10 ms·

Like what? They decided meanwhile that they would like to celebrate Wolfram instead? Or is there any artistic value to celebrate someone with other persons ac

by szemet 9y ago

Like what? They decided meanwhile that they would like to celebrate Wolfram instead? Or is there any artistic value to celebrate someone with other persons achievements? Some kind of twisted post-modern artistic message about authorship? Or it looks better for them? For example: lets pay tribute to Amundsen reaching the South pole with polar bear images (because they are so cute)? By Occam razor: ignorance is the best explanation. ;)

damnyou 9y ago
Maybe they tested both and found one more aesthetically pleasing? Maybe Game of Life simply doesn't produce patterns as interesting as Rule 30? With GoL you can only show one generation. Maybe they were going for the randomness that rule 30 provides (you can build a PRNG from it) but Game of Life doesn't? http://aperiodical.com/2017/05/right-answer-for-the-wrong-reason-cellular-automaton-on-the-new-cambridge-north-station/#comment-780944 http://aperiodical.com/2017/05/right-answer-for-the-wrong-re... They're professionals like you. Give them some credit.
- szemet 9y ago
  Ok. So they are not ignorant or stupid, but have a twisted value system? Imagine that you go to a Shakespeare festival but they only recite T. S. Eliot. When you are disappointed, they say: "Look these are all poems. They are very similar on the surface, but Eliot somehow sounds better to the modern ear. Long live Shakespeare!"
  - damnyou 9y ago
    No, they got the order to make something that looks like GoL. They tried it out, realized it didn't look great, then looked for what most people who don't have a CS degree would consider similar enough and also looked nice. This sort of reasonable compromise happens all the time. In the software industry, if you picked ideological purity over pragmatism you wouldn't be a great engineer. You may have a point if this was a museum celebrating Conway, but it isn't.
    - mnsc 9y ago
      If they have a sign somewhere in the train station explaining the panels and how they "celebrate GoL" with an explanation of that algorithm then I would have an issue. But I agree that a static image of, ie a 77P6H1V1 wouldn't be a good representation of how it looks when flying. Static: http://www.conwaylife.com/w/images/8/89/77p6h1v1.png http://www.conwaylife.com/w/images/8/89/77p6h1v1.png Animated: http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/77P6H1V1 http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/77P6H1V1
    - szemet 9y ago
      Ok but anyway, either they were ignorant or they simply lied in the press release. Choose freely what shows the project members in a better light! (Neither? ;) My initial quotation was this from the press release: The architects said the aluminium design is derived from John Conway's Game of Life 'cellular automaton', http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/could-cambridge-north-station-owe-13111740 http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/could-ca... You can't protect this with some kind of "we all come from gogol's overcoat", mentality. If it is true then they should have put a Gogol image there! ;)
      - damnyou 9y ago
        The architects probably don't have much control over the marketing. They're each doing their jobs.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      Pragmatic choices one can forgive, but that doesn't make it right to pretend that a thing is something it isn't. Ultimately, it seems someone there is simply lying to people. And you may think it's trivial, but it's exactly how - step by step, creative decision by creative decision - we turn each other into idiots with little clue about how reality works. Something that was discussed at length just few hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14460013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14460013 See also: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCoconutEffect http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCoconutEffect. I strongly second the quote that I once found on the Internet: "Promoting less than maximally accurate beliefs is an act of sabotage. Don’t do it to anyone unless you’d also slash their tires".
  - mmjaa 9y ago
