Search where?

This Portfolio (cathartes02)

All of Writing.Com

◄ October ► 2021
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31
Archive				RSS

Offsite Blogs

· Waltz Travel Blog

Create New Item

Read & Review

Community

Browse By Type

Browse By Genre

Writing Resources

Saturday, Apr. 27, 2024

6:52pm EDT

Members: 1,016

Guests: 1,305

Total Online: 2,321

Complex Numbers

by Robert Waltz

Rated: 18+ · Book · Personal · #1196512

Not for the faint of art.

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.

http://www.ddewey.net/mandelbrot/

Signature for Honorable Mentions in 2018 Quill Awards

A signature for exclusive use of winners at the 2019 Quill Awards

Signature for those who have won a Quill Award at the 2020 Quill Awards

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Elisa the Bunny Stik

about 8 hours ago
In response to "Pleasure and Pain"

it illustrates why it's important to have people from different backgrounds, with different worldviews, working on scientific research.

This right here is why I get rather irritated by people poo-pooing college these days. I feel like that attitude effectively shits on minority populations that may not have strong finances but do possess persistent curiosity and want to learn about various subjects in-depth. In the 90s, these groups were exclusively told to go to trade schools even if they had the aptitude for college education. Nowadays the blanket "Everyone should consider a trade" mantra employs a more subtle (but still abundant) form of discrimination. I'm so over it.

1 Like

Kåre Enga in Udon Thani

Apr 25, 2024 at 3:16am
In response to "Going to the Dogs"

I have ants in Thailand. Will I miss them in Montana? No.

Would it be nice to have a cat and a dog, here or there? Yes, but I have struggles keeping my neglected plants alive.

Not every situation is suitable for everything or everybody.

Kåre Enga in Udon Thani

Apr 25, 2024 at 3:09am
In response to "Tipped Out"

I don't tip. In my travels I rarely find tipping the norm.

I also don't haggle.

When you add the tip... the true cost of America becomes evident. But what would I know? I travel while others who have double my income can't pay rent.

Kåre Enga in Udon Thani

Apr 25, 2024 at 2:58am
In response to "Reality Cubed"

My dreams may be different from your dreams but if we share them with others then some form of the dream may live on. Regardless, if we don't eat we die. "Joy gives us wings." "Reality bites."

Aiva Raine

Apr 24, 2024 at 4:26pm
In response to "Tipped Out"

Agreed. I'll tip and well, for actual waitstaff at restaurants. I'll tip appropriately for bell-staff who assists with luggage at hotels, the more luggage, the bigger the tip. I'll give a tip to the valet as well. Beyond that- I don't tip. Certainly no tip for the fast food workers, coffee baristas, grocery store clerks, etc.

It annoys me to no end that we're being asked to tip for all kinds of jobs where they are being paid an hourly wage. I've worked as a waitress when I was young and my daughter currently does. In those jobs- she absolutely depends upon proper tipping to make a decent wage. And I hate the fact that she is dependent upon tips to do so.

It leaves women especially at the mercy of arsh**() on whether she wants to accept hostile, negative, sexist, harassing, demeaning, and negative behavior from her customers in order to make a living. It condones people treating their waitstaff like shite in order to get paid. While there is much improvement from the 30 years ago when I was working as a waitress in the skimpy outfits we were forced to wear- it's still an issue at non-chain, independent owned restaurants and diners.

Women are left to the mercies of jerk customers and their only recourse is the manager who they have to hope supports their waitstaff rather than the jerk customer. Tipping should be eliminated. All employees should be paid a livable wage and waitstaff especially should not be dependent upon tolerating crappy to obscene behavior from customers in order to make a living.

But, until that happens- I always tip at least 20% and often times more. Very rarely have I tipped lower and the service in those situations was abysmal and they still got 10%.

1 Like

GeminiGem of House Lannister

Apr 23, 2024 at 6:51pm
In response to "Going to the Dogs"

I don't understand the intersection, either. I lived in a much smaller city and found that having dogs was a hassle (although it didn't stop me), what with the complainey neighbors, the extra licensing, etc. I live in a rural location now and it works great. I can't wrap my head around living in NYC with or without a dog, although I like the idea of a place that issues a canine and supplies upon moving there. Can that please be a thing?

1 Like

Lazy Writer est 4/24/2008

Apr 23, 2024 at 3:31pm
In response to "Going to the Dogs"

I love my little dog...but I live in a biggish house with a fenced backyard.

1 Like

Aennaytte: Free & Wild in GoT

Apr 23, 2024 at 3:14pm
In response to "That's Cole"

I knew and ate Kohlrabi before I ever heard of kale. Kohlrabi is so much better in every way.

That last quoted sentence is hilarious. I am glad that I wasn't bred to be a Brussels Sprout.

1 Like

Aennaytte: Free & Wild in GoT

Apr 23, 2024 at 3:11pm
In response to "Cash Stash"

The discussion of money is an interesting one. Remember the recent collapse of a few banks? I think it was about a year or so ago?
Yes, deposits were FDIC insured up to $250,000 per depositor. But some people and companies had more money in that bank than the FDIC was insuring.
I never followed up on what happened to those people. I don't run in circles of people who own that much cash.

My accounting professor took half a period to explain to us what happened and how the bank went from Silicone Valley darling to dead so fast.

He also told us that the value we give money is not backed by anything except our hope and faith that our economy will keep going.

