I clipped Electric Sheep back in March 2006. This is a "revisit" after 17 months. There are so many awesome "sheeps" nowadays that I sit back and watch the screensaver for minutes.

Looks cool, but I'm a little intimidated by the casual way the download page says "you must forward ports 6881 to 6889 in order for it to work." I have no idea what that means.

Well, if using a router or firewall, the program may be blocked from connecting to the internet. To resolve this you should forward these ports.
The program downloads (and uploads) video-files (via bittorrent) so it needs an internet connection to work properly. (actually they're 640x480 mpeg2 files)

What is Portforwarding?

Check the link provided, for setting up your router:
http://www.portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/routerindex.htm

Or try the Electric Sheep FAQ:
http://electricsheep.wikispaces.com/Electric+Sheep+FAQ

I hope this may help you. It's worth the hassle.

I have been using this screen saver on all my computers since you originally clipped it and I am still fascinated by it.

I have been using this screen saver on all my computers since you originally clipped it and I am still fascinated by it.

Ditto. My co-workers are fascinated too, especially since I use UltraMon to run different sheep simultaneously on each monitor for maximum sensory overload. (I dial down the bittorrent download rate at work.)

Ha! Funny comment above.

I only run The Sheep at home now, but I just have to say: the latest batch of animations to come down the pipe in the past few days are the some of the coolest eye-candy I have seen yet. Due to it's adaptive selection algorithms and a huge, collaborative community, it continues to get better and better and better.

This isn't just the best screen saver ever, it's one of the most elegant pieces of software ever written!

I definitely agree! The latest sheep fascinates me and I usually sit back and watch them for minutes.

Electric Sheep is a very interesting company. They are one of the important content providers in Second Life too.