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Complex Numbers A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number. The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi. Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary. Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty. ![Merit Badge in Quill Award
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| As I mentioned a while back, I usually do these road trips on secondary roads. Of course, it takes longer; that's the point. The only downside is that, sometimes, especially west of the Mississippi, roadside service are few and far between, and those that exist cater mostly to local traffic. Tough to find fuel or food, sometimes, and don't even get me started on locating restrooms. The main thing you notice on the back roads, though, is the utter deterioration of everything. Crumbling towns, crappy infrastructure, empty buildings with gaping windows. If you're not by an interstate, the world has passed you by. But, this trip, I've mostly stuck to the highways because, unusually for me, time was a factor. And behold, roadside services have deteriorated there, as well. Many highway rest areas were closed; the open ones seemed poorly-maintained. Commercial services, like restaurants and gas stations, have become shabby and questionable. Not to mention the sorry state of repair of some of the highways, themselves. Certainly, there are exceptions, places that are still nice. But they're exceptions. Doesn't matter how rosy other economic indicators might be; my Road Trip Indicator is flashing, at best, a warning yellow. We're doomed, and I don't know how we can get un-doomed. But... at least there's beer. Tomorrow, probably, back home, and back to the usual in here. |
| My drive was hit by heavy rain for half the day, yesterday. Not fun, but it could have been worse. Hell, if it'd been much colder, it would have been worse. Today and tomorrow, and that'll be that. Unless something catastrophic happens. Which wouldn't surprise me. Piss me off, maybe, but not surprise. Speaking of catastrophic, you'd think I'd be immune to hearing about current events while driving, as I don't mess with radio. Nah, as soon as I take a break, there's the news, staring me in the face. But that's okay. I don't believe in disconnecting. I know some people dream of vacationing somewhere with no internet service. For me, that would be a nightmare. Not only would I lose my streaks (here and on Duolingo), but, seriously, what else would I do? No, one of my biggest concerns about, say, going to Europe, is making sure I'll have internet service over there when I go. Well, that and enduring another transatlantic flight. Those are nightmares, too. Well, I'm hoping to go, anyway. Just not sure when, yet. Certainly not this year. |
| That's four years of daily blog entries, as of today. 1461 entries in a row (365*4+1, where the 1 is because there was a leap year in there). Which is, I'll note, more than the total number of entries I made from 2007-2019. No retrospectives today, though. I'm already doing one at random every week. Can I do this for another four years? Well, no. There's only enough entries available in a blog item for another year and a quarter, assuming daily entries. So, unless something changes, that'll be that. Though, of course, I'd consider starting a new blog at that point. Might be fun to see if I can push it to five years. But I don't expect to be able to do that. See, if I expect not to, it'll be that much more satisfying if I do it; and if I don't make it, at least I'll have the pure joy of saying "I told you so." As life philosophies go, that one (I call it pessimistic optimism, sometimes, or other things other times) works for me. Other people hate it. That makes me cling to it more tightly. |
| Sometimes, while driving long distances as I've been doing, I get these flashes of insight, deep philosophical epiphanies that would surely change the world, or at least the way people see it. Naturally, I promptly forget them. Well? It's not like I can write them down. No, I'm not going to use a recording device, either. Then, I'd have to listen to myself on playback, and I hate the sound of my voice. Pretty sure everyone else does, too, which is why I write instead of talk.. I suppose one of these days one will make it out of the memory hole, but today is not that day. |
| I usually take another look at old entries on Sundays, but because I found that Betelgeuse eclipse thing and wanted to share it, I'm digging into the archives today (Monday), instead. As an aside, I've now been doing these Revisited entries for over a year, which means that some of the older ones would be eligible for a second revisit... except I've decided to exclude those, too. This one's not very old, from the end of September of last year: "Cosmological Comedy"  , featuring a Cracked article on some purportedly mind-blowing ideas about the universe, or at least parts of it.Me: You can go down your own YouTube rabbit hole... YouTube has been going downhill in general, but since I wrote that entry, the enshittification increased exponentially. I despise ads; it despises ad blockers. So I don't go to YouTube nearly as often, these days. Article: 5. Do We Have Another Planet? I've done a couple of more recent entries, earlier this year, about what I've taken to calling Planet Ix, as a play on the older hypothetical Planet X and the roman numeral for nine. While doing so, I seem to have forgotten about this entry from last September that also talked about it. The 2022 article also speculated: A much more excellent idea is that P9 isn’t a planet but a black