On Fractal Complexity

Reactive legislation and macro views are rarely good solutions.

Years ago and early into my marriage, my husband, a Site Reliability Engineer, introduced me to the wonderful concept of 'fractal complexity'. I use the phrase constantly to describe why various things that might seem simple or elegant on the outside are really just a giant intricate swirls of chaos the further you dig in.

Fractal What Now?

Fractal complexity is an idea with origins in fractal geometry, the study of structures with patterns that repeat at infinitely small scales. To quote Wikipedia: "A fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension." You know, these things:  

Mandelbrot set - Wikipedia