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 |    Not for the faint of art. |
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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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Congratulations on winning an honorable mention for Best Blog at the 2018 Quill Awards for [Link To Item #1196512] . *^*Smile*^* This award was sponsored by the blogging consortium including [Link To Item #30dbc] , [Link To Item #blogcity] , [Link To Item #bcof] and [Link To Item #1953629] . For more details, see [Link To Item #quills] .](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/type-Blogging-2180.gif) ![Merit Badge in Highly Recommended
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| There's an old riddle: Name me and so you will break me. PROMPT September 10th In your entry today, write about silence. Consider silence in both your personal life and in your writing. What messages can be conveyed through silence? Is there power in a person being silent? When is it appropriate to be silent and when is it not? Yeah, yeah, I know - the Disturbed version is awesome. But Brandi  Carlile will always be my favorite, even if that particular song only features her backup singers.Yesterday, I tried to drive my car for the first time in six months. It's been sitting on the street directly in front of my house, unmoving, silent. You know what I wish wasn't silent? When, sometime in the last six months, some asshole broke into it, opened the glovebox, and thus turned on a light that drained my battery. Might have been nice to actually have a working car alarm, then; I was probably in my house and I would have heard it. Instead, it was silent. No need for shock or sympathy, there -- for some unknown reason, they broke in but didn't steal anything. My GPS is still there. The petty change that litters pretty much every central console of every car in the universe is still there. My personal Breathalyzer is still there, as is my mascot, a plush Dogmeat from Fallout 4. Hell, the big honkin' knife I keep in the back for emergencies is still there, and that sucker wasn't cheap. Even everything that had been in the glovebox - mostly the manual and some CDs -- was relocated but not stolen. It's more puzzling than anything else. I mean, if you're going to break into someone's car, fucking at least steal something. I mean, okay, it's possible something is missing; I don't exactly keep a pristine car interior. But if so, it's nothing I'll miss. So I'm out $150 for a new battery, but big deal. If I'd gone on driving as usual, I'd have spent more than that in gas and maintenance. Only thing I can figure is maybe they were specifically looking for a handgun. This is America, after all. Never kept one in the car, though. Segué to the most obvious carriers of handguns: cops. I always wondered if I'd stick to my guns (pun intended) if I was ever arrested (I haven't been). I always imagined the cop would read me my Miranda rights like they do on TV. "You have the right to remain silent." At which point I'd clam up and say not even one word until I, somehow, hooked up with an attorney. The exact method of contacting an attorney when one isn't speaking a single word has always been a mystery to me. Knowing me, I'd fail. But that's one time when silence is absolutely appropriate: when one is arrested and "anything you say can and will be used against you." But silence can speak volumes. Fifth Amendment aside, spouses, for example, can and do use your silence against you. Her: "Do you think she's prettier than I am?" Me: *clams up while deciding whether to lie or tell the truth* Her: "I KNEW IT!" And then five or six days of the silent treatment. There's an old, well-known Zen koan: if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, a sound is the vibration of air molecules; an ear isn't required. So... yes. And yes, I'm well aware of the related joke: If a man speaks in the forest and there's no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong? These days, silence is vastly underrated. I've mentioned before that I despise television with its blaring, constant noises. Here on the internet, though, there's never silence: everyone has a voice and seems determined to use it (metaphorically, at least; it's no accident that the second-most-popular social medium is called Twitter). And there's a lot of chatter about refusing to "be silenced." This makes sense, though. It's one thing to choose silence for oneself. It's quite another to have it imposed upon one. Which reminds me of an old joke. A monk joins an order that requires a vow of silence. Upon joining, he's told he can speak only two words every five years. So, after being there for five years, he gets summoned to the head monk's office. "You may speak two words now." So he says, "Bed hard." They promise to switch out his mattress for a softer one. Five years later, he's summoned again. "Food cold," he says. I don't remember if they do anything about that or not; it's irrelevant. After another five years, he gets summoned a third time, and this time says, "I quit." "I'm not surprised," says the head monk. "Since you got here, all you've done is complain." Still. Not every silence is uncomfortable. I often wish we'd learn to live with the stillness and not fill it with meaningless twitter. Today is my dad's birthday, and he is now forever silent. As will be the fate of us all. We should learn to get used to it. The answer to the riddle way up at the top, if you haven't figured it out, is of course "silence." It's like a hole, I think: not an object in and of itself, but defined by what's around it. An interesting concept when you really think about it. Preferably in silence. "Fools, " said I, "You do not know Silence, like a cancer, grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you" But my words, like silent raindrops fell And echoed in the wells, of silence |