hole. A primordial black hole, dating to the first second of creation. As in, the first second ever. Which I mocked, but to be clear: it would be amazingly cool if this were the case, because we'd actually have the capability, theoretically, to send a probe to study a black hole up close (relatively speaking). It would take a long time, sure, but not nearly as long as trying to visit another solar system. Apart from that section, I couldn't find anything else worthy of updating or correction. After all, it hasn't been all that long. The topics also may very well come up in future entries again. Not this week, though. I'm going to start heading home today, most likely a five-day journey (depending on weather and whatever other stuff the universe can throw at me), during which I won't be arsed to make longer blog entries... unless something happens that I need to rant about. |
| I know I just said I'd try to avoid articles while I'm traveling, but then I saw this one. Not random, but time-sensitive, and since I think it's cool, I'm sharing it. Iconic Star Betelgeuse Will Temporarily Vanish From the Sky Next Week In a rare cosmic event, an asteroid will eclipse Betelgeuse on December 11, causing a brief but significant disappearance of this bright, red star. As is so often the case, the headline is misleading. The subhead, a bit less so. Fortunately, the article doesn't seem to be as sensationalist. The bright star Betelgeuse, a prominent member of the Orion constellation, is set to be occulted by the asteroid Leona on December 11. Of course I know Betelgeuse. As with many people, it was probably the first star whose name I knew. Well, other than that of the accursed daystar. It's not exactly pronounced "beetlejuice," but close enough to make kids cackle. I don't think I've ever heard of Leona, though. A quick search tells me it was discovered over a century ago, and no one knows who it's named after. I'm betting it was a girl on whom the discovering astronomer had a crush, as the astronomer in question was very French. This occurrence, expected to last no more than 10 seconds, will cause the star to temporarily vanish from sight, a phenomenon visible along a narrow path on Earth. Of course, this is analogous to a solar eclipse, but the eclipsing body is further away from us than the Moon, and the star is WAY further away from us than the Sun. The path of totality, where the occultation will be observable, stretches across a narrow band starting near Guadalajara, Mexico, and extends through south Florida, the Bahamas, southern parts of Spain and Italy, through to regions in Greece, Turkey, and central Asia. So, not a lot of opportunity for most of us to see the "eclipse." The link includes a path map. This event is not only a treat for stargazers but also a significant opportunity for scientists. Betelgeuse, a red supergiant approximately 550 light-years from Earth, is famous for its size, luminosity, and a penchant for confusing astronomers with sudden and unpredictable drops in brightness. But mostly, it's famous for its name. The article goes into why this is scientifically useful, but really, I'm just writing about it because it's so damn cool, and I wish I were in a position to see it. Don't worry if it disappears, though. I'm sure it'll reappear if we all say its name three times. |
| The main reason I usually post links in here is that I purposely avoid drama in my life, to the extent possible. But without drama, I don't have stories, and without stories, I have nothing personal to blog about. Nothing exciting, anyway. Oh, sure, sometimes I do, and you hear about it. I figured I'd have stuff to blog about while traveling and, well, mostly I do. But not this time. Went to a brewery and drank a small amount of beer. Hung out with friends. That's it. That's all. Nothing that I did yesterday, nothing that happened to me, is of any consequence whatsoever to me, let alone anyone else. But you know what? That's the way I like it. I'm still going to try to avoid posting articles until after I get back. Those entries just take longer. |
| Short version: I survived. Slightly longer version: Donner Pass involved cold temperatures, snowy roads, trucks everywhere, cops, and a mysterious checkpoint of sorts that I don't fully understand, but was, to me, more evidence that California is absolutely planning to secede. Once I rolled down the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, though, I had but one priority: find a car wash to deal with the nasty mess left by the salted roads and the dirty spray kicked up by every truck that passed me. Difficulty #1: remember how I have a crack in my windshield? Well, I started thinking about how an automatic car wash with its spinning thingies might make the crack worse. The only alternative I could find would be a non-automatic car wash, where I'd have to get out and do the washing myself, and that's against my religion because it's too much like work. Difficulty #2: Lodi, or Stockton? Either way, I'd fully expect to get carjacked at a stoplight. Anyway, I decided to chance a car wash in Lodi, and it worked out fine. Didn't even get stuck in Lodi again. And yes, I've been drinking. Maybe I'll be more coherent tomorrow. Probably not. |
