Thread for basic questions

[gameoflifemaniac]

My keyboard shortcuts are completely messed up. How to reset all shortcuts?
If I delete Golly, the keyboard shortcuts won't reset?

You might not have to delete Golly, but you do have to search for your "GollyPrefs" file, and not just in the Golly folder -- there is probably one in your user directory that's storing keyboard shortcuts.

If you remove all GollyPrefs files that the Golly executable might be able to locate, it will write out a new GollyPrefs file for you with default settings.

So, can you post the default GollyPrefs on this thread?

[Macbi]

Earlier in the thread I asked if we could write a program that rules out the existence of interesting patterns that spend their entire life in a strip of width 3 or 4. This would be useful because when we were searching for patterns we would only need to check bounding boxes of size 5 or larger in each direction.

I wrote such a program (not in fact using the method I described earlier) and it found an interesting pattern in a strip of width 3! Well, perhaps not so interesting. It's a burning fuse:

Code: Select all

x = 90, y = 3, rule = B3/S23
2o2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2b
o2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2b2o$5o2b4o2b4o2b4o2b4o2b4o2b4o2b4o2b4o2b4o2b4o2b4o2b
4o2b4o2b5o$2o2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo
2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2bo2b2o!

Although it does eventually burn down to nothing, it shows that patterns that spend their entire lives in a strip of width 3 can still take arbitrarily long to stabilise.

[gameoflifemaniac]

My keyboard shortcuts are completely messed up. How to reset all shortcuts?
If I delete Golly, the keyboard shortcuts won't reset?

You might not have to delete Golly, but you do have to search for your "GollyPrefs" file, and not just in the Golly folder -- there is probably one in your user directory that's storing keyboard shortcuts.

If you remove all GollyPrefs files that the Golly executable might be able to locate, it will write out a new GollyPrefs file for you with default settings.

So, can you post the default GollyPrefs on this thread?

Plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[M. I. Wright]

So, can you post the default GollyPrefs on this thread?

Read again --

If you remove all GollyPrefs files that the Golly executable might be able to locate, it will write out a new GollyPrefs file for you with default settings.

[gameoflifemaniac]

Yee! It works!
EDIT: It didn't reset the keyboard shortcuts! It doesn't work!!!
What else files should I reset?

[dvgrn]

Yee! It works!
EDIT: It didn't reset the keyboard shortcuts! It doesn't work!!!
What else files should I reset?

Preferences...

Opens the Preferences dialog so you can change various settings. All your settings are stored in a file called GollyPrefs. This file is initially saved in a user-specific data directory:

On Linux: ~/.golly/
On Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Golly/
On Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Golly\
On Windows 7+: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Golly\
You might prefer to move GollyPrefs into the same folder as the application. This allows multiple copies of Golly to have their own set of preferences.

There's no keyboard shortcut information stored outside of GollyPrefs files, so depending on your OS (see above) you'll just need to find and remove another GollyPrefs file somewhere.

[gameoflifemaniac]

Damn! I haven't found any other GollyPrefs file, but I STILL CAN'T RESET THE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS!!!!!
EDIT: Oh, I copied the GollyPrefs file in the Golly folder and everything reseted!

[gameoflifemaniac]

Why can this script be used only once?

Code: Select all

local g = golly()
g.reset()
g.randfill(50)
g.copy()
g.flip(0)
g.paste(8, 0, "or")
g.run(10000)
g.setmag(1)

At the first time of it works, but then it says: 'Sorry, but Perl scripting is no longer supported.'. What's happening?

[wildmyron]

Why can this script be used only once?

Code: Select all

local g = golly()
g.reset()
g.randfill(50)
g.copy()
g.flip(0)
g.paste(8, 0, "or")
g.run(10000)
g.setmag(1)

At the first time of it works, but then it says: 'Sorry, but Perl scripting is no longer supported.'. What's happening?

You are running the script from the clipboard. It works fine, but it is copying the patterm to the clipboard. Then when you try running it again Golly fails to run it as a Lua or python script, assumes it's a Perl script and gives you the error message.

[dvgrn]

Why can this script be used only once?

