Why is this forum so Dead?

[LWSS]

Why is this forum so dead? It should be full of LIFE! (hehe)

[DocA]

This forum is missing the images of your CA. The pictures that do get posted are missing the spectrums of colors built into CA that mesmerize me and keep me running computer time. I would expect to see some gifs of new life and environments with a wealth of rules and I'm disappointed. Life is about movement. A casual observer won't get the same thrill from a static image of binary life and encoded character strings. We are computers here who click on these links to bring these subtle mathematic tricks to each other, with communication between individuals mutating that beauty into something perfectly new. And while I feel like a computer, I'm human. I shelved part of my imagination and I don't load every new Life shape I see (or almost any of them because all you guys work with is one ruleset for some inexplicable reason) but you can bet I've seen every picture and gif I've seen.

Where do I post my pictures? Which forum, which thread, which one is there that jaw-dropping CA pictures go? That is where I'd like to post.

[LWSS]

That was really touching and all but what does CA stand for?

[DocA]

Cellular automata.

[DocA]

First, every thread on this forum is about a specific topic; discussion and interpretation are always sectioned away into their individual thread, with the individuals covering a few points apiece. General discussion is dead. I'd love to talk about the larger topics on CA like the classification of ruletypes (exploding, stable, chaotic, cyclic, gliding) or the overarching topic of environment types.
Since you can start any rule from any environment, and you already know not every rule is going to react to every environment the same, you can start from a minimum environment (a single cell, a straight line, a square or any other shape) and classify the rules' reactions according to similar birth/survival rules.
Most rules' symmetries will match with environmental symmetries. Another is that any rule with no death will always preserve an environment but new cells might not grow out of the living cells.

I don't know if any of this is worth discussing, but I don't think putting it in a new thread for swift death is going to add to the livelihood of this, our community.

[Tropylium]

First, every thread on this forum is about a specific topic; discussion and interpretation are always sectioned away into their individual thread, with the individuals covering a few points apiece. General discussion is dead. I'd love to talk about the larger topics on CA like the classification of ruletypes (exploding, stable, chaotic, cyclic, gliding) or the overarching topic of environment types.

This is an area I find interesting as well, though, even if most users around here appear to be mainly interested in pattern engineering.

I also think the type 1-4 classification could be extended — perhaps by splitting things into various axes, e.g:
1) Cell lifespan. A rule can leave behind stable material, labile "oscillating" mess, or a chaotic mess. Many lack "cohesivity" altogether and soups will quickly disintegrate into smaller chunks until border effects start dominating (Life is an example).

2) Growth potential. All patterns in B1 rules will grow, most patterns in B2 rules will, B3 rules can do anything from "grows almost always" to "only astronomically large patterns will keep growing" to "grows on a torus but not on a plane". B4 rules (but not B5 rules) sometimes allow for "inward" growth, ie. if you were to start with chaos and create a hole in it, the hole will get filled out.

[DocA]

Does this forum support images?

Rules can be made with the Von Neumann neighborhood, birth rule B2, that never escape square limits on the alive cells. In this picture, I did just this:

[ Image no longer available from i.im​gur.com: http://i.im​gur.com/pP6rO.png ]

Plus any image is an environment that can be used, and I've exploited geometry to put together images that show off the symmetries in the rules I use.

[DocA]

I fear any further ranting is going wasted on such a sterile forum, but I pray to a god of no understanding that some of the people here are not just bugcatchers or eccentric mathematicians but honest poets and great dreamers and fair artists. We aren't making a beginning-to-end atlas of every binary combination within an infinite grid! That would be a very stupid thing to do, and it would be a very stupid thing for an entire community to exclusively do for thirty years! I'm extremely frustrated at the community here because...

what are we doing?

Who are we doing it for?

How can we connect reality? Are we using natural language with other humans who don't understand why you're talking about loaves and beehives, puffers and spaceships? Most people don't get into CA because they get bogged down by specifics as CA people blab at them about periods and universality and infinity. Who gives a shit? I've avoided joining in most of these discussions because nearly all of them are back-patting minutae.

I post here because cellular automata contain the same life as in me, and life is beautiful. Also because this is the only cellular automata forum on the internet.