| You know what bugs me the most about hotel rooms? The coffee. Not really the coffee itself, because I never got a taste for the stuff; I don't like it, so I don't drink it. But it's there, in nearly every hotel room I've ever visited, along with a machine to make it. A machine which might as well be a helicopter for all I know how to use it. Problem is, I do need my caffeine. Usually, I get it in the form of Coke Zero: way more convenient, because I just have to open a can or bottle. Normally cheaper, too, at least compared to what you get at Starsucks (I imagine it's way cheaper to make the coffee yourself, but I wouldn't know). But while traveling, hotels tend to charge out the ass for Coke, while the coffee is included in the price of the room. I'd be okay with that if they also offered free tea. I like tea, especially the darker varieties. Though not Lipton. That stuff is ass. Not even iced tea; just tea bags that could work with hot water from whatever contraption they've cheaply installed in the room. But they don't. The one exception I've found is Hampton Inn, which, while I don't think they have tea available in the rooms like they do coffee, usually has bags and a hot water dispenser in the lobby. But then I'm paying more to stay at the Hampton Inn instead of, say, a Super 8, which makes it very expensive tea indeed. (Sometimes I stay at the Hampton, anyway. It's a solid chain hotel with, usually, a nice breakfast included.) Right now, I'm on my last night in a Caesar's property in Reno, and the coffee machine is right there on the desk next to where I have to set up the laptop. Taunting me with its complete and utter lack of tea. Now, I get that this is America and not England, but it's a city with an international airport, so... come ON. Oh, well, as travel inconveniences go, that's a small one, but I wanted to get this entry in now in case I get stuck in a Donner Pass snowstorm later today. And won't I be embarrassed if I end up sliding off the mountain to my final doom, and this inane shit ends up being my final written words? |
| As I've mentioned in here before, when I do these road trips, I usually avoid interstate highways. Not that I don't appreciate interstates (they are, from a civil engineering perspective, a triumphant achievement), but I like to take my time and see sights that most people, hurrying from point A to point B with the promise of a few official rest areas in between, don't get to see. Not this time, though. While I still believe in journey before destination (to quote Sanderson), my time schedule is a little more rushed than usual, this trip. The point being that, tomorrow, I expect to be taking I-80 into California (or, as Californians probably call it, "the 80," which, please stop that). And I-80 traverses, as I've also mentioned in here before, Donner Pass. (See "Donner's Blitzen" from last year.)Thing is, Donner Pass tops out at something like 7000 feet. Which means traveling it in late fall or winter (and probably early spring) can be a crapshoot, as the Donner Party found out long before there was a road, let alone a superhighway. And it is supposed to snow there tomorrow. I don't mind driving through snow (I drive a Subaru for several reasons, not least of which is all-wheel drive), and they tend to clear interstates first. But there's just something about the prospect of getting stranded at 7000 feet in a blizzard at a spot where, famously, people got so stuck that they resorted to cannibalism, that makes me cautious enough to at least check the weather forecast first. Especially given what just happened in the PNW (excessive rain even for the PNW, massive floods), which I'm too far south to have experienced. I think if I leave early enough, it'll be fine. And I'll probably get in one more blog entry before I make the attempt. But if you don't hear from me after that, remember, I'm tough and stringy and probably not very tasty. |
| No journey is without its pitfalls, or, in my case, rockfalls. I don't even know when it happened, but somewhere in Wyoming or Utah, something smacked my windshield, cracking it. Not a big deal, usually. These things happen, and it's one reason to have insurance and such. Certainly better than the last time something smacked into me on a road trip. The crack's not even on the driver's side, so not really interfering with my view or anything. But the crack keeps spreading. Slowly. Relentlessly. Like the doom you know is following you everywhere you go; you try to ignore it but every time you glance over, there it is, looming. Looming doom. Gloom. So when I got to Reno, the crack (it's actually a double crack looking a bit like the Tigris and Euphrates) creeping across at its less-than-a-snail's pace, I stopped at the Subaru dealer/service. This, incidentally, is one great benefit of modern technology: On the way in, I simply asked my friendly navigator, Google, to find it for me and direct me there. Let's see a paper map do that, Luddites. Now, to be clear, this is not something I'd worry about too much back home. Make a service appointment, get it taken care of. I don't think it even takes all that long to do. But the thought of driving back across the country with the growing crack didn't fill me with much confidence. Unfortunately, they can't get to it until next week, at the earliest. Not because of a wait time, but because they have to get the glass in. I wasn't planning on being in Reno next week. I was hoping to be in Vegas, with my visit to California over the weekend. But, unexpected change is part of the adventure of travel. The only thing that pisses me off is the cost. It's just enough more than my insurance deductible that it might be worth filing a claim for the difference, but then I don't know if insurance will use it as an excuse to raise my rates, negating the benefit of using it. And if they can't get to it next week, I'm screwed. Either way, it's a gamble but, behold, that is what I'm in Reno for. |
