Search where?

This Portfolio (cathartes02)

All of Writing.Com

◄ February ► 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
Archive				RSS

Offsite Blogs

· Waltz Travel Blog

Create New Item

Read & Review

Community

Browse By Type

Browse By Genre

Writing Resources

Thursday, Apr. 25, 2024

2:18am EDT

Members: 792

Guests: 4,941

Total Online: 5,733

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:

Aiva Raine

about 10 hours ago
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

a day ago
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

a day ago
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

a day ago
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

a day ago
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

a day ago
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

Aennaytte: Free & Wild in GoT

a day ago
In response to "Hope for Hops"

Wait! Why are beer and coffee affected by climate change? That wasn't supposed to happen. All we had to do was have a boat by the side of the house for when the sea levels rise and beg our property insurance to cover fire damage. How are we supposed to remember all of that if we don't get coffee to wake us up in the morning so that we can think and beer at night to dull our sense of doom?

Aennaytte: Free & Wild in GoT

a day ago
In response to "Going to the Dogs"

I have never been to New York, but it seems that my assessment years ago that Berlin, Germany and New York have some similarities. Both cities are known for being inhabited by rude people. And both places, as I now found out, are dog obsessed. And they have high rents.
Berliners though, have a habit of letting their dogs run off leash. Maybe New York is a little better than Berlin in that regard.

1 Like

Robert Waltz

Apr 21, 2024 at 1:48pm
In response to "Revisited: "Hack This""

Wordsmitty ✍️, far be it from me to speculate on the motivations of space aliens, but why in Xenu's name would they do such a thing to the universe?

1 Like

Wordsmitty ✍️

Apr 21, 2024 at 1:39pm
In response to "Revisited: "Hack This""

I thought humans got bigger brains because extraterrestrials affected our evolution, and we eat processed chicken and eggs.

1 Like

February 18, 2021 at 12:04am

#1004723

The House of the Spirits

Entry #5 of 8 for "Journalistic Intentions"

[18+]

The House of the Spirits

I'm going to start this entry by saying that I've never read this book; I've never heard of this book; and I have not a single clue what the book is about. I mean, really, it could be almost anything:

A person with more than one personality

A haunted house

A church or other religious building

A columbarium

Seriously, just consider all of the various possible meanings and/or connotations of "house" and "spirits" and you're good to go.

Incidentally, because of that last bullet point, this is cheating on the part of whatever author wrote it (like I said, I haven't the faintest clue about the book in question and I'm deliberately not looking it up before doing this entry). It's cheating, because when you have words with that many definitions and connotations, you can employ a great deal of parallelism, and people respond to symbolic parallelism.

And so I'm going to talk about my favorite thing that could be considered The House of the Spirits:

A bar.

I miss bars. I miss them a great deal. Oh, sure, I've gotten more into mixing my own drinks -- everyone needs a pandemic hobby -- but there was something about sitting at a bar and having a lot of options to choose from, and not having to mix them myself.

I will say this, though: one drink I made called for mint leaves. I tried to get mint leaves from the supermarket, but they were out. Instead, I opted for a mint plant, an actual living potted thing with stems and leaves.

Plants never last long around me. They usually take one look at me, say "Oh hell no," and commit suicide. This one has somehow stuck around for... I don't know... two weeks? Something like that. Time has little meaning anymore. More than a week. Less than a month. I mean, it was kind of iffy there for a while, and my housemate helped, but somehow this plant still lives; I've been pruning it occasionally for leaves, and there's even new growth starting.

But see, if I could go to a bar, I could just order a drink and the mint leaves are already cut and the bartender does all the actual work. And I wouldn't be limited to just the 25 bottles I have on hand.

The drink in question, by the way, is called a Ginger Rogers

and I mostly just started making them because I had a metric ton of ginger to use up and I like gin a lot. Yes, the name is a pun because of course it is.

But since I had to also buy the mint plant, now I'm almost out of ginger and have plenty of mint, so soon I'll have to buy more ginger (and gin) in order to use the mint because I can't just let the plant grow out of control. This happens a lot. Say you want ham and cheese sandwiches. So you buy ham, cheese, bread, lettuce, tomatoes, whatever. You run out of ham, so you buy more. But then you run out of bread and you can't let the ham and cheese and veggies go to waste so you buy more bread. Then the cheese runs out and you can't have a ham and cheese sandwich without cheese, so you buy more cheese. Meanwhile, the remaining veggies have gone bad because it's been two days, so you have to buy fresh ones of those and while, sure, you can probably just make a salad you still have ham, cheese and bread so you make sandwiches but then the ham runs out again and you buy more ham... the cycle never, ever ends.

And that's another reason I prefer to go to bars and restaurants.

It's been my tradition for a while now, on my birthday, to drink tequila. Lately this has happened at one or another local tequila bar. Not this year. But I'm prepared. I have a bottle of tequila, a bottle of triple sec, some limes, salt. But I'll probably run out of one or another of those things and have to replace it, and then run out of another and have to replace that. Until my spirit gives up the ghost. The ham and cheese sandwich effect, you know.

So since it's my birthday, it's time for me to give someone a present...

Merit Badge Mini-Contest!

Give me a mixed drink recipe. Link it or type it in, I don't care. And I don't want to leave out my non-drinking readers, so I'm not saying there has to be alcohol involved, just make it an interesting mixed drink (e.g. no "virgin screwdriver," which as far as I know is just orange juice). Out of all qualifying comments, I'll pick one commenter at random to give them a Merit Badge tomorrow. Deadline, as usual, is midnight tonight, Thursday, WDC time.

And if I like a recipe I might even try it out sometime.

One thing, though: I usually post just after midnight because it suits my schedule. This will probably not happen tomorrow because, well, see above about "tequila on my birthday." I will post and choose a MB recipient sometime later on Friday, though, if the tequila doesn't kill me.

8 Like • Comment • View 10 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/2-18-2021

Site Links:

Resources:

Need help?

Please post questions in
our support forum.

Places of Interest: Unique Wedding Invitations for unique wedding needs. Color Copiers found here.
Baby Names can be hard to pick. Hands-free hygenic toilet seats covers. Dramatic Music rocks.
Vampires are people too. Write Poetry here. Try this Stock Market quiz.
Teaching is a noble job. Get info on Tax Refunds.

All Writing.Com images are copyrighted and may not be copied / modified in any way.
All other brand names & trademarks are owned by their respective companies.

Generated in 0.65 seconds at 2:18am on Apr 25, 2024 via server web1.