User talk:Book
My user name RLE, a bit of a methuselah, lifespan 4700:
x = 19, y=5, rule = B3/S23
3o$o2bo12bo$3o3b3o2b3o2bobo$o2bo2bobo2bobo2b2o$3o3b3o2b3o2bobo!
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Book (talk • contribs)
- Welcome to the LifeWiki! Just a note, you can embed a LifeViewer window on a wiki page, so that others can see and run the pattern directly. GUYTU6J (talk) 10:39, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
- Here is it in action:
Thanks GUYTU6J.
RLE replacements
Hello there! I appreciate your recent hard-work on replacing embedded RLEs with RLE pages, and I'd like to provide a bit of advice here.
In the article for density, those examples are listed by bounding box size rather than density, and so I feel that naming the 9×9 case "RLE:Densitypoint5309examples" is not very appropriate. If more demonstrations are going to be added sometime, there will be a collision between size 11 and 15 as they seem to have the same density. Meanwhile, a 6×6 pseudo still life consisting of a trans-snake-tie and a ship was removed without explanation.
In the article for greyship, discovery info for that specific example is available from archives:
#C Quadrilateral greyship with slope of 5/9 #C Hartmut Holzwart 5 Jul 2005
I think reflecting this in the caption is necessary. The short pname "RLE:Greyship" suffers from lack of identification as well.
These are what I have for now. If I noticed more I will also talk here. Thank you! (BTW, a signature like mine is produced with ~~~~, and signing in talk pages is a good habit.) GUYTU6J (talk) 02:42, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
>>Thanks. Edits taken care of. Book (talk) 22:12, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
In the article for ant, you've added an "ant-to-two-loaves" pattern which seems rather pointless for LifeWiki. The pattern degrades at individual non-interacting segments very soon, significantly different from the usual healthy chain of ants (that travels steadily at lightspeed via mutual interactions). I'd guess the confusion comes from this ambiguous sentence:
"For example, it is also possible for any ant to be displaced by one or two cells relative to either or both of its neighbouring ants."
That is only true for 1)the smallest ant with a leading domino surface each, and 2)displacement perpendicular to the direction of travelling. Compare these six patterns:
GUYTU6J (talk) 09:25, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
- Yup, I came here to record the same objection to the new addition the Ants article. The "ants-to-loaves" embedded LifeViewer doesn't seem to make any sense -- it doesn't really contain any ants in the first place, and there doesn't seem to be any explanation anywhere of why the pattern is relevant to the article. Can you clarify what the intention is here? Thanks! Dvgrn (talk) 16:46, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
Upon reflection, you're both right. Book (talk) 17:10, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
Hello! The recent addition of Bx106_Fx119 pattern is basically a duplicate from the version in infobox, so I have just edited it to demonstrate the merge conduit instead. The duplicator form is shown officially because it is in the original discovery. GUYTU6J (talk) 03:39, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Hello again! Have you wondered why the ash from shipmaker doesn't contain a single ship? That is because the fuse in RLE is not long enough, to reach generation 48:
The image for "eventual equilibrium" should just contain the region whose diagonal goes from (55,7) to (21,41) at gen 48 above. GUYTU6J (talk) 03:08, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Cut and paste moves
You should be using the "move" feature, not cutting it from one page and pasting it into another. HotdogPi (talk) 19:51, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Headers in RLE-namespace RLE, and no capital letters in pnames
I'm running the auto-upload script, I think for the first time since you've been involved in improving LifeWiki articles. I think some of the headerless RLE that I'm fixing in the RLE namespace, and some of the pnames starting with or containing capital letters, are your additions -- "RLE:48P31reflectinggliders90" had both problems.
This is not at all a big issue. However, for consistency and cross-platform usability of the pattern collection, these are things that I'm going to fix every time I see them, so ideally it's better to include RLE headers and avoid all capital letters in all references to pnames -- even initial letters. Even though those still work in actual LifeWiki references, they can still mess things up in the pattern collection.