| Quick update today because, after a few days in Utah, I'm getting back on the road. It occurred to me that some people might wonder what the hell I'm doing in Utah, considering how that state's reputation is at odds with my hedonistic, alcohol-positive lifestyle. Well, one, a good friend lives here who I hadn't seen in years, so that was reason enough. Also, that reputation is maybe a bit exaggerated, especially in the SLC area. True, laws surrounding delicious fermented and/or distilled beverages are kinda strange here, but no more so than some other states. Just in a different way. Since the last time I visited, several years ago, a lot more craft breweries have appeared, and I visited a bunch of them. There's not much else to do around here, besides hiking and skiing, both of which are outdoor activities (and often cold ones), which are therefore anathema to me. But if I did do outdoor activities, this would be a good place to do them. Seriously great scenery in Utah, though most of the surrounding states can say the same. Next stop: Reno. Fewer breweries, but I'm certain I can find something else to do there, like, I don't know, maybe follow in the grand tradition of writing depressing song lyrics about the place. |
| As I am not yet ready to let this blog go, I switched to a Premium Plus membership, thus buying more space in here. Well, storage space. The maximum number of entries doesn't change, but I won't hit that cap for over a year at the current rate. Bonus: more email space, so I can continue procrastinating cleaning up that mess. Anyway, just because I'm traveling (Salt Lake City right now) doesn't mean I'm skipping leg day. Er, I mean, archaeology day, where I dig up a past blog entry at random to see if anything's changed. Today's excavation uncovered this one, from early last year: "The Attempted Resurrection of Words" The linked article is still there, too.Usually, I can think of something to say, or at least point out where I made an embarrassing typo or other error. Maybe my attitude has changed over time, maybe I've learned new stuff, something. Alas, maybe because I'm damn exhausted, I got nothing. However... this was long enough ago (hell, one month is probably long enough ago) that I'd forgotten about the entry entirely, so I got to learn new words all over again. Still mostly useless, but words. That's right; I still don't see the need for these words, apart from, as I wrote then, "...in some of those writings you see where the author just has to show off his or her enormous vocabulary." I guess that makes me one of those authors. |
| Last one of these, for now. Where should I go? Anywhere you want. I often select destinations at random, because it truly is more about the journey than the destination. This may be too much uncertainty and not enough planning for some people, but you can always do a mix, or select the random destination six months in advance if you need to plan your trip down to the microsecond. Most of my travels have been within the contiguous US. This is not because I don't want to visit other places, but doing so doesn't usually work well with my preferred spontaneity. Besides, the only really viable way to leave the continent is by airplane, and they've made air travel so awkward, inconvenient, and uncomfortable that I hate it. I don't, however, fear it. Lots of people conflate hate and fear into a -phobia word, but they don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. For instance, I fear bears because bears are big monsters with sharp, pointy teeth, razorlike claws, and an attitude. But I don't hate bears; they look so cute and cuddly. I hate flying with its unreasonable restrictions, cramped spaces, and crowds, but I don't fear it; it's probably safer than even staying at home. I'd consider a cruise, but that takes even more planning. So, by car, my destination choices are rather limited: mostly the contiguous US, Alaska, Canada, and Mexico. And I don't like crossing borders because the agents there always treat me like I'm trying to contaminate the purity of their countries by smuggling deep-fried mayonnaise out of the US. I'll fly again eventually, despite my utter contempt for the whole process. Meanwhile, I'm fine with being on the road. |
| When traveling, it's important to be aware of local customs. For example, Pronunciation When traveling around the US, you need to be aware that, often, place names aren't pronounced the way you'd think based on the usual rules of English. For example, there's a town near where I live called Staunton. You'd think, looking at it, it's pronounced stawn-ton, right? No, it's pronounced che-vee. Okay, no, just kidding; it's stan-ton, with an a like in hat. Worse, though, are places that are pronounced like you'd expect in English... but they're Spanish or French. Like, if you pronounce Versailles, Indiana, as if you'd just stepped off the plane from Par-ee, the locals will kick your derrière all the way to Illinois (a state whose name is pronounced like the French would). But you just never know, so unless and until you're absolutely, 100% certain of something's pronunciation, usually by hearing a local speak the word, it's best to not mention the name at all. Some folks don't take kindly to strangers, and their best way of identifying a stranger is by their mispronunciation of the local town, street, or dive bar. Like, in my hometown, we have a Rio Road. I can always identify the tourists because they pronounce it like Rio de Janeiro or Rio Grande. But no. It's pronounced like rye-oh. Don't ask me why; I just know we use it as a shibboleth so we know who to send to the more expensive restaurants. As I said, though, you never know. You could have a place in the US named some common, easy-to-pronounce English words like, I don't know, New Haven, and it'll turn out that Haven is pronounced like havin'. As in, don't bother me, I'm havin' lunch. As far as I know, that's not the case with the one in Connecticut, but you know it could happen. Or, like, I can see myself visiting a small town with a common name, and someone asks "How do you like it here so far?" I'll be like "Oh, it's nice. I really like Riverside." And their face will immediately close up and they'll look sideways at me with great suspicion. "It's 'reverse-a-dee.'" Look, I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised, okay? |