| What "future self?" This is entirely too optimistic. PROMPT September 9th Write a letter to your future self. Write the date you would want to read the letter again at the top of your entry (you can choose how far in the future this date is; One year, five years, twenty years, etc.) What would you want to tell your future self? What would you want to know from them? To: Me. Date: September 9, 2021. Hey, asshole. Got that flying car yet? No? Still alive, at least? Well, I'm going to assume that you are and go from there. Please at least tell me 2021 has been better than 2020 was. Somehow I think I'm going to be disappointed. But hey, you're starting to get the senior discounts. So at least the movie theater is cheaper. Assuming it's still around; it wasn't looking good as of last week. Most importantly, though, I trust you've discovered more new and interesting beers. Preferably in Belgium. No, don't tell me you didn't make it to Belgium because the EU is still closed to us plague rats in the US. I don't want to know. I hope you've at least done some traveling; I shall be quite disappointed if you still haven't moved from this spot except to go to the local purveyors of fine malt beverages, including said movie theater. I'm guessing Elder Scrolls 6 is still "sometime in the future." But, you know, I suppose if nothing much changes in the next 365 days, things could be worse. Zombies. Alien invasion. Giant Meteor. The inevitable return of the Old Gods, squamous and rugose. They could also be better, but I'd rather not think about that. Hope only leads to disappointment; only pessimism can bring happiness. Well, pessimism and beer. Well, pessimism, beer, and some of the movies that are supposed to come out in the next year. Or, alternatively, maybe you'll come across this entry and have a nice chuckle about just how wrong I was. That would actually please me. As you know, that's the great thing about being a pessimist: you can only be pleasantly surprised. Crack open a cold one for me. And write back soon. Regards, Waltz (from one year ago) |
| Confidence is overrated. PROMPT September 8th What does confidence mean to you? Describe the traits of a confident person. Looking at the traits you listed, would you consider yourself a confident person? It's interesting that this prompt is for September 8. Because September 8 is Star Trek Day -- the anniversary (54th this year) of the date of the airing of the first episode of Star Trek ("The Man Trap," an unforunately titled episode that was later serialized as "The Unreal McCoy.") The reason it's interesting is that, as I have been a lifelong Trek fan, and having just binge-watched the entire Original Series, I can think of no better icon of "confidence" than Captain James T. Kirk. Oh, sure, Picard. Fair enough. I'm not going to get into a debate over which one's a better captain of the Enterprise (besides, it's totally Christopher Pike, fight me). Why, I might as well debate who would win in a fair fight: The Hulk, or Superman (but it would depend on whether we're talking pre- or post-Crisis on Infinite Earths). Ahem. Anyway. As I was saying, confidence is overrated. See, in TV shows and movies, or books or plays or whatever, it's easy to write confidence, just like it's easier to write funny dialogue than it is to blast witty banter back and forth if the writer has days or weeks to plan out exactly what's going to be said. Similarly, if you're plotting a story, you know what's going to happen. You're writing it, after all. It's easy to portray your character as confident, or timid, or funny, or whatever attribute you choose for the character. Well. Not "easy," per se; most of us spend our entire lives trying to master the art of characterization. But compared to being all confident and shit in real life? Cakewalk. So, Kirk. Level-headed, first and foremost. Can contemplate imminent death without flinching. Calm. Competent - he knows how the Enterprise works, but, more importantly, he trusts and is trusted by his crew because he knows them at least as well as he knows his starship. Patient. Contemplative, but decisive once a decision point is reached. All of those things are realistic enough, from what I've experienced. What sets Kirk apart from real-life people is that he almost always makes a decision that turns out to be the correct one -- and when he doesn't, it's an important plot point. We schlubs toiling away in the Real World™ don't have that luxury. There is, in life, a really remarkably blurry line between confidence and arrogance. I've heard it said that it usually doesn't matter what decision one makes, so long as one makes a decision. This is arrant nonsense. It's entirely possible to make an utterly disastrous decision with complete confidence. That doesn't stop the decision from being disastrous. But it does get you laid, at least, so there's that. I mean, I'm sure that if you think hard enough, you can come up with a real-world example of a leader who is supremely confident... and almost always a disaster. No, confidence is a trap. Just like everything else about movies and TV, the portrayal we see is idealized. You come to a decision point and you're like "What would Kirk do" or whatever, even if you don't have phasers, warp drive, or deflector shields. But you're working from incomplete information. You're always working from incomplete information, whereas a fictional character only has the appearance of working from incomplete information. The important thing in a real-life situation isn't confidence. The important thing is being ready, able and willing to accept responsibility if things don't work out well after you've made the decision. So... am I a confident person? I sure as fuck hope not. Anytime I'm supremely confident about something, that's when I find out I'm most misinformed. Hell, if you asked me "Do you think the sun will rise tomorrow," I'd have to answer, "Maybe. Probably. Might not. Small but nonzero chance it wont, in which case we're boned." I don't trust confident people. Almost without exception, they're so full of themselves they don't have room for other opinions. Speaking of Star Trek, in honor of Star Trek Day, I decided to confidently whip up a batch of Romulan Ale. This is the result:  I had some guidance, but I mostly went my own way on it. Obviously, blue curacao figures prominently. The other ingredients will remain a strategic Empire secret, but suffice it to say there's a reason why this stuff is illegal in the Federation. Maybe next year, I'll try to create some Saurian Brandy, or perhaps Klingon Bloodwine. Because if there's anything I have unearned confidence about, it's my mixological prowess. |
