FOTD -- March 25, 2005 (Rating 7) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: I have finally become annoyed with the silliness I have been seeing on TV these past few days, and have decided it's time to spout off. Those who wish to avoid the resulting political blather should skip to the sixth paragraph, where the fractal stuff starts. We're all brainwashed. We're being manipulated by the media, and it has little to do with fractals. The media decides it's time for us to become excited about the death of the left-over body of a person almost none of us ever knew, whose mind died many years ago. We, of course, wanting to see ourselves as caring and politically-correct, become obediently excited, right on cue, about the non-event, even to the point of outrage, and begin bleating like the obedient flock of sheep we have become. One of the Fractal Central customers, who is an administrator in a local hospital, tells me that such unconscious but semi-awake bodies are released from their vegetative state several times every year at the institution. And when it happens, it is con- sidered barely worth a passing comment among the hospital staff, who consider such animated bodies already dead. The current fuss is totally a creation of the media and politicians, who are taking advantage of the public ignorance and gullibility. The real questions under discussion should be, 'what is conscious life, when does it start, and when does it end?' Such media-induced hysteria has become part of our modern life. It reaches a peak when media coverage causes us to worry about insignificant health threats such as SARS and bird flu, which have killed perhaps a few thousand, and forget the every-day type of influenza, which kills several millions around the world every year. It's good to be prepared for the worst, but let's get our list of diseases to worry about in proper order. At the same time that the media is raising unnecessary alarm about contagious diseases, it is ignoring serious and very real threats to health such as the overuse of cellular telephones, whose radiation again and again has been shown to cause damage to the brains of test animals. In our ignorance, we routinely use these instruments as we go about our every-day activities, and give them to our children to use as toys and entertainment devices, so they can be like all the other kids at their schools. Then we complete the plot by placing our cell-phone antennas on the roofs of our schools. Every time I hear someone in his ignorance tell me that mobile phones have never been shown to be harmful to humans, someone who cries that they are now a necessary part of the modern life style, I shake my head in sympathy. This is a person, I think to myself, who has become fully and hopelessly indoctrinated by the media and has joined the vast flock of obedient media- controlled sheep. Cellular phones should be for emergencies; we obedient sheep who watch the phone company ads on TV, have made them a life style. END POLITICS========================================= I could go on, but this is a fractal forum and we have a fractal of the day to discuss. I have been having little luck in my exploration of the Elliptic orientation of the Julibrot, so I have decided to take a break of a couple days to give myself more time to find something worthwhile. In the meantime, there will be no shortage of fractals. It is said that the answers to the secrets of the universe lie at the point -0.75 of the Mandelbrot set. This is the point where the two branches of Seahorse Valley come together. Even with the fastest super-computers, it would be impossible to see what lies at the point where the two branches actually join, for the point is at a kind of infinitesimal infinity. But we can come as close to the mystical point as we wish, and see the wonders that lie there. Today's scene lies only 0.00009 from the X-axis. It is as deep as I have yet gone into Seahorse Valley. It is not the limit, for the valley has no limit, but it is near the limit of what is practical with my current machine. At this depth the seahorses have disappeared and been replaced by pinched-off leaves with scalloped edges. Due to the extreme broadening of the bands that the logmap feature causes in images of high iteration, it has become nearly useless. Today's image was rendered with a simple straight-forward setting of zero, or one-band-per-iteration. I find myself wondering what lies even deeper in the valley. I will eventually go deeper of course, but I suspect that when I do, I will find nothing other than a more extreme version of today's scene, with features pinched off even tighter. I named the image "Very Deep in Seahorse Valley". The name is nothing more than a description of the location. I rated the image at a 7, more for the mathematical interest than the artistic merit. The iteration count of the large elements in the image is around 300,000 and the maxiter is 25,000,000, which is still insuffic- ient to close all the spurious holes. This makes the image an extremely slow one, which takes over 8 hours to finish on my machine. But fret not, for I have sent the image on ahead to Paul at the FOTD web site at: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> from where it may be conveniently downloaded. The rain held off here at Fractal Central on Thursday, the clouds actually broke, and the temperature reached 48F 9C. The cats were quite happy as they enjoyed an unexpected pleasant afternoon in the holly patch. Only a small treat of tuna was needed to end their day on the up side. But this morning, the clouds have moved back in, with rain forecast for this after- noon. I'll try to get the duo to take their outdoor time before the rain arrives. For me, it will be work before play. The next FOTD fractal will appear in 24 hours, give or take an hour or two. Until then, take care, and don't get brainwashed by a fractal. Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START PARAMETER FILE======================================= VeryDeepInSeaVally { ; time=8:14:07.14--SF5 on a P200 reset=2004 type=mandel passes=1 center-mag=-0.74999999686431080/+0.000090001821412\ 78/8.89759e+010/1/-105.000076916183801/6.198188440\ 40109784e-005 params=0/0 float=y maxiter=25000000 bailout=9 inside=0 symmetry=none periodicity=10 colors=000VrbTobQlaOh`Le`Jb_G_ZBVYEXZHZZK`_Nb_Qd`T\ f`Yhacjailbkn_mpXopUqoUnlUkiHhf4ec6b`7_Y8XV9USARPB\ OMCPJEQGFSDGTAHU7IV4JT0FW1KZ1Oa2Sd2Wg2_j3dm3hp4ls4\ ps3vv4tu4rt4ps4nq4mp5ko5in5gl5ek5dj5bi6`g6Zf6Xe6Wd\ 6Ub6Sa7Q`7O_7NY7LX7JW7HV8FT8ES8CR8AQ88P87OBAODDOGG\ OIJOKLONOOPROSUOUXOWZNZaN`dNcgNejNglNjoNlrNouNqxNq\ zRnyUjyXey_axbXxeTxhOwkKwnFwqBvt6vw2vt4tr6rp8pm9nk\ BmiDkgEieGgbIe`KdZLbXN`UPZSQXQSWOUULWSJXQHZOF`NCaL\ AcJ8eH6fG6dJ6cL6bO6aQ6`S6_V6ZX6Y_6Xa6Wc6Vf6Uh6Tk6S\ m4Qq6Ro7Sm8Tl9UjAViCWgDWeEXdFYbGZaI__J`YKaXLaVMbUO\ cSPdQQePPfNOgMMhMKiNIjPGjRHiTIiVKhXMhZOg`QgbSfdTff\ VehXejZdl`dnbcpdcrfbthbvibxldwnewpcwmauj_sgYqdWoaU\ mZSkWQiTOgQMeNKcMJcNIcNHcNHcNHbOIaOIaOJaPJaPJdPKfQ\ KhQLkSLmULoWPnZUmaZldckghkkmjpoiznhwmgqlgmkfhjecid\ ZhdYgcZfb_ea_d``c``d_aeZafYbgYbhXciWcjVdkUdlUemTen\ SfoRfoRgnQhmPhlOikNikMjjL } END PARAMETER FILE=========================================