Inconsequential @potatowned - Tumblr Blog

Penance

I can understand why the Catholics do it. It’s pretty cathartic. I don’t feel absolved of my guilt, but I feel like I’m making progress towards something like salvation, holding on to the belief that effort has to count for something in the circumstances I find myself in.

Still, it does feel a little hollow acting without any external validation. I suppose if my faith and belief were of a stronger constitution, I would not have these niggling doubts and would be supremely self-content with my own self-flagellation.

Maybe it’s the fact that we always cut ourselves slack, giving ourselves the excuses, the exit signs, the sympathetic pats on the back, that we see justified and deserved which prevents us from really cutting to the bone and imposing upon ourselves the full punishment that would rid us of the gangrene of our misdeeds.

There are worse ways to live. We could be ignorant of our misdeeds, or have absolute misguided faith in the incorruptibility of our character; oh the horror!

#self-masturbatory

thisblogdeadyeet

John Conway first theorized that it would be impossible to create a forever-expanding universe using these rules, which was proven wrong by a team at MIT, creating the “glider gun,” which is featured in the third gif.

Since then, thanks to computers, people all over the world have added new designs to the database, creating amazingly complex designs.

For example Andrew J. Wade created a design which replicates itself every 34 million generations! Furthermore it is also a spaceship (permanently moving pattern) and not only that, it was also the first spaceship that did not travel purely diagonally or horizontally/vertically! These types of spaceships are now appropriately named Knightships.

The simulation has some interesting properties, for example it has a theoretical maximum speed information can travel. Or simply, light speed - as that is the limit in our own universe. The limit is set to 1 cell per generation - after all how can you create something further than 1 cell away in one generation if you can only effect your immediate neighbours? And yet you can get things like the ‘stargate’ (Love the name, huge SG fan here.) which allows a space ship to travel 11 cells in just 6 generations.

Some smart people have even designed calculators, prime number generators and other incredibly complex patterns.

You can create your own patterns here: http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/

All gifs were made from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vgICfQawE