| (I'm going to recycle these into a Comedy newsletter, because I'm lazy, so consider them rough drafts.) My next bit of sage wisdom (because it's thyme) seems like it should be obvious, but with many obvious things, there's always a twist. Be Prepared. The twist is that whatever you prepare for, something else will go wrong. A few years ago, I spent a week in Seattle. Being aware of the city's climate reputation, I brought an umbrella and a raincoat. Not a cloud in the sky all week. I didn't bring that stuff to Las Vegas, because it's in a desert. Rained the whole time. Pack for cold weather, and you get hot. Plan for heat, and it'll freeze. So you figure, "Better plan for both," which is when you get a tornado. It's good to be prepared, anyway. But it's impossible to always be physically prepared, because the universe has a sick sense of humor. So mental preparation will have to suffice, steeling your mind to accept that when things go wrong, they will do so in the weirdest way possible, and whatever material you brought with you will be useless to the task. This is why I don't go hiking, by the way. Well, one of the reasons. I'd have to bring along too much stuff for every eventuality: a snakebite kit to ensure a snake won't bite me; a splint to prevent me from twisting my ankle; food and a portable stove so I don't get hungry; a sleeping bag so I don't get lost (if I don't get lost, I'm not hiking long enough to need to sleep), and so on. Lots of stuff to lug around, stuff that will never get used, but if I don't bring it, I'll wish I had. And bear spray, of course. Which will keep me from seeing any bears, but I'd fully expect to get bit by a shark. |
| As a seasoned traveler, I have a duty to share some of the knowledge I've gleaned from hard experience. I mean, I could have learned from others' advice and mistakes, but who the hell reads other peoples' travel advice? So, today's tidbit: Never ask the hotel front desk for a dining recommendation. There are several good reasons for this, which in hindsight are obvious, but I had to learn the hard way. First, regional tastes vary widely. Be wary of weird dishes with unnatural ingredients, especially when traveling in the American Midwest. Also, even if the locals eat something approaching normal for you, the receptionist will inevitably be trying to help out their cousin's ex-spouse's kid from a previous marriage, who runs a nearby restaurant, and runs it badly. Every time I violate this rule, thinking, I don't know, maybe the previous dozen instances were anomalies, I regret it. One time, for instance, I got directed to the only Chinese restaurant in town, which had the distinction of being the absolute worst Chinese food I've ever eaten. Which is an accomplishment, I suppose. Another example, from central Missouri (pronounced "Misery"): "You're in luck! There's a truly excellent diner just a few doors down!" So I go to the diner, and it's clean enough, and the workers are really pleasant, but when I got my food it was half undercooked and half overcooked, and how does that even work? Or last night, when I got sent to a sports bar that wasn't supposed to close for another two hours, but they acted put out by taking my order and, as I was eating, destroyed my senses of smell and taste with industrial-strength cleaning fluid while doing their closing chores. Well, at least I knew they took cleaning seriously, which is more than I could say for some restaurants. So instead, just do what normal people do and consult Google. Sure, it can lead you astray, too, but it's more reliable than hotel desk clerks. Or, I suppose, you can just find a nearby chain restaurant, but then, what's the point of traveling? |
| I'll be on the road for some unknown amount of time tomorrow [edit: I meant today. I'm writing this before I go to sleep, so tomorrow is today and today is totally tomorrow, while yesterday is but a fading memory as usual], stopping who knows where, so I figured I'd get in this last entry before traveling. Speaking of traveling, here are some places none of us will ever go (probably): In the Milky Way’s Stars, a History of Violence Our galaxy's stars keep a record of its past. By reading those stories, astronomers are learning more about how the Milky Way came to be — and about the galaxy we live in today. The amazing thing is that we can figure any of this out at all. It's been barely a century since we learned that there's more to the universe than our familiar galaxy, the discovery of which leads the linked article. Late in the evening of October 5, 1923, Edwin Hubble sat at the eyepiece of the Hooker telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory, atop the mountains overlooking the Los Angeles basin. Visiting that telescope was the highlight of my trip to L.A. last year. One might think, "What use is a telescope in L.A.?" Well, one, it's on a pretty high mountain and, two, I don't think the area was quite as smoggy or light-polluted a hundred years ago. With the cleaving of the cosmos into a home galaxy and a larger universe, the study of our finite home — and how it exists within that universe — could begin in earnest. I mean, sure, it was a paradigm shift much like the heliocentric model of the solar system centuries earlier, and a Big Deal, but it's not like we hadn't been studying the stars. The latest results, amassed over the past four years, are now painting a picture of our home as a unique place, at a unique time. To recap, the history of our thinking about our place in the universe went something like: 1) We're special and everything revolves around us. 2) We're not that special and not the center of the universe. 