| What is this "productive and happy" of which you speak?" PROMPT September 7th I completely rearranged my desk space yesterday! It was a much-needed change and has helped with my motivation. What does your desk space / writing space look like? What sorts of things do you need (or not need) in your work space to be productive and happy? Here's the thing: I like being in a clean, organized space. Here's the other thing: I despise cleaning and organizing with every fiber of my being. These two urges tug constantly at my psyche, just like "eating that whole pizza" vs. "not having another heart attack." Sometimes one wins. Sometimes the other does. Most of the time I just distract myself with something else. Anyway, I don't have dedicated desk space right now. My office has gathered too much crap, and I can't be arsed to straighten it all out. I write on a laptop, because a) I travel, or I used to in the Before Time, and b) I like to sit outside on my deck whenever it's not too cold. Too hot, I can deal with. Drop below about 70F / 21C, though, and I start to freeze to death. I'm not looking forward to fall and winter. Anyway. it's a honkin' big laptop, because I also use it for gaming. Not light, and I've seen cinderblocks smaller than the size of the power converter. Still, it's portable enough to fit into my backpack for travel, if that ever becomes an option again, and no one wants to steal the backpack because it's heavier than a box of rocks. One of the things I like most about traveling is hotel rooms. I know this is probably just as unrelatable to most people as my desire for heat over cold. Hotel rooms freak a lot of people out. Me? Love 'em. Even the dingy, faded ones. I've been in those, and I've also stayed at the actual Ritz-Carlton. And everything in between. Because I walk into one, and it's sparse: A bed or two. Bathroom. A nightstand with a lamp. A dresser. A desk and chair. A TV which I utterly ignore. One of the reasons I don't usually travel with people is every time I do, they seem to have this need to walk into a hotel room and immediately turn the TV on. It's annoying as hell and I don't understand it. All TV can do is provide us with commercials and other chaotic noises. But I digress. A hotel room looks clean and neat. It may not actually be clean, but I don't give a damn. Best of all, I'm not the one who cleaned it. I pay for that privilege gladly. So then I can set up my excessively-sized laptop on the desk, plug it in, and game, or write, or look at cat videos, or whatever. Now, look, I don't want to give anyone the idea that I'm a lazy bum who expects other people to do his housework for him. No, I'm a lazy bum who hates to do housework, and hates even more if someone does it for me -- except in the aforementioned hotel rooms. I neaten up when I have to at home, but not before. Usually I just take the laptop outside, as I said, where I can't leave a lot of shit lying around because sometimes it rains, snows, or winds. Productive and happy, though? Pipe dreams. Final Birthday Week MB goes to WakeUpAndLive️~🚬🚭2024  as a fellow Trekker, but please know that I appreciated all of the comments. Yes, all of them. Thank you. Some things coming up this week: Tomorrow is Star Trek Day, which commemorates the anniversary of the first airing of the first Original Series episode on September 8, 1966; September 10 would have been my father's 103rd birthday; and then September 11 is, among other things, my account anniversary. Hopefully I'll remember to give out more Merit Badges for my account anniversary, if I don't drink too much rum the day before (Dad was a sailor). |
| Holy shit, it's Sunday already? PROMPT September 6th Reflect on the last week. Write about something you did really well last week and something you could have done better. Warning: I'm going to wallow in self-pity here. Skip this one if you're just going to roll your eyes and tell me to get over it already. I know everyone else has it worse than me. I know I should count myself lucky. I know I have no "right" to complain, but goddammit, this is my blog and I'll fucking complain if I want to. The answer to both sections of the prompt is "drinking." In the Before Time, I talked about drinking way more than I actually drank. Hell, I managed to drink so little in 2019 that, in conjunction with changing my eating and exercise habits, I lost 100 pounds. But shit, it's a big part of my brand, so I had to talk about it anyway. I make that sound so corporate, I know, but I really do enjoy the experience - just not enough to have made it a daily thing. Occasionally, I'd go to a brewery and sample a small amount of several of their beers. Once in a while, I'd pour myself a scotch, or mix a margarita, or go to a wine tasting. Then I'd go days, sometimes weeks, without touching a drop (I do have an unmitigated addiction to Coke Zero, but that hardly counts). And once in a blue moon (callback to a previous blog entry here), I'd get drunk and pass out. Sometimes I just needed that. I don't get violent or nasty or neglectful when I do that. Usually I just listen to Brandi Carlile or Leonard Cohen to enhance the emotion, and then pass out. And for the gods' sake, don't give me shit about driving drunk, because I never do that. Somehow we've conflated drinking and driving as a society, perhaps because everyone drives everywhere, but even when I'm completely cabbaged, I have enough sense to summon an Uber if I'm out -- but usually I do this at home.My... temperance, if you want to call it that; the term originally referred to moderation, not teetotaling -- it wasn't a hardship for me; my other great love in life is video games, and I can't do those if I'm wasted. It requires coordination, thought, and concentration, none of which is compatible with being drunk. I also like to drive. As I've mentioned before, I've driven myself across the goddamn continent three or four times now -- yes, I've lost count. And again, I'm very, very careful about being sober when I drive. Not for my own sake, but for everyone else's; same reason I wear a face mask in public these days. Which brings me to how things have changed this year. The thing I most love to do when I travel is visit breweries. I wish I'd kept better track, but I've had beers from close to a thousand craft breweries all over the country. As I said, I'm careful about it; I've been known to choose lodging based on it being in stumbling distance of a brewpub -- much to the detriment of the quality of said lodging. Thing is, I wanted to -- I still want to -- visit every brewery in the US and Canada. As of January 1, there were nearly 10,000 of them in my country alone; I suspect that number is substantially lower now, but I haven't looked into it because the last thing I need right now is to get more depressed. I'm well aware that this is probably an unattainable goal. Every week in the Before Time, on average, we gained two and lost one. By the time I've swept the country, a hundred more will have popped up and I'd have to go back. But everyone needs a goal, and this one is mine. Then the pandemic happened, and my world shrank to a pinpoint. Now, as I said, I'm aware that I'm a fortunate, privileged individual. I have time because I'm retired. I'm financially stable; though far from filthy rich, I'm not exactly dirt poor (I always had it in my head that I'd write a personal finance