User:DroneBetter

I contribute here as an editor, I joined on December 1, 2021, but only began making interesting edits at about September 28th of the following year. I am also an amateur programmer and mathematician, as such my edits reflect my interests somewhat.

I live in the UK, at present, where I was born also.

🏳️‍⚧️

Art gallery

variant of OT map, as used in Spaceship#In other rules (see there for earlier two and more details) in this variant, grey cells are those disproven from containing spaceships the set of spaceship speeds is sorted and arranged evenly around the colour wheel, and rules sum the colours of spaceships they contain you can see the vertical sixteenth-band of B2 without B0, B1 or B3, which bears an indigo/violet hue due to its photons

Sir RobinDoo-dah Sir Robin as rendered by gzip_swar_INT, like a long-exposure shot except each iteration is shifted by (2,1)/6 and the colour shifts π3 around the colour wheel, I thought perhaps white subpixels could be considered 36ths of stator cells to generalise volatility to spaceships (and strict volatility, because cells oscillating at subperiods appear grey), an idea which it seemed Connor Steppie also thought of after me in a forum post The doo-dah

Programming

I began programming initially with Scratch, and eventually made a real-time raytracer (supporting Newtonian lower speeds of light and gravitational lensing) before moving onto Python. However, I only became what I would deem proficient at about the time I made my chess tablebase program, for generating, rendering and simulating state transition diagrams in 3D. It has springs and repulsion (to attempt to optimise Euclidean space to the distance metric of moves between nodes. I also added exhaustive oscillator searches in bounded regions in cellular automata (currently only feasibly up to 5*5, in INT rules without b0), with diagram-viewing for that also. It takes quadratic time to simulate physics because it doesn't implement the fast multipole method. It supports topological manifolds (in both chess and CA) but only reduces the number of states to search by considering only those nonequivalent under symmetry, not vertex-transitivity (as is allowed by some manifolds). Here is the discussion thread (in which I explained some of my other programming :-)

Its purposes for chess, though less elementary, may still be of interest here, being that it concerns recursive application of a simple function (albeit of checkmate regression on finite graphs instead of infinite planes), that give rise to phenomena like the KRvK DTM distribution with respect to board width. A358339 answers the question "How many nonequivalent positions on an n*n board are checkmate in k half-moves," and is surprisingly complex, I suspect it regularises at n > 24, whereupon the maximum DTM (A225552) appears to become linear-recurrent. The cellular automaton mode was initially implemented in a trivial manner, with states simulated as lists of booleans, until my dear friend Redstoneboi (from the forums here) told me about David Buchanan's Github gist, gzip_swar_life.py, which simulates Life with "(Single-Instruction Multiple-Data) Within A Register," representing bounded states as bigints with four bits per cell so its computations with bitwise operators are performed in the C implementation with a constant amount of Python interpreter overhead, the gzip is because it uses gzip to decompress to eight bits per cell, converting it to a YUV4MPEG video (which can be streamed at 1080p60fps, ie. 124416000 cells/second (!!)). I decided to begin modifying it for my program, and made a fork, gzip_swar_isotropic_non-totalistic (also detailed in my forum thread), supporting arbitrary OT rules, INT ones (in 9 bits per cell (in 3*3 squares) then 8 (in 8*1 rectangles) after I realised it can use the pre-mask int to check its own state, which will allow video streaming without the intermediate gzip), topological manifolds and some buggy support for infinite planes. It can analyse oscillators to automatically sort Catagolue censuses by volatility, and make images like those shown above.

Articles I wrote

I wrote the articles Tutorials/Coding Life simulators/bitwise SWAR Life (regarding the program above), Pólya enumeration theorem, Tutorials/Coding Life simulators/eightfold reducer (concerning an application of the theorem to efficient indexing methods for emulating lists of states under symmetry), Modular congruence, One-dimensional cellular automaton/Wolfram rule, OCA:Critters and OCA:Rule 120 (containing a considerable amount of analysis, and the one page I would deem most beautiful of those I have written).

For the sake of completeness, I also created the pages for Grid's p16, Charity's p30 and Cribbage, but they're of the wiki's more standard style of short synoptic pages about elementary patterns, someone would have very shortly if not for me getting there first, and others improved them thereafter.