    The assumption of stupidity, is itself stupid. What if they decided to go with Rule30 instead of GoL, precisely because they knew there'd be geeks out here that would be arguing about these things, infinitely, while a majority of people will just think its a great example of the kind of mathematical complexity that exists in the universe, either way you look at it?
    - szemet 9y ago
      So is it a hack? Simply: a Shakespeare festival with T.S. Eliot can get much more press coverage? People like "alternative facts" - both on the believer and the debater side, so give em' what they want for fun and profit? :) That is a fine point, but I simply do not like the value system behind it: to be ignorant or pretend to be ignorant because that's what people like
      - alain94040 9y ago
        <meta> I long for the time where HN will not allow the same contributor to respond infinitely to the same thread. If you couldn't get your point across after 4 messages, maybe it's a sign that you shouldn't try just one more time. You were already given several times the same reasonable explanation. It looks like GoL, and if the architects had said "we used 'rule 30'", absolutely no one would have had a clue what they are talking about. By saying they were inspired by GoL, at least a few people will think 'I vaguely heard of that, it's cool'. It's called pedagogy. Sometimes, being 100% accurate is not helpful.
        szemet 9y ago
        There were multiple different assumptions why Rule 30 was used, if I think neither is a good reason to use it to tribute Conway, why couldn't I answer them one by one? It is just my opinion - it is not hard science but art, so maybe no one can be right here: you can just choose not to read my comments if you anticipate in advance that you will disagree ;) edit: By the way they not said "inspired" by GoL but that they derived the pattern from it. I admit I'm not a native english speaker but I feel some difference... For you if it is the same, or it is fine "pedagogically" then good for you.
- palunon 9y ago
  >Maybe they were going for the randomness that rule 30 provides (you can build a PRNG from it) but Game of Life doesn't? You can build a PRNG in Game of Life, since you can build a Turing Machine. http://rendell-attic.org/gol/tm.htm http://rendell-attic.org/gol/tm.htm
  - reader5000 9y ago
    Isn't rule 30 also Turing complete? Therefore GoL and rule 30 can both emulate the other, modulo possible exponential blowups in time/space requirements.
    - doubleunplussed 9y ago
      Actually, according to the extended Church-Turing thesis, all Turing complete systems can emulate each other with at most polynomial overhead, so no exponential blow-ups. The only possible exception we know of is quantum computers.
    - teraflop 9y ago
      No, rule 30 isn't known to be Turing complete. You're probably thinking of rule 110.
- Jach 9y ago
  > They're professionals like you. Give them some credit. Ha ha. There's professional courtesy, but at the same time there are annoying truths (like rampant ignorance perhaps only barely above the general population, depending on the profession) we don't like to discuss in an unspoken agreement. Honestly it just seems like a poorly communicated marketing blurb more than anything else. They wanted to say it's based on cellular automata because they're cool, and they can link the location to a guy somewhat famous even in the general population for something to do with automata (under the phrase GoL). An analogous situation might be some architecture using a Sierpinski pattern and having a blurb on how they derived it from fractals, and could relate the location to Mandelbrot.
- DonHopkins 9y ago
  Life. Don't talk to me about life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAA67a2-Klk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAA67a2-Klk
samirillian 9y ago
Not sure what post-modernism has to do with such a twisted artistic message, haha.
- szemet 9y ago
  https://www.quora.com/Why-do-post-modern-artists-question-authorship-in-contemporary-art https://www.quora.com/Why-do-post-modern-artists-question-au...
  - samirillian 9y ago
    That's structuralism not postmodernism. Roland Barthes is a structuralist.
posterboy 9y ago
I'd guess that GoL and Cellular Automaton Theory preceded and inspired rule 30 etc. So, maybe the architects implied metarecursion, that GoL metaphorically generated rule 30. GoL is Turing complete. I guess that means there is a starting condition that converges to a rule30 cellular automaton. edit: video of GoL emulated inside a turing machine in GoL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8 (link replaced)

