Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts:

Today's image rates an 8-1/2 followed by a question mark.  This means I feel it must have something worth 8-1/2 points somewhere in it, but I just can't put my finger on any aspect of the image that might be worth a rating of an 8, plus the usual extra half-point for the coloring.

To begin, the image is exceedingly slow, taking over four hours to calculate, but this is how it goes with such deep images that require arbitrary precision math.

The scene is also too chaotic, with too many large areas of fractal 'sand'.  This is why I named it "Sandy Stretches".  The sand cannot be escaped.  When I tried the 'logmap' feature, both plus and minus values, it got rid of the sand, but left only a near featureless expanse of flat colors.

The entire image is also oriented in the wrong direction.  The central minibrot points southeast instead of west, which is the 'normal' orientation.  With the minibrot being so small however, this is of little consequence.  I could easily have corrected the wrong orientation, but decided not to tie up the machine for another four hours.

The scene is located in the radical of a tiny bud on the northwest shore line of the large period-3 bud on the north side of the Mandelbrot set.  (In fractals, a radical is all the elements, such as the filaments, spirals and chaotic areas, associated with a particular bud.)

As I mentioned above, the image is exceedingly slow, so the only practical way to view it is in finished form on the web site.

The day began with heavy thunder-storms here at Fractal Central.  The rain ended by 10am, but clouds and occasional showers hung on for the rest of the day, holding the temperature to a rather pleasant but soggy 79F 26C.  The fractal cats ignored the outside conditions as they chased each other up and down the hallway, pausing occasionally to ask for food.

The humans, who are never quite sure exactly what it means to be human, had a typical up-and-down day.  The next FOTD will be posted in 24 hours.  Until then, take care, and if you come across any stray Boltzmann brains, report them to the proper authorities.  (Those Boltzmann brains are a hoot!  The joke is that no high priest of cosmological science knows how to assure us that they are not floating around out there in empty deSitter space along with everything else imaginable and unimaginable.)

Jim Muth
jimmuth@earthlink.net


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