Thanks for all your efforts! I can tell you've done a lot of good work around here, because I'm finding a lot of minor little things that the auto-upload script wants me to fix. Dvgrn (talk) 13:04, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- I've also run into a few cases here and there where the RLE appears to have been copied from HTML, such that the return characters are replaced with spaces. Similar to headerless RLE, this works okay in LifeViewer and on the LifeWiki, and usually in Golly, but when pattern files are generated for the all.zip pattern collection, the spaces in place of newlines may cause trouble for other people's RLE interpreters, so it's better to stick to the standard newlines. Dvgrn (talk) 17:00, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
Images
Compare the two versions of File:Transverylongboatwithtail.png:
The first one by User:AwesoMan3000 - 146×146, 174 bytes, with clearly visible 2px #bfbfbf grid and fully-filled black alive cells adhering to standards in Help:Images
The second one by you - 128×128, 3 KB, with faint non-monochrome grid and one-cell-offset black live cells (both visible in MSPaint)
Why pursue power-of-2-aspects at the expense of other qualities?
Some cases like File:L156.png are worse: after compressing, sizes of alive cells become consistent, and there is no gridline to indicate relative positions. GUYTU6J (talk) 04:22, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
1. I'd love to use a better tool that would create rules-compliant images quickly and easily from an RLE. Is there one?
2. In my opinion, square images lend themselves to better visual presentation, especially when there are multiple image to show (to me, the alignment is more visually appealing).
3. When I wrote my image-creation programs I was trying to fill a void, namely, the very many missing static images in infoboxes and an overuse of embedded viewer when an image would work better. But see #1.
4. It's not clear to me what purpose is served by the microscopic examination of images that (to me) look fine on the wiki. But see #1.
The standards in Help:Images read more like guidelines to me, seem to be rather permissive, and I fail to see that they have the implied precision in these and other image-related comments/criticisms I have read. Perhaps a clearer section on static image rules would be advisable.
Book (talk) 17:13, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
Updates: old issue partly addressed after Bullet51 and Sokwe pointed it out (partly because the file size is still massive; see File:Walrus.png for an example). Consider reuploading all of your previous pattern images? And can we see the relevant source code commit for the improvement? GUYTU6J (talk) 01:50, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
- 1. Source is JS and is in the web page; 2. will reupload images, will take a while Book (talk) 19:16, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
Changes that affect multiple pages
Hello! In general, when making similar changes in multiple pages, or when making changes that otherwise affect multiple pages, it is a good idea to provide clear edit summaries explaining these changes, so that other editors understand why these edits are made and whether there iis a consensus for them. For example, if there is a related discussion on the forums/on tiki bar related to these edits, it is helpful to link to that discussion in the edit summary of every edit. Confocal (talk) 02:58, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
If you agree with proposed deletion, there is no need to do anything further
If you agree with proposed deletion, there is no need to do anything. You do not need to create a talk page to say that you agree with deletion - that just doubles the work to be done by a moderator who will have to delete two pages instead of one.