guide titled "Dirt Rich" as a play on these clichés; can't be arsed to actually do it because I don't really have the credentials for it.) Most fortunate of all, I live within walking distance (just barely) of my second-favorite brewery in the US. (My first-favorite brewery is on the other gods-be-damned coast.) And I have a good, reliable Subaru to take me where I want to go. The last time I moved that car was six months ago. It's been sitting, neglected, on the street in front of my house. Which is not to say I haven't gone anywhere. I walk to the local taphouse. I walk to the aforementioned second-favorite brewery. I had a dentist appointment on the other side of the city a couple of weeks ago, for a toothache that I had developed precisely 15 seconds after my state shut everything down, and I took an Uber -- because the dentist office was near a brewery I hadn't been to, and I wanted to sample their wares. Doing that, though, just made me more depressed. I got my usual sampler, just small portions of several beers, and they were good enough, but all it did was remind me of the thousand or so times I'd done the same thing in New York, New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts, California, Nevada, Illinois, Texas, North Carolina, Iowa, Colorado, Florida, motherhumping Hawai'i... every state in the US, in fact, except for Michigan, Alaska, and Nebraska. Technically, sure, I can travel. In practice, it's a bad idea. So... getting back to the point here, finally... I drink. A lot. Every day. Well, almost every day; I skipped last Sunday so I could finally get some decent sleep. Couple of weeks ago, the movie theater reopened, with precautions. More importantly, the taphouse in the movie theater reopened. By "the movie theater," I mean the Alamo that's a mile from my house. I walked there and staggered back. The movies -- Unhinged, New Mutants, and Tenet -- all kinda sucked, but it didn't matter; it made me feel halfway normal again, even though I was the only one in the theater for all of them. Well, except for New Mutants, where a couple of douchebags had seats way up in front while I was in the back. Anyway, I could have seen gods-be-damned Manos: The Hands of Fate (without the MST3K commentary) and it wouldn't have mattered, because the important thing was I was able to get cooked in the taphouse first. And I discovered that I have forgotten how to interact with people. Not that I was ever very good at it, but, like everything else, it's a skill that fades away if it's not used. I mean, yes, I have a housemate and we talk occasionally, and another way I'm fortunate is that we're still friends even though we're in close proximity, but in the last six months I've seen one other friend once, and an old friend and her husband... also once. My interactions with people have been limited, is what I'm saying. And so I forget how to be polite to bartenders and such. It's important to be polite to bartenders. They're a lifeline. It's not that I didn't try; I just feel like I failed at being sociable. Don't worry; I ameliorated any bad feelings with enormous tips. I still feel bad about it. It wasn't anything in particular that I could explain; it's just I was probably not as affable as I usually am. So of course that means I'm even more inclined to drink at home. I've been ordering wine online. Near the movie theater is a liquor store, and I've staggered home carrying scotch, gin, tequila, and ingredients for my creation, the American Election (it's a twist on the White Russian; an American thing with Russian influence, hence the name). My second-favorite brewery (see above) delivers beer. The grocery store delivers beer and wine. I'm set. Who needs to travel, anyway, right? Now, I've heard that the first step is admitting that you have a problem. So okay, I admit I have a problem. You know what? I don't give a shit. In fact, I like it. After I've posted this I'm going to use the last of my vodka to make another American Election, and I'm going to watch the last two original series Trek episodes. First, though: once again, I'll have a free MB to give away tomorrow, I think the last one for Birthday Week, and it'll go to someone who makes a comment here below that I like. And yeah, if you've gotten one from me already this week, feel free to comment anyway, but the point is to give away the free one so it's not like I can wait two weeks for CR credit. Remember, though, I do this about once a week or so anyway, so there will be other chances. My account anniversary is coming up soon, and I'm sure I'll give out presents for that. Today's MB goes to *drumroll* Elisa the Bunny Stik  , because her comment about omniscience reminded me that it's one superpower that I definitely don't want. I mean, yeah, I love to know things... but there are some things about which even I prefer to remain ignorant. |
| Maybe I already have a superpower. How would you know? PROMPT September 5th Imagine you have a superpower of your choice. However, no one knows about it! What does your superpower enable you to do? Do you confide in anyone? What happens? If I confide in someone, that violates the "no one knows about it" requirement. Just saying. Here's the thing about actual comic-book style superpowers: you'd better hope you have an extremely powerful one, or once somebody finds out about it, you're going to disappear for a very long time while they run tests on you. So you just have to make sure that nobody finds out. It's kind of like winning the lottery jackpot. I mean, being rich is kind of a superpower by itself (one I wouldn't mind having). But the point is, if you go public with your lottery win and stand up there grinning and holding that gigantic fake check in front of cameras, it will be approximately 15 microseconds before your mobile starts lighting up with scammers, long-lost relatives, and long-lost scammers. And then there's the IRS. So, you know, you discover you can fly, and you swoop around for a while and people see you, and then next time you land you'll find yourself netted, tagged, and rushed off to Area 52 for observation, tests, and vivisection. Yes, Area 52. Area 51 is too public. Or say you can Jedi Mind Trick people into thinking these aren't the droids they're looking for, and as soon as it wears off, they'll come for you wearing earplugs so you can't convince them of anything. Super-strength is another obvious and popular one. Also very useful. And maybe you could pass it off once or twice as adrenaline or whatever, but eventually they'll catch on and boom - underground in a vault made of 6-foot-thick titanium walls. Then there's invisibility. You might think, "well, they