Infinite symmmetry

[Dinkydau]

Fractal extreme, mandelbrot set

The parameters are lost due to the awesome dudes who are working on the street in front of my house who broke a power cable. More than a week of total render time is lost (those high-res minibrot renders take a long time) This render is an unfinished render which I had saved before the cable was broken. You can see in full view that only the center has good anti-aliasing.

[simon.snake]

Some awesome dudes who were working in our street replacing old lamp posts lost phone line (and therefore internet access) for 3 properties in our road when they nicked the telephone cables (then patched them up with a bit of tape before burying them back in the ground!

They were out for a week. A whole week. Without Fractal Forums! I went mad.

Then we had another outage when we had unusually hot weather in early July. The line was dead for another 3 days.

Then we were moved out of our house for 4 weeks while our house was adapted (my wife is sometimes in a wheelchair with totally paralysed legs, other times she's walking about). When we got back (middle of August), we had a dead phone line again. This time, the builders had 'replaced the old wiring and socket' and hadn't connected it back properly, but it still took 2 days to get it working again (this time I was able to fix it myself).

Not as bad as total power outage (we've had one of those too since we were back - I was in the middle of watching The Sixth Sense on the TV when it went out for about 15 minutes) but still annoying! I feel for you with this problem.

Us fractal explorers need UPS backup connected to all machines that are rendering.

[cKleinhuis]

haha, dudes, lets calm a bit down and be happy that nothing severe happened, and that you
all enjoyed some time without computers, you know what ? sometimes such actions can be of
good, i am spending time currently without any supercomputer (haha, just one month left until
i got my money for the i7 i am dreaming of ) lets just be happy about our times without computers
no harm done and nice rendering dinky!

and let it say with the word of terry pratchet:

all those things are signs!
for what?
a broken cable is a sign for no electricity or no internet anymore

[Dinkydau]

Exploring fractals doesn't require internet. But a power outage... that's a disaster. I used to have a UPS but I have chosen not to use a one anymore because 1. the main source of power outages here has been resolved, which was the terrible outdated electricity in our house, and because 2. I don't use apophysis anymore, which lacked support to save and resume incomplete renders. This tiny little disaster is a good reminder that I should save parameters and results of incomplete renders more often. That can make the damage minimal.

[Nahee_Enterprises]

    I used to have a UPS but I have chosen not to use a one anymore....

There are many reasons to have one's computer powered through a UPS:

• The UPS usually comes with a warranty that also covers any damage to connected devices.
• Gives one time to save what they are working on, before hours of work are lost.
• Allows for a graceful shutdown of the computer, much better than just having power terminated (things could go wrong otherwise).
• The UPS usually has a better power surge protector than those found on the plain strip type.
• etc...

 

[Nahee_Enterprises]

    Fractal extreme, mandelbrot set
    ....This render is an unfinished render.....
    You can see in full view that only the center has good anti-aliasing.

And I was thinking that the center was the area unfinished, since it did not seem to have as much detail.   
 

[Dinkydau]

There are also downsides.

• The UPS consumes power. Power costs money.
• The UPS generates heat which is a problem in the summer.
• The UPS doesn't have an infinite lifespan. The battery needs to be replaced after some time period, which costs money.

Which doesn't mean that it's not good to use a UPS, but I didn't find it worthwhile anymore.

[Nahee_Enterprises]

    There are also downsides.
   

• The UPS consumes power.
• The UPS generates heat which is a problem in the summer.
• The UPS doesn't have an infinite lifespan.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha !!!!   
I am surprised that you even bother with owning a computer, based upon the above downsides.   

Every monitor I have seen usually produces a lot more heat than a decent UPS.  And if you are waiting on something man-made that has "an infinite lifespan", then I am afraid you will need to wait an infinity.     
 

[Kalles Fraktaler]

 
My (hobby...) programs usually crash from time to time, so I usually store the parameters automatically so that it can recover.
It's easier to handle crashes than preventing them.
That's my bitter experience... ;-)

[Dinkydau]

Lol, yeah, I noticed that. It's a necessary feature that it does so, but it makes the crashes no big deal.