3) The universe is unimaginably big, and we're a rounding error. 4) Wait, maybe we are special. We have been lucky, it seems, to live near a particularly quiet star on the calm fringes of a middle-aged, oddly tilted, loosely spiraling galaxy that has been largely left alone for most of its existence. As regular readers know, I'm not discounting the power of luck, but if those conditions hadn't been relatively stable, we wouldn't be here to congratulate ourselves on our luck. From the Earth’s surface — if you are somewhere very dark — you can only see the bright stripe of the Milky Way’s galactic disk, edge-on. But the galaxy we live in is so much more complicated. It's getting harder and harder to find a place where you can see that. Oh, incidentally, it's called the Milky Way because of its appearance to the eye: a pale streak, like a road ("way.") It's translated from Latin's "via lactea," which, like a lot of things in Rome, came from Greek: galaxías kýklos. Hence "galaxy." Point being that the word, now applied to collections of stars all across the universe, shares a root with "milk" words like lactose and lactate. I mention this simply because I find it amusing, if horribly mammal-centric. A supermassive black hole churns at its center, surrounded by the “bulge,” a knot of stars containing some of the galaxy’s oldest stellar denizens. Good to know it's not just middle-aged people who develop a "bulge." Another digression: black holes have a scary reputation, like they're going to eat everything around them. And they do, but only up to a certain distance. Past that distance, they work just like any other massive object; you could orbit a black hole for a very long time, in the same way the Earth has been orbiting the sun for a very long time without showing any signs of falling in. Next comes the “thin disk” — the structure we can see — where most of the Milky Way’s stars, including the sun, are partitioned into gargantuan spiraling arms. One thing I've never been really clear on is how the spiral arms formed or are maintained. While the article doesn't shed much light (pun intended) on that, it does go into the latest observations and theories about our galaxy's structure and how it got here. And it's all very fascinating, at least to me, but I don't have much to comment on the rest of the article except to note that, given all the paradigm shifts we've already seen in cosmology, I'd expect more. And I look forward to it. |
| Here's a link from a source I don't think I've ever featured before, The Collector. What Happened to the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World? Ancient authors speak of seven incredible feats of human achievement which we call the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but what happened to them? Ancient Western authors, so the list was necessarily limited in geographical scope. I'm going to abbreviate them as SWAW sometimes, because I'm lazy. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were a collection of buildings admired as feats of beauty and human engineering. "Human engineering" could mean two different things; in this case, probably "engineered by humans" rather than "making it so humans do what you want them to do." The list includes the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus from Olympia, the Colossus of Rhodes, Alexandria’s Pharos or Great Lighthouse, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. I think it's also important to note that "ancient authors" made little distinction between fiction and truth, much like postmodernists today. If some old Greek dude said that there was a giant statue of Dionysus straddling the strait between Italy and Sicily, that needs to be backed up by archaeological evidence, or at least a couple more primary sources. Pretty sure most of these are thus confirmed. Most. 1. The Great Pyramid of Giza: The Only Ancient Wonder Still Standing One advantage of a pyramid is low center of gravity: hard to topple. Still, the pyramids are pale shadows of their original forms. The Pyramids are the crowning glory of the Giza Necropolis and originally gleamed in shining white limestone with golden capstones. They served as tombs for the Pharaohs and were invested with intense religious symbolism, although the exact nature of that symbolism still divides scholars, and acted as a statement of the Pharaoh’s power over the materials and manpower needed to create them. This uncertainty has led to all manner of wild-ass speculation, most of which has no basis in reality. Perhaps the worst such speculation is that aliens built them, because some people seem to have to believe that humans aren't capable of such feats. 