With gzip_swar_INT's census-sorting mode, it identified some more patterns that constituted entries for Highest volatility period-5 oscillators, and made equivalent pages for periods 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8.

I also made Other jacks, regarding a family of patterns of which one member had accidentally been given the same name as the Jack.

Most of my contributions are edits, I try to increase the total amount of information, rather than only reformat it. My program has allowed for the identification of many patterns from soup search results that constitute interesting notes on related pages, it seems the depths of Catagolue are surprisingly untapped.

Templates

The LifeWiki doesn't have a LaTeX extension, so I made {{frac}}, {{choose}}, {{sum}}, {{product}}, {{sqrt}} and {{lim}}, for expressing formulas in a somewhat more nicely-formatted way.

Userspace pages

• rules! (probably the most interesting to LifeWiki perusers)

• /B3ai4/S23 (Life if John Conway had chosen B4/S23 instead of B3/S23, then invented INT rules in order to allow for the existence of spaceships)
• /Nightingale (a wazir-knight-union neighbourhood, in which the universe is partitioned into two almost-noninteracting universes)
• /4diagonal‎ (a rule studied by other people that I deemed to warrant a page, maybe can be moved into the mainspace)

• /self-complementary outer-totalistic rules (lists all 47 with spaceships known and 11 that have not been disproven from containing spaceships)
• /seminatural linear growth patterns (all those in the b3s23/all-soups census in particular, with a few annotations and links, to be more enjoyable and less hasslesome to go through than Catagolue itself)
• /OEIS elementary index‎ (I spent too long using the Index to Elementary Cellular Automata in the OEIS, this one groups by equivalence class and colours rules by strobingness/number of allowed background states and interestingness (fractal/chaoticness))

I made a program for the more specific task of applying the Pólya enumeration theorem to determine numbers of transitions in neighbourhoods in a specific number of dimensions as closed-form equations in terms of the range, an OEIS sequence (A361870) and an article here about it. Later, I learned about the characterisation of conjugacy classes of the hypercube symmetry group, and made a faster program.

If you are brave enough, my page miscellaneous curiosities is a veritable menagery of things I have found (in programming, maths and the intersection of the two), of varying degrees of interestingness, complexity and novelty. (Most things are included there not for the purposes of explaining them to others, but as a reference for my future self, or a cache for my intended future OEIS contributions, but you may glean something from it nonetheless.)

rule waiver

The LifeWiki etiquette policy says

Do not edit other people's user pages without their permission

I'm not sure whether this also pertains to subpages thereof (I hope not), but if you have a good-faith contribution to make to any of these, don't be dissuaded by the LifeWiki-wide rule. Like the great hotdogPi before me, I have edited various other people's userspace pages, so it would be hypocritical to disallow it.

searches

I contribute to Catagolue under the name Painless Dentistry (a subtle reference to The Simpsons)

Besides my own programs, I mainly use apgsearch (and apgspaceinvaders), ikpx2 (which I usually use in the Catagolue stdin mode), rlifesrc (mainly for completing partials found with ikpx2) and rstatoropt.

Results of own searches on the wiki

I occasionally search for spaceships of new speeds to add them to rules' wiki pages, even more occasionally this is successful. (It seems Megospace created HighFlock and EightFlock despite a lack of notability and things to be shown at the time, so I made them more notable :-)

• B34kz5e7c8/S23-a4ityz5k (in the yujhspace): Various (mostly not useful but occasionally cool-looking) pieces of c/2 technology, 2c/5, (1,1)c/6
• Flock:

new: (1,1)c/6 and c/6

true-period: (1,1)c/4

reductions: 184- -> 126-cell c/5, 242- -> 82-cell 2c/5

• HighFlock:

new: c/3, (1,1)c/6

true-period variants of known speeds: c/5, 2c/5, (1,1)c/4 (which may stretch lines)

• Pedestrian Flock:

new: same (1,1)c/6 and c/6 as Flock

true-period: (1,1)c/4 (smaller than in the other two, works in them (and forms the minimal known linestretcher in each) but is p8 in them)

reductions: same smaller 2c/5 as in Flock

ikpx2 cannot find a c/3 in logical width ≤ 23, maybe a different program enabling non-coprime displacements and periods would be better