So please, speak up. We need it.

[LWSS]

I really like what Doca is saying, I wish I knew half as much as you guys on game of life. I came here to learn mainly and I think the life is amazing.

[DocA]

We still aren't using Gifs. We still aren't using images. We still aren't discussing deeper, nonsurface aspects of GOL and its universality. I care about unlocking the mysteries of the CA world, I'm just looking for curious fanatics like me to ask me questions. I've been reading about and designing CA for about 4 years and I want to be able to answer any overarching questions you might have about these miniature worlds.

[Sphenocorona]

Gif's are more time consuming to make, so those are probably going to remain uncommon in posts. For the most recent posts I made about patterns I found, I included pictures so there was no requirement to open Golly to see the basis of what happened. Id like Golly or some other program to let us run Larger than Life CA's because I would love to experiment with those too. I wish this forum was more active, but finding new patterns gets harder as time passes.

[dvgrn]

Gif's are more time consuming to make, so those are probably going to remain uncommon in posts.

I think the amount of time needed to post isn't the most important thing -- though it's certainly a factor; I'm much more likely to actually complete a five-minute status report with copy-pasted RLE, than a beautiful color-adjusted CAdvertisement for my pattern-of-the-day.

Here's the thing: at least for me, an image has exactly the same problem that DocA mentioned about encoded character strings -- images don't move, and "Life is about movement"! Even a series of images won't convey much of the dynamics of most patterns. Thus on a discussion forum I'd much rather have the RLE in a code box, just a few keyboard shortcuts away from actually seeing the pattern in action.

-- But I do have a decade of habit built up in the copy/paste/run department, most of that from years when pattern RLE came in emails and text files with no handy "Select All" boxes... so I might be a bit biased here.

I'd be happier with animated GIFs, probably, but those are really a lot of work to make. What I'd really want is an automatically-playing video with zooming and panning and pop-up labels -- and that could be done better with a Golly script than anything else that we have available on the forums.

I once spent some time trying to write a Java applet and some associated Javascript to make it possible to see a moving RLE pattern instantly as part of a posting... with indifferent results (this was based on an applet by Paul Callahan -- click on the patterns to see the action). George Maydwell's Collidoscope used to be the best and most colorful effort along these lines, but now I'm thinking maybe something like Chris Rowett's Lifeview would be good to have available, embedded right into forum postings somehow...?

The irresistible part of CA exploration is watching how things change, in familiar ways and in new and surprising ways. I love watching the multicolored fireworks of knightlife's new Blockic splitters, or the birth of the strange new loafer Life form from the collision of a few gliders. Most of the patterns I'm interested in are too big to work well as images -- that last link is a perfect example!

I wish this forum was more active, but finding new patterns gets harder as time passes.

Not sure I agree about that last -- as more new technology is discovered, there are more and more ways of putting it all together to do new things; and as computers get faster, objects that used to be almost impossible to find are now within reach of a good search program. There are plenty of rules with amazing things just waiting to be discovered. For example, doesn't anyone want the challenge of finding the first gun in B378/S23? And there's plenty of room for discovery even in well-traveled parts of CA space, as the appearance of the loafer in B3/S23 proves.

[lukebradford]

I pray to a god of no understanding that some of the people here are not just bugcatchers or eccentric mathematicians but honest poets and great dreamers and fair artists.

This forum takes all kinds.

what are we doing?

Whatever we want to do.

Who are we doing it for?

Ourselves.

How can we connect reality? Are we using natural language with other humans who don't understand why you're talking about loaves and beehives, puffers and spaceships? Most people don't get into CA because they get bogged down by specifics as CA people blab at them about periods and universality and infinity. Who gives a shit? I've avoided joining in most of these discussions because nearly all of them are back-patting minutae.

This forum encourages all its members to explore cellular automata in whatever way attracts them. Just as a car forum will have different internal communities that love to discuss beautiful roads, to puzzle over advanced engines, to marvel at vintage automobiles, or to talk about the trajectory of the car industry as a whole.

This is a very small community approaching a huge field of exploration. The discussions here are bound to wander off into specific corners of that field, and it's up to you to steer discussion toward whatever interests you.