First Self-Replicating Creature Spawned In Conway's Game of Life 241

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday June 17, 2010 @12:27PM from the emergent-gameplay dept.

Calopteryx writes "New Scientist has a story on a self-replicating entity which inhabits the mathematical universe known as the Game of Life. 'Dubbed Gemini, [Andrew Wade's] creature is made of two sets of identical structures, which sit at either end of the instruction tape. Each is a fraction of the size of the tape's length but, made up of two constructor arms and one "destructor," play a key role. Gemini's initial state contains three of these structures, plus a fourth that is incomplete. As the simulation progresses the incomplete structure begins to grow, while the structure at the start of the tape is demolished. The original Gemini continues to disassemble as the new one emerges, until after nearly 34 million generations, new life is born.'"

Comment my recs (Score 1) 630

by rawshark on Monday February 09, 2009 @07:38AM (#26781573) Attached to: Mathematics Reading List For High School Students?

+1 to Godel Escher Bach
Unknown Quantity by Derbyshire, I believe he has another book out for Riemann's Hypothesis
anything by Martin Gardner (may be more appropriate to younger students, but definately interesting!)

Comment as always, xkcd covers this (Score 1) 664

by rawshark on Monday December 22, 2008 @04:53PM (#26204917) Attached to: Will People Really Boycott Apple Over DRM?

http://xkcd.com/511/

Submission + - Prius more environmentally damaging than a Hummer

Submitted by on Tuesday March 20, 2007 @12:32PM

An anonymous reader writes: According to this story from Central Connecticut State University the Prius takes more energy to manufacture than a Hummer, requiring 50% more energy to produce. In addition, they calculate that the Prius costs $3.25 per mile over it's expected lifespan of 100,000 miles compared to $1.95 per mile for the hummer.

Feed 300 First 2007 Blockbuster (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Sunday March 11, 2007 @09:12PM

The ancient battle of Thermopylae stars in 300, which debuts with opening-weekend ticket sales of $70 million. By the Associated Press. Plus: A gallery of photo stills from the film homage to Frank Miller's graphic novel.

Journal Journal: Googlebot and Document.Write 180

Journal by gbulmash on Sunday March 11, 2007 @05:32PM

With JavaScript/AJAX being used to place dynamic content in pages, I was wondering how Google indexed web page content that was placed in a page using the JavaScript "document.write" method.

Google's Best Perk — Transport 342

Posted by kdawson on Sunday March 11, 2007 @05:28PM from the Wi-Fi-included dept.

Reverse Gear writes "The New York Times has an interesting article about how different kinds of fringe benefits are starting to count more in the fight for the best brains in Silicon Valley. The article mainly focuses on Google's high-tech shuttle-bus system, which is quite extensive, covering a majority of the San Fransisco Bay area. The article quotes a transportation expert opining that Google's may be the largest such private system anywhere. One-quarter of the headquarters employees are now using it. A Google software engineer said: 'They could either charge for the food or cut it altogether... If they cut the shuttle, it would be a disaster.'"

Submission + - Why Dell won't offer Linux on its PCs.

Submitted by

derrida

on Sunday March 11, 2007 @04:41PM

derrida writes: "Jack Schofield explains in his article why Dell won't offer Linux on its PCs. Quoting from there: "The most obvious is deciding which version of Linux to offer. There are more than 100 distros, and everybody seems to want a different one — or the same one with a different desktop, or whatever. It costs Dell a small fortune to offer an operating system (it involves thousands of driver compatibility, peripheral testing, certification, staff training, administration, advertising and support issues) so the lack of a standard is a real killer. The less obvious problem is the very high cost of Linux support, especially when selling cheap PCs to naïve users who don't RTFM (read the friendly manual) and wouldn't understand a Linux manual if they tried. And there's so much of it! Saying "Linux is just a kernel, so that's all we support" isn't going to work, but where in the great sprawling heap of GNU/Linux code do you draw the line?""

SCO Says IBM Hurt Profits 174

Posted by kdawson on Sunday March 11, 2007 @04:20PM from the and-a-bandaid-for-your-knee dept.

AlanS2002 sends in a link from a local Utah newspaper covering the SCO-IBM trial. The Deseret News chose to emphasize SCO's claim that IBM hurt SCO's relationship with several high-tech powerhouses, causing SCO's market share and revenues to plummet. "[A]n attorney for Lindon-based SCO said IBM 'pressured' companies to cut off their relationships with SCO. And 'the effect on SCO was devastating and it was immediate'..." As usual Groklaw has chapter and verse on all the arguments in the motions for summary judgement.

Submission + - Trolltech Qtopia Greenphone and SDK Review

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11, 2007 @12:09PM

An anonymous reader writes: The Greenphone comes at a time when there are countless mobile Linux platforms, but not many of them are open for easy development. This little device aims to fill a niche for a community-oriented mobile development platform. How does it perform? Linuxlookup.com has the Trolltech Qtopia Greenphone and SDK review.

Bookmark Spam still warped but no longer sexy (daniweb.com)

by gingerkazza on Sunday March 11, 2007 @11:57AM

Submission + - Debugging the FreeBSD kernal transparently

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11, 2007 @11:43AM

An anonymous reader writes: To debug the FreeBSD kernel core dump efficiently, it is best to set up a remote debugging session between the development machine and target machine, and remotely debug the kernel using serial communication. This article shows you how you can debug as many kernel images as you want to debug; it becomes transparent to users once debugging starts and your system's performance is not affected at all.

Submission + - New Mexico secedes, might declare Pluto Planet

Submitted by

pease1

on Saturday March 10, 2007 @10:46PM

pease1 writes: "Wired and others are reporting for New Mexico, the fight for Pluto is not over. Seven months after a conclave of scientists downgraded the distant heavenly body to a "dwarf planet," a state representative in New Mexico aims to give the snubbed world back some of its respect. State lawmakers will vote Tuesday on a bill that proposes "as Pluto passes overhead through New Mexico's excellent night skies, it be declared a planet." Actual wording of the resolution.

For many of us old timers and those who had the honor of meeting Clyde, this just causes a belly of laughs and is pure fun. Not to mention a bit of poking sticking in the eye."

Journal Journal: Freetricity? Small-scale wind & solar generator 1

Journal by zmef420 on Saturday March 10, 2007 @10:44PM

OK, so a while back now I was working on a business plan and stumbled across the website of a startup company offering a very intriguing product, a small wind and solar generator system. The product is about the size of a digital satellite dish and the basic unit is claimed to produce 300 watts and includes a 700 watt inverter. Being the impulse buyer that I am, I quickly purchased some of these units but sadly they still haven't arrived. I'm starting to worry that I've been duped. My questio

Journal Journal: New Species Of Dinosaur

Journal by Video Cat on Saturday March 10, 2007 @08:10PM

According to http://www.wastedblog.com/viewcontent.php?IdContent=4655 a new species of dinosaur has been discovered. Michael Ryan, curator of vertebrate paleontology for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, published the discovery in this month's Journal of Paleontology. He dug up the fossil six years ago in southern Alberta, Canada, while a graduate student for the University of Calgary. The new dinosaur has been named