• Holstein: Smaller asymmetrical stabilisation of the known c/4's frontend

my computers

Ask me over forum messages or something and I will probably be willing to apgsearch your rules for a few days to weeks

I presently have

• a 2017 desktop with a 3.4GHz Intel quad-core i5-7500 processor, and 8GB of 2400MHz DDR4 RAM.
• a 2016 laptop with a 2.9GHz Intel dual-core i5-6267U processor, and 8GB of 2133MHz LPDDR3 RAM,
• a 2011 desktop with a 2.8GHz Intel quad-core i7-2600S processor, and 32GB of 1333MHz DDR3 RAM.

they all seem to encounter segfaults and inexplicable shutdowns on occasion while ikpx2ing, and none have CUDA GPUs so I may not contribute to GPU symmetries in outer-totalistic rules :-(

however, I am highly wise and also frugal, and so will not purchase new computers until it becomes necessary :-)

Friends

There are many people from here and the forums and lounge to whom I am thankful, for the kindness and friendship they have shown me (especially since I was more difficult to get along with early-on), in particular (though in no particular order)

• hotdogPi for making the Blocktopus redirect
• Darren Li for using some of the Open Science Grid's resources for b3ai4s23
• yujh for putting up with me for perhaps the longest contiguous duration of anyone (even when I was sending them things in which no-one could possibly be very interested, like Catagolue links to still lifes I found pareidolic) and the similarity of their sense of humour to mine
• galoomba for her patience and kindness and wisdom
• Magma, who has taught me a great deal and raised me out of the unscientific darkness. Many methods employed in (and the existence of entire sections of) miscellaneous curiosities are due to his teachings, prior to which I had many more deficiencies and holes in my knowledge, he has probably been the best friend I have ever had and I will be forever indebted to him
• apg, for his patient explanations to me (many of which I only came to understand months later)
• KittyTac for giving me more chances than I deserved to redeem myself

(very incomplete and shall be amended)

Inane boosts to my already encumbersomely large ego that I should not have received

I coined the name of the Blocktopus (found on June 25, 2021 by Jim Hortons, one of the highest-volatility period-8 oscillators and mentioned in Scrubber for its containment of an ephemeral one in some phases) as a whimsical joke, which David Raucci (hotdogPi) was so kind as to create a redirect for. I have been advised by iNoMed that due to its lack of sparkiness, it is not notable enough for a page yet, but I am happy nonetheless.

In a 2009 edit by apg to the Gun page, he described B36/S245 as the "logarithmic replicator rule," and in 2018 Muzik created a redirect page to it under the same name, which in 2019 Ian07 changed to a complete article. During a cursory examination, I found that the rule's replicator in fact grows with Θ(√t), and found explicit forms for the generation at which it reaches each width and the consequent asymptotic bounds on its growth, in what apg called (to omit a comparative adverb :-) 'thorough and correct.' Following an executive decision by Nathaniel Johnston, it is now located at sqrt replicator rule.

rules and things to perhaps look at

• though I created pages for rules 30 (the most famous chaotic one that looks like the growth of a conch shell), 90 (the symmetrical Sierpinski rule that is distributive with XOR but notable for its emulation by replicators such as that of HighLife) and 184 (voting rule), perhaps 150 could be more interesting, since it is the only non-Sierpinski fractal one besides 120 and may also have some analysis to it and its generalisations. yujh also proved that the set of bounded tapes in it with opposite fixed states on either end contains members of every period.
• The INT rule containing a Langton's ant emulator, B3-cjkq4knqy5cnr7/S02-cn3-ak4eiq5kq6e7e, is nonexplosive and searchable on Catagolue, presently at 1905183746 asymmetric soups (mainly by Moosey); it seems as though it might warrant some more searching and maybe an OCA page
• galoomba showed me B2-a3ik4a/S2-k34cij, a highly beautiful and galoombinous rule containing a great variety of oscillatory periods, seminatural spaceships, wickstretchers and guns stemming from its oscillators' tendency to grow and recede sparkily, and cling to and dance about (often surprisingly small) stators.