can't Gitmo me if they can't see me," but really, invisibility is trivially easy to get around. Blow some flour into the room, and then your outline becomes powdery-visible. Also, you're naked. Seriously, though, invisibility wouldn't be all that great - in order to see, light has to get focused by your eye lens and absorbed by your retina, and if those aren't visible, you're blind, which effectively makes everyone and everything else invisible to you. Better would be if, instead of actual invisibility, you have the power to make people not notice you at all. This happens naturally when you hit about 50 years old, though, so you could just wait. Worst of all are the powers that rely on external objects, like Green Lantern's ring or Ant-Man's suit. (I'll spare you the science of why Ant-Man could never be an actual thing.) Someone steals it and poof, no more powers. So if I could choose a superpower, it would be one that would be useful in multiple situations, easy to conceal, and has a chance of getting me out of Area 52 should I slip up and get captured by dudes wearing dark suits and sunglasses. Telekinesis, say. Being able to move objects with mere thought is more useful than most people give it credit for. Especially since I wouldn't have to, you know, get up from my chair to get a beer. Or hold it in my hand to drink it. What, you were expecting me to use it to fight crime? Or commit it? Nah. Too much work. Can't be arsed. (Edited to add) oh yeah, Merit Badge. Today's goes to Lilli 🧿 ☕ because I want to see a video of this: Might be a good night to dance in the street wearing my witchy apparel, while sipping cabernet from my crystal skull goblet. Still in Birthday Week, so another one of my free MBs will go to a commenter of my choice tomorrow! |
| I've done this before but I continue to see misinformation out there. PROMPT September 4th Write about a weird, cool, unbelievable, or interesting fact you know, but don’t think many other people do. There is going to be a full moon on October 31. That's not the salient fact for the prompt, though. The relevant fact is that this full moon will not, contrary to widespread reportage, be a Blue Moon. The calendar we use, the Gregorian, is purely arbitrary, like most of our measurements of time. It's achieved worldwide acceptance, but it's not connected to anything real. Not the solstices, not the equinoxes, and certainly not the phases of the Moon. All it does is attempt to start at (nearly) the same point in the Earth's orbit every time, which is functional enough for a calendar. Other calendars are in use, ranging from purely lunar (months based on actual Moon cycles) through lunisolar (a lunar calendar that occasionally adjusts to align with the solar calendar, like the Hebrew calendar). There are other proposed calendars, but I won't go into them here; the only relevant thing is that all of our dates are simply social constructs. The lunar phase cycle is approximately 29.5 days -- that's how long it takes for our satellite to return to a particular phase. Our solar year, in contrast, is roughly 365.25 days. Divide the one by the other, and you get about 12.4; consequently, there are usually 12 full moons in a solar year, but sometimes the number is 13. I use full moons because that's the most obvious (and awesome-looking) phase, but also because pre-technological humans were inclined to use full moons to subdivide time. Another thing they measured, as seen at sites such as Stonehenge, were the solar quarters: the solstices and equinoxes. Due to fuckery involving us having an elliptical orbit, the time between solstice and equinox, or vice versa, is not exactly the same for each quarter, but I'm going to call it a quarter of a year, or roughly 91 to 92 days. So our ancestors, who were more inclined (and more able) to actually watch the sky because things like electric lights, Downton Abbey, and the internet had yet to be invented. And they cared deeply enough about the celestial clockwork to give all of these occasions -- full moons and quarterly solar transitions -- names. The names themselves varied from culture to culture. Perhaps the most well-known full moon name is the Harvest Moon, but there were also things like Cold Moon, Wolf Moon, and so on. And all of these names were tied to the seasons; that is, solstices and equinoxes. Now, look up these names online and what you generally find is misinformation. They'll tell you that the Wolf Moon occurs in January, the Flower Moon is in May, and so on. Lies. These names, whatever they were in different cultures, predated the Gregorian or even the Julian calendar. They have roots deep in natural cycles and folklore, not mechanical timekeeping devices or arbitrarily designated dates. Because, as I said, a season lasts around 91 days or so, and a moon cycle is 29.5, there are usually three full moons between solstice and equinox, another three between equinox and solstice, and so on around the annual cycle. And each one of those moons had a name, because the essential purpose of naming them was to mark the seasons with something more obvious to the farmers and herders than the zenith position of the sun. But if you've been following along, you can see what the problem is: sometimes there are four full moons between solar quarters, which would throw off the naming conventions. This would happen, if I recall correctly (I'm writing this without references), approximately once every 2.5 years or so; in other words, relatively rarely. And so, in a season containing four full moons, they inserted what we'd think of as a "leap moon," but was known as... ... the Blue Moon. Technically, the Blue Moon is the third full moon in any season containing four full moons. All of the other full moons keep their original names. Hopefully you can see the logic behind this: it is not tied to any human-made calendar; it's completely independent of January, February, etc., or the numbers of the days therein. An old issue of, again if I recall correctly, Sky and Telescope magazine from the late 1940s created our error in nomenclature: misinterpreting some information in the Farmer's Almanac or something, that magazine confidently asserted that a Blue Moon was the second full moon in any given calendar month. Again. Lies. I mean, not deliberate lies, but falsehood, at any rate. But somehow, like many falsehoods are wont to do, it stuck. And so we get what we're inevitably going to see over the next eight weeks: "The full moon on Halloween is a Blue Moon!" No. No, it vehemently is not. (As an aside, a full moon on Halloween is a rare coincidence that's pretty cool for other reasons.) There are no Blue Moons for