‘Electric sheep’ is a screen-saver that generates fractal patterns and using distributed processing to create new ones. The results are often very beautiful and hypnotic fractal flames that can be worryingly addictive to just sit and watch.
You need to have a decent-speed always-on internet connection and a fair bit of patience for the first ‘sheep’ (ie. fractal flame) to download, but once you’re started you won’t regret it.
For a long time I never bothered having a screen-saver, I found them annoying and distracting, but now I’m happy to see the sheep pop-up and help me relax into thought.
They’ve just updated the software so now’s a great time to grab electric sheep for your computer:
http://electricsheep.org/?menu=download
There’s more info in the FAQ link, so check that out if you’ve got questions.
Oh! A little while ago I found a 30 maximum usage fractal pattern screen saver, and have been using it only occasional. I do hope this works for OS X *crosses fingers*
It is 😀 weeeeeeee.
I’ve been thinking about getting this once I have a faster ‘net connection. How much of a processing hog is it, not that you’re likely to be doing much else while the screensaver’s up, I know, but for those of us with shockingly slow computers (though hopefully not for much longer) these things are always pressing matters?
I haven’t noticed any drop in my machine’s performance, but I’ve got 1.5GB RAM on here to speed up graphics rendering so that might account for it.
I suspect that it would be designed to operate on a fairly normal machine, rather than something super-dooper, so give it a try to see how you get on. You can always take it off it’s casuing problems!
I’ve got a 7-year old P2 350MHz and 128Mb RAM and its fine! And also scarily hypnotic and beautiful!
Gah! It’s stealing my brain! I can’t help but sit and watch it to see what it will come up with next. I’ve got the whole family watching it to. We like our fractals round these parts. Beautiful.