2. Mausoleum of Halicarnassus This is the one I always forget when someone pop-quizzes me on the SWAW. Probably because "Halicarnassus" is a mouthful. The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was built at the city of Halicarnassus on the Western coast of modern-day Turkey in the mid-4th century BCE for the Carian king Mausolus and his family. Oh... so that's the etymology of "mausoleum." As will become a trend with the wonders, we do not actually know how it fell to ruin. It was still standing in the Roman period, but at some point in the following millennium it fell into disrepair. No sources describe how or why this happened. Entropy wins. Entropy always wins. 3. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus Artemis was the Greek goddess of the hunt and had strong associations with the moon and female youth, which earned her high regard across the Greek world. The lunar association came later, I think. The Temple of Artemis was actually three temples built and destroyed at separate times. The date of the construction of the first temple is unknown, but we do know that it was destroyed by a flood in the 7th century BCE. It was rebuilt larger with slight design changes soon after, only to burn down in 356 BCE due to arson by a man named Herostratus. Calls to mind Swamp Castle from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. You'd think that they'd learn something from repeated destruction of a temple. Possible lessons: a) the gods exist but don't care; b) the gods exist and hate temples being built to them; or c) the gods don't exist. In any of those cases, why build temples and such? This was around the time of the birth of Alexander the Great in Macedonia and Plutarch relates one story that said the temple burned because the gods were distracted by his arrival into the world. But no, we just continue to make up stories and reasons. 4. Statue of Zeus at Olympia From the drawing of this in the article, it seems like this was the main inspiration for the marble Lincoln in Washington, DC. The statue was made of wood covered in gold and ivory plates and stood at 14m tall, although it must be noted that Zeus was seated on a similarly massive throne, so the figure itself was considerably larger than the height suggests. "We don't have the budget for a solid gold statue. You think Zeus would notice if we used gold-plated wood?" It’s as if the Statue of Zeus simply faded away into history and historians are still at a loss over what became of it. Metaphor! 5. Colossus of Rhodes I'm not certain if this was the explicit inspiration for the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, but Emma Lazarus made the connection. This was a massive 33m tall bronze statue of the traditional Greek god of the sun and patron of Rhodes, Helios, which towered over the harbor of the maritime nation. People like to compare the heights of everything to said Statue of Liberty (yes, I know that's not its official name), which is 46 meters, plinth to torch. While it's not surprising that an industrial-age construct could be bigger than one in ancient Greece, well, like I said, just making the comparison. In 226 BCE, just 54 years after its completion, a devastating earthquake sent the Colossus toppling to the ground. Despite being offered help to rebuild it by the Ptolemies of Egypt, Rhodes interpreted its destruction as a sign of divine disfavor and never repaired it. See? Rhodes (a tiny island in the Mediterranean) figured it out. Like the other ancient wonders, there was no definitive final moment, but a slow death as the once-great icon of Rhodes became too unimportant to even warrant a clear record of its fate. Another metaphor! 6. Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos) Situated on the island of Pharos, which is also the ancient name of the lighthouse, it was perfectly placed to serve Alexandria’s bustling maritime industry. The French translation of "lighthouse" is Phare, which apparently traces its origin to Pharos. What's not clear to me is if there's a linguistic connection between Phare/Pharos and Pharaoh. The latter is usually translated as "great house," so... maybe? I can't be arsed to look into it further today. The soaring 100m tall structure... So, just over two Statues of Liberty. It was one of several incredible monuments that defined the city, including the famous Library of Alexandria and the Tomb of Alexander the Great. Still salty about the destruction of the former. As for the latter, well, one shouldn't treat Marvel's Moon Knight as historically accurate. 7. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon Remember I said something up there about having to be supported by archaeological evidence? Lastly, we have the most challenging wonder of all: the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Why are they a challenge? Because they might never have existed in the first place. The article explains this in further detail. Therefore, we cannot say anything concrete about the Gardens or what befell them. Get it? Concrete? Babylon’s fall from a mighty ancient city to an insignificant village so minor that its location was considered lost for centuries echoes the same theme as the fate of the other wonders: no matter how wonderful, elaborate, or famous something is, time will lay it low. Ozymandias nods knowingly. Attempts have been made over the intervening centuries to compile new Seven Wonders, because seven is, I don't know, numerologically significant? Or at least historically. We'll see if any last as long as the Pyramids (sort of) have. |
