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From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: Nonsense from JPL
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Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 05:39:39 GMT
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Joe@stellar.demon.co.uk (Joseph Michael) writes:
>In article <nagleEEs73I.Eur@netcom.com> nagle@netcom.com "John Nagle" writes:
>>Joe@stellar.demon.co.uk (Joseph Michael) writes:
>>.... usual stuff on his cube robots...
>>    I saw the video, which shows one cube sliding over another, 
>>horizontally, not carrying any load.  
>>    Besides, these things aren't fractal, they're modular.
>>                                        John Nagle

>Ah! Its Nagal! NUGAL, my dear dear, deari, NEGAL, I have missed you
>so much! Oh those moans! How could I ever forget?! Did you really
>read all those ngs or did u just mis-use deja?

>Weren't u the one moaning about CEBOTs a while ago?
>Whats happened to that moan? It used to crack me up every time
>especially since I were friends with the originators of it!! :-) :-)
>So now its not fractal but modular. So can you tell me what's modularity
>got to do with being fractal and vice versa? FYI, the machines can
>be modular and fractal, fractal and non-modular, modular and non-fractal.
>Kind of blows everything up don't it?!

     Modular means there are lots of identical units, or modules.
Fractal means there's self-similarity at different scales, and it
looks about the same as you zoom in and out.  

     True fractal robots have been proposed, although not built,
most notably by Hans Moravec of CMU in his book "Mind Children".  

					John Nagle
