Interesting, when I glanced at the subject line from the office via webmail, I thought it said "A Bloody Fractal" - and was looking forward to a possibly-colorful story about why a Brit was cursing about your fractal. ;-) Jim Muth wrote:
FOTD -- September 29, 2004 (Rating 6)
Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts:
When today's image appeared on the screen, it took me no more than 10 seconds to think of the name "A Blobby Fractal". The elements filling the screen reminded me of that old movie 'The Blob', one of my favorites. . . . Well, let's admit it, all the junky old movies are my favorites. (That original blob was finally done away with by electrocuting it, or was that how they eliminated 'The Thing'. Maybe I'm remembering wrong and it was 'The Thing' that was electrocuted, and the blob that was frozen.
You've got it right there. "The Thing" (based on a classic Clifford Simak science fiction short story) was electrocuted. The Blob was frozen. Decades later, they tried the same trick against the liquid-metal terminator in Terminator 2, only a fire that was going nearby thawed the bits out and they reformed. That idea was taken from another science fiction short story in which a ball-shaped liquid metal alien that had crashlanded on earth (and smashed to pieces during the crash) had been spending thousands of years slowly gathering bits of itself back together). When attacked, it defended itself with blasts of heat. Finally someone manages to blow it up ... and the story ends with two tiny droplets of it, that happened to be near each other, making their way together again.
I guess I'll have to play one of my old videotapes.)
Better than a lot of the current movies and junk that's on TV, IMHO. David gnome@hawaii.rr.com