Code: Select all

local g = golly()
g.reset()
g.randfill(50)
g.copy()
g.flip(0)
g.paste(8, 0, "or")
g.run(10000)
g.setmag(1)

At the first time of it works, but then it says: 'Sorry, but Perl scripting is no longer supported.'. What's happening?

In part, this is a fine example of why g.copy() and g.paste() should be used sparingly, if at all. It causes a lot less trouble to use listofcells = g.getcells(g.getselrect()) and then g.putcells(listofcells). If you're running the script from the clipboard, on the second round you'll get the Perl scripting support error because you're trying to run a chunk of RLE as a script. EDIT: fixed g.getcells(...) reference above.

I did once see a different error message than the Perl support one -- a syntax error on the first line. That would happen if Golly was insisting on interpreting the script as Python for some reason. The first line is the Lua way to initialize references to "g.", instead of "import golly as g". Now it seems to be working fine for me on multiple runs, either run from clipboard or run from a saved file on my desktop.

[gameoflifemaniac]

Ok, I understand.

[gameoflifemaniac]

What's the apgcode for ship-tie-ship-tie-ship?

[Apple Bottom]

What's the apgcode for ship-tie-ship-tie-ship?

xs18_xg8o653zca611

[gameoflifemaniac]

The rarest objects that I have ever found in random soups of size 16x16 are cis-boat and cap and para-loaf and cap.
Soups:
Cis-boat and cap:

Code: Select all

x = 16, y = 16, rule = B3/S23
3o7b2o$2b3o4b4o$ob2obobo7bo$2ob3o4bo3bo$ob2obobo3b3obo$ob3obobo2bob3o$
o3b2o4bo$3b2o2b2ob2o2bo$2ob4o3b5o$bo3b4obo$b3ob4o3b2obo$2b2o2bob2o2b3o
$bob2ob3o4b3o$2obo2b2o6b2o$ob2o5bob2o$b6ob2ob2ob2o!

Para-loaf and cap:

Code: Select all

x = 16, y = 16, rule = B3/S23
o7b2obobo$2b2ob2obob2o3bo$4bob3o4bo$2obobob4obo$2bo2bobo3b5o$ob2ob3obo
b3o$2bobob2o4b4o$2ob2o5b2o2bo$3bob3ob4o2bo$2bob3o3bob2obo$o2b2ob4obo3b
o$b2o2b2o2b2o$2bo3b2ob7o$ob4ob2o5bo$4o2bo2b2o$2b3obo2b2o2bobo!

What place would they have on the most naturally occuring objects list? I'm really curious!

[dvgrn]

The rarest objects that I have ever found in random soups of size 16x16 are cis-boat and cap and para-loaf and cap...
What place would they have on the most naturally occuring objects list? I'm really curious!

The first one is not quite in the top hundred, but fairly close: cis-boat and cap currently has 19,531,516 occurrences in Catagolue, where the 100th most common still life has 20,416,178 occurrences. Looks like it was actually in the top hundred in Nathaniel's previous soup search -- "up boat on cap" is #98.

Para-loaf and cap is a lot less common, with only 2,403,852 occurrences.

Now I don't remember -- is anyone regularly extracting complete statistics from Catagolue these days? The information is all available to be downloaded, but it would take a little work to get all 118K objects ordered by frequency of occurrence.

[calcyman]

Now I don't remember -- is anyone regularly extracting complete statistics from Catagolue these days? The information is all available to be downloaded, but it would take a little work to get all 118K objects ordered by frequency of occurrence.

It's always been possible to get the sorted census from the textcensus endpoint:

Code: Select all

server="https://catagolue.appspot.com"
curl "$server/textcensus/b3s23/C1/sorted"

Although, in the interests of not going over quota, it's preferable to curl without the /sorted and do the sorting yourself offline.

[gameoflifemaniac]

Now I don't remember -- is anyone regularly extracting complete statistics from Catagolue these days? The information is all available to be downloaded, but it would take a little work to get all 118K objects ordered by frequency of occurrence.

It's always been possible to get the sorted census from the textcensus endpoint:

Code: Select all

server="https://catagolue.appspot.com"
curl "$server/textcensus/b3s23/C1/sorted"

Although, in the interests of not going over quota, it's preferable to curl without the /sorted and do the sorting yourself offline.

