FOTD -- March 20, 2004 (Rating 5) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: In today's image we once again visit the Z^(2.003)+C Mandeloid, and examine the area just east of the East Valley of the large midget on the negative X-axis. The large midget cannot be said to lie on the main stem. There is no main stem in this Mandeloid. The stem has broken into fractal dust, and as for the large midget -- it has been distorted into a monstrous thing that must be seen to be believed. When I say that today's scene is located just east of this monstrous midget's East Valley area, I am not actually speaking correctly. The midget has no East Valley. What once was East Valley has broadened into an area that can better be described as East Plateau. The top of this plateau consists of newly created features that do not exist in the traditional Mandelbrot set. There are newly created bays and valleys here, with sub- features unlike any found in the M-set. The strange Julia rectangle lies in this area, along with the figures of overweight people raising their arms in praise of something. And of course there are midgets. Today's image illustrates one of the smaller midgets in the area. Its dis- organization is typical of the entire area, and has inspired the name "Discombobulated". To add to the interest I rendered the image with the outside set to 'tdis'. It seems to have worked too well. The disorganiza- tion actually goes a bit too far, spoiling the overall artistic worth and cutting the rating to a merely average 5. The rather slow render time of over 1/2 hour further cuts the overall value to a lowly but not disgraceful 15. For tomorrow's FOTD I might remain in the same area or I might move on. It all depends on my mood when fractal time arrives this evening. Meanwhile, up to 1/2 hour of precious time may be saved by visiting Paul's FOTD web site at: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> and downloading the completed GIF image from there, thereby avoiding the rendering entirely. The weather slowly improved through the day Friday here at Fractal Central, until at 3pm, with full sunlight, the tempera- ture reached a high of 48F 9C. The fractal cats must have approved, for they went outside just after 2pm and did not return indoors until 5pm. At one time I saw Tippy perched several feet up one of the holly trees, but he climbed down without incident. Today is starting sunny, and it is due to be warmer. This bodes well for the fractal duo. As for me, I've got a bit of work to finish, and then who knows . . . anything could happen. Until next FOTD, take care, and wait with bated breath . . . you might catch a great fractal. Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START 20.0 PAR-FORMULA FILE================================ Discombobulated { ; time=0:33:28.30--SF5 on a P200 reset=2003 type=formula formulafile=slices.frm formulaname=MandelbrotN passes=1 center-mag=-1.74350051908036900/+0.000000081693461\ 53/1.972472e+011/1/-20/-4.43607331641199254e-005 params=2.003/0/0/0/0/0 float=y maxiter=18000 inside=0 outside=tdis periodicity=10 colors=000NfYKi_IkaGmcEoeGkcIgaKd_M`YOYWQUURRTTNRV\ JPXGNZCL`9Jb5Hc2Gb4Ia5Ka7M`8O`AP_BRZDTZEVYGXYHYWOX\ VUXT`WSfWQcYO`_MZ`KWbJUcHReFOfDMhBJiAHk8El6Bn49o26\ q14r28l2Bf2E`2IW2LQ2OK2RF3UE4WE5YE6`E7bE7dE8gE9iEA\ kEBnECpECrEDnGEjIFfKGbLHZNIVPJRRKNSLJUMFWMCXQITUNQ\ YTNaYKebHihEmmBpr8grEZrJQrPEIO9DK48G97JE7LJ7OO7QT7\ SY7Vb7Xg7_l7aq7cp9RpBFpC3oE5nG7mH9lJBkKCjMEjNGiPIh\ QJgSLfTNeVPeWQbbY_hdXolVusSklQaeOTZMJSKAMDGL6MK0SK\ 9UNIWPRYRZZUg`WpbYxc_u_asXcqUeoRgmOikLkzZzgFoxCqc9\ re8nf8kg7gi7dj6ak6Ym5Vn5Ro4Oq4Lr3Hs3Eu2Av27w24r65m\ A6iD7dBE`AKW9RS8XO6cJ5iF4pB3vHFjNQ_T`OZkDdv2cr7cnB\ bkFbgJadNa`S`XW`U__Qc_NgbPddQbfS_hTYjUVlWTnXQpYOnb\ SlfVjjZhoafseewhhubjzYmqTopNzzItlDvz8plFkmLenS`nYV\ odQpjLppIqjGqdEqZBqT9qN7qH5qB6mF7jJ8gN8dR9zVAZZBWb\ BTfEJNDFNCCNIJKOQITWGZbDchBio9nu7tfUcTpmWnrZlw`kwc\ ivfguhftkdtnbspars_RbTPdW } frm:MandelbrotN {; Jim Muth b=p1, z=p2, c=p3+pixel: z=z^(b)+c, |z| <= 16 } END 20.0 PAR-FORMULA FILE==================================