Also, please avoid creating any more redirects for the sake of "shedding" red links. These redirects are imprecise more often than not. Repeating what I said elsewhere, it is better to leave documentation work to people who are interested in the subject. Red links help to understand what is missing; "shed the red" redirects hide the current state of wiki and make it hard for readers and editors to understand what is known and what is not. Confocal (talk) 00:11, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
"Haste makes waste" and other proverbs
Hello. Please be a bit more careful when editing pages about people, especially about living people. I think some of your edits border on being inappropriate. If you currently lack time or otherwise cannot do proper editing, please don't edit at all. Confocal (talk) 03:56, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
- I find your unspecific and sanctimonious comment inappropriate and unhelpful Book (talk) 16:54, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
viewerconfigs
Can you please explain why PAUSE is needed in these edits? Volatility, Period-184_glider_gun Confocal (talk) 21:56, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
I think it helps to see the still pattern pattern for a few seconds from time-to-time. But that's a judgement call and I'm not terribly invested in it. Book (talk) 22:16, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
- I think these kinds of minor adjustments are not sufficiently important to look for them and make separate edits. As a general common-sense rule, it might be better to combine minor edits like these with other edits and/or several other minor edits. In particular, I think replacing odd zooms with even zooms is not really "critical" in any way to edit pages with that being the only change. Confocal (talk) 16:58, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
viewerconfig again
Maybe hold on a bit with this "fix the viewerconfig" campaign, and make sure there's a consensus for all these edits? Even for the even-versus-odd zoom replacements, there may be other better solutions than just going ahead and semi-automatically replacing every non-even integer zoom with an even integer zoom. The even integer values may be too far from each other so that the smaller is too small while the larger is too large. And basically the same goes for other "fixes" such as images versus viewers, the choice of gallery versus table, and so on. Blindly applying the same "fix" everywhere is not a solution - it just makes someone else go and re-fix half of the work. Please do not try to find an universal solution that works everywhere the same way regardless of the context. Confocal (talk) 18:00, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Sure. Would be great to have consensus guidelines. On the other hand, it seems like incremental improvement is also good. So how to arrive at consensus and rules of thumb? Book (talk) 18:06, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
- Incremental improvement may be good, as long as it does not happen in sudden bursts without clear explanation of where these edits come from. And formatting/layout issues may not actually be important enough in themselves. There is nothing wrong with combining these edits with more substantial edits (when you add some content, or fix some errors, etc.) - without making "fix the formatting" a whole standalone project. Confocal (talk) 18:14, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Explicit html linebreaks
I believe the end result would be much better if you did not attempt to quickly fix as many pages as possible, and instead spent more time on each single page. Among other things, lots of relatively minor formatting edits clutter the log of recent changes, which may in itself be already problematic enough.
Re this edit: is there some non-obvious reason to leave
"welded<br/>together"
and
"front<br/>glider"
broken in the middle in this particular exact way? Given that it seems that you're now removing explicit HTML linebreaks from captions, wouldn't it seem more consistent to remove them completely while we're at it, and let the captions wrap automatically?
(Note that there are still some contexts/valid reasons to insert linebreaks explicitly. I am not proposing to remove all explicit linebreaks in existence. Sometimes they are useful.) Confocal (talk) 20:38, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
- This edit is another example. Some but not all linebreaks are removed, some removed linebreaks are replaced by a different way to micro-specify basically the same word-wrapping (instead of letting it wrap automatically, which in this case would be more reasonable), and there are several other things over the page which could be fixed if there was no haste to edit as many pages as possible. Please consider avoiding formatting-only edits - if it's only formatting, then someone else will be able to do it just as well, probably along with other more substantial edits. Confocal (talk) 04:53, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
A reminder on DIY and breadth vs depth
- Please take a look at Talk:Motif - can you provide any feedback on questions raised there?
- Please take a look at Talk:Integer sequences - can you provide any feedback on the question about inclusion criteria asked there?
- As far as I can tell, your questions on Talk:Kinetic symmetry and Talk:Small pseudo still lifes are basically suggestions to remove content you're not interested in improving. Please keep in mind this is a volunteer community. Other people may be unable to contribute at the exact time you would possibly like them to contribute and/or on the exact subjects you would possibly like them to contribute. I believe trying to "get things done quickier" does more harm than good.