So, what should I do with this code in the code tag?

[dvgrn]

So, what should I do with this code in the code tag?

First you'd look up "curl" on Google and find out how you can use it. On this laptop I don't have Cygwin installed, but I do have a Git Bash link, and that supports curl. So then you type in

server="https://catagolue.appspot.com"
curl "$server/textcensus/b3s23/C1" > output.txt

and then sort the resulting output.txt file and clean it up a bit, and you get something like this:

[gameoflifemaniac]

So, what should I do with this code in the code tag?

First you'd look up "curl" on Google and find out how you can use it. On this laptop I don't have Cygwin installed, but I do have a Git Bash link, and that supports curl. So then you type in

server="https://catagolue.appspot.com"
curl "$server/textcensus/b3s23/C1" > output.txt

and then sort the resulting output.txt file and clean it up a bit, and you get something like this:

Thanks, but it doesn't show the ranks...

[dvgrn]

So, what should I do with this code in the code tag?

Thanks, but it doesn't show the ranks...

Depends on how you look at it.

Any decent text editor has an option to turn on line numbers, and there are plenty of other tools like Google Sheets that you could use to find out that xs13_2530f96 is rank 103 on this list, and xs15_25960uic is rank 218.

[muzik]

How can I reverse the glider output of this rake?

Code: Select all

x = 200, y = 84, rule = B3/S23
2$87b2o$85bo4bo$91bo$85bo5bo$86b6o3$161b5o$160bo4bo$95b6o64bo5b4o$94bo
5bo59bo3bo5b6o$100bo61bo7b4ob2o$94bo4bo74b2o$96b2o$143bo$141b2ob2o28bo
$143bo14bo3bo3bo3bo5bo$158bo3bo3bo3bo6bo$143bo14bo3bo3bo3bo6bo$141b2ob
2o27b5o$143bo2$56b2o116b3o$54bo4bo15b4o24b2o57bo10b5o$60bo13bo3bo21b3o
b2o54bo3bo8b3ob2o$54bo5bo17bo21b5o60bo10b2o$55b6o13bo2bo23b3o56bo4bo$
161b5o!

[muzik]

Approximately how long will it take to census all (2^256?) unique C1 soups on b3s23 on Catagolue?

[calcyman]

Approximately how long will it take to census all (2^256?) unique C1 soups on b3s23 on Catagolue?

It would take about 80 000 years...

... if you happened to build a giant supercomputer around every single star in every single galaxy in the entire observable universe, engineered perfectly to waste no more energy than is thermodynamically necessary, and set them to run nothing other than apgmera.

(Disclaimer: I may be up to 2 orders of magnitude out in either direction.)

[dani]

Approximately how long will it take to census all (2^256?) unique C1 soups on b3s23 on Catagolue?

2^256 is 115792089237316195423570985008687907853269984665640564039457584007913129639936, which is comparable to the amount of atoms in the universe, so assuming your computer runs at a solid 1300 soups a second, it would take a bit over 89070837874858611864285373083606082964053834358185049261121218467625484338 seconds, which is just over 1484513964580976864404756218060101382734230572636417487685353641127091405 minutes, which is a smidgen over 24741899409682947740079270301001689712237176210606958128089227352118190 hours, which is a bit over 1030912475403456155836636262541737071343215675441956588670384473004924 days, which, assuming a year is 365.25 days (it's a bit under, but that doesn't matter considering the scale of numbers we're using), would take a total of ~2822484532247655457458278610654995404088201712366753151732743252580 years to check through all of them, assuming my math is correct.

[dvgrn]

Approximately how long will it take to census all (2^256?) unique C1 soups on b3s23 on Catagolue?

... ~2822484532247655457458278610654995404088201712366753151732743252580 years to check through all of them...

Sounds about right -- except that someone will have to make an important change to apgsearch 1000001.0 first, to run through the 2^256 unique soups (minus rotations and reflections, if we want to be efficient here) in some standard order, instead of using SHA256 hashes to pick them randomly.

Otherwise it's going to take a lot more gigamegakilomillenia to get to the point where apgsearch 4.0 randomly chooses the final untested soup, presumably after picking and testing the same soups multiple times in a painfully large number of cases --!