the rest of this calendar year. There's the Harvest Moon after the equinox in early October, the one on October 31, and one in late November... and then comes the winter solstice. Three. Not four. No Blue Moon. Why does this matter? Well, for one thing, I hate seeing mistakes perpetuated and then treated as fact. Bad enough in politics, but now you're messing with folklore and natural cycles. For another, this leads to what we had a few years ago: two full moons in January, none in February, and then two in March. And anything that happens twice in the span of three calendar months should never be associated with the phrase "once in a Blue Moon." And, finally, it's disrespectful to cultures that don't use the Gregorian calendar. Okay, that last one might be a bit of a stretch, but the point is, the false definition of Blue Moon could only happen in a purely solar calendar such as the Gregorian. It can never happen in, say, the Hebrew calendar (which uses leap months every so often so, say, Pesach doesn't get observed in the Northern Hemisphere fall or Hanukkah in the spring). And the true definition of Blue Moon is tied to actual things happening in the sky, the relative positions and orientations of the Earth, Sun, and Moon -- which will be the same for the foreseeable future, whereas human-created calendars change. Is the false definition easier to compute for the average person? Sure. But that's no excuse. And, believe me, I've heard counterarguments. "But Waltz, definitions change. Language itself changes over time." True, but irrelevant; the great calendar in the sky hasn't changed appreciably in all of human history, and will continue to not change appreciably well past human and civilization time scales. "But Waltz, I first heard the twice-in-a-calendar-month definition, and any contradictory information just makes me double down on that." Yeah, I heard that one first, too, but when I hear something that's later contradicted by the truth, I change my knowledge to fit the data. "But aren't the full moon names themselves arbitrary?" Yes, but their positions in time, relative to solstices and equinoxes, are not. So this is my crusade. This is the hill I have chosen to die on. Like I said, I've explained all of this before, maybe even right here in this blog. Certainly in a newsletter a while back. Definitely in my travel blog. Respect our shared human heritage, and embrace the true definition of Blue Moon. Just... don't drink that beer. It's pisswater.  Oh, and I appreciated all of the comments from yesterday, but especially Apondia  's:The interesting thing I found when studying math in a college setting was that I love writing words. I can express things no one ever bothered to listen to about me before. I love reading because I found myself in so many horrible situations in stories I read. Then, when I took math from an older teacher who wanted me to be able to learn, what she was teaching we discussed math vocabulary.  I got really happy reading a math dictionary!! And, lo and behold numbers began to fall into equations like they belonged there because I understood that words and numbers are part of each other. I'm not the smartest mathematician but, at least now I get it.Because it acknowledges that math is mostly just another kind of language (alternatively, language is actually a really complicated form of mathematics), and because -- relevant to today's discussion and that of a couple of days ago -- a person can change their beliefs, and thence succeed. So one MB coming your way -- and since we're still in Birthday Week, I'll give out another one tomorrow, to someone who comments here today. |
| Does getting a failing grade on an elementary school art project count? PROMPT September 3rd Describe a time when your work was criticized. How did you react? Well, of course my work gets criticized on a regular basis. I'm a writer on a peer review website. We all are, and it's part of the deal here. In fact, sometimes I wish for more criticism. "I love this!" is great to hear, yes, tell me that, don't stop, oh! But the only part of me that grows from it is my... ego. (What were you expecting me to say?) But oodles of reviewing articles abound on this site, including one in my own port, so there's no need to belabor the point. I'm going to talk about my previous life as a professional. Don't worry. I'm not going to go into details. The details of civil engineering, especially on the small scale that I practiced it, are incredibly boring. (That's a civil engineering pun. Boring? Because we sometimes bore to install.. oh, never mind.) So I'll write in broad generalities. I worked on the design of a subdivision. Roads, lots, sewer, water and -- the important part for this discussion -- storm drainage. Used to be you could design a subdivision and put in a pond downstream that caught all the runoff and released it slowly. But then there came issues with wetlands disturbance, and that sort of thing was frowned upon. So instead of one big pond that disturbed a natural stream, I needed to put in dozens of little ones to catch the runoff before it got to the existing streams. Again, I'm oversimplifying here, but I can already sense you nodding off. Bear with me just a little longer. Well, this method was not only time- and math- intensive, but it was new to me and, more importantly, it was new to the people whose job it was to review the plans for compliance with local, state, and federal regulations. Said reviewers tore me a new one for overcomplicating things. How did I react? Well, my first reaction -- a private one -- was anger. What the hell was I supposed to do? I had to put in stormwater management, and couldn't do it in the traditional way, so I basically invented a new paradigm. Don't give me too much credit for that, though; I found out later that other people were already doing similar stuff, and I didn't know about it because, honestly, civil engineering advances on that small a scale aren't exactly fast-paced, so we didn't keep up with the literature like, say, computer scientists are supposed to. So yeah, anger -- but it was short lived and, like I said, private. After taking a few deep breaths, I arranged a meeting with the reviewers and we hashed it all out like the professionals we all were. Sorry there's no big denouement here; like I said, the details are ennui-inducing, and far in the past now. Hell, I don't know if the subdivision ever got built. The developer handled things after the plans were eventually approved, and this was just before the Bush recession. I guess the point is that this is not the sort of thing I take personally -- provided it's not a personal