[ENDED] Code Golf - The Reboot #3

[Juju]

IMO, 11:59:59 PM ET Sunday would probably be better for those who don't have time through the week.

[Scipi]

IMO, 11:59:59 PM ET Sunday would probably be better for those who don't have time through the week.

I thought the deadline ended Sundays

I agree, though, it would make more sense for the deadline to be Sunday rather than Saturday.

[Runer112]

Not to try to nitpick, but I feel obligated to point out that Haobo's solution does not wholly satisfy rule 4: "... every cell's initial state ... must be independent (barring reasonable PRNG limitations) of every other cell's initial state." The reason I suggested this clause was to prevent simple "randomization" implementations that do not provide at least somewhat convincing randomization. Regrettably, this solution's clever approach of simply using a randomly chosen 768-byte block of memory as the initial state does not satisfy this.

A heuristic proof of this could cite that memory almost always contains meaningful, structured data. As a particuarly apparent example, memory often contains large stretches of zeroes. If one such large stretch were contained in the initial state, then a pixel's probability of starting dead is greatly increased if the byte(s) immediately before it are all zero. This constitutes dependence. And also a pretty boring game of life, which is why the clause was proposed.

Although less apparent on structured data that's not just a stretch of zeroes, the same dependence and insufficient randomness exists in any non-chaotic data. So to extend this heuristic proof to a definitive one, one can prove that non-chaotic data exists in memory. And this can be done by citing the existence of the program itself in memory.

I came down on lirtosiast and pbfy0 earlier about skirting around this clause, so I thought it to only be fair that I come down here as well. I even came down on myself by proposing this clause in the first place, as I was considering using such a "randomization" approach but considered it against the spirit of the prompt.

[c4ooo]

Not to try to nitpick, but I feel obligated to point out that Haobo's solution does not wholly satisfy rule 4: "... every cell's initial state ... must be independent (barring reasonable PRNG limitations) of every other cell's initial state." The reason I suggested this clause was to prevent simple "randomization" implementations that do not provide at least somewhat convincing randomization. Regrettably, this solution's clever approach of simply using a randomly chosen 768-byte block of memory as the initial state does not satisfy this.

A heuristic proof of this could cite that memory almost always contains meaningful, structured data. As a particuarly apparent example, memory often contains large stretches of zeroes. If one such large stretch were contained in the initial state, then a pixel's probability of starting dead is greatly increased if the byte(s) immediately before it are all zero. This constitutes dependence. And also a pretty boring game of life, which is why the clause was proposed.

Although less apparent on structured data that's not just a stretch of zeroes, the same dependence and insufficient randomness exists in any non-chaotic data. So to extend this heuristic proof to a definitive one, one can prove that non-chaotic data exists in memory. And this can be done by citing the existence of the program itself in memory.

+1 for that proof ( or attempt of) 

However, I would like to warn you that you are on unsure footing. First you "criticized" @lirtosiast's answer and now you are trying to do the same with @Haobo's I fully trust, being the person you are, that you are doing this for the good and fairness of the game/community However if someone puts two and two together, it may seam to the  that you are trying to discourage completion just saying, not trying to attack you or anything. (Reread what I said in bold )

[TIfanx1999]

Well obviously, I didn't have time to finish. I still wanted to finish it (even if it was late) and post my attempt. Unfortunately, I got really sick and haven't been doing much of anything recently. I hope to revisit this in a bit and finish it or at least post an explanation of what i was going to attempt.