Googling for "conway's game of life" gives a simulation in the results page

Post by FaceKicker » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 12:48 AM UTC

pdog wrote: post #50

jonmwords wrote: post #4

Here's the interview I published with the creator! http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how-a-google-engineer-b...

> I can’t talk about the way we actually implemented it. It's all there, right? In obfuscated, minimized, but still-readable JavaScript.

Post by gurkendoktor » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 2:05 AM UTC

avbor wrote: post #62

eranation wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I made a demo and started showing my co-workers what it was and realized that some of them had never seen the Game of Life before. So let me get this straight, there are Google software engineers, that passed all the 3 month interview process which some considered the toughest in the world, and they never have heard of conway's game of life. this makes me feel a little better about myself now.

I find it interesting that your metric of smart is whether or not someone has knowledge of the Game of Life.

Post by pirateking » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 2:33 AM UTC

eranation wrote: post #32

tsahyt wrote: post #30

What is it with all the Game of Life posts lately? There seems to be a new one every other day. Not that it's a bad thing, I think the GOL is a marvellous thing and the SmoothLife video was mesmerizing. I'm just wondering why they all pop up at the same time?

I'm sure there is a "game of life" like biological algorithm that can explain this and the flow of articles in the form of "X in GO" or "Don't use MongoDB" or "Y in pure CSS" e.g. perhaps people see what's top on HN (a legitimate article) and search on the topic, and increase the probability of more posts in that topic, also, psychologically, if A is popular, then when seeing something that looks like A you might up…

  The seed of the system is a random cluster of N stories (cells)
  that represent the "front page".

  Each cell has votes and topics (Erlang, Apple, X in CSS, etc.).

  1. Any cell with fewer than N votes, 
     and fewer than two neighbors dies 
     (due to lack of interest and/or promotion).

  2. Any cell with two or three live neighbors,
     lives on to the next generation
     (riding along the front page wave).

  3. Any cell with more than three live neighbors,
     that share the same topic dies
     (due to overexposure of the topic).

  4. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbors,
     becomes a live cell with a topic shared by one of the neighbors
     (the spread of interest of a topic).

  After any generation, votes and stories can be added. 

  The low threshold of votes (N), is determined to be
  some percentage of all votes in the system.

Post by im3w1l » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 9:03 AM UTC

astral303 wrote: post #71

brown9-2 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment makes no mention of the word "smart", just that Google's interview process is long and hard.

It's hinted at by saying that the author feels better about himself now (implied superiority). Whether the particular trait that he feels superior about is "smart" is left up to your imagination! I heard about the game of life, but I couldn't tell you the rules or describe it exactly. I never bothered to look into it. Judge away!

Post by talfa » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 1:46 PM UTC