Fractals are our friends

The things people think of never cease to amaze me. One thing I've recently come across is Electric Sheep. Ostensibly, it's just a screensaver (albeit a really pretty one), but then I read the background info and concept statement. Basically, it take random strings of code from your idling computer, uploads them to a central server, combines them with lots of other strings from other computers and combines it all into a really pretty fractal MPEG which it then sends back to all the computers running the program and acts as a screensaver. Apparently you can also vote for the prettiest "sheep," as the patterns are called, and make those more likely to reproduce/recombine with other sheep and create new, shinier patterns.

So in essence, your computer is dreaming. If our dreams are, as we know it, seemingly random firings of neurons combining into interpretable, if sometimes random (like my path-through-the-forest-paved-with-coins dream; I just really like that image), images and sensations, then the metaphor is even closer. We have neurons, the computers have code. I'm not nearly technical enough to understand how the code is selected, but it's interesting to think that, if the selection is systematic enough or operates under a stable set of rules, then there could actually be a similar "dream language" that the program could be tapping into! Or at least, we could be seeing some graphical representation of the datastream crossing the planet. Which, even if you're not in an excessively poetical mood, is pretty interesting.

Also, ganked from a random visit to Sean's blog:



I am amused.

And in music news, I want a complete copy of the new Decemberists album - The Crane Wife is amazing, and I want the whole thing. Dark, yes, but not necessarily without remittance and not in a bad way. I'm looking forward to the whole thing.

And finally, the first Giant Fkn Party of Sevy 209 was a blazing success; immense amounts of fun were had, my first attempt at DJ-ing seemed to go over quite well, and we crammed an ungodly number of people into our modestly sized room. All in all, fantastic, and a fitting celebration of John's birthday.