another brainfart. this is not Conway's Life, although it resembles it.
for each cell, a potential value is calculated by summing the reciprocals of the distances from the center cell to occupied cells in the immediate neighborhood. if the neighbor is one rook-move away, add 1.0 to the potential; if the neighbor is one bishop-move away, add 1/√2.
the birth and survival rules are replaced with intervals of real numbers. so, if the cell is empty and its potential is in (2.0, 3.0), birth occurs; if the cell is occupied and its potential is in (1.2, 3.0), it survives.
~Chara
