4 ms·

I'll take Alan Turning over the Glider, anytime. http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1046#comment-236592 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1046#comment-236592

by gonzo 12y ago

dllthomas 12y ago
At the intersection of both the objects mentioned in your post, I still find it amazing that one can build a UTM in Conway's Game Of Life.
- DonHopkins 12y ago
  Life is overrated. Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" goes a lot further and is much more amazing than that, with much simpler rules than life.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Life is particularly interesting because it's something I've been toying with (off and on, not in any particular depth) for all my life. It's certainly not pushing the limits of simplicity.
DonHopkins 12y ago
The historic cellular automata rule that would be MUCH more appropriate than Life to represent hacker culture would be John von Neumann's 29 state cellular automata [1], and the most appropriate pattern to use would be his universal constructor, which can reproduce itself given the right input, thus is a two-dimensional cellular automata quine. He's the ORIGINAL hacker's hacker, who figured all of that out on paper, without the use of computers. And his Universal Constructor [3] is much more beautiful and interesting that a simple Life glider, in my opinion. Now that would make an impressive tattoo! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_cellular_automaton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_cellular_automaton [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_universal_constructor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_universal_construct... [3] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Nobili_Pesavento_2reps.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Nobili_Pe... (By the way, it's Alan Turing, not Turning -- a common and understandable mistake!) (Also by the way, children and nice people read Hacker News, so please do not link to ESR's reprehensible web site, promote his racist ideology, or buy into his bullshit that he is a hacker or speaks for hackers.)

I'll take Alan Turning over the Glider, anytime. http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1046#comment-236592 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1046#comment-236592

by gonzo 12y ago

I'll take Alan Turning over the Glider, anytime. http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1046#comment-236592 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1046#comment-236592

dllthomas 12y ago

At the intersection of both the objects mentioned in your post, I still find it amazing that one can build a UTM in Conway's Game Of Life.

DonHopkins 12y ago
Life is overrated. Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" goes a lot further and is much more amazing than that, with much simpler rules than life.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  Life is particularly interesting because it's something I've been toying with (off and on, not in any particular depth) for all my life. It's certainly not pushing the limits of simplicity.

DonHopkins 12y ago

The historic cellular automata rule that would be MUCH more appropriate than Life to represent hacker culture would be John von Neumann's 29 state cellular automata [1], and the most appropriate pattern to use would be his universal constructor, which can reproduce itself given the right input, thus is a two-dimensional cellular automata quine. He's the ORIGINAL hacker's hacker, who figured all of that out on paper, without the use of computers. And his Universal Constructor [3] is much more beautiful and interesting that a simple Life glider, in my opinion. Now that would make an impressive tattoo! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_cellular_automaton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_cellular_automaton [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_universal_constructor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_universal_construct... [3] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Nobili_Pesavento_2reps.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Nobili_Pe... (By the way, it's Alan Turing, not Turning -- a common and understandable mistake!) (Also by the way, children and nice people read Hacker News, so please do not link to ESR's reprehensible web site, promote his racist ideology, or buy into his bullshit that he is a hacker or speaks for hackers.)