techWednesday, November 02, 2005
Without a doubt, the best screen saver
Forget about Flying toasters and the matrix green screen saver.
As you know, I've been using Linux for quite some time now. Xscreensaver is the standard screen saver application for many Linux systems. Xscreensaver includes a lot of cool screen savers, but none compares to IFS.
IFS is a screen saver based on IFS fractals - a method of generating the fractals fern, Koch curve, Sierpinski triangle, and others. (here's a nice page showing the correlation between the Sierpinski triangle and Pascal's triangle).
The IFS screen saver displays a colorful ifs image which then explodes in brilliance, the pixel components spinning and drawing back together into a completely different ifs image which then explodes and forms into a new one. It looks very cool, especially if you have ever played with (or written) any ifs fractal generating programs and know the math and algorithms behind it. Even if you haven't, it's very spectacular.
There may be similar screen savers out there, but the Xscreensaver IFS is the most impressive screen saver I have ever seen. It's like a mathematical fireworks display.
Xscreensaver is not available for Windows. Don't even think about it. It's only for Unix operating systems. (ah, Mac OS X is Unix based. I believe that it is available for Mac - with a few limitations) See the disclaimer on the Xscreensaver webpage.
Xscreensaver also has the best Matrix (like the movie) screen saver that I've ever seen.
So if you want to see it, get rid of that Microsoft crap and get a real operating system.
As you know, I've been using Linux for quite some time now. Xscreensaver is the standard screen saver application for many Linux systems. Xscreensaver includes a lot of cool screen savers, but none compares to IFS.
IFS is a screen saver based on IFS fractals - a method of generating the fractals fern, Koch curve, Sierpinski triangle, and others. (here's a nice page showing the correlation between the Sierpinski triangle and Pascal's triangle).
The IFS screen saver displays a colorful ifs image which then explodes in brilliance, the pixel components spinning and drawing back together into a completely different ifs image which then explodes and forms into a new one. It looks very cool, especially if you have ever played with (or written) any ifs fractal generating programs and know the math and algorithms behind it. Even if you haven't, it's very spectacular.
There may be similar screen savers out there, but the Xscreensaver IFS is the most impressive screen saver I have ever seen. It's like a mathematical fireworks display.
Xscreensaver is not available for Windows. Don't even think about it. It's only for Unix operating systems. (ah, Mac OS X is Unix based. I believe that it is available for Mac - with a few limitations) See the disclaimer on the Xscreensaver webpage.
Xscreensaver also has the best Matrix (like the movie) screen saver that I've ever seen.
So if you want to see it, get rid of that Microsoft crap and get a real operating system.