| Today we look at something from four years ago: December 1, 2019. Some context: I'd just had a very productive November blogging with 30DBC, and this was me going back to my default format of looking at some kind of link. After that December 1 entry, I would go on to write four more entries, then take a nine-day break while traveling—which was, though I didn't expect it at the time, or plan for it, my last break so far. That's right; I'm only about half a month away from four years of daily blog entries. I'm traveling again soon, but this time, if I miss a day without warning, that means something terrible, awful and/or horrible has happened to me, and you should mourn and/or celebrate. (Though keep in mind that an entry could happen at any time during the day, and it might be a short one.) Enough context and digression. Here's the entry: "So Much Winning" . It's commentary on an article that asserts that it turns out money can indeed "buy happiness." The linked article, from Vox, is still available. Over the last four years, I've addressed the concept of happiness a few times, and, at least once, I've tackled the persistent myth that big lottery jackpot winners necessarily become miserable. I won't be digging those up today, so it's possible that I'm repeating myself, as is common because I never really remember what I wrote or when I wrote it. First: I note that no one "liked" or commented on that entry, though I know people saw it (page views are provided to writers here). The surrounding entries received some responses; it was just this one provoking radio silence. I'm not salty about it, and I'm not complaining; I appreciate feedback, but I don't beg for it, and I don't get depressed if I don't get any. Just stating facts. And that's not going to stop me from writing about it again today. Second: As noted, it's been four years, and there was at least one society-altering event between then and now. So my views have changed somewhat. As it doesn't seem to be a popular topic, I'm only going to look at a few brief excerpts from that entry. Gosh, when your sample set includes a significant number of people who are, by definition, not good with money, maybe there's some implicit bias going on? In retrospect, this looks like I'm ragging on lottery players. I gamble in other ways (pretty sure I hared off to Vegas shortly after writing that), so no, I'm not ragging on lottery players in general. Being "not good with money" isn't meant to be an insult. I think I was just trying to point out the selection bias in studies like that. If you're not good with money, that doesn't make you a bad person, but getting a large windfall isn't going to suddenly turn you into someone who is good with money. In my defense, I did note this in the following paragraph. "Money doesn't buy happiness." "Money isn't everything." There might be grains of truth in such sayings, but mostly these homilies and others like them are designed to appeal to people who don't have a lot of money, and to keep them from rising up in revolt against the rich. We'll see how long that'll work. At least four years. And I maintain that anyone who seriously thinks that money doesn't buy happiness hasn't experienced the joys of drinking really good whiskey. That shit is not cheap, but it is a font of happiness. I think my current iteration of this sentiment is: "Anyone who thinks that money doesn't buy happiness has never had really good scotch." Which, of course, is a personal thing for me; not everyone likes scotch. That bit leads me to some musings about "happiness" in general, because what makes me happy isn't necessarily going to make you happy, or vice-versa. Happiness studies, in my view, have some major inherent and inescapable flaws. One flaw is that they're either objective, or subjective. I know I've been saying life isn't binary, and it's not, but consider this: An objective study has to use some metric to define happiness. But, newsflash, people are different, and any such metric would have to take that into account. A study with some element of subjectivity would, perhaps, ask people to self-report their level of contentment with their life situation. Like a doctor's 1-10 pain scale, only for not-pain. Perhaps 1 is "completely unhappy" while 10 is "absolute nirvana" or whatever. The problem is that, say you find two people in similar socioeconomic circumstances: same marital status, similar earning power, same number of kids (0 is a number), roughly the same level of health, etc. One might report a 3 because they've fallen from a higher standard of living, while the other reports an 8, as their situation represents several steps up from the hellhole in which they spent their early life. As a further complication, some people simply cannot be happy unless the people around them are miserable, or at least, they can't consider themselves as having "won life" (ugh) unless other people lose at it. Happiness, then, is subjective, situational, and personal. Consequently, I don't know how you'd design a happiness study whose results would apply to everyone. Interview people in a bar, and you'll find that happiness is proportional to access to booze. Sample church attendees, and you might conclude that religion makes people happier (I'm sure it does in some cases, but not in others). Introverts are going to give different answers from extroverts. Ask married people, and... well, okay, in that case, you'll probably get a wide range. Bottom line, in terms of today's featured entry from the past, is that a windfall will increase happiness for some, and decrease it for others. I just don't see how you can make broad, sweeping generalizations about what any given individual needs to do to help themselves find happiness. So my last paragraph still holds true: I do know that I wouldn't mind being a test case. You know. Just to be sure. I just can't bring myself to play the lottery with any kind of regularity (it's been many years since I actually bought a ticket), so I'll never find out. |
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