i hope you have the TIME of your LIFE
March 9, 2017 7:30 AM   Subscribe

some dumb smarty made a digital clock out of Conway's Game of Life and you can run it yourself if you actually follow the instructions

did u get the joke in the title
posted by beerperson (27 comments total) 39 users marked this as a favorite
 
This thing is ridiculous, and I love how it is simultaneously kind of goddam amazing—I mean, fuck, look at that thing!—and also something the author is compelled to be sort of shamefaced about in terms of clunky, suboptimal design.

And really what better aesthetic for a Life construction than a slightly sloppy, laggy implementation of the chunky artifice of a segmented digital alarm clock face, that weird utilitarian futuristic version/regression of the elegance of mechanical watchworks.
posted by cortex at 7:47 AM on March 9, 2017 [11 favorites]


Anyway, I saw this on twitter earlier and it got me wondering whether there's been any instance of someone constructing a working mechanical implementation of Conway's Life using moving parts and googling has not been promising and I therefore Drop The Question In The Thread.
posted by cortex at 7:49 AM on March 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


This is amazing!
posted by meinvt at 7:49 AM on March 9, 2017


Incredible. Wow.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 7:58 AM on March 9, 2017


I saw this on twitter earlier

DID YOU
posted by beerperson at 7:59 AM on March 9, 2017 [6 favorites]


This is extremely neat and I appreciate the tone of beerperson's post.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:03 AM on March 9, 2017


More gobsmacking to me is that you can run a Life pattern of this size in Javascript in your browser. Hashlife is very clever.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 8:19 AM on March 9, 2017 [7 favorites]


whether there's been any instance of someone constructing a working mechanical implementation of Conway's Life using moving parts and googling has not been promising and I therefore Drop The Question In The Thread.

Would you be looking for a fully-mechanical version or would electro-mechanical do?

I suspect using solenoids and other electronic doo-dads one could be made where the cells would be physical, with the logic done electronically.

Purely mechanical would be insane, and I want to think something with a small grid could be done by someone very smart but I also think if it could have been done it would have been done by now. Probably in Lego.
posted by bondcliff at 8:22 AM on March 9, 2017


I have my doubts about a purely mechanical version but never say never I suppose. It would be hard. I'm sure electro-mechanical would be possible a bunch of ways.

But these fancy-ass machines built out of gliders require millions of generations to do stuff and I don't expect that even an electro-mechanical version would be very fast.
posted by GuyZero at 8:25 AM on March 9, 2017




Is there a youtube video of this running?
posted by cosmic.osmo at 10:18 AM on March 9, 2017


New: here is a version with both AM and PM indicators for the demanding.

Peasants.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:42 AM on March 9, 2017


You know, despite the hugeness and complexity of this thing, the overall impression i get is one of smallness. Like looking through an electron microscope at atoms being cleverly manipulated - which i suppose is more or less exactly what's happening.

Seeing the lines of gliders running back and forth to make the segments of the digits is like seeing the flickering of a pixel; it's like we aren't supposed to see that level of detail. Imagine what incredible things can be made with Life at even higher abstraction levels!
posted by dbx at 10:49 AM on March 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


As someone who just wrote a (somewhat naive) game of life simulator in JavaScript to try and learn a particular framework, I feel personally attacked by the performance and utility of this thing.
posted by one of these days at 10:58 AM on March 9, 2017 [8 favorites]


Click "Settings", then change "Generation Step" to ?? to get to real time. The 512 was suggested so you could see things happening.

I slowed it way down and zoomed in on the timer at the top, then followed the gliders that periodically come out. I'm amazed by the execution of the concept.
posted by achrise at 12:20 PM on March 9, 2017


Now that's a lifehack!
posted by sjswitzer at 3:41 PM on March 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


Not trying to be snarky, but I'd rather run the aperiodic "natural" life patterns... what is the point of compelling the simulation to mimic a simple segmented display?

(edit: I realize it is an impressive bit of coding, guess I don't understand why someone would propose the concept)
posted by superelastic at 4:16 AM on March 10, 2017


superelastic: This is one of those things where, if you don't understand it, you're not part of the intended audience. The point is, it can be done, and it's crazy, and it's ridiculous, and it's fun!

My favorite similar example is Life emulated in Life.

(Edit: just noticed that Life in Life is previously on Metafilter as noted upthread by lalochezia—sorry for the duplicate!)
posted by ragtag at 5:14 AM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


thanks for the gratuitous shitty earworm from your title
posted by thelonius at 5:28 AM on March 10, 2017 [2 favorites]


The title grabs your brain by the wrist and directs you where to go. That's what it's for.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:16 AM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


At first it struck me as unpredictable, but, in the end, as right.
posted by cortex at 7:09 AM on March 10, 2017 [3 favorites]


Imagine what incredible things can be made with Life at even higher abstraction levels!

Life is Turing-complete, so everything, really - you could recreate all existing software assuming suitable long life and insanity
posted by iffthen at 7:32 AM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


I kind of like throwing a few random cells into it and watching it slowly fall to pieces.
posted by loquacious at 6:50 PM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


The title grabs your brain by the wrist and directs you where to go. That's what it's for.

/looks at title again

i hope you have the TIME of your LIFE

Ah. Right. So it's not just a reference to silly out-of-date magazines.
posted by Celsius1414 at 7:04 PM on March 10, 2017


Billie Joe Armstrong famously writes all his songs to name-drop 50s magazines as frequently as possible
posted by beerperson at 8:02 PM on March 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


cosmic.osmo: "Is there a youtube video of this running?"

Yes!
posted by Rhaomi at 1:15 PM on March 11, 2017


Billie Joe Armstrong famously writes all his songs to name-drop 50s magazines as frequently as possible

It was fucking bullshit when those idiot suits at the label made him change Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine to Boulevard of Broken Dreams, but that's why he had to hastily backfill with lyrics from Here I Go Again.
posted by Copronymus at 12:16 PM on March 13, 2017 [1 favorite]


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