by szemet 9y ago

damnyou 9y ago

Maybe they tested both and found one more aesthetically pleasing? Maybe Game of Life simply doesn't produce patterns as interesting as Rule 30? With GoL you can only show one generation. Maybe they were going for the randomness that rule 30 provides (you can build a PRNG from it) but Game of Life doesn't? http://aperiodical.com/2017/05/right-answer-for-the-wrong-reason-cellular-automaton-on-the-new-cambridge-north-station/#comment-780944 http://aperiodical.com/2017/05/right-answer-for-the-wrong-re... They're professionals like you. Give them some credit.

szemet 9y ago
Ok. So they are not ignorant or stupid, but have a twisted value system? Imagine that you go to a Shakespeare festival but they only recite T. S. Eliot. When you are disappointed, they say: "Look these are all poems. They are very similar on the surface, but Eliot somehow sounds better to the modern ear. Long live Shakespeare!"
- damnyou 9y ago
  No, they got the order to make something that looks like GoL. They tried it out, realized it didn't look great, then looked for what most people who don't have a CS degree would consider similar enough and also looked nice. This sort of reasonable compromise happens all the time. In the software industry, if you picked ideological purity over pragmatism you wouldn't be a great engineer. You may have a point if this was a museum celebrating Conway, but it isn't.
  - mnsc 9y ago
    If they have a sign somewhere in the train station explaining the panels and how they "celebrate GoL" with an explanation of that algorithm then I would have an issue. But I agree that a static image of, ie a 77P6H1V1 wouldn't be a good representation of how it looks when flying. Static: http://www.conwaylife.com/w/images/8/89/77p6h1v1.png http://www.conwaylife.com/w/images/8/89/77p6h1v1.png Animated: http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/77P6H1V1 http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/77P6H1V1
  - szemet 9y ago
    Ok but anyway, either they were ignorant or they simply lied in the press release. Choose freely what shows the project members in a better light! (Neither? ;) My initial quotation was this from the press release: The architects said the aluminium design is derived from John Conway's Game of Life 'cellular automaton', http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/could-cambridge-north-station-owe-13111740 http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/could-ca... You can't protect this with some kind of "we all come from gogol's overcoat", mentality. If it is true then they should have put a Gogol image there! ;)
    - damnyou 9y ago
      The architects probably don't have much control over the marketing. They're each doing their jobs.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Pragmatic choices one can forgive, but that doesn't make it right to pretend that a thing is something it isn't. Ultimately, it seems someone there is simply lying to people. And you may think it's trivial, but it's exactly how - step by step, creative decision by creative decision - we turn each other into idiots with little clue about how reality works. Something that was discussed at length just few hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14460013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14460013 See also: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCoconutEffect http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCoconutEffect. I strongly second the quote that I once found on the Internet: "Promoting less than maximally accurate beliefs is an act of sabotage. Don’t do it to anyone unless you’d also slash their tires".
- mmjaa 9y ago
  The assumption of stupidity, is itself stupid. What if they decided to go with Rule30 instead of GoL, precisely because they knew there'd be geeks out here that would be arguing about these things, infinitely, while a majority of people will just think its a great example of the kind of mathematical complexity that exists in the universe, either way you look at it?
  - szemet 9y ago
    So is it a hack? Simply: a Shakespeare festival with T.S. Eliot can get much more press coverage? People like "alternative facts" - both on the believer and the debater side, so give em' what they want for fun and profit? :) That is a fine point, but I simply do not like the value system behind it: to be ignorant or pretend to be ignorant because that's what people like
    - alain94040 9y ago
      <meta> I long for the time where HN will not allow the same contributor to respond infinitely to the same thread. If you couldn't get your point across after 4 messages, maybe it's a sign that you shouldn't try just one more time. You were already given several times the same reasonable explanation. It looks like GoL, and if the architects had said "we used 'rule 30'", absolutely no one would have had a clue what they are talking about. By saying they were inspired by GoL, at least a few people will think 'I vaguely heard of that, it's cool'. It's called pedagogy. Sometimes, being 100% accurate is not helpful.
      - szemet 9y ago
        There were multiple different assumptions why Rule 30 was used, if I think neither is a good reason to use it to tribute Conway, why couldn't I answer them one by one? It is just my opinion - it is not hard science but art, so maybe no one can be right here: you can just choose not to read my comments if you anticipate in advance that you will disagree ;) edit: By the way they not said "inspired" by GoL but that they derived the pattern from it. I admit I'm not a native english speaker but I feel some difference... For you if it is the same, or it is fine "pedagogically" then good for you.
palunon 9y ago
>Maybe they were going for the randomness that rule 30 provides (you can build a PRNG from it) but Game of Life doesn't? You can build a PRNG in Game of Life, since you can build a Turing Machine. http://rendell-attic.org/gol/tm.htm http://rendell-attic.org/gol/tm.htm
- reader5000 9y ago
  Isn't rule 30 also Turing complete? Therefore GoL and rule 30 can both emulate the other, modulo possible exponential blowups in time/space requirements.
  - doubleunplussed 9y ago
    Actually, according to the extended Church-Turing thesis, all Turing complete systems can emulate each other with at most polynomial overhead, so no exponential blow-ups. The only possible exception we know of is quantum computers.
  - teraflop 9y ago
    No, rule 30 isn't known to be Turing complete. You're probably thinking of rule 110.
Jach 9y ago
> They're professionals like you. Give them some credit. Ha ha. There's professional courtesy, but at the same time there are annoying truths (like rampant ignorance perhaps only barely above the general population, depending on the profession) we don't like to discuss in an unspoken agreement. Honestly it just seems like a poorly communicated marketing blurb more than anything else. They wanted to say it's based on cellular automata because they're cool, and they can link the location to a guy somewhat famous even in the general population for something to do with automata (under the phrase GoL). An analogous situation might be some architecture using a Sierpinski pattern and having a blurb on how they derived it from fractals, and could relate the location to Mandelbrot.
DonHopkins 9y ago
Life. Don't talk to me about life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAA67a2-Klk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAA67a2-Klk

samirillian 9y ago

Not sure what post-modernism has to do with such a twisted artistic message, haha.

szemet 9y ago
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-post-modern-artists-question-authorship-in-contemporary-art https://www.quora.com/Why-do-post-modern-artists-question-au...
- samirillian 9y ago
  That's structuralism not postmodernism. Roland Barthes is a structuralist.

posterboy 9y ago

I'd guess that GoL and Cellular Automaton Theory preceded and inspired rule 30 etc. So, maybe the architects implied metarecursion, that GoL metaphorically generated rule 30. GoL is Turing complete. I guess that means there is a starting condition that converges to a rule30 cellular automaton. edit: video of GoL emulated inside a turing machine in GoL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8 (link replaced)