[HN Gopher] Like Game-of-Life, but on Growing Graphs, with WASM ...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Like Game-of-Life, but on Growing Graphs, with WASM and WebGL
        
       Author : znah
       Score  : 147 points
       Date   : 2026-02-08 13:18 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (znah.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (znah.net)
        
       | n0um3n4 wrote:
       | mesmerizing...
        
       | analog8374 wrote:
       | Good scifi. Strong alien vibe. Reminds me of Dark City.
       | 
       | Tends to get spindley but maybe that's just my phone
        
       | chuckadams wrote:
       | Pleasingly wiggly :)
       | 
       | 8690 with a non-zero flip probability has a fun little effect I
       | call "whoomph"
        
         | gota wrote:
         | 8690 with a high flipProb, "stable explosion" preset, is like a
         | fuse -
         | 
         | be patient and it 'explodes'.
         | 
         | Very fun!
         | 
         | (Edit: apparently the fuse can 'die off' but the thing still
         | eventually explodes)
        
       | JKCalhoun wrote:
       | Feels like building proteins, or some kind of RNA/DNA molecules.
        
       | jezzamon wrote:
       | Very cool! Feels very alive
        
       | gota wrote:
       | My quick investigation indicates that rule 2183 with a zero
       | flipProb and the "fancy tentacles" is the most consistently able
       | to generate penis-like images
        
         | gota wrote:
         | Addendum: limit it to ~300 growthLimit to... manage
         | expectations
         | 
         | And the preset doesn't matter - I thought it was a initial
         | config that applies to any rule; it is a preset of the previous
         | parameters instead
        
           | reactordev wrote:
           | 500 growthLimit for others...
           | 
           | ;)
        
       | __MatrixMan__ wrote:
       | This is awesome.
       | 
       | I'd love to see it with more than one type of stem cell and also
       | some kind of apoptosis.
        
       | DesiLurker wrote:
       | looks kinda like wolfarm physics project: ref:
       | https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/11/the-concept-of-t...
        
         | theknarf wrote:
         | Now we can see it knitting space-time before our eyes
        
         | kentf wrote:
         | ha, great minds. Posted nearly the exact same thing, but you
         | were first, so upvote for you.
        
       | sanufar wrote:
       | Haven't heard of SwissGL before, but this render feels super
       | performant. Nice work with the Barnes-Hut algo!
        
       | psawaya wrote:
       | Amazing!
        
       | kentf wrote:
       | This is beautiful. Have you looked at Stephen Wolfram's Physics
       | project?
       | 
       | https://www.wolframphysics.org/
       | 
       | Reminds me of watching his idea of spacetime coming into
       | existence.
        
       | londont wrote:
       | Wow. Just stunning. Congrats!
        
       | senfiaj wrote:
       | I get black screen on chrome. Works only on firefox.
        
       | sublinear wrote:
       | This looks similar to the graphs on "2swap"[1]. Worth a watch if
       | you haven't by now.
       | 
       | [1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=YGLNyHd2w10
        
       | felineflock wrote:
       | Some of those look like thongs.
        
       | bkdbkd wrote:
       | Awesome. Well done.
        
         | bkdbkd wrote:
         | really really awesome.
        
       | Xarovin wrote:
       | This somehow utterly destroys my 3070Ti when running on Firefox.
       | 
       | Fortunately works fine on other browsers - I was just a bit
       | confused initially that there were so many positive comments for
       | something that ran at 1fps.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2026-02-09 23:00 UTC)