- I would appreciate it if you decided to focus on something specific and dive deep enough into your subject of interest, to be able to make a relatively low number of relatively high-quality contributions (as opposed to a high number of low quality contributions). I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks so, although I understand some will disagree. Confocal (talk) 03:56, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Missing forum refs for added examples
Is there a forum ref for the example you added? Neither the RLE page nor the added text in the article appears to give any information as to where the added example comes from. Confocal (talk) 08:24, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
- See period-45 glider gun. I replaced the pattern with links for brevity. GUYTU6J (talk) 09:51, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Uppercase and lowercase for periods
Please use the correct letter case when writing periods. Correct: "Beluchenko's other p37", "132P37". Incorrect: "Beluchenko's other P37", "132p37". Confocal (talk) 02:00, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
A question
Are you sure it is a good idea to go ahead and create pages about other people who are active here and/or on the forums, without first making sure that the person in question certainly does not mind having a LifeWiki page about them? (This idea seems even more dubious to me, given that many of pages you made are short and stubby, and TBH feel like low-effort low-quality contributions. Are you sure this whole idea of writing about enthusiasts will not suddenly backfire in an unintended painful unpredictable way?) Confocal (talk) 20:34, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
- Good question. There are already some users who do not want an article, though there is no list of them to my knowledge. Such preferences are made known often after a page is created for them. Where a "name" page has been deleted can be a clue to this. However, my bias is that if someone has or is making notable contributions, as indicated by a lot of red links or a page that redirects to a "pattern found by" page, they merit an article, however brief, not just a redirect or a bunch of red links. A brief article invites others to beef the article up if they have something to contribute. I am unaware of any "ask first" activity up to now, though I would not object to that if there was a consensus to do so. I would love to see others add to fellow users' articles. As I write this, I realize there are two issues you raise: 1) ask first? (and who decides to do the asking?) 2) is a stubby article preferable to the redirect to patterns by or multiple red links?
- Just to be clear on this: I personally would prefer if you actually did ask first, before making any such pages. I am aware of several cases (which I will not list) when it was almost certainly a bad idea to make such a page. I think most of these pages are too short and too stubby to be helpful (whether or not there is a "stub" template in them, they are in fact stubs). My preference would be to not have pages about most people who are active on the forums/on the wiki at all, unless there's a specific reason to have a page about them and you already asked first. TL,DR: If you're going to decide to create a page, you might as well put in more effort and decide to do the asking. Confocal (talk) 22:19, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
Listification
Please do not convert plain text to lists/tables (example 1: diff, example 2: diff, example 3: diff). Free-form plain text is normally preferred to tables/itemized lists, unless the presented information is already structured in a natural way / is taken from an already structured source. Confocal (talk) 20:34, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
Potential minor error in Grandfather problem
Why does the part at the bottom state that the bounding box diameter is equal to little-o of sqrt(log(n))? To be slightly pedantic (but informative, I hope), in algorithm time complexity notation:
- f(n) being asymptotic to O(g(n)) means "lim_{n->∞} (f(n)/g(n))=1" (ie. "for all positive m, there exists an N such that for all n>N, |f(n)/g(n)-1|<m"), ie. quicksort runs in O(n*lg(n)) on average
- f(n) being o(g(n)) instead means "lim_{n->∞} (f(n)/g(n))=0" (ie. "for all positive m, there exists an N such that for all n>N, f(n)/g(n)<m"), ie. the AKS primality test runs in O(n**(6+o(1)) because the exponent approaches 6 (though it would be a stronger statement to say that it's O(n**(6+o(1/n)), because currently for all we know it could be O(n**(6+o(1/lg(n))) or worse, O(n**(6+o(1/
A300402(n))))
As you can see, despite having the same letter, they mean very different things, a reason to be pedantic.
(Big theta notation refers to upper bounds of fluctuating functions like sawtooths (and is specific to Life, usually, because algorithms that require a varying amount of memory throughout their operation (ie. interpolating values at 2**n vertices (dot products of displacements with their vectors) in n-dimensional Perlin noise requiring (
A001511(t) for t in range(2**n)) space with respect to time) are considered by their "memory footprint" instead (ie. O(n)), because optimally tessellating the memory consumptions of multiple instances within the RAM is generally considered more trouble than it's worth :-)) DroneBetter (talk) 01:12, 29 January 2023 (UTC)