Alligators

for Morph's Outpost on the Digital Frontier

A monthly column by Tay Vaughan (1993-1994)

"Paradise, Florida -- A five year old girl was attacked and eaten by a 12-foot alligator yesterday as her horrified family and bystanders hit at it with sticks and a canoe paddle in an unsuccessful attempt to save the little girl. According to Broward County sheriff's deputy Wayne Walters, 'that alligator came out of the canal so fast there just wasn't no time for people to react -- then it was too late.'"

Alligators regularly attack multimedia projects, too, with more or less tragic results. They come unexpectedly from the swampy, uncertain ground of the leading edge to surprise even the most careful producers, and some projects are, indeed, destroyed by these alligators; other projects become severely damaged but survive. Baby alligators also appear regularly not as destroyers, but as annoyances. Alligators cost time and money.