I was thinking that "I come alive with 0 neighbors" wouldn't make a sensible rule: it's not reasonable to have the whole universe strobing on and off every cloc

I was thinking that "I come alive with 0 neighbors" wouldn't make a sensible rule: it's not reasonable to have the whole universe strobing on and off every clock tick. But "I stay alive with 0 neighbors" probably makes sense, so okay, multiply what I had said by another factor of 2 and call it 17 bits total. :)