I dreamed I was a wealthy man, still young, I dreamed I had a custom built overclocked desktop, with a blue water cooling system that circulated around my bedroom before going in and out of the computer case, I had an enormous aquarium shaped to look like a dwarf head with red stroboscopic lights going out of the eyes and a fountain streaming out of its mouth... I was playing dwarf fortress when I fell into the screen and ran through the wires, going around the whole range of ip addresses. Here and there ip cameras shaped as chained kittens watched over the entrance of my home, sending short bursts of data to a system of sentry guns that stood vigilantly, protecting the sleep of my loved ones with kevlar crossbows loaded with depleted uranium quarrels... I went down and down to the cellar and there I saw... I saw a fortress, first I saw a beowulf cluster , then after traveling to the switch I fell again in what felt to be a bottomless pit. It was not falling as much as flying. There was no movement in the darkness, no wind, no noise... nothing. but I knew. I knew I was going somewhere... then, the light. I came crashing down, fell through the canopy of a rain forest, flocks of birds watched me fall then tried to attack me. I was there. A world full of life, with beasts, war, prophecies, disasters but also births, miracles and love. I saw crazed dwarves write thousands of pages of poetry on mugs or goblin bone earrings. I saw that and so much more that I cant recall. I walked through mazes, talked with ageless beings. Played dice with clowns, bet on the outcome of arena fights, drank and feasted in brightly lit halls, saw them crumble as ages passed and time drifted by. I saw most wonderful things, I saw what could be, what should be, I saw things I'd rather not, things that cant be unseen and even if they are but the shadow of a memory that's not even mine; they now keep me from enjoying simpler pleasures.
My point being, if dwarf fortress was to ever be adapted to parallel computing (and maybe multiplayer gaming), how many bay12ers would be ok to join a big cycle-scavenging based program to run a persistent df world?
I know this is a wild hypothesis but eh, let's roll! who would feel like joining?
I for one would gladly invest in a beowulf cluster just for that
(ok maybe not, I'd do some bitcoin mining too)
(apologies for spelling/grammar mistakes, english isnt my first language)