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Comment by RossM | Hacker News Reader

There appears to be a semi-persistent "Google" text - when I cleared out the 'G' it was recreated within 20 steps by the neighbouring 'o'. Can't possibly be organic can it?

E: it seems to always appear like that; so probably not organic and I'm not up for searching minified sources to verify.

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It always appears like that because he's written it so that when the "Google" cells are active, they appear darker than normal active cells. Whether these cells get activated or not follow the normal rules of Conway's game of live. So yeah, it's organic, but with a little trickery, the "Google" stands out as the pixels in the area blink on and off.

You can confirm this by pausing the simulation and clicking on all the cells in the region to switch them to the 'active' state: http://imageshack.us/a/img138/2751/71405409.png

It appears that there is some sort of spawning behavior near the darkened "Google" tiles. I paused, turned off all the cells in the region (taking into account wrapping from the other side) and let it go. Cells started activating near the 'e'.

I can confirm this. I wiped all tiles and stepped ahead a hundred frames, but nothing new appeared. As soon as I hit 'play' though, within a dozen or so frames a few random tiles appeared in the vicinity and the area was soon teeming with life again.

Could it be an easter egg?

Was under the impression the whole thing was - just didn't notice it at first and had a bit of a woah moment :)

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