This is most definately one of the coolest things I've come across on the internet. It's a collaborative program designed to run as your screensaver... and produces fractals. People who run the program can then take that 'sheep' (which is what the fractal is called) and mutate its genome - ie, change some of the coding parameters so that it mutates and forms a new pattern. You can also mate two 'sheep' together and view the offspring. Personally I've been in love with fractals and their mathematical concepts since I read a book by Piers Anthony called Fractal Mode - but that's another story. I just wanted to share with y'all the awesomeness that is the Electric Sheep screensaver. :D A note though, you'll have to forward the ports if you use a router, since the torrenter doesn't like the default ports sometimes. And, this is open source software, so the torrent is completely legal ;D
http://electricsheep.org/
Go there.
Also, for those gluttons of research -
wikipedia on fractals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal
and the wiki page for Electric Sheep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Sheep
cool ill check it out when i get home
love fractals
hate torrent
Things sure have come a long way since I first tried to model the Mendelbrot Set with a 386DX that's a 1000 times slower than this machine.
Heh, yeah. I remember reading when I first started looking into fractals that they could only be created on "powerful, dedicated machines" in order to accurately model... and now you can have all that on your home pc :)
Ain't technology great? =P