FOTD -- September 16, 2003 (Rating 5) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: Well, here we go again. Thanks to the over-zealous media, the local area is near a state of panic about the catastrophic hurricane that is supposedly headed directly this way and due to strike Thursday or Friday. Both the Maryland and Baltimore emergency centers have been activated. The local stores are totally sold out of batteries as people buy 20 and 30 at a time to keep their flashlights lit during the week without power that is probably not coming. Panicky residents are emptying the home-supply stores of plywood to board up their windows against the hurricane winds that are probably not coming. Canned goods and toilet tissue are flying off the grocery store shelves, but I am doing little but watching. I have seen these false alarms often enough to feel reasonably certain that we will have no hurricane and very possibly not even a storm. But the devilish side of me still takes wicked delight in seeing the weather people, TV news people, emergency officials, and the general public make fools of themselves preparing for something that will not happen. One of these days I may be wrong, one of these days I may be sorry that I did not prepare, but in over 40 years that day has yet to arrive, and I have saved probably thousands of dollars. (BTW, I do not recommend my reckless approach to others.) Being involved with the media hype, I spent little time in fractal land yesterday, but I did manage to find a fractal in the figure that results when negative portions of Z and Z^3 are combined. This parent fractal resembles an angel, much as the parent of yesterday's image did, though today's angel has fewer wings and a far less impressive halo. Today's image is located at the edge of one of the many needle- like valleys in its parent fractal. I named it "FMOD Mandeloid" as a description and also because I put no effort into finding a better name. As the name implies, the image was colored with the outside=fmod option. When the time came to rate the image, I could give it no more than a 5. A fractal that has so little effort put into it can hardly be considered above average. The render time of 21 minutes is a bit slow for an image of average quality. Downloading the completed GIF image from: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> or from: <http://sdboyd.dyndns.org/~sdboyd/fotd/index.html> is recommended. The weather Monday here at Fractal Central featured showers and heavy thunder-storms. The heaviest rains missed F.C., but with near an inch (2cm) of rain, it was wet enough to keep the dynamic fractal cats confined to the indoors for the day, unable to enjoy the temperature of 79F 26C. They eased their frustra- tion by burying their noses in the tuna that appeared several times in their food dishes. Today is starting very sunny and pleasantly cool. It looks like a perfect day coming. I must finish a bit of design work and finish thinking about the non-preparations for the big hurricane that most likely will never arrive. Until next time, take care, and doctors might bury their mistakes, but weather people put them on the front page. Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START 20.0 PAR-FORMULA FILE================================ FMOD_Mandeloid { ; time=0:21:37.56--SF5 on a P200 reset=2002 type=formula formulafile=allinone.frm formulaname=MandelbrotMix4 function=ident passes=1 center-mag=-0.1575059159887838/+0.1602162344426152\ /46574.45/1/35/-1.0622669411e-011 params=-1/1/-1/3\ /0/0 float=y maxiter=12000 inside=0 proximity=0.5 outside=fmod periodicity=10 colors=000G`7I`8Ka9Ma9ObAQcBScCUdCWdDYeE`fFbfFdgGf\ gHhhIjiIliJnjKpjLrkLtlMvlNxmOzmOylPylQylQykRykRykS\ yjSyjTyjTyiUyiUyiVyhVyhWyhWyhXygXygYygYxfZxfZxf_xe\ _xe`xe`xdaxdaxdbxdbxccxcdxcdxbexbexbfxafxagxagw`hw\ `hw`iw_iw_jw_jw_kwZkwZlwZlwYmwYmwYnwXnwXowXowWpwWp\ wWqzYtxXrwWqvWouVntVmsUkrTjqThpSgoSfnRdlQckQbjP`iP\ _hOYgOXfNWeMUdMTcLRbLQ`KP_JNZJMYILXIJWHIVGGUGFTFES\ FCREBQF8QEAQEBQEDQEEQEFQEHQEIQEJQELQEMQENQEPQEQQER\ QETQEUQEVQDXQDYQDZQD`QDaQDbQDdQDeQDfQDhQDiQDjQDlQD\ mQDnQDpQDqT1xR7uQDrPJoOPlNViM`fLfcKl`JrYGxUIwWJvYL\ uZMt`OsaPrcRqdSpfUogVniXmjYll_km`jobipdhrehtehsdgs\ cfrbepado`cn_blZakY`jX_hWZgVYfUXdTWcSVbRU`QT_PSZOR\ XNQWNPWMOVMNVMMVMLVLLVLKVLJVLJUKJUKIUKIUKIUJHUJHUJ\ HTJGTJGTIGTIFTIFTIFTHESHESHESHDSGDSGDSGCSGCSFCRFBR\ FBRFBRFAREAREARE9Q5bU4dZ5cW5bU5bR6aP6aN6`K7`I7_F7_\ D8ZB8Z88Y65X38Y4AZ5CZ6E_6 } frm:MandelbrotMix4 {; Jim Muth a=real(p1), b=imag(p1), d=real(p2), f=imag(p2), g=1/f, h=1/d, j=1/(f-b), z=(-a*b*g*h)^j, k=real(p3)+1, l=imag(p3)+100, c=fn1(pixel): z=k*((a*(z^b))+(d*(z^f)))+c, |z| < l } END 20.0 PAR-FORMULA FILE==================================