We didn't discuss whether the value of money needed a lower income class of people.

1 Like

Aennaytte: Free & Wild in GoT

Apr 23, 2024 at 3:04pm
In response to "Revisited: "Hack This""

In my last psychology class, we discussed the evolution of the brain. It is now settled science that we evolved to have not only larger, but also vastly more powerful brains than most other animals because we learned how to cook (process) our food.
Although we are only about 1/4 to 1/3 of a normal gorilla, we eat half of the calories in a day. Not only that, we prepare the food in a way that we get to use more of the calories that we ingest.
The result is that our brain takes up more space in our noggin than a gorilla brain takes up in his noggin. Not only that, each of our brain cells is smaller, so we can fit exponentially more of those into our head.

Now, using all that goodness ...

1 Like

October 24, 2021 at 12:03am

#1020012

Hardly Working

I'm a bit hungover right now, so even this concept is giving me a headache.

Why hard work alone isn't enough to get ahead
We're constantly taught the recipe for getting ahead is to put our heads down and outwork everyone else. But that's not quite right.

Some adages seem custom-made to keep people in their perceived social underclass. Things like "Money can't buy happiness," "The early bird catches the worm," and "If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing well." But to me the worst offender of all, the one trap they lay to give people the illusion that they might actually escape the clutches of poverty, is "Hard work pays off."

1) It does not, usually and 2) What even is hard work?

Late this summer, UK author Kate Lister had a realisation that resonated. On Twitter, she wrote: “How old were you when you realised your original plan of being really nice, working really hard, & taking on much more than you should in the hope you would be automatically rewarded for this without asking, was totally shit?”

Even earlier than I realized (US spelling) that Twatter is a cesspool. Because Twatter hadn't even been invented yet. Ah, the good old days.

Despite adages and advice that tell people from a young age hard work will get you everywhere, it really won’t, says Jeff Shannon, an executive coach, and author of Hard Work is Not Enough: The Surprising Truth about Being Believable at Work.

"They" tell you that hard work pays off so "they" can profit off your hard work. Consider this: if hard work were all it took to become financially successful, migrant laborers would be multi-millionaires.

Also consider, for example, the work done by Amazon warehouse workers. I'm sure you've all heard the stories: on your feet, hustling around, following algorithms. Indisputably hard work, though I understand some find it fulfilling. (Get it? Fulfillment center? Badumtish.). Is it going to get you promoted to a cushy manager job? No.

And on the other side, as far as I'm concerned, any job that has you sitting on your ass all day cannot be described as "hard work," no matter how diligently you focus on your task(s). It may be rewarding work, it may be your calling, it may drain you emotionally, it may even be difficult, but having done both physically- and mentally-demanding jobs, I can say without doubt that it is not. Hard. Work.

But it’s not enough to take you all the way to the top. “At a certain point you look around and realise, wow, everyone works hard at this level. Expertise and hard work just become the expectation, and will not help you up the ladder.”

And part of that is that it's not a ladder, it's a pyramid. Not necessarily as in "pyramid scheme," but if you have nine colleagues at your lowly mailroom-equivalent level, and one of you is up for a promotion, then nine of you will be stuck in the mailroom. This continues on up the corporate pyramid. And that's not even taking into account that companies don't promote from within like they used to.

To really get ahead, you need to be doing more than just your job. Realisations like Lister’s often come on the heels of watching colleagues with similar (or fewer) abilities soar, while your career stagnates. More often than not, those who rise are the ones willing to politick their way to the top, while you were too busy just working hard to notice you should be working the room.

And while this article started out promisingly, here it veers into "you need to 'work hard' AND get noticed AND also kiss ass."

This flies in the face of societal training that begins as early as primary school, when students are taught that the quiet, hard workers are those most likely to prosper.

They're told that because the corporate world needs people willing and eager to put in the time and effort, and management would prefer if such people didn't raise a fuss. Hence the "quiet" part. Think of the mule with a carrot tied in front of it like the bait on an anglerfish.

In fact, as Shannon notes, hard work alone typically goes unnoticed after a certain point, because everyone around you is working at or about the same level. If you don’t draw attention to yourself in other ways, it’s easy to fade into the background.

And then, as everyone else begins to take notice of this advice, you're once again lost in the crowd, and then you need to find even more ways to (positively) draw attention to yourself, and the escalation continues.

Unsustainably.

In the end, you're back where we started: career advancement is as much luck as anything. You're lucky if your co-workers can't be as self-promoting as you are. You're lucky if management happens to prefer your style over that of your colleagues. You're lucky if you have just the right personality, or know how to fake it. And let's not forget that prejudice, even unconscious prejudice, plays a role. But I'm not wading into that swamp while nursing a hangover.

So, what, am I advocating a lack of "hard work," whatever the fuck that means if you're in, say, engineering design or IT? Well, no, not unless it's going to burn you out. I'm just saying: don't believe the hype. Think of all the people above you in the hierarchy who are partial or complete slack-offs. Did they get where they are by "hard work?" I don't think so. They also didn't get it by being slackers, but it apparently didn't hurt.

Me, I was able to escape that race most of my life, and I am, admittedly, a slacker. But that's as much luck as winning the race is.

4 Like • Comment • View 5 comments

© Copyright 2024 Robert Waltz (UN: cathartes02 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Robert Waltz has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.

Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/blog/cathartes02/day/10-24-2021