Previous submissions:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1033455

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=980043 <- This has some discussion

Thanks RiderOfGiraffes, I always find your links quite handy. You somehow bring back to my mind Saunt Lora's proposition in Anathem.

The feathery sections look a lot like images generated by iterated function systems (IFS). I wonder if the roots of some polynomial using parameters of the IFS generator as coefficients are exactly those points that will be drawn by the IFS generator, hence the similar patterns. Seeing the random-looking patterns gradually converge reminds me of playing with IFS parameters until patterns start to form and gradually coalesce into a solid shape.

This is why I am continually entranced by numbers.