Computers DO dream of Electric Sheep

This software owes its name to Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. It realizes the collective dream of sleeping computers from all over the internet.

When the screen-saver is activated, the screen goes black and an animated ‘sheep’ appears. Behind the scenes, the screen-saver contacts a server and joins the parallel computation of new sheep. Every fifteen minutes 24/7 a new sheep is born and distributed to all clients for display. Each sheep is an animated fractal flame.

Each sheep is about 4 seconds long. Its shape, motion, and color are specified by a genetic code, a long string of numbers. If a user sees a sheep they like, they may press the up arrow key to vote for it. Sheep that receive more votes live longer and are more likely to reproduce. These votes form a fitness function for the esthetic evolution of the flock. Users can also download software to manually design genomes and post them to the server where they join the flock.

Well, that could be a totally pointless program, but it does sound like fun. No, I’m not going to download it, but if you feel like something should be occupying your computer when you are not, give it a shot.

Baedon

Baedon Glendower is the name used by the owner of this website dating back to his BBS days. Most of the articles you see with this by-line are dredged up from his archives, though you will see it used for new articles as well.