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On Mon, 19 Jun 2000, David Bell wrote:

My idea was to investigate Life rules which had birth on only two
neighbors. Using totalistic rules, this is a lose (in my opinion) since
objects explode when they get two cells adjacent vertically or
horizontally.  But if we abandon totalistic rules, then we can fix this
problem.  I was looking for the combination of nicest behavior and
simplest rule I could find.

The most interesting rule I found was this one:

A cell stays alive only if it has 1 or 2 live neighbors (in any position).
A cell is born only if it has exactly two live neighbors which are not
adjacent vertically or horizontally.

So in the following figure, the central cell is born if there are live
cells at any two cells marked ac, ad, ae, af, ag, bd, be, bf, bg, bh, ce,
cf, cg, ch, df, dg, dh, eg, eh, or fh.

 abc
 hid
 gfe