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I'm waiting for my video stream to finish its mpeg encoding. It's an absurdly lengthy process, even on my newer hardware. This should annoy me, but for some reason is makes me feel better.
Years ago I'd generate beautiful Mandelbrot sets on 9MHz 386 network machines equipped with 80387 math coprocessors. I'd written the software myself, in Turbo Pascal and assembly. It generated MCGA graphics, using direct screen writes and memory dumps and loads.
It took hours to get one image generated. Some points took long enough to calculate that I put on a blinker for each iteration, just to know it was still thinking about it. It was trying, but it was also exciting.
Waiting for the chaos reveal itself was a rush. Delving into Mandelbrot's imaginary array, an infinite fractal landscape that possibly no one else had ever charted. It was fun, and it took patience.
Now, fractals can be generated at almost the speed of a mouse click. It's an impressive display of power, but it's also taken some of the magic with it. I think the waiting, the anticipation, was part of the value. The coin of the project.
Somehow, modern improvements have devalued the fractals. I was not the only one playing with chaos equations back then. Lots of computer comrades had their own software and were charting their own territories. Now, it's all passe.
So, as my CPU cycles are being devoured by a myriad video transformations and rearranging, I find it had to be entirely unhappy. When it's finally over I'll see if the video is what I wanted. If the aspect ratio is right, the audio in sync. Somehow, the final product seems more valuable because of the wait.
Years ago I'd generate beautiful Mandelbrot sets on 9MHz 386 network machines equipped with 80387 math coprocessors. I'd written the software myself, in Turbo Pascal and assembly. It generated MCGA graphics, using direct screen writes and memory dumps and loads.
It took hours to get one image generated. Some points took long enough to calculate that I put on a blinker for each iteration, just to know it was still thinking about it. It was trying, but it was also exciting.
Waiting for the chaos reveal itself was a rush. Delving into Mandelbrot's imaginary array, an infinite fractal landscape that possibly no one else had ever charted. It was fun, and it took patience.
Now, fractals can be generated at almost the speed of a mouse click. It's an impressive display of power, but it's also taken some of the magic with it. I think the waiting, the anticipation, was part of the value. The coin of the project.
Somehow, modern improvements have devalued the fractals. I was not the only one playing with chaos equations back then. Lots of computer comrades had their own software and were charting their own territories. Now, it's all passe.
So, as my CPU cycles are being devoured by a myriad video transformations and rearranging, I find it had to be entirely unhappy. When it's finally over I'll see if the video is what I wanted. If the aspect ratio is right, the audio in sync. Somehow, the final product seems more valuable because of the wait.