attack in the first place. Getting back to writing, if I get a review that essentially says "this story sucks and here's why," I take it seriously. If I read, "you suck and here's why," well, that's another issue entirely. Fortunately, I don't recall any of that on this site. On a related note, I went to see Tenet yesterday; Alamo had early access screenings. Once again, it turned out to be a private viewing. I was the only one in the theater. Great for avoiding the 'rona, probably not so great for Alamo's bottom line. Anyway, the movie was not nearly as clever as its makers thought it was. Now, I can't say "Christopher Nolan is a hack," because I've seen his other stuff and a lot of it is very good. But I, personally, would hate to put that much work, that much of my heart and soul into a movie, only to have someone (like me) with absolutely no talent for moviemaking say that it sucked. I suppose you have to develop a thick skin, like a politician. I'm not sure I could do that, which is one reason I haven't aggressively pursued publishing. I mean, what if I succeed and some idiot calls me a no-talent hack? I guess that ties into yesterday's entry, too. Speaking of which, thanks for all the comments. I appreciate all of them, even the ones that disagree with me... because I can accept other points of view besides my own. I'm going to give today's MB to Charlie ~  , though, because of the math thing: Math is probably one of the best examples of not people not believing in themselves. I don't know how many times in school I heard people say that math "just wasn't their thing" or "better you than me" when they found out my majors. I'll concede that some people have a natural aptitude for math, but it's absolutely learnable, just like any other language. I think a lot of that falls on teachers though because the teachers in my formative years did not instill a lot of self confidence in us when it came to learning math. I do think you have to have a special understanding of mathematics to actually be able to present it in an understandable way. It seemed like my teachers gave up pretty quickly on students and allowed them to just go with the "I don't do math" mentality. I mean, after all, math is the central metaphor for this blog. But also it got me thinking: the way other people are about math is the same way I am about art and music. I've tried both, with lousy results... but I love to look at art and listen to music. It's very frustrating to me that I can't create them the way other people seem to do so effortlessly. Perhaps I just haven't tried hard enough. Or maybe I've just had it instilled in me from a very early age that I just don't have the aptitude for these things. So even though I (and Charlie) spoke about math blockage, I understand because I'm blocked in other areas. Please keep the comments coming; I'll award another one of my free Birthday Week Merit Badges tomorrow, but mostly I just like feedback - positive or otherwise. |
| Sometimes I probably take things too literally. PROMPT September 2nd Be inspired by this quote: "Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning." - Mahatma Gandhi I assert that I cannot fly without special equipment. Granted that I could fall, and possibly have some amount of control over the fall, but I could not take off, fly, and land where I desire like, say, Superman. Neither can anyone else. Not even Gandhi. No matter how much you think you can, no matter how motivated you are, no matter what you convince yourself of, there's these persnickety things called the laws of physics that absolutely prevent it. I have seen exactly zero evidence to contradict me on this, and I'm certain that people have tried. I know I have. I also assert that I cannot physically live forever, or tunnel through a mountain without tools, or move a thing with telekinesis. No amount of belief, no deep well of self-confidence, no pleading with the universe to make it so, can change this. So on the face of it, Gandhi was, in this instance, absolutely wrong. "Oh, but Waltz, that just means that no one has tried hard enough, or that we're so convinced of natural laws that we limit ourselves accordingly. We say to ourselves, these things are impossible, and so they are impossible." Nope. They're just physically impossible. Now, we can get around these things, depending on what your actual objective is. For a long time, powered flight was considered impossible, until it wasn't. If the purpose of tunneling through a mountain is to lay train tracks, we've done that -- with tools. If I need to move something, and it's light enough or I have the right equipment, I can move it - no need for telekinesis. As for living forever, well, I covered that in my last two newsletters; no need to belabor it. The point being that while no, I can't personally fly like Superman, I can get on a jet and go to Belgium. Well. I could if there weren't a fucking pandemic going on. Having covered that we need to accept that there are limitations, though, I will concede that, if a thing is possible at all, belief in oneself is a good beginning to get it done. So many people are bad at math, for example. "I'm so bad at math! I could never understand physics." That's self-limitation. They have a mental block, convinced that there's something they can never understand, and so it is. But if you approach it going, "My teachers sucked. I know I can learn math. I'll get a book and watch videos," then maybe, just maybe, you can learn something new. Neither of these observations -- that the possible is possible and the impossible is impossible -- is particularly new or meaningful. What interests me is not the possible made manifest by belief in oneself, or the impossible that can never happen, but the cognitive space in between the two. One of the marvelous things about humanity is that we can conceive of the impossible, or even the improbable. Because I'm still rewatching old episodes of Star Trek, I'll use warp drive as an example. The speed of light is a known limitation on acceleration: nothing -- no matter, no energy, no information of any kind -- can accelerate in space past the speed of light. Humans, who despise limitations of any sort (except, apparently, when they impose them on other humans), upon learning of this, immediately started imagining ways around it. One such imagined method is the aforementioned warp drive. Another is wormholes - folding space between two distant points like you're folding a piece of paper to bring the opposite edges together. One guy even managed to come up with a... possibly... plausible workaround: The Alcubierre Drive.  . All we'd apparently need is to be able to create negative mass and effectively limitless energy, which... well, we don't know if that's impossible or not. I'm certain we'll try, if we aren't already. Because that's what humans do.All of this shows is that while we certainly have physical limitations, it is possible to imagine the impossible. And, as a result of imagining it, sometimes we can even do it. In fact, I'd argue that without being able to imagine things beyond the realm of possibility, we certainly do limit ourselves. As Commander Swanbeck (Anthony Hopkins) in Mission:Impossible II said to Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise): "Mr. Hunt, this isn't mission difficult, it's mission impossible. "Difficult" should be a walk in the park for you." We can't all be Tom Cruise. At least, not without that franchise's mask-creation technology. Let's get to work on that.  Now, look, I've been doing Merit Badge Mini-Contests about once a week. I can't usually do it more often than that because, well, 10,000 gps is 10,000 gps, and I'd eventually run out of funds. But this week, we get a free Merit Badge to give away every day for Birthday Week. I can't think of any better use for such a boon than to use it to bribereward people for commenting in my blog. So go ahead and comment below; I'll pick one to receive a badge. I'm also going to give today's free one to one of yesterday's commenters... let's see... I liked LostGhost: Seeking & Learning 's comment, and I'm fairly sure she hasn't commented in here in a while, if at all, so she gets today's. |
| Hm. Another WDC birthday week. That means I'll be 16 soon. Can I have a car? I was promised a flying one. PROMPT September 1st Happy 20th Birthday, WDC!  I know this is cheesy, but I have to do it... In your entry today, write about what you love about Writing.Com. How have you grown as a writer? How are you (as a writer) different from how you were when you first joined this site? Thank the members who helped you get where you are today. You know, my hesitation on prompts like this is not that it's cheesy. I can do cheesy. It's that I've been here for just short of 16 years, and no matter how much I try, there is no way I wouldn't forget someone significant if I tried to list all of the people who are important to me here. And, sadly, some of them have left the site and others... well, they've left far more than the site. Everyone that I've interacted with over the years -- occasionally unpleasantly, usually quite the opposite -- has helped to make me what I am today. That includes you, since you're reading this. But also everyone who enters the Writer's Cramp, organizers and participants in the October NaNo Prep Challenge, anyone whose work I've reviewed or has reviewed mine, all those who have given me awardicons and Merit Badges (and vice versa), those who take the time to give me feedback on my newsletters or comment in this blog, anyone whose blog or newsfeed I follow, the members I've exchanged IMs with, the many who I've met in person, those I occasionally talk to on Zoom... everyone. That helps to address the earlier parts of the prompt, though. No matter what else, it's the people that make this site what it is. Oh, the setup is important, of course -- we'll get to that in a bit -- but it would be empty without you. How have I grown as a writer? Well. I'm not sure I know how to answer that. I'm the worst judge of my own stuff. I mean, sure, sometimes I look back at stuff I wrote back in the noughties when I first joined, and I'd forgotten I wrote it, and it makes me laugh. Other times it makes me cringe (but I keep it around anyway). I expect if I'm still here in another 16 years, I'll say the same thing about this year's output. I just don't know. I think I've improved -- I hope I've improved -- but I have no objective measure on that. Changed? Sure. I have more confidence now, but I also have a better idea of my limitations. Aside from the people themselves, as I mentioned above, there are several things about this site that I think help anyone grow as a writer. The most obvious of these is reviewing. When done with intent, it can really help a writer determine what works and what needs work. And reviewing itself is an exercise in writing. Also, even the most cursory review at least lets you know someone's reading your stuff. I don't do enough of it, myself; I will work on that in the future. I know I said I didn't want to thank anyone individually, but I'd be horribly remiss if I didn't call out three specific individuals for thanks. The first two are obvious: The StoryMistress  and The StoryMaster  . They've built a great community and a wonderful platform for all of us. I know very little about web coding and even less about graphic design, so their work might as well be sorcery for all I understand it.The third to thank is maybe not so obvious to anyone else: Artemismad  , who, approximately sixteen years ago this week, first told me about the site. Without her recommendation, I might not be here at all. Yeah, I know, some of you don't see the downside to that.Before I go, I need to announce the Merit Badge winner from yesterday. Mini-Contest Results! Great comments, all. I don't really have the time, tonight, to address all of them individually, but I did appreciate every one, which made it hard to pick just one as a favorite. But I'm going to go with ⭐Princette♥PengthuluWrites  , who wrote:I hope for Cthulhu to awaken in September and put us all out of our misery. I figure, considering how 2020 is going, that's not as farfetched as it might otherwise seem. If Cthulhu doesn't rise in September, I'm putting it down for December. Gotta end the year in style, right? Because I can totally see that happening. Not in September though. Or December. But this is going to take a bit of an explanation. One of my favorite writers was Roger Zelazny. He, sadly, died back in the 90s. His last full novel before he left us was titled A Night in the Lonesome October, and you can probably call it my favorite book. I don't want to spoil the thing too much, but basically, the premise is this: On certain rare occasions, it is possible for the door to the realm of the Elder Gods to be swung wide, releasing eldritch horrors to doom us all. Possible, that is, but not certain; it hasn't happened yet (in the story). What is this rare occasion? It is a full moon falling on Halloween. Guess what's happening for real on Halloween 2020. Go ahead. Take a wild guess. Point is, ⭐Princette♥PengthuluWrites gets the MB this time, but I'll do this again soon so there will be more chances. Yes, even with the 30DBC running. |
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