Can You Spare A Few Trillion Cycles?

rkeene517 writes "11 years ago I did a simulation of 29 billion photons in a room, that got published at SIGGRAPH 94. The 1994 image, called Photon Soup is here . Now computers are 3000 times faster and I am doing it again only much better, with a smaller aperature, in stereo, with 3 cameras, and with some errors fixed, and in Java. The 1994 image took 100 Sparc Station 1's a month to generate. I need volunteers to run the program for about a month in the background and/or nights. The program is pure Java." Read on for how you can participate in the project.

"The plan is to run the program on a zillion machines for a month and combine the results. All you have to do is run it and when the deadline arrives, email me a compressed file of the cache directory. So email me here and I'll send you the zip file. The deadline will be June 1st 2004.

The running program has a More CPU/Less CPU button. Every half hour it saves the current state of the film. The longer and more machines that run this, the cleaner and sharper the image gets. If you have a lot of machines, I can give instructions how to combine the results so you can send in a single cache directory.

Of course, you will get mention in the article if it gets published."

Java eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Java eh? So it should run at about the same speed now on modern hardware as it did a decade ago? Chortle.

Dude, you should try out China

[alphakappa]

I hear they use cycles big time there. Pretty cheap too comapared to cars.

java 3000 times slower

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, computers are now 3000 times faster, but with java 3000 times slower than C, there won't be much difference...

old hardware

[cybermint]

Brand new article and it's already slashdotted to hell. He must be running the webserver on one of those old crappy sparc machines he talks about.

Hi-quality pr0n

[Compact Dick]

Now ... I am doing it again only much better, with a smaller aperature [sic], in stereo, with 3 cameras ...

The world needs more dedicated releasers like you.

Nah

[AstrumPreliator]

I don't feel like donating a few trillion cycles to produce an image that says "The page cannot be displayed". Possibly if you made it say, "The photons cannot be displayed", I would think about it.

=P

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

the newest smart-virus

[kjba]

"The plan is to run the program on a zillion machines for a month and combine the results. All you have to do is run it and when the deadline arrives, email me a compressed file of the cache directory. So email me here and I'll send you the zip file. The deadline will be June 1st 2004."
I wonder if this works better than pictures of naked women...

Re:Photons

[Kelerain]

According to one of my Psych professors, under ideal conditions the human eye can detect a single photon.

For example, when looking at a photon detector.

Re:Best time is Winter

[ObviousGuy]

The other half of the world is in night time.

Re:Mother Goose

[dew-genen-ny]

330am your time buddy.

It's the middle of the morning here in europe and we've taken over the slashdotting duties while you guys get some shut eye.

Re:Best time is Winter

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean East/West. He means North/South. Need a chart?

Re:More distributed processing

[M1FCJ]

Sorry, I don't have any. I've already donated everything I have to Seti@home. If I get some new PCs I might reconsider where to donate to but I run four PCs at home just for Seti@home. No space cycles yet. I have a rusty racing cycle if you are interested. :)

Re:Nah

[Nuclear_Loser]

Or better - "Your eyes cannot possibly comprehend the intensity of this image. The photons will not be shown for the sake of your sanity and/or ability to see."

Published in Special Interest Group in Usernames

[bm_luethke]

"Of course, you will get mention in the article if it gets published."

10 pages of article, 300 pages of contributors listed as e-mail addresses and slasdhot ID's :)

I rather suspect that none of the smaller contributors will get mentioned in the article (probably the largest installations will). I would guess that a link with contributors will be given.

Re:Photons

[myc_lykaon]

It's an evolutionary limit of sorts.

I think it's more a physical limit, unless you can detect photons that aren't there.

I'm into remote viewing...

[Anonymous Coward]

...so I can detect photons that arn't here.

Use real photons

[Andy_R]

You could cut your rendering time down to about 1/200th sec by employing the following hardware:

old cookie tin
2 marbles
cheap disposable camera and a... ...whatever that blurry thing top right is supposed to be.

The resultant time saving could be usefully employed learing how the gif file format works.

Re:Java can be faster then C sometimes

[shfted!]

They did that with me too. I look at anti-slash with a guarded eye.

Hmm Java...

[crusty_architect]

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Re:Photons

[jafuser]

Go outside and look up at a bright star.
I suppose a disclaimer should be made for our sun being an exception. =P

Re:Photons

[Anonymous Coward]

> Any biology majors here care to tell me how many photons the eye needs to 'see' a reasonably bright star? With that information, you can calculate the rest (left as an exercise for the reader).

42 ?