewhere available to me for now?

There must be quite a few options out there.

The Quest for Tetris group had a fairly busy chat room set up on Stack Exchange at one point, for example. Maybe someone could try setting up new chat rooms there somewhere, and see how that works out. It should be someone who wants to end up moderating a Conwaylife Sandbox (i.e., not me!).

There are no doubt much better options out there that I don't know about, but it will take some experimenting to see which ones are available to everyone.