Kickass! What about a circle that gradually fills up, composed of 20 different image segments (each corresponding to 5% longevity)?
"Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica and is widely regarded as the most important innovator in scientific and technical computing today." - Stephen Wolfram
I've improved the longevity ring on Synthesis. It's about 4 times the work for the other styles, so I'll wait and see how it turns out on Synthesis, first.
And for his next trick, WW will integrate a gradient into the background of the G. Avatar area so that it progresses from black down to maroon all nice and stepped like.