[Svenstaro]

Many moons ago, I wondered what it would look like if you iteratively generated every possible image. It doesn't sound very useful at all (and it certainly isn't) but I learned C++ and SDL that way.

This is probably terrible code by anybody's standards but maybe someone wants to take a look: https://github.com/svenstaro/infinerator

[quacked]

I've thought about this as well; it's one of those weird things where you realize that with enough pixel count and shading options, every image you can think of exists within the total set of generated images.

[jodrellblank]

"enough" hides a surprising amount of work. Mobilise the entire planet's computers for a decade, assuming a generous Moore's law increase as well, and you might count through seventeen 8-bit grayscale pixels in that decade.

Annihilate the Sun and you won't get enough energy to drive a simple counter through thirty 8-bit grayscale pixels.

https://security.stackexchange.com/a/6149/

[alanbernstein]

A story about the text version of this concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel

[smnrchrds]

Check out this one too if you haven't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God

[iggldiggl]

An an online version based on that story: https://libraryofbabel.info/

[jcun4128]

I think about it from the perspective of ideas, once we figure out something (how to fly, electricity) we know it. How do you brute force find that info through random/massive computation. Specifically to find the next things we don't know like jumping dimensions or FTL, etc...