Cousin Ricky <ric### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> It occurred to me there may be a non-zero probability of being able to
> upload the module via my phone.  I'll try that later; however, even if I
> succeed, I won't be able to post a notice to the newsgroups until I get
> home Internet back.

Somehow, I am able to post via the Web interface (from someone else's computer),
whereas I couldn't do it before the hurricanes.

But I've run into a new snag: when I add soft shadows and depth of field, the
scene takes forever to render.  Based on the render time of the thumbnail, I
estimate that a full-sized render would take 46 hours on my system.  But I would
really like, at least, depth of field with the small scale of the subject
matter.

Ordinarily, a 46 hour render would take a mere 46 hours, or a bit longer if I
'nice' the render so the computer is usable for other tasks during that period.
But while my power source is a part time generator, I would have to attend the
computer during the entire render, and bring the system in and out of
hibernation as the generator is powered down and up, and as I leave the house
and return.  That would extend the *elapsed* time to a nerve-wracking 2 or 3
weeks--if the hibernation process doesn't fail, which it does frequently.  So
this release will have to wait until I'm plugged into the grid.

Unfortunately, no one seems to know when that will be.  I'm getting conflicting
information from various sources that changes at least daily.  I'm even told
that I might well have already had electricity if it weren't for a ne'er-do-well
neighbor who appears to be a copper thief.  In fact he was caught, in
retrospect, in the act of cutting the very electrical line to my house, although
witnesses appear not to have known what he was up to.

It takes a very special kind of selfishness to screw your neighbors in the
aftermath of a disaster.  This almost makes me wish that the utility had
energized the line while he was in the act of cutting it, but that wouldn't be
very nice, would it?

In the meantime, I'm exploring reducing max_trace_level and dispersion_samples.
The latter looks promising; the former does not.

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