x = 255, y = 68, rule = B2-a3ik4a/S2-k34cij 249bo$248b2o16$8bobo11b3o12b3o5b3o9b2ob2o4b2ob2o8b2o4b2o8bo8bo5bo21bo11b3o5b3o5b3o7b3o10b3o17b3o9b2o$6bo2bo2bo8bobobo10bobobo3bobobo9b2o8b2o9b2ob2ob2o8b2o6b2o4b3o19b3o10bobo5bobo5bobo7bobo10bobo17bob2o9bo$5b4ob4o7b5o11bobo4b5o8bo12bo10b4o11bobo2bobo4b2o21bo12bob2o3bo2b2o3bo2b2o6bob2o9bob2o13b2obo2bo10bo$6bo5bo8b5o11b3o4b2obobo8b2o2bo2bo2b2o8bo8bo7b4o2b4o4bo18b2obobo11bo7b2o6bo9bo11b2o16bob4o7bob2o$4b2o2bobo2b2o23bo10bo12b4o12bo2b4o2bo22bo18bobob2o10bo7bo7bobobo5bobobo7bo2bobo13bo10b2o$2bo13bo5bobo20bobo9b3o2bo2bo2b3o10b4o14b2o14bo15bob3obo27b3o7b3o4bo5b3o9b2ob2o11bo3bo$b3o11b3o5bo34b2obob2obob2o29b2o11bo2b2o8bo2b2obo5b2o24b2o2bo5b2o2bo9bo2bo10bo2bo10b2ob3o$2b2o11b2o40b4o6b4o7b2o6b2o11b2o6b3o3b3o9b2obo2b7o28b2o7b3o8b5o27bo25bo$2o15b2o38bo12bo7b2o6b2o19bobo4bo15bo34bo19bo57b2o$2bo13bo6bo32bobo10bobo5bo10bo18b3o18b2o2bob2o$23bo32bo2bo8bo2bo5b3o6b3o40bob2o2bo116b3o$23bo33b3o8b3o8bo6bo165b3o$79bob4obo44bo$60bo6bo12bo4bo45b2o110b2o$23bo36b2o4b2o150bo25bo$22b3o36bo4bo10b2o8b2o126b2ob3o$21bo3bo33bo2bo2bo2bo7bo5b2o5bo126bo3bo$23bo33bo5b2o5bo5bo3bob2obo3bo123b2o$57bobob2o2b2obobo5bo3bo4bo3bo124bob2o$22bobo32bobo8bobo6bob3o2b3obo128bo$23bo35bo8bo147bo$22bobo34b2o6b2o9bo2bo2bo2bo127b2o$57bobo8bobo7b2o6b2o$23bo32bo2b2o6b2o2bo5bo3bo2bo3bo$22bobo32bob2o6b2obo7bobo4bobo$21bo3bo33bo8bo8bo3bo2bo3bo$22bobo32b2o10b2o$23bo35b2o6b2o10bob4obo$58b3o6b3o11b4o$58b3o6b3o6bobo2b4o2bobo$58b3o6b3o$58bo2bo4bo2bo10bo4bo$82b2o$58bobo6bobo9bo2b2o2bo$59bo8bo$80b2o2b2o$80b6o$80b6o162b2o$80b2o2b2o163bo$79bo6bo$78bo8bo$80bo4bo$78bo2bo2bo2bo$77bo10bo$77b5o2b5o$79b2o4b2o2$78b3o4b3o$77b2o2bo2bo2b2o$76b2o10b2o$77b2o2bo2bo2b2o! #C [[ THUMBSIZE 2 THEME 6 GRID GRIDMAJOR 0 SUPPRESS THUMBLAUNCH ]] #C [[ THUMBSIZE 2 WIDTH 2240 HEIGHT 560 ZOOM 8 ]]

c/2, puffers of speeds 48c/96 and 24c/48, natural 2c/4, c/5, c/6, c/7, (1,1)c/9, (2,2)c/17 wickstretcher, at (1,1)c/4 various spaceships and a wickstretcher, and a p37 and p85 gun for each of the glide-symmetric spaceships (click above to open LifeViewer)